Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Externing Postgame Show with Bill laskiam
Speaker 1: delighted to bring a friend on. He pitched fifteen years
Speaker 1: in Major League Baseball. In nineteen sixty eight, he was
Speaker 1: on the World Series team with the Detroit Tigers. He's
Speaker 1: also the American League Fire of the Year in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three, and he was also inducted into the Canadian
Speaker 1: Baseball Hall of Fame. My good friend, John Hiller, how
Speaker 1: are you John?
Speaker 2: Okay, Billy? Good morning?
Speaker 1: Yeah, how are you doing? Everything good in Michigan?
Speaker 2: Yeah, right now. We got rid of some of that
Speaker 2: smoke here a few days ago, but yeah, it's everything's
Speaker 2: nice and peaceful. Quiet. You know, I've your listeners. Most
Speaker 2: of them are familiar, I think, with the up the
Speaker 2: Upper Peninsula of Michigan. So I'm five hundred miles from
Speaker 2: Detroit right now.
Speaker 1: Well, listen, you grew up in Toronto, Canada, and right
Speaker 1: now there's about thirty players that were born in Canada.
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about the British Columbia and
Speaker 1: how they draft players and more scouts now are up
Speaker 1: in Canada.
Speaker 2: Well, when I like, boy who go back when I
Speaker 2: was playing, I think Fergie Jenkins was the only other
Speaker 2: Canadian at the time playing. There might have been a
Speaker 2: couple more, but they didn't really have scouts that often.
Speaker 2: I mean, my coach was a Bob Werner and he
Speaker 2: was playing a little bit in the Indians with their
Speaker 2: team way back, and he stayed in Toronto, and we
Speaker 2: had a team that we go out on Friday nights.
Speaker 2: And he put a word into the fellow named Sy
Speaker 2: Williams out of Buffalo, and Si came up and watched
Speaker 2: me pitch one game. It happened to be the first
Speaker 2: time there was lights at our ballpark, and he couldn't
Speaker 2: find the park and then he saw the lights and
Speaker 2: I happened to strike out twenty two guys in seven
Speaker 2: innings in that game.
Speaker 1: I guess they shine you immediately after that, Josh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that sign that allowed me to get a great
Speaker 2: bonus of a pair of spikes. Honestly, goodness, that's what
Speaker 2: it was.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, growing up in Toronto, it was just
Speaker 1: like me growing up in Ohio. The springs were very cold.
Speaker 1: It was very difficult to play on hard ground and
Speaker 1: freezing temperatures. How did you play in spring baseball up
Speaker 1: in Toronto?
Speaker 2: Well, it wasn't you know as a kid, you don't know, right,
Speaker 2: I mean up here, up here in the up they're
Speaker 2: out there almost when the snow is still in the ground.
Speaker 2: Here is trying to get baseball season going. So we
Speaker 2: didn't notice. And I was a frustrated hockey player. I
Speaker 2: wanted to play so badly and I was not very good,
Speaker 2: and just a bunch of my chums they got together
Speaker 2: and said let's go play. And we didn't have Little
Speaker 2: League or Babe Ruth Kawanas ran most of our little
Speaker 2: league stuff. But and we didn't have any uniforms. We
Speaker 2: had a hat and a shirt and you know, it's
Speaker 2: just we went out and played baseball. And I just
Speaker 2: was very fortunate that I could throw strikes, and you know,
Speaker 2: at a young age, and that was probably caught the
Speaker 2: eye of a few people because I didn't walk any
Speaker 2: batters hardly. Ever.
Speaker 1: John Hiller joined me on the Exter Earning postgame show.
Speaker 1: Of course you came up as a starting pitcher. We
Speaker 1: didn't really have bullpins and closers back in the day.
Speaker 1: Everybody wanted to go nine innings and that was one
Speaker 1: of the things that you just said. You struck out
Speaker 1: twenty two guys. Being a starting pitcher at that time,
Speaker 1: that's what you wanted to be in the big leagues,
Speaker 1: and you ended up coming to the big leagues in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five at twenty two years old. Tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit about the minor leagues and then getting
Speaker 1: that jump to the big leagues.
