Baseball on TV: Infinite Jest, a David-Forster Malice Story

The David Letterman - Terry Forster Feud of 1985

Fat tub of goo.

That’s how Braves’ reliever Terry Forster was described on Late Night with David Letterman in the summer of 1985. But not just that. After a Joan Collins joke, Dave went on a seemingly impromptu baseball rant.

Dave: Something is terribly upsetting me and I’ll just take care of it right now. (To Paul Schaffer) You watch baseball on tv, don’t you?

Paul: Oh, every chance I get.

Dave: Now, do you watch TBS? Braves games?

(base player nods)

Dave: So over the weekend, I’m watching. The Braves are playing a series with the Reds. The Atlanta Braves, the Cincinnati Reds. They have a pitcher there, the guy is named Terry Forster. (to the audience) Do you know who Terry Forster is? Left handed relief pitcher. The fattest man in all of professional sports. Am I right? I mean the guy is a balloon. He must weigh 300 pounds at least. So, the guys doing the ball game, Skip Caray and Ernie Johnson, and somebody else does it. John Sterling? John Sterling. Not once do they mention that this guy is enormous. They pretend the guy couldn’t be in better shape. He is a LOAD. Just once, when they see this mammoth figure, this silo, get up in the bullpen, I just want them to say ‘Well, looks like terry Forster is warming up, he’s a left hander, an era of 3.5… what a fat tub of goo.’ Nobody says a thing. It’s like ‘Shh, here comes Terry.’ Honest to God, he’s this big. It ruined my weekend.

That’s an attack. That kind of body-shaming is just not acceptable in 2023. But this was 1985, let’s era adjust and add some context. Insult humor goes back to the 1950s night clubs (see any Don Rickles clip). Letterman brought it to TV. The allure of the 12:30 AM (on a weeknight) talk show is seeing things that aren’t otherwise allowed on TV. Even in 1985, this was funny BECAUSE it was so wrong. I mean, listen the studio audience, they’re howling. And so was I, as an adolescent, staying up way later than I should have been.

This was all part and parcel of Letterman’s prickly persona: needling a celebrity and then calling back to it. Here’s a supercut of the ensuing Terry Forster references over the next month.

The feud made headlines, literally. Time Magazine voted the ongoing bit one of the top ten Letterman sports moments ever. 

Late Night had been on the air four-plus years and was well into its stride. “You see Letterman last night?” was a daily refrain at my high school. Stupid Pet Tricks. Stupid Human Tricks. Larry “Bud” Merman. Mujibur and Sirajul. Dave’s Record Collection. Dave Throws Stuff Off a Five Story Tower.

Top Ten Lists.

Top 10 Least Popular Exhibits at the Baseball Hall of Fame

10. The Tobacco Juice Foundation and Reflecting Pool

 9. Babe Ruth's cup

 8. What-It's-Like-to-Get-Hit-in-the-Head-with-a-Nolan-Ryan-Fastball

 7. The Yogi Berra Kissing Booth

 6. The giant stack of Pete Rose's losing OTB tickets

 5. Display case of garbage thrown at the San Diego Chicken

 4. Steve Garvey's bed and on-deck circle

 3. Cocktail glass filled with Billy Martin's knocked-out teeth

 2. Scratch-a-Real-Big-Leaguer

 1. The Audio-Animatronic Mookie

Five weeks after Letterman’s initial rant, Terry Forster took a Braves off-day and came on Late Night to face-off with Letterman. Here’s the NBC Sports-style show intro.

Forster leans into the fat jokes, walking out with deli sandwiches for Paul Shaffer and Dave. He says the sub was the deli’s David Letterman Special, “has a lot of tongue on it.” The two trade self-deprecating barbs, Forster’s baseball cards get shown, and Forster does an awkward cooking segment that goes nowhere. You can probably skip that part. 

The entire 13 minute segment:

There ended the fat tub of goo jokes for Letterman. Once the man was made real, by appearing on the show, the joke was dead.

But Forster didn’t stop there. In a move that tickles us to no end here at TTSS, Forster released an EP under the band name Terry Forster and the Lovehandles. It was the ‘80s and of course there is music video for “Fat is in.”

Your enjoyment of this will fall somewhere between that cooking segment and watching Forster’s 1985 fifth place Braves team. You’re welcome. I’m sorry.

Let’s talk baseball. 

