{"id":619562,"date":"2026-05-02T16:41:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T16:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/619562\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T16:41:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T16:41:07","slug":"the-malik-willis-first-pitch-didnt-go-very-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/619562\/","title":{"rendered":"The Malik Willis first pitch didn’t go very well"},"content":{"rendered":"

For professional athletes \u2014 especially those who use their arms for a living \u2014 throwing out the first pitch at a baseball game becomes a no-win proposition. Dolphins quarterback Malik Willis became the latest to learn that undeniable lesson last night before the Phillies-Marlins game in Miami.<\/p>\n

If he had climbed the mound (which changes everything about the process) and grooved an effortless George W. Bush post-9\/11 semi-fastball<\/a> down the middle of the plate, no one would have known. For NFL quarterbacks, the effort only becomes newsy if it goes awry.<\/p>\n

For Willis, it did.<\/p>\n

He exuded plenty of confidence. Windup. Leg kick. It looked great. Until the ball soared very high, and very outside<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t 50 Cent<\/a>. It was a $50 million (over two years) starting NFL quarterback. A man who throws balls for a living, presumably with some degree of accuracy.<\/p>\n

It ultimately means nothing, other than to create a small stir on a slow Saturday. Willis has shown that he can play. The Dolphins\u2019 decisive pursuit of the man who is well known by new G.M. Jon-Eric Sullivan and new coach Jeff Hafley shows that they know he\u2019ll perform at a high level.<\/p>\n

Still, the experience proves yet again that there\u2019s very little to gain when a professional athlete in a different sport (especially a quarterback) accepts an invitation to throw a first pitch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For professional athletes \u2014 especially those who use their arms for a living \u2014 throwing out the first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-619562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}