Speaker 2: John, Yeah, that was probably a shock to me. I
Speaker 2: was in Double A ball at the time, and you know,
Speaker 2: they tried you. As you know, they called people up
Speaker 2: in September, and I went up in September that year
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty five. My first batter was Gene Freeze
Speaker 2: and I struck them out. That's about all I remember
Speaker 2: about that game, and I didn't I don't think I
Speaker 2: pitched a whole lot. Charlie Dressen was a manager. I
Speaker 2: don't even think he knew my name. He always whistled.
Speaker 2: He called me hate kid. So you know, we did
Speaker 2: what we wanted we could. Of course, like you mentioned,
Speaker 2: everybody wanted to be a starter. But you know, we
Speaker 2: had four good starters in sixty seven sixty eight, Denny McClain,
Speaker 2: Mickey Lolitz, Joe Sparma, and Earl Wilson and Pat Dobson
Speaker 2: was my roommate and him being right handed, me being
Speaker 2: left so we'd fill in on Sunday doubleheaders or if
Speaker 2: somebody got injured, and if there was predominantly right handers,
Speaker 2: he would pitch, and vice versa for me if there
Speaker 2: was left handers. So, as you mentioned, I don't even
Speaker 2: know if I got a half a dozen saves in
Speaker 2: the sixties, they just didn't Danny McClain talk with him,
Speaker 2: I guess the other day. He was known to tell
Speaker 2: a manager to get back to the bench. I'min in
Speaker 2: his games, and Mickey lolich, my stuff didn't look very
Speaker 2: good if I came in after Mickey. So Mickey completed,
Speaker 2: you know, twenty some odd games every year. Also, it's
Speaker 2: three hundred plus innings. So our role was a spot starter,
Speaker 2: long man, middleman, sometimes short man. But we just did
Speaker 2: what we were asked, especially as a rookie in the
Speaker 2: first few years.
Speaker 1: Well, John, you just said it. Four man pitching staff,
Speaker 1: four man starting staff. They completed most of the games.
Speaker 1: When you talk about Denny McClain twenty eight complete games
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty eight. But you also had a big
Speaker 1: part in that. Nineteen sixty eight you were nine and
Speaker 1: six and thirty nine games, twelve started, thirteen completed to
Speaker 1: have finished, and you ended up throwing one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty eight innings. Really a solid year and a couple saves,
Speaker 1: but you were more or less that middle guy to
Speaker 1: go to with Pat Dobson as the closer. But was
Speaker 1: it the bullpen used that much back then?
Speaker 2: Well, on occasion, and we had Fred Lasher who a
Speaker 2: submarine pitched submarine pitcher and he threw pretty hard from
Speaker 2: down under. Darryl Patterson probably was the hardest thrower in
Speaker 2: the team. He came in on occasion to shut down somebody,
Speaker 2: so he just, you know, it's hard to explain. I
Speaker 2: was happy to be there, you know, young kid out
Speaker 2: of Canada, and all of a sudden you're in Tiger
Speaker 2: Stadium and looking at thirty thousand people, you know, and
Speaker 2: I was just dawstruck. So we all did what was
Speaker 2: asketavius and you know, the saves didn't come until actually
Speaker 2: after my heart problem and I came back and Billy
Speaker 2: Martin was a manager.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well that's sixty eight World Series. What a competition
Speaker 1: that was against the Saint Louis Cardinals and again with
Speaker 1: Bob Gibson being on the Hill against Denny McClain. But
Speaker 1: it really came down to Mickey Lolitch being the MVP
Speaker 1: of that series. What did you think about going into
Speaker 1: that series and then you guys were down. You had
Speaker 1: to come back and win that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, we came close in sixty seven. We
Speaker 2: were just lost by a game, I believe or game
Speaker 2: and a half and Boston, I won't say, snuck in.
