Is anyone here a marine biologist?
Expect that question to be asked repeatedly on Saturday during the annual Seinfeld Night at the Brooklyn Cyclones minor league baseball game at Maimonides Park in Coney Island. After all, the event will take place just miles from where Cosmo Kramer sank something of a hole-in-one off the shore of Rockaway Beach, leading to George Costanza entering an angry sea to successfully remove a golf ball from a whale’s blowhole.
That moment from the iconic sitcom will be immortalized by this year’s promotional giveaway at the stadium: a bobblehead of Costanza holding a golf ball while sitting atop a whale.
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That item, given to the first 2,500 fans and other ticket package holders, is in such demand that this year’s Seinfeld Night, the eighth iteration of the event since it began in 2014, was the first to sell out before the day of. Standing room only tickets will go on sale at the stadium's box office at 4 p.m. on Saturday.
“Tickets for the game are on StubHub and SeatGeek, which is not a normal thing for a minor league baseball team,” said Billy Harner, the Cyclones assistant general manager who first came up with the idea of Seinfeld Night. “That’s because it’s Seinfeld from start to finish.”
Actual baseball will of course be played as the Cyclones, a High-A affiliate of the New York Mets, take on the Hudson Valley Renegades. But the teams will be renamed the Brooklyn Pretty Boys, an ode to Keith Hernandez’s Seinfeld cameo, and the Wappingers Falls Bubble Boys, in reference to the hometown of the bubble boy who gets into a Trivial Pursuit debate with George. “It’s Moops!”
There will be Seinfeld-themed contests before, during and after the game. That includes the grand finale known as the Elaine Dancing Contest where participants recreate Elaine Benes’ infamous “little kicks” dance routine that’s “more like a full-body dry heave set to music.”
There will be an appearance by John O’Hurley, who portrayed the character J. Peterman. O’Hurley will throw out the ceremonial first pitch, handle PA announcing duties in his Peterman voice during the first inning and then sign autographs and take photos at the third base picnic area.
There will be fans wearing puffy shirts and red-dotted sweaters, foul poles renamed Festivus Poles, and menu offerings like Beef-a-rino, a big salad and chocolate babka.
“It’s basically a Seinfeld fan convention with a baseball game in the background,” Harner said.
Harner grew up in Brooklyn watching “Seinfeld” every Thursday night on NBC with his father. In 2014 as the team’s director of communications, he was brainstorming with staff for the Cyclones’ upcoming promotional schedule and read in the New Year’s Day edition of Newsday that the 25-year anniversary of the show’s premiere would take place on July 5.
He came up with an idea that worked out far better than Kramer’s plan to open a pizza place where you make your own pie.
“The two or three of us that had seen the show looked at each other and were like, ‘We have to do this!’” Harner said.
When news broke of the first Seinfeld Night in Brooklyn, and the Keith Hernandez “Magic Loogie” bobblehead giveaway, the Cyclones’ website crashed. Word had quickly spread from WFAN to ESPN to Del Boca Vista.
“The story appeared on the local news in all 50 states,” Harner said. “One of those media tracking services said we got the equivalent of three Super Bowl commercials of exposure.”
Fans, he said, came to the game from 26 different states and seven different countries. One who traveled from Winnipeg slept in his rental car in the stadium’s parking lot so he could be first in line on gameday the next morning. He then overslept like Jean-Paul and was second in line.
“I thought that was very appropriate for Seinfeld Night,” Harner said.
The event has evolved and grown in popularity, with tickets now harder to get than a house to rent in Tuscany. Contests have included the Junior Mint toss (It’s a small mint!), the run around the bases where anybody named Jerry gets a head start (I choose not to run!) and a race to eat a Snickers bar the fastest with a knife and fork (How do you eat it? With your hands?).
“It’s gotten to the point where people plan their summer and trips to New York just to be here for this,” Harner said.
There have been cast member appearances by the actors who portrayed Soup Nazi, Kenny Bania, Jean Paul, Mulva, Lloyd Braun, Bizarro Jerry/Kevin and Jackie Chiles.
“When we had Jackie Chiles here, it was like we had the Beatles for Seinfeld fans,” Harner said.
The dream is that one of the big four – Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer – or other recurring characters who have been invited will show up next year for the 35th anniversary of the show’s premiere and the 10th anniversary of the first Seinfeld Night in Brooklyn.
“This has sort of become what we’re known for,” Harner said. “It puts a little pressure on us to try to top ourselves each year. But it’s a really cool night because there’s so many people in the ballpark that love the show.”
And so many people that will ask, “Is anyone here a marine biologist?”
