Palminteri rips Sonny Gray's Bronx performance, backs Giants' McCarthy signing

Chazz Palminteri walked into the studio with a grudge. The Oscar-nominated actor and lifelong New York sports fan had come to talk baseball, and within minutes of sitting down with Craig Carton, he was settling an old score with Boston Red Sox pitcher Sonny Gray—a man he'd tried to meet years earlier when Gray was pitching for the Yankees.

Palminteri recalled the encounter with the precision of someone who'd been replaying it for years. He'd approached Gray, hoping for a conversation, perhaps some connection between two men named Sonny. Gray had brushed him off, claiming he was busy. The rejection stuck. Now, with Gray's career arc laid bare in statistics, Palminteri saw vindication in the numbers. During his time with the Yankees, Gray posted a 6.98 ERA at home—a figure that, in Palminteri's reading, told the whole story. The pitcher couldn't handle the pressure of performing in the Bronx. Everywhere else Gray had pitched, he'd found success. But in New York, under the weight of expectation and the scrutiny of the Yankee faithful, he folded. Palminteri predicted it would happen again in the postseason, when Gray—Boston's ace—would take the mound in the Bronx and fail.

But Palminteri wasn't there just to settle scores with athletes. He'd come to talk about a moment that had changed his life, and he told it with the kind of wonder that suggested the passage of decades hadn't dulled the shock of it. In the early 1990s, as he was developing "A Bronx Tale" from his one-man stage show, Robert De Niro had come to him with a proposal. De Niro wanted to direct the film. More than that, he wanted to play Palminteri's father. The actor tried to imagine what it would feel like to hear those words—to have one of cinema's greatest figures take interest in your story, your life, your art. He'd said no to lunch with De Niro that day, too stunned to accept. It wasn't until he was alone in the elevator, descending from that meeting, that the reality hit him. He'd just acted with Robert De Niro. He'd turned down lunch with Robert De Niro. The absurdity and the magnitude of it crashed over him at once, and by the time the elevator doors opened, he'd steadied himself. He belonged there. He'd waited his whole life for this.

Then Palminteri pivoted to something unexpected. The Giants had just signed J.J. McCarthy, a backup quarterback with a troubled early career, and most observers saw it as a questionable move. Palminteri saw something else. He'd watched quarterbacks like Sam Darnold and Baker Mayfield get drafted with high expectations, struggle, get written off, and then resurface as competent players. McCarthy, in his view, was no different. The kid had won championships in high school and college. He had a strong arm and the legs to move around. Yes, early fame had gotten to him. Yes, he'd been humbled by his struggles in the NFL. But that humbling, Palminteri argued, might be exactly what he needed. He contrasted McCarthy with Jameis Winston, whom he saw as fundamentally flawed—a quarterback with happy feet, afraid to take a hit, making throws that should have been intercepted but somehow weren't. Give him a young arm, Palminteri said. Give him youth and legs and hunger. McCarthy had those things. Palminteri thought he was going to be good.