Speaker 2: We had a doubleheader against the Angels and we needed
Speaker 2: to win three for a tie and four for to
Speaker 2: win it. We just split with them. So I know,
Speaker 2: we knew we had a great team, and sixty eight
Speaker 2: was really an amazing because of how many times I
Speaker 2: think it was forty times we came back after the
Speaker 2: seventh inning to win ball games. So you know, that
Speaker 2: excites fans, it excites the city, excites the ballplayers. And
Speaker 2: be able to do that. I think we realized going
Speaker 2: into the Saint Louis World Series that on paper, they
Speaker 2: had probably a better team I shouldn't say probably, they
Speaker 2: had a better team than us as far as reputation,
Speaker 2: and they were coming off a World Series win the
Speaker 2: year before, and they had Bob Gibson and they had
Speaker 2: a lot of great players, So I don't know, we
Speaker 2: just knew we came from behind all year long, and
Speaker 2: I don't think we ever gave up. It's hard to
Speaker 2: think back and say exactly what was on our mind
Speaker 2: when we were down three to one, but there was
Speaker 2: always a little hope, you know, we always always looked
Speaker 2: at him when I coached. It was just it was
Speaker 2: one game. We weren't down, you know, three to one.
Speaker 2: We were just one day, one game down today, and
Speaker 2: then if we won that, we were in that one
Speaker 2: game down tomorrow, and just approach it that way. If
Speaker 2: we thought we had to win three or four in
Speaker 2: a row, that wasn't gonna work. So, you know, we
Speaker 2: had some great breaks, a couple of things that maybe
Speaker 2: Saint Louis wouldn't have done other times, and Willie Morton
Speaker 2: made that great throw to turn that whole game around,
Speaker 2: and then we should have known we were gonna win
Speaker 2: it when Mickey Lolitch had his only major league home
Speaker 2: run in the World Series. So we should have figured
Speaker 2: right there. Hey, we got this.
Speaker 1: John Hiller joining me on the extra postgame show. Of course,
Speaker 1: he was a member of that nineteen sixty eight World
Speaker 1: Series championship with the Detroit Tigers. Bill Freehan, one of
Speaker 1: the best catchers that ever wore a Tiger uniform. Tell
Speaker 1: me a little bit about your battery mate, and what
Speaker 1: did he make so confident with you when he came
Speaker 1: out to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Billy was just you know, he was very intelligent on
Speaker 2: and off the field. He was he had a baseball smarts.
Speaker 2: He I don't know. He must have caught ninety percent
Speaker 2: of the games. And honestly, I don't remember hardly ever
Speaker 2: shaking him off. I just went out there. He knew
Speaker 2: what I had, and he knew the hitters. I tried
Speaker 2: not to get too smart on the mound. A few
Speaker 2: times I shoot people off. He didn't work so but Billy,
Speaker 2: you know, unlike what you see today more, Bill sat
Speaker 2: right in the middle of the plate. He put his
Speaker 2: glove right in the middle of the plate. And John
Speaker 2: Say was our pitching coach, and he always said, you know,
Speaker 2: aim for the middle. You're gonna have a little movement
Speaker 2: on the ball and it might hit a corn. And
Speaker 2: you know I could when I came back, I came
Speaker 2: back with a really good change up A fellow named
Speaker 2: John GRODZIGGI actually out of the Saint Louis system back then.
Speaker 2: I think taught me this change up and that turned
Speaker 2: my whole career around. And Bill Freehan I he would
Speaker 2: just put down one finger or two fingers fastball curve.
Speaker 2: He never asked for the change up, and I could
Speaker 2: change up on my own and he could handle it.
Speaker 2: He just it's amazing that I didn't mess him up.
Speaker 2: He'd put down one and I could throw a change up,
Speaker 2: and I think that made that change up so much
Speaker 2: more effective because I wasn't out there shaking my head
Speaker 2: half the time. He should be in a Hall of Fame. Bill,
Speaker 2: He just eleven time All Star, great great catcher, good hitter,
Speaker 2: not great great hitter, not great power, but he did
Speaker 2: the job. And being out there every day and doing
Speaker 2: what he did with Danny McClain and Mickey Lolich and
Speaker 2: handling the young player, there's he should be there.
Speaker 1: Well. John I was fortunate to have you as a
Speaker 1: pitching coach one year when we were in Toledo together.
