Jimmy Fallon Got MLB Players to Slip Bizarre Phrases Into Interviews

Now we know why Pete Alonso was talking about jelly and English muffins.

When Mets rookie Pete Alonso started talking about jelly and English muffins during his media availability at the All-Star Game last week, it was met with universal head scratching. The New York Times called it a “colorful analogy” a New York Daily News reporter tweeted that it “may be the weirdest and most confusing sports quote ever.”

But now we know that Alonso wasn’t sharing an ancient Tampa proverb. Jimmy Fallon put him up to it, and got quite a few other players to drop bizarre phrases of their own into interviews. Some pulled it off flawlessly, others really shoehorned it in there. 

Alonso was definitely tasked with saying the most complicated phrase, so it’s easy to forgive him for stumbling over it a bit. But it’s fair to say that a guy with the effortless cool of Mookie Betts or Alex Bregman probably would have delivered the line a little more smoothly. 

The next time you hear an athlete say something completely out of leftfield, you’ll always have a faint suspicion that they’re being coaxed to do so by a late-night host.