Sports

Best replacement players from sports and entertainment

By September 26, 2012June 18th, 2018No Comments

If you are reading this then there is a 100% chance that you know about the BS call the replacement refs made in the Green Bay Packers vs Seattle Seahawks Monday Night Football game. Every part of the play from the non-pass interference call to the interception that somehow turned into a Golden Tate touchdown was complete garbage (though I had the Seahawks +3.5 so I can live with the decision). Since the replacement referees are getting so much flak, justly, I thought it would be fun to look back at some other replacements from the world of sports and entertainment from the last 20 years and see how they did.

Vivian Banks on Fresh Prince of Bel-Air:

aunt viv from fresh prince of bel air new aunt viv fresh prince of bel air
That’s right, the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear “replacement” is Aunt Viv. Growing up in the late 80’s/early 90’s I was partially raised by the TV and Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was as much a staple for me as bad decisions are to Bobby Petrino. Just when you think that you know all that there is about Uncle Phil and the family you turn on the TV to watch Season 4 and Aunt Viv all of a sudden undergoes some sort of Sammy Sosa treatment where she is more than a few shades lighter.  I know that Uncle Phil probably liked getting a little sumthing sumthing from a new flavor of the month but unfortunately things like that didn’t matter to me when I was 12 years old. I was definitely more of a fan of the original Aunt Viv so I’m giving this one a big thumbs down.

Willie Mays Hayes in Major League

willie mays hayes wesley snipes willie mays hayes omar epps

Major League is one of the top three baseball movies ever, no questions asked. I have a freaking Roger Dorn Indians jersey so you don’t have to question my love for this flick. What I do have to question is the change of Willie Mays Hayes being played by Wesley Snipes to Mike Tomlin…errr…Omar Epps. Both guys look like fast black guys that can do pretty much the same thing so how do you judge which one is better? Simple, what’s the first thing that you think of when you hear each guys name? For Wesley Snipes it’s his “Always bet on black” line from Passenger 57. For Omar Epps it’s that he was in “The Wood”. Advantage: Wesley Snipes. Omar Epps gets major points for being a dead ringer for Mike Tomlin but unfortunately Major League 2 wasn’t nearly as good as 1. In case you are wondering, you should not always bet on black. I went to Vegas and played roulette for 10 minutes (not my game but I wanted to give it a try). Remembering this iconic line I decided to “always bet on black” since that’s what Wesley Snipes taught me. I promptly watched as red came up nine consecutive times. I took what little money I had left and was done with roulette. Had I never seen Passenger 57 maybe my luck would have been better.

The Replacements
falco the replacements

The Replacements was a highly underrated movie that I thoroughly enjoyed. In the pantheon of football movies I’d probably put it somewhere close to “Necessary Roughness” but not as good as Any Given Sunday. If you were going to have a Keanu Reeves QB be your teams starter would you rather have: Shane Falco or Johnny Utah? From a pure QB standpoint I think that Falco has to be the answer. Johnny Utah tore up his knee in college and lost a lot of mobility. You saw in the scene where he was chasing Bodhi in the acqeduct (or whatever that thing is where the water is running down) that he couldn’t even make a 5-10 foot fall without blowing out his knee. No thanks. Falco has the grit and toughness of Tim Tebow and could be my QB any day.

The following players were replacement players when the MLB/NFL was on strike

  • Benny Agbayani
  • Kevin Millar
  • Shane Spencer
  • Pete Rose, Jr.
  • Sean Payton (he was a replacement QB for the Chicago Bears in 1987)

Who doesn’t want to have a Shane Spencer or Benny Agbayani dropped on them? I was a little surprised to see that Kevin Millar was a replacement player as he was actually good. As you can see from the list you aren’t working with a ton of talent. These are literally the only guys that you have heard of. I was disappointed that Karim Garcia wasn’t on the list…but at least I got to mention him so hopefully that made your day a little better.

 

Rob Cressy

Rob Cressy

Sports loving free throw specialist and yinzer living in Chicago who is awesome most of the time, has run with the bulls in Spain, and is a graduate of Second City's Improv program.