John Daly casually fires incredible ceremonial first pitch

John Daly continues to carve one of the more unpredictable athletic careers of any modern athlete.

Daly only won five times on the PGA Tour, but two of those were major championships, the 1991 PGA and the 1995 British Open. Since then, Daly has continuously turned up in the news, thanks to a wildly disparate yet somehow on-brand sequence of off-course activities/infamies/etc. Most recently Daly won the right to use a cart while competing in major championships (he has long-term exemptions to the PGA and the Open as a past champion; he’s also somehow only 56, an example of how golf allows athletes to linger longer than in most sports).

(Daly has even progressed to taking calls from Donald Trump via speaker phone in which the former president rants about nuclear strategy, a very, very strange headline that nevertheless makes sense when you think about it. It’s John Daly. Of course that’s what would happen.)

That wasn’t an ironic use of “athlete”, either; Daly is widely known for his lack of care for his body and his bigger build, but you don’t hit it as far as he did in the ’90s (pre-technology boom that allowed for much lesser players to hit it long and straight off the tee) without being an absolutely elite-level athlete.

If you want another example, look no further than Wednesday night’s Cardinals-Nationals contest in St. Louis (Update: the game featured a crazy comeback), for which Daly tossed the ceremonial first pitch, captured on a video that’s since gone viral for reasons that will be obvious as soon as you watch it (or maybe before; “John Daly throws first pitch” is a hell of a, well, pitch).

https://twitter.com/MrMatthewCFB/status/1567669954073206784

It’s hard to imagine five seconds better-equipped to encapsulate John Daly’s entire persona. Wandering around in casual shoes, loud/hideous clothing, sporting a questionable haircut, unkempt beard, and sunglasses despite it being later in the evening, and looking generally as if he has no idea where the rubber is, much less what he’s supposed to be doing out there? Absolutely.

Turning on a dime and firing in a first pitch that featured admirable velocity and shocking accuracy, comfortably slotting into the upper percentiles of all-time ceremonial first pitches? 100%.

It’s a reminder that at least when it comes to flexibility and hand-eye coordination, John Daly, at 56 with a ravaged body, remains capable of the kinds of athletic feats that most regular people can’t dream of. These guys are good, indeed.