Rapper 50 Cent joined the long list of terrible ceremonial first pitches before the New York Mets’ game at Citi Field Tuesday and has tried to come up with excuses for completely missing home plate in the days after it.
The pitch went over 20 feet to the left of home plate and almost hit the poor guy standing behind the plate with a camera. In the aftermath, the rapper and entrepreneur was mocked by the web and the video went viral.
50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, later took to Instagram to explain himself, writing “I'm a hustler not a Damn ball player. LMAO.” He added in another post, “The sh!t almost hit the camera man damn, if you look close you can see them moving the plate. Lol.”
On Friday, Jackson went on Good Morning America, where he was asked about it again. Jackson claimed that he was pulled over by police officers, who needed to tell him how bad the pitch was.
“Then he said, 'You know, that pitch was terrible,'" Jackson recalled. "He didn't give me a ticket, no nothing. He said, 'I don't want to mess up your day because you made me laugh.'"
He later added, “It slipped,” again noting that he’s not a professional pitcher. “I make music.”
There is a legitimate reason to consider that Jackson may have botched his first pitch just to get himself in the news before the release of a new album. He did include the name of it, Animal Ambition, in the captions for his Instagram posts. He is set to return to Citi Field on June 14, this time as a performer.
image courtesy of ACE/INFphoto.com