Tom Cruise did something totally normal on Saturday night: He attended a baseball game. But when photos of him emerged online, social media went berserk.
“It looks like a deep fake,” many, many people said, apparently unsure if it was really Cruise in the pictures or only a digital approximation. Perez Hilton made a crack about Cruise channeling late comedian Norm Macdonald. Others on Twitter were flabbergasted that Cruise would want to attend a game in the first place. (“Tom Cruise is at the game … for some reason.”) Based on these reactions, it appears that, of all our beloved Hollywood A-listers, we may know Cruise the least.
See Cruise for yourself. The stage was Oracle Park in San Francisco, where the Giants (the “baseball Giants” as extremely old men like my father like to say) faced down the Los Angeles Dodgers in the second game of the National League Division Series. Here Cruise is, kinda hunched over like the late Larry King, smiling and waving as whichever wise guy controlling the booth plays the Giorgio Moroder-penned Kenny Loggins hit “Danger Zone.” (That song, of course, is forever associated with the motion picture Top Gun.) Seated to his right is his 26-year-old son Connor Cruise.
S.F.-based sports journalist Amy Gutierrez snagged herself a solid selfie with the three-time Oscar nominee (and huzzah to the photo-bomber behind them!), but her report on Cruise’s comments solidified for many how eerily out of place the Mission: Impossible star seems when with regular folk (inasmuch as you can find “regular folk” at an MLB playoff game). “Asked him which team he’s rooting for,” Gutierrez wrote, “and he gracefully replied, ‘I’m a fan of baseball.’”
While the L.A.-based actor was probably just being diplomatic on S.F. turf, his response generated some yuks, including one that compared the action-adventure star to Marge Simpson.
Others were reminded of a classic Cruise interview, in which he espoused his love of going to the movies without being able to recall a single example of such an experience.
These peanut gallery remarks show some insight into Cruise’s persona but are, unfortunately, in the minority compared to the cascade of comments about his physical appearance. Normally, we wouldn’t acknowledge such cracks—even if one, two, or three were clever—but the reaction does speak to a larger Cruise phenomenon. Hanging onto a helicopter in the mountains, the movie star is recognizable to people. But when he appears more like an average 59-year-old, it’s open season for many to make jokes about Xenu.
Anyhow, Danny Glover was also at the game, and the two chatted, although some people still wondered if Cruise was an imposter.
The Dodgers beat the Giants 9 to 2, with the series tied with one win apiece. They meet again in Los Angeles on Monday night.
— Inside Anthony Bourdain’s All-Consuming Relationship
— The Tortured History of the Royal Spare
— Behind Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy’s Timeless Wedding Dress
— Gabby Petito and the Queasy Effects of Real-Time True Crime
— The Real Housewives and the Anti-vaxxer
— Love Is a Crime: The Rise and Fall of Walter Wanger’s Cleopatra
— Shop Meghan Markle’s New York City Trip Looks
— The R. Kelly Guilty Verdict Was Nearly 30 Years in the Making
— From the Archive: Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, the Private Princess
— Sign up for “The Buyline” to receive a curated list of fashion, books, and beauty buys in one weekly newsletter.