Speaker 1: But I remember some of the conversations we had about
Speaker 1: Johnny Sayin about attacking the hitters, going after him, getting
Speaker 1: first pitch strikes, using the breaking ball as your secondary pitches.
Speaker 1: What did you learn from him on the physical side,
Speaker 1: and then what did you learn from him from the
Speaker 1: mental side, because he was a guy that kind of
Speaker 1: pushed you at times.
Speaker 2: Yeah, on the physical side, he worked with me. I
Speaker 2: you know, I ended up with a uh you know,
Speaker 2: I could throw strikes and for some reason I couldn't
Speaker 2: make the ball sink. So he said, well, just throw
Speaker 2: cross seamers, and event I don't know why this happened,
Speaker 2: but my fastball would jump into a right hander. It
Speaker 2: was almost it didn't have the spin of a cutter,
Speaker 2: but it had the action of a cutter. And you know,
Speaker 2: I was throwing ninety ninety one. I guess Bill Freehand
Speaker 2: figured that's what it was. And so I wasn't overpowering,
Speaker 2: but that little bit a movement And Johnny saying always
Speaker 2: believed number one movement and number two location. He said,
Speaker 2: you know, if you make a bad location pitch and
Speaker 2: it's got a little movement, chances are he's not going
Speaker 2: to square it up. So that's what he preached. And
Speaker 2: psychologically he you know, he knew every picture. He got
Speaker 2: to know them personally, got to know their mentality, and
Speaker 2: he was just after a ballgame he had a bad ballgame.
Speaker 2: He'd just come by you and he'd say, well, you know,
Speaker 2: how's the family, how's everything else. We'll get him tomorrow. So,
Speaker 2: I mean, he'd been there, you know, many many times,
Speaker 2: and so he understood the philosophy I guess of the
Speaker 2: picture and the mind of a picture mindset, and you know,
Speaker 2: there was a lot of I remember playing and I'm
Speaker 2: not to knock Billy Martin because he got me back
Speaker 2: in the game. And I always thought on the field
Speaker 2: he was one of the better managers. But Billy had
Speaker 2: a thing. If you messed up for Billy, he'd go
Speaker 2: way around your locker the next day. He didn't want
Speaker 2: to look at you. He took all of that pretty personal.
Speaker 2: But I think that's just the fact that he wanted
Speaker 2: to win so badly he just to hate it to lose.
Speaker 1: Well, John, you had some health issues in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: one when you were twenty seven years old, and you
Speaker 1: came back in seventy two. But boy, in nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 1: everything clicked. Sixty five games, sixty finished, thirty eight saves.
Speaker 1: Everything was right back in. John Hiller on the mound
Speaker 1: one point four to four earn run average. You talked
Speaker 1: about bringing that change up and another pitch in your
Speaker 1: arsenal that really worked for you coming out of the bullpen.
Speaker 1: How did you feel that year and everything was consistent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I you know, it's hard to explain. There was
Speaker 2: no reason in the world. Really I was before that,
Speaker 2: I tigre very average major league pitcher, and then all
Speaker 2: of a sudden when I came back and said two
Speaker 2: we had two closers in the bullpen, Fred Sherman and
Speaker 2: oh Chuck Selboxer, I think that's what it was. And
Speaker 2: they both had some injuries, minor injuries, so I was
Speaker 2: pushed in right away. After my second game, I was
Speaker 2: a closer. So then going into seventy three, all I
Speaker 2: can figure is I was in the best shape of
Speaker 2: my life after the heart attack. And maybe your listeners,
Speaker 2: I'll go back a bit. Listeners would be a little
Speaker 2: bit maybe interested in this fact that we didn't go
Speaker 2: we didn't have rehab back then. Now, Bill, you know,
Speaker 2: you being a pitcher, you think about this. It was
Speaker 2: a year and a half that I didn't face a batter,
Speaker 2: and physical wise, I went from two hundred pounds down
Speaker 2: to one fifty. Had some infection after my surgery and
Speaker 2: then I would build myself back. And I joined the
Speaker 2: team about one sixty five, and all I did I
Speaker 2: was sort of a pitching coach and bring train and
Speaker 2: for my first manager, w Overmeyer, and I threw bat
Speaker 2: in practice to the hitters. That was the extent of
Speaker 2: my pitching. And all of a sudden, after I got
Speaker 2: clearance from practically President Johnson's cardiologists that I was able
Speaker 2: to go back and pitch, all of a sudden, I
Speaker 2: sign a contract. I go into a ballgame in Chicago,
Speaker 2: pitch three and then don't walk anybody. And then two
Speaker 2: days later I'm the closer. And so I don't know,
Speaker 2: you know, whether it's providence or whatever, somebody looking up
Speaker 2: for me. There was no reason, with my ability and
Speaker 2: such to go in there and save seventy three games
Speaker 2: and then finish with seventeen wins and seventy four.
