So, about The Rock's Elizabeth Warren book from Ballers ...

It's a TV show opening scene that seems simple enough, but it spawned a lot of Internet and TV chatter with millions (and millions) amused.

(Click for a closer view.)

Hot takes arrived left and right on entertainment sites and political pundits had their thoughts, too. (Left and right, I'm sure.) It was something simple and something planned that generated some buzz and even some high-profile tweets that went out to some 20 million people. (Meanwhile, the episode itself had just 588,000 people watching per Nielsen. Go figure.)

What is it? It's the opening-credits scene for the fifth season of Ballers and it had player-turned-agent-turned-businessman Spencer Strasmore (aka Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) reading a copy of Elizabeth Warren's 2017 book This Fight is Our Fight as he sat on the beach in the first episode. It all takes place quickly and Strasmore's down-time is interrupted first by his girlfriend (Arielle Kebbel) asking him why he never goes into the ocean -- then that's interrupted by a phone call from Bossman (aka the Ballers-world owner of the Dallas Cowboys) before he walks off down the shoreline to chat. The scene isn't about a paperback with tattered edges at all, really -- it's about the mystery of the water, what Strasmore might be hiding -- but that's how the book's brief on-screen life comes to an end.

Meanwhile, that actual copy of the book? Well, it's still alive and well.

In fact, it's sitting on my desk as I type -- and I found it in the recent Heritage Auctions/Screenbid sale of props and other items from the show. (Even that surfboard was sold.) I had my eye on something a little more meaty that had one heck of a hidden piece of trivia behind it, but ... the tragedy is that I missed out on that piece (and the story it could have told). But this one? Well, with its story, I had to grab it ... and it cost me roughly as much of a box of new cardboard these days. (So, a little more than that $17 cover price.) There's some comedy in here, too, but I like unique pieces in my collection of stuff ... and this is a first. (Do I call it sports memorabilia? Do I call it entertainment memorabilia? Or, sports-entertainment memorabilia? Do I dare call it political memorabilia? I hope not ... let's just call it a fun item.)

So, what's the deal here?

Well, at some point Warren publicly professed her fandom for the show as well as The Rock and did it a few times before the show's run came to an end (meanwhile, the fandom hasn't stopped). That led the creators to work this moment into the season-opener ... and this cameo was a big surprise to the senator who has a plan for everything.

If you google "Elizabeth Warren Ballers" a mere 815,000 items pop up. I'm sure some of that is SEO filler about two Internet heavyweights, but there are more than a few mentions of Warren and the show. A you can see at right, she tweeted at him before the season debut, and that wasn't the only banter, either. (Other tweets are in a gallery below and some made for entire stories out there for entertainment writers.) While exploring this whole subject, Entertainment Weekly asked Warren about the book's on-screen moment.

"I loved it! I laughed out loud," she said in an interview about Ballers ... and only Ballers. "I thought it was fabulous and I hope he got to finish the book."

Flipping through my book revealed no secret signatures from either Warren or Johnson -- after all it was a prop and she didn't know about it -- but I did find a surprise inside that wasn't seen on screen and adds some mystery. Perhaps it's some bookmark reminder of the mindset Johnson needed to use during the discussion -- the episode later reveals why he lied to her about not going into the ocean -- or maybe it's from an unused part of the scene, something that Strasmore worried to be true at that point in his life. I don't know. What was it? A 3-by-5 card with the word "FRAUD" boldly written in red-marker all-caps. It was tucked between pages 102 and 103 above a photo of Uncle Travis and Aunt Lucy. (They are 100-percent real.)

Now about finishing the book ... Warren tweeted Johnson (see gallery below) to see if his character ever got around to that. There was no public answer, so it's a still mystery for her. But I have a hunch here ... if you watch the scene closely over on HBO Max (where I grabbed screenshots) you'll see some continuity flubs on how far into the book he had gotten during the fleeting moment. So, my bet is "no" on that mystery.

You can see just a few of the headlines all this fandom and the book's cameo generated below (a small sampling). Even Good Morning America got into the action. Meanwhile, this piece from Men's Health explores all that fandom pretty well and there's even a Full Frontal with Samantha Bee bit where Warren brings up the show out of the blue (Or was this all a work?) before there's a cameo from two of the show's stars. Well, sort of.

Yes, Samantha Bee, we're talking about Ballers.

And that was my story about my book from Ballers. 

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Here's a sampling of the headlines for this one ...

Vanity Fair: Ballers Pays Sneaky Homage to Superfan Elizabeth Warren

SPIN: The Rock Gives Elizabeth Warren a Cute Shoutout on Ballers

Boston magazine: The Rock Was Spotted Reading Elizabeth Warren’s Book on Ballers

Yahoo! News: How Elizabeth Warren's book ended up making a cameo on the Rock's TV show 'Ballers'

The Boston Globe: Elizabeth Warren makes a cameo in the new season of ‘Ballers’ — sort of

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