Celebrity Sports Gallery

Marx Bros. baseball team, circa 1913: From left to right are George Lee, Harpo, Groucho, Fred Browning, and Paul Yale, from the touring company for "Mr. Green's Reception."

Marla Maples Ivanka Trump

Nothing beats watching a celebrity you admire (or better yet don't admire) take to the field of play and attempt an athletic exercise. I'd much rather see Spike Lee throw up an airball in Madison Square Garden than watch Vince Carter perform a perfect through-the-legs reverse jam.

After all, these people are worshipped, and it's good to know that they can suck at something like the rest of us.

I mean, the opposite is usually horrible: Sports stars attempting to become entertainers. Carl Lewis singing the National Anthem is embarrassing because you know his career in sports is over, he needs the money, and he stinks.

Michael Bolton: only singles

But someone like Michael Bolton (left) flubbing a grounder in Dodger Stadium is hilarious to watch because he has more money than the Dodger franchise does. Besides, we watch the real Dodgers flub grounders all the timeit's not like it's an unusual occurance at that ballbark. And we're gonna laugh that ridiculous comb-over mullet hair-do anyway.

Celebrity games are also usually played for charities, so you don't feel you're getting ripped off because nobody can make a lay-up on a basketball court - let alone dunk—or hit a ball out of the infield in softball. And let's face it—you'd rather watch Roseanne lose fly balls in the outfield than lose the melody singing the Star Spangled Banner before a Padre game.

Lorrie Morgan, hitless

The only unfortunate thing about celebrity sports is that there's usually very little drama outside of whether or not Pamela Lee's top is going to burst open when she slides into second. Maybe they should think up some new events:

• Celebrity kickboxing could be fun.
• Or watching James Caan play Rollerball for real. Now that would be entertainment.
• Or watching Raquel Welch really skate through a team full of roller derby hags in a recreation of Kansas City Bomber—you know, put her surgically perfected nose and teeth at risk. It's for charity after all.

Garth Brooks tackles Nolan Ryan at first base.

Soap star Patricka Darbo

But don't think these games can't get intense -- Sean "Puffy" Combs and Dwight "Heavy D" Myers, along with the City University of New York, were found negligent in a 1991 celebrity basketball game that killed nine people and injured dozens. There was a long rap sheet that night. European soccer fans have nothing on that.

Anyway, here's to celebrities like Marilyn Monroe, Carole Lombard, Hope & Crosby, Elizabeth Taylor, Jayne Mansfield, Jerry Seinfeld, Faith Hill, Dylan McDermott, Johnathan Silverman, Tom Arnold, Donald Trump, Kenny Rogers, Daniel Baldwin, and the Playboy bunnies, who willingly humiliate themselves in the name of good will and charity. After all, those old people in wheelchairs and sickly children who the events are organized for not only get some badly needed funding, they can also watch the celebrities trip over themselves, drop balls, and dislocate their kneecaps and think, "Hey, I'm not the worst athlete on the field right now!"

Hey, watching movie stars play sports is better than watching sports stars act...