Tom Selleck Baseball Training Video Resurfaces, Shows Him Nailing Home Run

By Brian Jones

Tom Selleck is known for his roles in Blue Bloods, Three Men and a Baby and Magnum P.I. But the 76-year old actor lived out a dream starring in the movie Mr. Baseball, and video of him working out of the Detroit Tigers in 1986 recently resurfaced online. The video shows a then 41-year-old Selleck taking in batting practice and hitting a home run. He then talks about being a Tigers fan and keeping up with the team while filming Magnum P.I He said it was hard staying up the date with his favorite team because the newspaper in Hawaii would be a week and a half too late. 

Selleck's batting practice display took place six years before Mr. Baseball was released. The movie tells the story of a veteran New York Yankees player (Selleck) being traded to a Japanese baseball team and learning to deal with the challenges of playing in a new country while leading the team to a pennant. 

"I sat in a lot of dugouts last year, including the Tigers - I was born in Detroit. I took batting practice and sat on the bench with the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, Indians, Reds, Twins, Blue Jays, Dodgers and Angels, Selleck said in a 1992 interview with Deseret News. "It was a dream come true. In many of those instances, I actually remained in the dugouts during games. Some of the players welcomed me. Some didn't." 

Selleck also talked about working out with a baseball legend. "Just playing catch is a kind of male ritualistic thing," he said. "And every day with the Tigers I would warm up with Al Kaline, one of the coaches, who was my idol when I was a kid. He's a Hall of Famer. Talk about dreams coming true.

"But the spring training fans were brutal. The young pitchers, looking for a spot on the roster, and when some old actor like me starts hitting the ball off them they get embarrassed. So they were firing it up there and I was striking out. I even got hit a couple of times. The fans got all over me like a cheap suit. "I was never more prepared for a movie role. I became a better baseball player because I attended team meetings and learned how major leaguers deal with each other."

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