Speaker 1: Showtime presents The Shot with Love, a special concert event
Speaker 1: inspired by the original series. Join us in Chicago's very
Speaker 1: own perform inspiring songs of strength and love. Sunday, seven
Speaker 1: sixth Central at the Shot with Love dot Com. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to a special Quarantine edition. We got a real
Speaker 1: special guest. What's up with your Brodie with the virtual handshake,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you something that I never told no back.
Speaker 1: I want to all the smoke. Welcome back to a
Speaker 1: special Quarantine edition to all the smoke. Um. Not too
Speaker 1: often do I fan out. I mean normally a run
Speaker 1: across everybody. I've seen everyone, I've I've had the fortune
Speaker 1: of meeting everybody. But our next guest Man. I grew
Speaker 1: up idolizing this dude. Man, so it's an honor for
Speaker 1: me to have him on our show today. Jack. What's
Speaker 1: happening with you out there in Atlanta? You play a
Speaker 1: metro bill here, your your wife, your WiFi was lacking
Speaker 1: a little bit. You you you cash you after metro bill? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm good, I'm good. I'm good now, I'm good now.
Speaker 1: Bro Weather kind of gloomy out here to day, but
Speaker 1: I guess something I'm excited about our guests. I'm ready
Speaker 1: to roll. We're gonna pick your energy up because it's
Speaker 1: sunny over here, in this sunny where he's at. Man,
Speaker 1: let's welcome the one and only Kim Griffey Jr. Man,
Speaker 1: Thank you for your time, no problem. How you guys doing?
Speaker 1: Where the real kid? The kid? The kid? So? How
Speaker 1: was a normal person? So you just turned fifty? Uh? Congratulations,
Speaker 1: happy belated obviously not just in November? You turned fifty?
Speaker 1: Should I just turned forty? Jack's on his way up
Speaker 1: there too. Um? How how is uh? How how is
Speaker 1: quarantine life treating you in the family? Uh? Quarantine life
Speaker 1: is okay? Uh? You know, I tell everybody this was
Speaker 1: my lifestyle from being nineteen to thirty five, you know,
Speaker 1: not being able to go places. Do I want to
Speaker 1: go to the mall? Do I want to go to
Speaker 1: the store? Do I need to pick this up? So
Speaker 1: for me, it's it's sitting at the house. I'm used
Speaker 1: to it. For everybody else, you know, it's tough. You know,
Speaker 1: you want your kids to be outside, you want them
Speaker 1: to do things, and you know it's tough. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know there's people out here dying and things like that.
Speaker 1: We just lost a friend of ours a couple of
Speaker 1: days ago. So it's been it's been tough so to
Speaker 1: hear that everybody. But you know, our job is, you know,
Speaker 1: we play ball. We go work home every now and
Speaker 1: then go out to eat out, uh, to a club
Speaker 1: every now and then, but it's mainly you know, I'm
Speaker 1: sitting at my house. No, I've enjoyed it. We we
Speaker 1: we spoke on this before. I mean, you know, Jack
Speaker 1: and I both we've been running around a lot with
Speaker 1: our post career and our jobs. So it's good to
Speaker 1: kind of sit back and be able to catch up
Speaker 1: and relax. We recharge your batteries. You know, it's unfortunate
Speaker 1: that this is the reason why we have to do it,
Speaker 1: but I just think overall it was good for everyone
Speaker 1: just to take a you know, take a step back
Speaker 1: and and and appreciate things baseball, trying to figure out
Speaker 1: the plan on how how to return what you're thinking
Speaker 1: about that. Like with all is going on, it's tougher
Speaker 1: for for smaller businesses. Big businesses, you know, they've got
Speaker 1: some leeway with some cash flow. Um, I think that
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to space people out what they talked
Speaker 1: about here in Florida is opening up at UM. Maybe
Speaker 1: you do that. UM, maybe it's the season ticket holders
Speaker 1: and you know a couple other people. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: how do you The biggest thing is, Okay, you've got
Speaker 1: a group of family of six with the next seating
Speaker 1: over for them. I think that's gonna be you know,
Speaker 1: some of the questions that's going to be asked. But
Speaker 1: I think it can be done. But it's got to
Speaker 1: be done safely. It's got to be done right because
Speaker 1: you definitely don't want to see it. I looked at
Speaker 1: today there was fifty plus thousand people who have passed
Speaker 1: in the US. You just don't want those numbers to multiply. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I think we can all do it, but we've
Speaker 1: got to do it in a safe way. But it's
Speaker 1: just gonna be like, literally, ain't nobody gonna be there,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? People think that, you know, athletes,
Speaker 1: they played for the money and things like that, to fame.
