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The closest Ben Best has ever come to playing baseball was in the 8th grade, when he played intramural softball and was booed for nearly knocking out a 5th-grade girl while trying to run to second base.

Other than that, he's never showed much interest in home runs, RBIs or anything else likely to occur on a baseball diamond. He is, however, inspired by the players who have struck out.

Not much baseball happens on "Eastbound & Down," the new HBO comedy series created by Best and fellow UNC School of the Arts graduates Danny McBride and Jody Hill. But the show does feature many of the ills that have given the sport a bad rap. Its main character is a washed-up, overweight, steroids-injecting former big-league pitcher who becomes a P.E. teacher after falling from grace.

"None of us -- me, Danny or Jody -- have a lick of baseball talent. We're all very unathletic guys," the 34-year-old Best said in a telephone interview. "But there's just something about baseball, from our limited point of view, and all the scandals.

"The idea of the antihero, it just fascinates me to no end. We just liked the idea of this fallen American icon whose only option for income is teaching -- but who is probably the worst person to put in front of these impressionable minds -- and seeing the darkest part of his hero's journey."

Best's own life journey has been making a stellar turn lately. The 1993 High Point Central High School graduate has been working in film since 2003, when he served as a consultant on "All the Real Girls," which was directed by another School of the Arts graduate, David Gordon Green. He also appeared in the 2007 hit "Superbad" and starred as a self-absorbed, wife-stealing karate star in the 2008 independent martial arts comedy "The Foot Fist Way." And he's working alongside funnyman Will Ferrell and director Adam McKay on "Eastbound & Down."

The son of Fred and Courtney Best, who still live in High Point, Ben has long dabbled in the visual arts.

"I read in an article that he knew in the 8th grade he wanted to be a filmmaker," says Courtney Best, director of development at High Point Regional Health System. "But I think he knew when he was 8 years old. Because that's when he started making films with our crummy movie camera that didn't have sound or anything. He's always been very creative, a wonderful artist, a wonderful photographer."

After graduating from high school, Ben attended UNCG briefly before moving on to the School of the Arts, where he met the creative team that he still works with.

"Danny and I, we were both in the directing program, and we were big fans of each other's works. And Jody, he was in the screenwriting program. And then David Gordon Green (who graduated a year ahead of the others) helped us all out," he says. "And without trying to sound too cheesy, we had a really special group. We would look around and see all this cutthroat competition, but we were very supportive of each other. And I think we had a good understanding that it was better to graduate with an army of people than just you. And it's worked out amazingly. You can look back at some little video project from '95, and the same group of people who was working on that is now working on a big Hollywood feature or TV show."

Best said the group came up with the idea for "Eastbound & Down" while lounging in a kiddie pool in Charlotte one day.

"Danny was jobless, and I think I had 20 bucks, so I was Mr. Big Bucks, and I was able to buy us a case of beer," he said. "And we said, 'We've got to get out of this hole. We went to film school, we all have some sort of talent.' And we just hashed the idea out right there."

In the meantime, "The Foot Fist Way" which was directed by Hill, showed at the Sundance Film Festival and caught the attention of Ferrell and McKay, who began throwing their support behind the group and helped pitch their show to HBO. The two serve as executive producers. Fans of Ferrell and McKay's previous collaborations, "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy," "Talladega Nights" and "Step Brothers," will find much to love in the humor of "Eastbound & Down."

The series stars a mulleted McBride as Kenny Powers, a racist, anti-Semitic, beer swilling lout who would make John Rocker cringe. When he arrives at the school on his first day, he runs into an old flame, played by Katy Mixon. She is now engaged to the school's principal, but Kenny tries, ineptly, to win her back anyway.

Best plays an old friend of Kenny's, a cocaine-snorting bartender named Clegg.

"When Kenny went off to do his thing in baseball, Clegg decided to go off and tour with like Widespread Panic and do the whole jam band thing," Best said. "So in his mind, he kind of sees that he got out there and had a similar trajectory as Kenny. But his life has amounted to nothing, and he's definitely not the best influence on Kenny.."

The show was filmed in Wilmington. So far six episodes have been shot.

Courtney Best, who appears briefly in a crowd scene in the first episode, counts herself a fan of the show, though she admits that she finds all the profanity, drugs and sex humor a little jarring.

"I just want to say that I did not teach him any of that bad language," she said. "He did not learn that at home. He picked that up on his own. Danny McBride was the bad influence. Or maybe Will Ferrell."

Contact Robert C. Lopez at 691-5091 or robert.lopez@news-record.com