The Dodger hosting a comedy show? Stoic Will Smith. No joke
Who is the funniest Dodgers player?
The clubhouse consensus: Kiké Hernández. Also getting votes: Miguel Rojas.
“You know what’s funny?” » said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts.
It’s funny, ha. Go on.
“Dalton [Rushing] is one of the funniest guys,” Roberts said, “but he’s not trying to be funny.”
The exuberance of youth on a veteran team isn’t such a bad thing. Keep everyone free.
This brings us to a related question: If you had to choose one actor to host a comedy show, who would it be?
“Kiké would be the one I would choose,” Freddie Freeman said. “Will Smith is the complete opposite of what I think he is, but it fits perfectly.”
On May 7, Smith is hosting his third annual Dodgers Comedy Night, part of the Netflix Is a Joke Comedy Festival. It’s a fundraiser for the Catching Hope Foundation, started by Smith and his wife to equip at-risk youth with leadership and self-help skills.
Dodgers catcher Will Smith has hosted events at Netflix Is a Joke Fest in recent years. He will organize another one on May 7.
(Carrie Giordano/Los Angeles Dodgers)
It’s also a night that requires Smith, the Dodgers’ stoic All-Star catcher, to go on stage, thank everyone for coming, smile and laugh before the professional comedians take the stage.
“I was definitely a little anxious because you have to go up there and give a little speech, which I enjoy now,” he said. “It kind of took me back to my high school days, where you had to give a speech in front of the whole school.
“It was a little worrying, but it was okay. It was fun once we got up there.”
Rojas said: “The first time it was just a greeting. Last year he told a few jokes.”
Smith insists he writes his own jokes.
“I don’t make too many jokes,” he said. “Maybe one.”
The Smith we all see is the one that Buster Posey – future Hall of Famer and now president of baseball operations for the San Francisco Giants – described to me last year: “He wasn’t trying to be your best friend when you came to the plate. I kind of appreciated that about him. He was always very professional.”
The Dodgers’ social media team pushed Smith out of that public shell a bit this spring, in a spot promoting his bobblehead party, in which Smith pulled off a deadpan delivery and an array of facial gestures.
Roberts said he noticed this in the two previous comedy shows Smith hosted.
“Jon Lovitz is a comedian, and he has this dry humor, so there’s that,” Roberts said. “Will has this dry sense of humor.”
When I asked Smith which players might be the funniest on the team, he also responded with Hernández and Rojas.
“I’m not one of the pranksters,” Smith said. “With my closest friends in baseball, yes, we joke. I like to keep things light and very sarcastic.
“The funny guys are the loudest, usually Miggy and Kiké. Everyone is funny in their own way.”
Rojas said he sees Smith less in terms of the annual jokes or two on stage and more in terms of the game night he and his wife recently threw for his teammates and their families.
“I talk a little more,” Rojas said. “If he has to say something, he will say it, but in a different way.
“He’s a great, caring leader. He’s not an outgoing guy, but he’s always aware of, ‘OK, this is what I want to do to connect with my guys.'”
Freeman saw Smith on stage. The comedy casting works, somehow.
“That’s not his personality,” Freeman said, “which I think makes him even better.”
Freeman suspected I might be skeptical.
“It’s fun,” he said. “You should go.”
For more details on Dodgers Comedy Night, including ticket information, Click here.
