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With the seminal Larry David comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm about halfway through airing its final season on HBO, many outlets have been reporting nostalgically on the show's best moments from various perspectives. After another memorable sports storyline in this past Sunday's episode, and this being a sports/entertainment news website, it seems only right that ClutchPoints cover the show's best sports storylines, because there have been some pret-ty, pret-ty good ones.
Why seven you ask? Well longtime Larry David fans will recall that David shares his favorite baseball player with his pre-Curb on-screen alter ego, Seinfeld's George Costanza, who also idolizes the Yankee slugger. In one memorable Seinfeld storyline, George tries to prevent a couple that's expecting from using the baby name he's saving for his own kid one day — “Seven,” after his favorite player Mickey Mantle's jersey number.
In this weekend's most recent episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Mickey Mantle comes up again, so that seems like a fitting place to start at number seven on our list.
7) Mickey Mantle/Zekelman
Apologies and spoiler alert for those who haven't watched Sunday's new episode yet. The setup should really be no surprise though — Larry is reminded of Mickey Mantle, his sports hero (both in real life and on the show), when Larry meets with a lawyer (played by Will & Grace's Sean Hayes) whose last name is Mantle.
It comes as a huge shock to David when he finds out his lawyer, who is gay and about to become a father along with his husband (played by Schitt's Creek star Dan Levy), is opting to use his husband's last name — Zekelman — instead of the far more esteemed option of Mantle.
“I don't know any Zekelmans who hit 536 home runs,” David deadpans.
Hilarity, relationship strife and multiple arguments ensue, but Larry stands firmly in his position that the child deserves the best possible last name — and that's Mantle (even though fighting for it may cost Larry a get-out-of-jail-free pass).
This one makes the list for the sheer disgust with which David says “Zekelman,” and the pride with which he mouths “Mantle,” reminding us all what it means to be a true sports fan.
6) Derek Jeter / stone mason
Keeping it in the Yankees family, but updating to a more current lineup, who can forget when Larry let his emotions over a Derek Jeter slight get in the way of carving the headstone for his own mother's grave?
When Larry hears that the stone mason hates Derek Jeter and thinks the Hall of Fame shortstop is overrated, he reacts with more disgust and concern than when he found out his mom passed away without his dad telling him (he didn't want to bother Larry with the sad news).
Larry digs the hole even deeper (no pun intended) when he later bad-mouths the stone mason, unknowingly right in front of the guy himself, but David doesn't back down from his defense of his beloved Jeter, even though it undoubtedly means finding a new stone mason to memorialize his mother.
5) Jets two minute warning / Cheryl returns / the Jets killed Carl
An early episode of Curb shed light on the depths of David's fandom for the New York Jets when David's then-wife Cheryl returned from an out of town trip, only to find David's attention diverted by the last two minutes of the Jets game.
This was actually one of the more relatable sports moments on Curb, for anyone who's had to apologize to their spouse for not being present during a conversation that inopportunely coincided with a tense moment in a football game.
Less relatable is David's friend Carl's cause of death. Carl took Jets losses so hard that when the team's fortunes just wouldn't show any sign of turning around… it ultimately killed him. “The Jets killed Carl,” Larry and his best bud Jeff lament.
4) Muggsy Bogues at the urinal
Muggsy Bogues proved himself game for a comedy cameo, with some acting chops to boot, in the Looney Tunes classic Space Jam. However, his role as himself in Curb Your Enthusiam proved to be a far less PG-rated scene-stealing affair.
Bogues, famously one of the shortest pro basketball players in the history of the NBA, found himself peeing in a urinal next to Larry David, who couldn't resist sneaking a peek over his own urinal to see how he measured up to Bogues.
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Bogues was understandably annoyed about the leering, though David probably got what he deserved in this case when the interaction inadvertently sent him to the hospital.
3) Bill Buckner's redemption
Bill Buckner was the definition of a good sport in this one, bringing up his infamous error that led to the Mets defeating the Red Sox in the 1986 World Series, making another such error over the course of the episode, but ultimately getting the sweet redemption he'd been after his whole life when he made a game-saving catch of a newborn baby sailing through the air after being dropped out of a burning building.
The whole thing makes sense in context, and good for Larry for being the bigger man and letting a Red Sox play the hero in a diehard Yankee fan's series.
2) Tripping Shaq
No Curb sports story more perfectly encompassed Larry's poor decision making, his LA lifestyle, and the intense hatred he engendered by all who interacted with him better than when he tripped Shaquille O'Neal, ruining the Lakers season and making the entire city of Los Angeles angry with him.
Even more disturbing was how Larry relished his role as society's outcast. Coupled with a memorable performance from Shaq, including an amusing hospital scene where Larry plays Scattegories with the big fella (bringing to mind George's famous “moops” Trivial Pursuit match on Seinfeld), this one will forever live in Curb infamy.
1) Dodger game exonerating the wrongfully accussed
How can saving someone wrongfully accused of murder who would have gone to death row without Larry's Dodger Stadium footage not be the greatest sports story in Curb Your Enthusiasm television history? And mind you, this crazy situation might sound like a great Curb storyline, but we're talking about something that happened in real life here!
Numerous local news stories, a 60 Minutes segment, and a Netflix documentary were all needed to fully capture the magic that was Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm footage shot at a Dodgers game at Dodger Stadium providing the evidence necessary to get a wrongfully accused man out of jail.
After being arrested and falsely accused of murder, Juan Catalan's alibi for where he was on the night in question was that he went to a Dodgers game. After finding out an episode of Curb was filming at the stadium at that particular game, the lawyer pored through video footage until he found his client in the Curb footage — thus proving Catalan was at the game and couldn't have committed the murder that took place at the same time!
The episode itself is also priceless, with Larry picking up a prostitute on his way to the Dodger game — not for any sexual favors, but simply to gain access to the carpool lane. No news story could cover the Catalan saga without mentioning the gloriously inappropriate subject matter of the episode, with life and art intersecting in the most kismet of ways, in a show known for its exceptional dramatic dovetailing plots.
There you have it! The seven best sports stories in Curb Your Enthusiasm history. Could Larry David have a few more in store for us before the series finale? Only time will tell. In the meantime, go dust off your old Mickey Zekelman cards.
