Royals hire Gene Lamont, incur the wrath of Paul Rudd and Rob Riggle
The “Darth Vader of baseball” will join the Royals front office.
The Royals have added longtime Major League coach Gene Lamont to the front office as a special assistant to General Manager Dayton Moore, according to Tigers beat writer Anthony Fenech. Lamont has been a coach in baseball since 1977, when he began as a minor league coach in the Royals organization, managing the teams in Fort Myers (FL), Jacksonville (FL), and Omaha.
Lamont was a coach at the big league level under Jim Leyland with the Pirates before being named manager of the White Sox. He was fired in 1994, but would later manage the Pirates when Leyland stepped down.
Since the Pirates let him go in 2000, Lamont has been a coach at the big league level with the Astros, Red Sox, and Tigers. And it was as third base coach with the Tigers, that he earned notoriety with Royals fans.
In 2010, Kansas City-natives Paul Rudd, Jason Sudeikis, Eric Stonestreet, and Rob Riggle organized a celebrity softball tournament at Kauffman Stadium. They stuck around for the game, hamming it up when Fox Sports Kansas City put them on TV. Joined by Will Ferrell and Horatio Sanz, they cheered on Royals pitcher Bruce Chen. But when the Tigers took the field, it was Tigers coach Gene Lamont who was the target of their ire.
Why Lamont? No real reason.
Now Lamont is just a running gag at this point.
So welcome to Kansas City, Gene Lamont. But you may want to avoid Big Slick Celebrity weekend.