Jake Tapper to appear on ABC’s ‘The Rookie’ wearing a special Phillies jersey

Fan’s of ABC’s popular police drama The Rookie will see a familiar face Sunday night.

CNN anchor Jake Tapper makes a cameo in Sunday night’s Halloween-themed episode, and will be showing off his Phillies pride by sporting a Mike Schmidt jersey — the MVP of the 1980 World Series. The Rookie, currently in its fifth season, airs Sundays at 10 p.m. on 6ABC.

Tapper, who split his childhood between Queen Village and Merion, doesn’t appear alone. Joining him on the show is his son, Jack, who’s dressed up as Tom Hanks’ character Captain Miller from Saving Private Ryan.

So how did Tapper and his son end up on The Rookie? It began with a tweet last year to the show’s star, Nathan Fillion. Tapper and his son watched the show together while locked down due to COVID-19, and he wanted to share his appreciation.

In the police drama, Fillion plays a divorced man from Pennsylvania who moves to Los Angeles to pursue a new career as a 40-something rookie police officer. The show was inspired by LAPD officer William “Bill” Norcross, who was 44 in 2015 when he left his family’s printing business in Doylestown to become a cop in Los Angeles, one of the few agencies that accepts older officers as recruits.

According to Tapper, Fillion wrote back and invited the pair for a set visit once COVID protocols were eased. That was scheduled for August, but a few weeks before the visit Fillion asked whether the Tappers wanted to film a cameo on the show. They leapt at the chance.

Originally, Tapper was asked to wear a plain Phillies jersey to avoid any trademark issues. But Tapper got permission from the Phillies Hall of Famer to wear his jersey during his appearance. Either way, the appearance will be timely, given that the Phillies are in the midst of a surprise World Series run.

During an interview with The Inquirer last year, Tapper said the Phillies and the Eagles are his two favorite Philly sports teams, followed closely by the 76ers (he isn’t a big hockey fan because he finds it hard to follow the puck).

Tapper was in attendance when the Eagles won their first Super Bowl back in 2018, but he won’t be attending any of the World Series games at Citizens Bank Park this week. It’s not that he doesn’t want to be in South Philly — he’s currently anchoring CNN’s 9 p.m. Eastern time slot leading up to the election and through Nov. 11, so he’s stuck in Washington.

Recently, Tapper wrote a cover story for the Atlantic that raised questions about the case of C.J. Rice, a South Philadelphia man convicted of attempted murder. He also offered a rebuke to Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano for claiming Bryn Mawr’s Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy — which Tapper graduated from in 1987 — was a “privileged” and “exclusive” school. Mastriano’s opponent in the race, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, is also a graduate of the school.

“A lot of kids got financial aid, including a lot of kids who, with their parents, had escaped anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union and were trying to build better lives for themselves in the Philadelphia area,” Tapper said of his experience at the school when he attended in the 1980s. “I don’t think I have ever heard Mr. Mastriano describe any other Pennsylvania parochial schools in that way, elite, exclusive, privileged, full of disdain for fellow Americans. Philadelphia has a ton of fancy prep schools, but Akiba Hebrew Academy was not one of them.”