https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/philip-baker-hall-dead-seinfeld-library-cop-dies-1235164442/

Oh ....... too bad. He was awesome!

His performance as Lt. Bookman was hillarious. As was Charles Levin's performance as the Mohel in The Bris. IMO they were the best one-episode guest stars on Seinfeld. Sadly, both are gone now.

Some great one liners in "The Library" episode...RIP Philip

Philip Baker Hall's Seinfeld library cop Lt. Joe Bookman was a "tour de farce" performance for the ages (https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/06/14/philip-baker-hall-seinfeld-library-cop-bookman/)

"Every line is a body blow," says Karen Heller of the recently departed actor's legendary guest spot on the 1991 episode of Seinfeld (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9tP9fI2zbE), adding: "As the hard-nosed, Folgers Crystals-imbibing, New York Public Library cop, Hall out-Fridays Dragnet’s Sgt. Joe Friday. He’s an alien from another era. It’s as though he was hired to helm a Warner Bros. B gangster flick and mistakenly marched onto the set of a ’90s sitcom." Patton Oswalt called it (https://twitter.com/pattonoswalt/status/1536443992237346818) "hands down, the greatest guest spot in a sitcom, ever," while the This Podcast Is Making Me Thirsty Seinfeld Podcast tweeted that Hall is "regarded by many as the greatest one-episode Seinfeld guest star.” (https://twitter.com/ThisThirsty/status/1536394609957429250) "Which is quite something," adds Heller. "There are nearly 180 Seinfeld episodes and a constellation of guest stars over nine seasons. Hall appears in the 22nd episode, airing Oct. 16, 1991, early in the third season when Seinfeld and co-creator Larry David were still monkeying with the recipe." As Heller notes, the New York Public Library wished Lt. Bookman "Happy Retirement" (https://www.nypl.org/blog/2021/10/05/happy-retirement-joe-bookman) when it announced last year that it was eliminating all fines.

Put perfectly..."every line is a body blow" in that episode and it's true!