Terry Forster made his debut with the Chicago White Sox in 1971, at 19 years old. He was the second youngest player in baseball. In 1972, he was the third youngest player. Before he was old enough to drink, at least legally, he had pitched 149 big league innings, with 152 strikeouts and an ERA+ of 118.

Terry Forster baseball cards, 1971 through 1987.

For 14 more big league years, the fat tub of goo was a workhorse middle reliever. Forster had an above average ERA in eleven seasons, five times he made more than 50 appearances. He has a World Series ring (Dodgers, 1981) and a playoff ERA of 0.00. That’s less than 8 innings, but it still counts. In that Letterman-feud-fueled 1985 season, Forster was 33 years old and finished with a 2.25 era (169 ERA+) in 59 innings, while the Braves lost 96 games. All in all, that’s a damn nice career, but still a guy few would remember without Letterman.

Forster holds one more impressive accolade. His career batting average is .397. That’s fourth best all-time. CAVEAT: one has to lower the minimum plate appearances to 75. Here is the resulting chart of baseball randos and legends.

Thank you, as always, Baseball Reference stathead tool.

We don’t even know Dana Holt’s age, but his hot hitting in 29 games with the Negro League Pittsburgh Keystones & Toledo Tigers puts him on this list. Ty Cobb is just showing off with his .366 average over THIRTEEN THOUSAND PAs.

If you add another qualifier (minimum number of games played: 400), Terry Forster becomes THE BEST HITTER OF ALL TIME.

Are we cherry picking numbers to get here? Absolutely. Do numbers lie? No. Never. Never-ever.

In honor of the Fat Tub of Goo, AKA the BEST HITTER OF ALL TIME (minimum 75 PA, minimum 400 games), we here at TTSS would like to honor this legendary ballplayer/ Letterman reference with his own CHANGE-A-WORD-AND-MAKE-IT-A-BASEBALL-MOVIE meme.

Dirty Terry Forster is a renegade, fed up with umpires calling balks on minor technicalities. He’s taking matters into his own hands. 

Forster stops game after game, yelling at Harry Wendlestedt or Dana DeMuth or Paul Runge, “I know what you’re thinking, punk: did I throw six pitches or only five? And to tell you the truth, I’ve forgotten myself in all this excitement.”

The umpires question his definition of “excitement,” then what this has to do with the balk rule.

Dirty Terry continues, “But being as my arm can throw upwards of 84 miles-per-hour, and would blow your head clean off, that is, if you don’t step out of the way.”

At this point, the umpires just throw him out of the game.

Undeterred, Forster gets in their face, “You’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do you, punk?”

By now, Braves manager Joe Torre is always dragging him off the field, telling him if he’s not careful, he’s gonna get DFA’d and find himself working at Dairy Queen. To which he replies, “Go ahead. Make my day.” 

In this alt timeline, Forster has a long actor/director career. His filmography:

Koosman’s Bluff (1968)

Paint Honus Wagner (1969)

Joe Kelly’s Heroes (1970)

Play Pat Misch for Me (1971)

High Plains Driessen (1973)

Sky Bolt and Lightfoot (1974)

The Mark Eichhorn Sanction (1975)

The Outlaw Josey Altuve (1976)

Every Which Way But James Loney (1978)

Escape from Sandy Alcantara (1979)

Bronco Billy Martin (1980)

Any Which Way you Canha (1980)

Pale JT Riddle (1985)

Hack Wilson Ridge (1986)

The Dead Poole (1988)

The Rookie (1990)

Unfor-Mychal-Givens (1992)

In The Line of Fire Joe Morgan (1993)

The Bridges of Madison Bumgarner (1995)

Space Cowser (2000)

Million Dollar Babe Herman (2004)

Grand Trevino (2008)

Trouble with The Cole Irvin (2012)

The Mule-ins (2018)

Cry Machado (2021)

THAT is a LOT of puns. I feel good about myself. I hope Terry Forster feels good about himself. To perform the way he did as a major league pitcher, he was a top .001% athlete on the planet. From all my research, he seems like a self-aware, well-adjusted guy. He took the Letterman insults and ran with it. He has a Baseball Ref page and a Discogs page and an IMDB page. I can think of no greater measure of success.

In dozens of post-Late-Night interviews, his go-to quip was “A waist is a terrible thing to mind.”

We should all be so gooey.