Unlike the various celebrities who show up for clubhouse tours and photo ops, Rob Reiner was a baseball fan — a for-real baseball fan. It was in that spirit, then, that I hoped we could chat for a while when Reiner took in a June 16, 2014, game between the Boston Red Sox and Minnesota Twins at Fenway Park.

Had we met, there were a couple of questions I wanted to ask about “Your Show of Shows,” the history-making, early 1950s variety program in which his father, Carl, played a supporting role as a send-off to his emergence as one of the great comedic minds in Hollywood history. Then again, Rob Reiner had talked so often over the years about “Your Show of Shows,” and how it shaped and inspired his future as an actor and director, that it’s doubtful anything from me was going to break new ground.

But we might have had a swell baseball discussion.

Reiner earned his breakout acting role in the epic 1970s sitcom “All in the Family,” starring Carroll O’Connor as the bigoted, blue-collar Archie Bunker. Reiner was cast as Michael Stivic, a Chicago-raised hippie grad student who had married Archie’s daughter, Gloria. In an episode during Season 2, airing on Oct. 16, 1971, a flashback sequence from 1969 is used to show how Archie and Mike met, with Gloria inviting her new boyfriend home to meet the parents.

Hoping to ease the tension as loading-dock foreman Archie meets long-haired, campus activist Mike, Gloria points out that her boyfriend is a big baseball fan, and that “… he follows the Mets, just like you do.” There ensues a brief moment of bonding, with Mike observing that the Mets, as in the ’69 Miracle Mets, could be headed for their first pennant. And then, with a trace of awe, he says that Archie must have seen all the big stars of yesteryear. “Seen ’em all,” says Archie, ticking off Babe Ruth … Lou Gehrig … Carl Hubbell. Things went downhill from there between Archie and the future son-in-law he would forever refer to as “Meathead,” but they had their baseball moment.

Now it always struck me as odd that the Michael Stivic character, said to be born and raised in Chicago, would suddenly become a big Mets fan — especially since the ’69 Mets were in the process of blowing past the Chicago Cubs en route to capturing first place in the newly formed National League East. As I wasn’t able to connect with Rob Reiner on that 2014 night at Fenway Park, the question went unanswered. According to IMDB, Reiner received a writing credit for four episodes in the show’s nine seasons on the air. This episode was one of them.

Over the past several days, as we mourn the horrific death of Rob Reiner and his wife, Michelle, I’ve found myself watching hours and hours of Reiner’s work. I’ve watched interviews and retrospectives, and listened to podcasts. To do so is to come away with an even greater appreciation of the man … his talent, his wit, his humanity, his activism (whether or not you agreed with him), and, yes, his love of baseball. Reiner’s appreciation of baseball and his appreciation for “Your Show of Shows” came from the same place. From his father.

We are shocked and saddened by the tragic deaths of Rob Reiner and his wife Michele.

An Emmy Award-winning actor and Academy Award-nominated director, Reiner was an avid baseball fan. The Bronx native and Los Angeles resident was a longtime Dodgers fan.

Reiner made numerous… pic.twitter.com/hS9atUa7kM

— MLB (@MLB) December 15, 2025

Jake Reiner, the older of Rob Reiner’s two sons, started up a podcast in 2020 called “Meeting on the Mound with Jake Reiner.” In the inaugural episode, he brought together three generations of Reiners — himself, his father and his grandfather, Carl Reiner, who had died at 98, shortly before the episode dropped.

In explaining his own love of baseball, Jake Reiner said, “My grandfather passed it down to my father, and my father passed it down to me.”

Celebrity and wealth are barely in evidence in this extraordinary interview, with Jake mostly acting as awestricken third-generation Reiner as Carl and Rob speak of their baseball fandom in such a way that the chemistry is every bit as good as it was back in the days when Carl teamed up with Mel Brooks in the “2000 Year Old Man” routines.

Consider that Carl Reiner, born in the Bronx in 1922 but a New York Giants fan growing up, said, “I remember that team, Mel Ott of course, the big home run hitter, he hit, what 7, 10 …”

“Five hundred and eleven,” Rob said.

“Five hundred and eleven,” Carl repeated. “And Carl Hubbell was a pitcher of renown on the mound. There was Freddie Fitzsimmons, Fat Freddie Fitzsimmons.” (This was the first time I’ve heard a podcast mention of Fat Freddie Fitzsimmons, who pitched 19 seasons in the big leagues and is just about the best 20th-century pitcher nobody today has ever heard of.)

“So I became a Giants fan,” Rob said. “In the outfield, you had Monte Irvin, Willie Mays and Don Mueller. And that was a big deal for me, because I loved Willie Mays. He was my idol.”

The Dodgers and Giants moved west after the 1957 season, the Dodgers to Los Angeles, the Giants to San Francisco. The Reiners, too, moved from New York to Los Angeles as Carl pursued his burgeoning entertainment career. Rob continued to root for the Giants until 1972, when Mays was traded to the New York Mets. He abandoned the Giants, Rob said, “because they got rid of my hero, Willie Mays.”

Rest in peace Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele 🙏

Legendary filmmaker Rob Reiner was a diehard Dodgers fan for over 60 years 💙 pic.twitter.com/5j9lvozTKR

— Dodgers Nation (@DodgersNation) December 15, 2025

As he was now living in Los Angeles, Rob Reiner adopted the Dodgers as his team, which may be sacrilege to some, except that he was able to explain himself.

Be it the Giants or the Dodgers, that Rob Reiner came to love baseball takes us right back to “Your Show of Shows.”

Appearing on Ted Danson’s “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” podcast earlier this year, Reiner said, “You know what’s funny, I have a picture in my office, and it’s the people who have written for Sid Caesar, the old ‘Show of Shows.’ And I look at that and I think, oh my God … there’s Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Woody Allen, Larry Gelbart, my father, Joseph Stein, who wrote ‘Fiddler on the Roof.’ Anybody who made you laugh in the second half of the 20th century is represented, and I thought, wow, that’s the world I came out of.”

Carl Reiner’s participation in “Your Show of Shows” inspired Rob’s brilliant entertainment career. Carl’s love of baseball inspired Rob’s love of baseball, even if it was transferred from Candlestick Park to Chavez Ravine.

Two days of watching and listening to Rob Reiner confirms my belief he’d have been happy to answer my totally random, off-the-wall question about Michael Stivic rooting for the Mets. And given the appreciation he had for his father, he’d probably have been comfortable talking about “Your Show of Shows” for the millionth time.

This man’s passion — for his family, for entertainment, for baseball, for activism — did not have an off-switch.