Speaker 1: Phenomenal year. John That was just a phenomenal year, especially
Speaker 1: all the heartache you had trying to get back in
Speaker 1: the game. Your doctors are saying there's no way you're
Speaker 1: going to get back, and you kept pushing yourself, and
Speaker 1: you did a lot of that by yourself. How was
Speaker 1: it at times when you were sitting there all alone
Speaker 1: wondering if you were going to get back in a
Speaker 1: big leagues. That had to be a lot of mental
Speaker 1: stright stress for you.
Speaker 2: Probably in a way good year and a half because
Speaker 2: of I was working and I had a motive to
Speaker 2: do things other than that really bad I was. They
Speaker 2: had signed me, I said, like her a pitching coach.
Speaker 2: So I'm in Florida and I'm making seventy five hundred
Speaker 2: dollars a year, and that's nineteen seventy one, I mean,
Speaker 2: my goodness, seventy two, and so I'm sending whatever page
Speaker 2: I could have got back to the family. I had
Speaker 2: two kids at the time and a pregnant wife, and
Speaker 2: she had to move in with her family up in Minnesota,
Speaker 2: and I didn't. I didn't have a place to live
Speaker 2: in Florida. They put me in actually Billy Martin in
Speaker 2: the clubhouse, and that was so crawling with cockroaches that
Speaker 2: they finally put me into the minor league complex gave
Speaker 2: me a little room there, and I didn't. I saved
Speaker 2: by we got five dollars bill on the road, and
Speaker 2: so I would split that between two fifty at home
Speaker 2: and two fifty on the road because I sent my
Speaker 2: paycheck back and so I was living on two fifty
Speaker 2: a day back then, eating big bowls and porridge in
Speaker 2: the more oatmeal allid pordge in Canada, and I just
Speaker 2: sitting there and knowing at night, and my motivation was
Speaker 2: I had a family and I had to feed, take
Speaker 2: care of and hopefully have a future. And that was
Speaker 2: a motivation along with just give me a chance to
Speaker 2: get back and if I can't get any.
Speaker 1: Too, right, John, you had to get healthy, you had
Speaker 1: to get that mark back in shape, you had to
Speaker 1: get your legs back in shape. And the motivation was
Speaker 1: there for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that part was you know, that part started right
Speaker 2: shortly after my heart attack. I remember in in the
Speaker 2: Loop there was a YMCA I went to work out.
Speaker 2: It was thirty five laps to a mile. It was
Speaker 2: a track indoors went around the top of the gym,
Speaker 2: and I hated to run long distance. I just hated.
Speaker 2: I took two laps and fell down on my face.
Speaker 2: My legs are so bad. And I would get behind
Speaker 2: some runner and squint my eyes and just pixing myself
Speaker 2: in the mound. And that said, and they all did
Speaker 2: the other workout, started playing racquetball, which really helped. And
Speaker 2: you know, it took me six months and eight months
Speaker 2: and I just got in the best shape of my life.
Speaker 2: It's a shame I had to have a heart attack
Speaker 2: for a wake up call, because I was a bit
Speaker 2: of a lazy ball player back in the day.
Speaker 1: John Hiller joined me on the Extra Y postgame show.
