Heavy Hitter
In the May issue of Los Angeles magazine I profile Bryan Cranston, the two-time Emmy-winning star of AMC’s Breaking Bad, though better known, perhaps, still as Hal, the hapless dad on Malcolm in the Middle. The premise of the piece, “Heavy Hitter,” was to involve motorcyles. Cranston owns a 2006 Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail, and I was supposed to hop on the back with him and, um, go for a ride. As it happens, the forecast that Sunday was calling for rain, and in the interest of prudence, his people granted me a reprieve.
We still needed to come up with some other activity—that is the rule of an L.A. Mag celebrity “Encounter,” no poking at shrimp cocktails at the Four Seasons—and it was Cranston’s idea for us to meet at the BatCade in Burbank and take some hacks. I am pretty sure he had no idea I was a baseball guy, but he is; Cranston used to coach his daughter’s Little League team, and at 54 he remains a fit athlete.
I found him in the 60 m.p.h. cage already swinging. He looked good: balanced, compact, explosive. I got in some cuts too, of course, but I thought it wise to keep the focus on him—and not just for journalistic reasons. The author was having a hard time seeing the ball.