Lopez joins 'Express Written Consent'
When baseball and entertainment cross paths, odds are, George Lopez will be there somewhere in the mix.
Lopez has been a semi-regular participant in the Legends & Celebrity Softball Game on All-Star Sunday over the years, where Hollywood types and baseball types get together and play a seven-inning softball game in front of 35,000 or so fans.
It's exhibitionism at its finest -- former players showing they still have a little left in the tank, and a slew folks from the entertainment world who have all the talent in the world, except on a baseball field, where they're often ... lacking. And that's all part of the fun.
Lopez, good-natured and approachable, always blends in well at the celebrity softball game, so it should come as no surprise that he also seemed perfectly at ease in the booth at Dodger Stadium, where he recently visited to yuk it up with host Jeremy Brisiel in another episode of "Express Written Consent."
"You know what they say," Lopez began. "When you're really cool, you don't read about it in the paper, you don't read about it in social media. You hear about it on the street."
And apparently what he heard about "EWC" on the street was pretty impressive.
"I've heard from some of my peeps," Lopez said. "Mary Hart, Tom Arnold, a couple people in the Dodger organization, some fans, that this is the place to be. I thought, 'You know what? I love the Dodgers, we're here at the stadium, I'm in.'"
With that ringing endorsement out of the way, J.B. and Lopez got down to business. Lopez is always doing something, whether it's acting or getting back to his original roots on the comedy circuit.
Lopez is currently performing with Cedric the Entertainer, Mike Epps, Eddie Griffin, D.L. Hughley and Charlie Murphy on the "Black and Brown Comedy Get Down" tour, and his latest theatrical film, "Spare Parts," about a group of high school students that defied odds to enter in a collegiate robotics competition, was recently released on DVD.
Lopez is also active in the charity community, most notably, The George Lopez Foundation, which helps, among other things, kids afflicted with kidney disease (Lopez had a kidney transplant 10 years ago).
Lopez is also known to do charitable things on a whim, like when he heard that his old high school baseball team had just won a championship but didn't have the funding for bling when it was over.
"Two of the last five years, they won the city championship," Lopez said of San Fernando High's baseball team. "They played it at Dodger Stadium. The first year they won it, I called the manager just to congratulate him. I said, 'What are they going to do with the kids? Are the guys going to get rings or anything?'"
The manager told him they were going to hold a car wash to help fund some kind of prize for the kids. So Lopez decided to do one better.
Lopez bought 35 rings for the players, coaches and team personnel. He did it again when they won their second championship, and well, like it or not, he's started a trend.
"Now they know if they win the championship...," Lopez said.
When he's not watching high schoolers player at Dodger Stadium, he's watching Major Leaguers. And so far, he likes what he sees.
"I hated to see Matt [Kemp] go," Lopez said. "But I like Jimmy Rollins and I like that infield, [and Howie] Kendrick. The corners are solid. And [Jose] Uribe -- I looked online -- he's from the Dominican Republic and he turns 61 in May."
Ba-da-bum.
"But," Lopez added, "He's spry for 61."