Speaker 1: Tell me your thoughts when you got back on that hill,
Speaker 1: when you got back in Tiger Stadium, when you were
Speaker 1: back in the big leagues, everything that happened before that time,
Speaker 1: all like you said, run in laps, playing racquetball, believing
Speaker 1: that she could be back in a big leagues. How
Speaker 1: motivated were you when you walked on that hill back
Speaker 1: in the big leagues.
Speaker 2: Well, that first game in Chicago, I was scared to death.
Speaker 2: Uh what was nice? The Chicago fans gave me a
Speaker 2: standing ovation. Uh so they pretty You know, baseball fans
Speaker 2: are sports fans. They know the history of their players
Speaker 2: and what's going on in the world. So my first
Speaker 2: batter was Dick Allen, and he's standing there. Threw a fastball,
Speaker 2: he didn't offer at it. I threw a breaking ball,
Speaker 2: he didn't offer at it, and It was almost like
Speaker 2: he looked at me and he said, okay, young fellow,
Speaker 2: that's what you got to bring one of them, and
Speaker 2: he hit one. It's the hardest ball I ever had
Speaker 2: hit off me, other than my teammate Willie Harton later
Speaker 2: when he went to Seattle. But he almost cleared the
Speaker 2: fence and Commissy Park. There was a dent there and
Speaker 2: that dent stayed for the whole time that that stadium stood.
Speaker 1: But did you.
Speaker 2: Go and h and then to the game, Like I said,
Speaker 2: I pitched three and a Billy Martin was on the
Speaker 2: bench screaming. He's yelling here the guy came back from
Speaker 2: the dead. He can throw strikes. How come nobody else
Speaker 2: could throw strikes? And Bill free after the game he says,
Speaker 2: nice job, John, I says, Billy, Oh, I don't even
Speaker 2: remember what went on out there. I was just in
Speaker 2: a fog. And he says, well, you crossed me up
Speaker 2: five times. And I said, I said, Billy, you caught
Speaker 2: them all though, so my stuff mustn't be very good.
Speaker 1: Well, John, you know you talk about seventy three with
Speaker 1: a great year, and seventy four you came back. You
Speaker 1: made the American League All Star team. You were seventeen
Speaker 1: and fourteen that year, fifty nine games again, over one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty innings. Everything worked well for you, thirteen saves,
Speaker 1: fifty two games finished. What happened the second year after
Speaker 1: you had such a great year as a closer. How
Speaker 1: did you get in so many games and get so
Speaker 1: many damn wins?
Speaker 2: Well, I think first of that was we didn't have
Speaker 2: a great team. It was just Ralph Holt took over
Speaker 2: and we had a lot of young players, and we
Speaker 2: just I'm not sure what our record was. It was
Speaker 2: probably one of the worst though, And so I just
Speaker 2: I found myself into a lot of ball games, and
Speaker 2: I could pitch every day. You know, I watch nowadays
Speaker 2: when they talk he pitched two days he might not
Speaker 2: be available. Billy Martin had me in thirteen games in
Speaker 2: fifteen days at one time. I picked up eight saves
Speaker 2: in that period, which made my whole year all really,
Speaker 2: but I don't know, it just he kept I was
Speaker 2: in ballgames late. I might come in when we were
Speaker 2: down one or tied and we win a couple of games.
Speaker 2: Always came back still, And the reason one of the
Speaker 2: reasons I lost fourteen why I was about seventeen and
Speaker 2: nine or seventeen and eight, and Ralph Holt came to
Speaker 2: me with about a month left and he says, well,
Speaker 2: you know the team, we're gonna do personal stuff. And
Speaker 2: he says, John, I'm going to give you a chance
Speaker 2: to win some more ballgames because Elroy Face has a
Speaker 2: record major league record of eighteen wins out of the bullpen.
Speaker 2: So every tie ballgame I'm going to put you in. Well,
Speaker 2: every one of them I lost, So that's why I
Speaker 2: end up with fourteen losses. I number go ahead.
Speaker 1: More minutes, a few more minutes with John Hiller. John,
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about a couple hitters, one that
Speaker 1: you did really well against and one he got you
Speaker 1: a little bit. So let's go into the one that
Speaker 1: you pretty much dialed against, Reggie Jackson ten for forty
Speaker 1: seven at two thirteen off. You did really well against Reggie.