Speaker 1: We started this journey when they were just your mom
Speaker 1: and dad and brothers and sisters who went to the game.
Speaker 1: M in as you get older, there was more people,
Speaker 1: and then the student body when you get to college,
Speaker 1: and then you know the but the love for the
Speaker 1: game hasn't changed. And I think, you know, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be weird at first for the players because you know,
Speaker 1: we feed off of, you know, the fans. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: come in there, you know you already got a big game.
Speaker 1: So the first couple of weeks, I think it's gonna
Speaker 1: be real interesting because the guy is ready to go.
Speaker 1: I talked to Dee Gordon, looks right down the street
Speaker 1: from me, and he's ready to go. He's in the
Speaker 1: caves hitting, he's in there doing pool work. I'm over
Speaker 1: there looking at it like you're crazy because he already
Speaker 1: weighed like a hundred nine pounds. I tell him that
Speaker 1: he weigh I tell him he wastes food all the time.
Speaker 1: I'm like, dude, you can't gain no weight and he
Speaker 1: eats all day. But I think the guys are ready.
Speaker 1: I know that, you know, people are ready to see
Speaker 1: live entertainment. They're ready to see you know, basketball, football, baseball,
Speaker 1: you know, golf. I mean, they just want to be
Speaker 1: you know, they want to look at something other than
Speaker 1: what they've we've been watching on TV for the last
Speaker 1: a couple of months. I want to take us a second,
Speaker 1: real quick, can and explain your background. This is the
Speaker 1: best background we've ever had. And you told us a
Speaker 1: little backstory too, But can you please tell our fans
Speaker 1: what the backstory is and what we're looking at behind you. Well,
Speaker 1: I moved in my house. I had one gold glove. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, it was always the first one, and actually
Speaker 1: the first one isn't even in the display case. The
Speaker 1: first one is out where people can touch it. Um.
Speaker 1: And I had nine boxes. We moved twice and I
Speaker 1: never opened up any of the boxes. People like, man,
Speaker 1: you've got all these gold gloves. We're gonna do. So
Speaker 1: I leave for the season. I come back and you know,
Speaker 1: my wife and kids are like, yeah, we made it.
Speaker 1: We got to display thing. And I'm like, oh, okay, alright,
Speaker 1: I guess that I'm about to get a desk now.
Speaker 1: And I started looking around, like I got all this
Speaker 1: room because you know, for me, I'm not a display
Speaker 1: kind of person. Uh. You know, if you look at
Speaker 1: my closet, I got everything behind doors. Uh, it looked
Speaker 1: like just a wall. And she's like, you've got to
Speaker 1: display something. And you know, my mom and dad convinced everybody, hey,
Speaker 1: we gotta, you know, display, So I got my Dad's
Speaker 1: World series trophies over here. Uh. I got the Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame plaque that they gave me. I got two
Speaker 1: other gold gloves that are sitting there. But and then
Speaker 1: I got like a seven ft death with just a
Speaker 1: computer on it in the phone. It's one of those
Speaker 1: things that you know, as I got older, I started understanding,
Speaker 1: you know, my place in history and things like that. Um,
Speaker 1: it's still tough because you play the game, not for
Speaker 1: the accolades, but because you love it and the things happened.
