Former NASCAR Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick has countless interesting stories from his long career. Yet one of his most embarrassing moments came not on a race track, but at Yankee Stadium.
Harvick, who retired after the 2023 season, joined the NASCAR on Fox booth for this season. He also stays busy with his Harvick Happy Hour podcast. On Thursday’s episode, Harvick hosted MLB on Fox analyst Alex Rodriguez.
The two talked baseball, and Harvick recalled a story he probably shouldn’t have shared, about the time he threw out the first pitch before a New York Yankees game.
He actually had that honor twice. He performed that duty at Yankee Stadium during his rookie season in 2001, without any issues.
When he returned in 2011 or so to do it again, he got some bad advice.
“I’ll never forget Andy Pettitte (Yankees All-Star pitcher) walking up to me,” Harvick recalled, “and he said, ‘Kevin, I’m going to give you a piece of advice. Whatever you do, either hit that backstop, or hit that glove. If you don’t, they’re going to boo you out of this place.’ I was able to hit the glove that night.”
“Everybody in the dugout said, ‘All you gotta do is just nice and easy. Throw the ball over the plate, just get it in the glove,'” Harvick said. “Well, I did exactly what they told me to do, I threw the ball nice and easy, nice little rainbow right into the glove.
“I turned around and everybody is laughing hysterically at me in the dugout. I’m thinking to myself, “That was perfect, why are they all laughing?’ They had turned the radar gun on and turned the board up on the backside of the stadium and it said 32 miles per hour.
⚾️ 🔥 He brought the heat. @KevinHarvick tells @AROD about his 32 mph first pitch at Yankee Stadium.@MLBonFOX | #NASCAR | #MLB pic.twitter.com/phfl1px5F9
— HarvickHappyHour (@HarvickHappyPod) June 6, 2024
A-Rod, who might have been one of the Yankees in the dugout that night making fun of the NASCAR driver, laughed as Harvick recalled the tale.
“I have never been set up worse in my whole life than that particular situation, to be made fun of by a whole Major League Baseball team,” Harvick concluded.
[Harvick Happy Hour on X/Twitter]
