Will Ferrell Traded by Billy Beane

It was a long, tiring day for comic actor Will Ferrell who, on Thursday, played every position possible on 10 different teams in one day. I wrote about the Funny or Die film the day before it happened but had no idea how involved the teams, particularly the Oakland Athletics, would get over the whole event.

With most of the players having grown up watching Will Ferrell movies, there was a fair amount of star-struck, fan-boy geeking out in the locker room and it started early. With Sean Doolittle firing some of the first of many Step Brothers inspired tweets to the world.

He also threw in an Anchorman tweet for good measure.

Josh Reddick wasn’t above being a little star-struck as well.

The Athletics were the first team Will Ferrell played for today and were also the first to release his baseball card. There’s something about Will Ferrell’s look that screams “throwback” but they still went with a modern jersey for the card.

If you go over every picture of this event, you probably won’t find a single one where Bob Melvin doesn’t look like he’s on the verge of bursting out laughing. This video is no exception to that rule.

Ferrell was able to get some “contact” during batting practice. It may seem like nothing but I guarantee he got more wood on the ball than I ever would.

Taking the spot of Marcus Semien had clearly gone to Ferrell’s head as he informed him that he could be on the bus to, where, Modesto?

And he has his heart broken when Ryan Cook explains that he’ll be ineligible for a gold glove in preseason exhibition games.

This is my favorite picture of the day. No matter how funny Will Ferrell is, he still stands next to a real legend.

It may appear that Will Ferrell is taking a lead off of second and is seconds away from stealing a bag but, in fact, that’s his shortstop stance. Probably for the best that nothing went in his direction.

And to cap his day, as many A’s players do, he got new from Beane (with Melvin barely containing himself again) that he’d been traded. Details of the trade haven’t been announced yet but the rumor is that we will receive veteran comic Marc Maron and two minor leaguers from Chicago’s Second City in return.

All in all, it was a 12+ hour day in five ballparks, wearing 10 uniforms. Ferrell was, no doubt, exhausted after this little “stunt” but I’m sure it’ll all be worthwhile when he looks at the footage from the day. From what I’ve seen of the A’s and other teams, everyone was having a good time with it and saw it for what it was, a fun distraction.

Here are a few more random tweets from the day.

Oh, and by the way, the A’s managed to win their game today too, if anybody cares at this point!