Speaker 1: Now he was a younger left hander. And then the
Speaker 1: other one was Greg Nettles. He got you pretty well.
Speaker 1: He was nineteen for fifty three. Two good left hand hitters.
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about both of them.
Speaker 2: Well, I think Reggie I with my stuff in the spot,
Speaker 2: see I in my career, I didn't have the change up,
Speaker 2: so it was against him. It was just fastballs and curveballs.
Speaker 2: Back to Johnny saying, he taught me this little slurve
Speaker 2: and that I could throw for a strike pretty often.
Speaker 2: So I just kept the ball away from him, and
Speaker 2: I just, you know, I didn't realize they even gave
Speaker 2: up ten hits to him. I remembered one. But Craig
Speaker 2: could go out over there with Greg mad Craig, there
Speaker 2: was Nettles, there was Rod Crew and George Brett, and
Speaker 2: they all could little left handers. They all had some
Speaker 2: power when they wanted it, but they could hit the
Speaker 2: ball the other way. And when I had to face
Speaker 2: a left hander that could go out and hit that
Speaker 2: outside pitch the other way, I had a problem with him.
Speaker 2: And I didn't throw any change ups to left handers.
Speaker 2: I don't know why. I just didn't probably have more.
Speaker 2: But there were three fellas. I didn't see them up
Speaker 2: to the plate. The tall I got a lot with
Speaker 2: the twins, so but it could take a big swing.
Speaker 2: I had a good opportunity of getting out, mainly because
Speaker 2: of the off speed stuff. Yeah, but the fellas that
Speaker 2: could punch the ball all around the field, I had
Speaker 2: a hard time with them.
Speaker 1: Just did well, John, As we finish up here, eighty
Speaker 1: seven wins in your career, one hundred and twenty five
Speaker 1: saves over fifteen years. When you remember this, what is
Speaker 1: one of the biggest memories you had in your major
Speaker 1: league career?
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. Well, the biggest memory is, you know,
Speaker 2: other than the World Series, and that's the obvious one.
Speaker 2: Is just that first day coming back after a year
Speaker 2: and a half what you know, what I went through
Speaker 2: and my family went through, and all of a sudden
Speaker 2: it was paying off. So we're back on the mound
Speaker 2: and the doctors that treated me and gave me the okay.
Speaker 2: So that game in itself a couple of personal games.
Speaker 2: Is playing against the Yankees, and I came into the
Speaker 2: ballgame with bases loaded and one out, and I'm not
Speaker 2: sure how that bad o caame, but then Bonds came
Speaker 2: up and Bonds used to I don't know, he used
Speaker 2: to yell at me when I was on the mountain.
Speaker 2: You don't have good stuff. So anyways, we're up by
Speaker 2: one bill it's three and two on the batter on
Speaker 2: Bonds and uh Billy puts down fastball and I said, no,
Speaker 2: he's sitting on fastball. So I threw a change up
Speaker 2: and he couldn't even swing at it. He just sort
Speaker 2: of stood there. He flicked and he's yelling at me
Speaker 2: all the way back. You can't throw that pitch. You
Speaker 2: can't throw that pitch. At that time, I'm smiling out there.
Speaker 2: I'm smiling out there.
Speaker 1: So the memories as pitchers, right, we got him, Yeah,
Speaker 1: just screaming at you. Most of them are screaming in
Speaker 1: the dugout after it. They're always at you. John. What
Speaker 1: a great career you had, and as I said earlier,
Speaker 1: it was a pleasure having you as a pitching coach.
Speaker 1: One year. We had a lot of good talks and
Speaker 1: a lot of good conversation and our friendship continued. John.
Speaker 1: But I just want to appreciate your time again today.
Speaker 2: Oh I really, I appreciate it and I'm glad to
Speaker 2: do it, Billy.
Speaker 1: That was John Hiller on the exter Ning postgame show.
Speaker 1: More coming up right here on K and B r
Speaker 1: D Sports Leader