Speaker 1: So I wasn't really one of those people that wanted
Speaker 1: to display. Like I said, I lived in the house
Speaker 1: and I only opened up the first one because I was,
Speaker 1: you know, happy, I had my silver slugger may be
Speaker 1: sitting right next to me. Uh. And now now I
Speaker 1: got full display. People coming here and go, okay, you
Speaker 1: you did all this. I like nah, I like, hell yeah,
Speaker 1: I did. Leave When you come into my house, I
Speaker 1: mean look, I say, look, they're going my silver sluggers
Speaker 1: up there, um, some other stuff, but I go my
Speaker 1: gold club there there. But for the most part, like
Speaker 1: I said, man, I try not to display a whole
Speaker 1: lot of things. Um, you know. And then my kids
Speaker 1: come over because they want to learn how to play
Speaker 1: with drones. So they took my drone. Um y'all know,
Speaker 1: y'all got kids too, so you know, they look at things,
Speaker 1: they'd be like, that's my I be like, I didn't
Speaker 1: even get a chance to unbox one of them, you know,
Speaker 1: I got the little start of one. I was like, cool.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, I go on a trip, and
Speaker 1: now it's flowing through my house, you know, And I
Speaker 1: don't even get mad. No, I don't even get mad
Speaker 1: no more. You know, I just sit there like, you know,
Speaker 1: especially now you know, with you know, everybody being on lockdown,
Speaker 1: and I just look at stuff that you know, things
Speaker 1: get broken the house. I'll be like this, okay, I'm yeah,
Speaker 1: Well they were playing My boys are playing football, so
Speaker 1: and I got one of those. Um My bed is
Speaker 1: ten ft wide, nine ft long. So my kids, my
Speaker 1: boys sit at the edge of the bed and want
Speaker 1: to jump and the other one to fake tackle him
Speaker 1: and hit his legs so he could do flips on
Speaker 1: the bed. Now, we used to do that as kids,
Speaker 1: you know, and my boys six and seventeen, they're doing it,
Speaker 1: and you know they're they're doing it. They're doing you know. Uh,
Speaker 1: even like two weeks ago, my my youngest, he's running
Speaker 1: up my wall. I got a padded wall. He's going
Speaker 1: back flips onto the bed and I'm still in bed,
Speaker 1: and my wife can She's in the closet and she's
Speaker 1: over there, like what are you doing. I'm like that,
Speaker 1: don't bother you out, like I know where he at hey,
Speaker 1: and I'm studied watching TV. At a point, you're just like, hey,
Speaker 1: he's been in this house for six weeks. He ain't
Speaker 1: seen nobody, his friends, nothing other than FaceTime. He has
Speaker 1: no contact with human other than the people in this house.
Speaker 1: You think he's going crazy. I said, Look, as an adult,
Speaker 1: we can understand that at a seventeen year old with
Speaker 1: hormones looking at me, Dad, break me out, Dad, break
Speaker 1: me up, and break me up. Basketball Hall of Fame class,
Speaker 1: you got Tim Duncan, Kevin Gardnett, Kobe Bryant. Some of
Speaker 1: your thoughts on that class. I know you're a big
Speaker 1: time basketball fan. It's an outstanding class. Um. You know.
Speaker 1: Tragic what happened to Kobe? Uh the speech. I was
Speaker 1: looking forward to Mr Fundamental speech for himself. I can't
Speaker 1: wait for Kate kg to go in there and say
Speaker 1: s something because he's gonna say something that everybody gonna
Speaker 1: star of laughing. Um, you know, Um, it's one of
Speaker 1: those things that you you know, it's gonna be so
Speaker 1: emotional throughout the ceremony. Um. You know, I was there,
Speaker 1: um a couple of years ago when they inducted Phil
Speaker 1: knighte uh. And you know the basketball and Baseball Hall
Speaker 1: of Fames are so much different. But you know, to
Speaker 1: be in a category where you know you're gonna live forever,
Speaker 1: it's pretty it's pretty special. And I can't you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, I can't. Uh, it's gonna be emotional
Speaker 1: for for all of us because, um, as great as
Speaker 1: m J is in basketball, my daughter is a die
Speaker 1: hard AI fan and Kobe fan. You can't say nothing wrong.
Speaker 1: And I started laughing because I'm like, you know, hey,
Speaker 1: they all learned from from Nah, not Kobe. I'm like
Speaker 1: what they're like. And this is when she was young,
Speaker 1: you know, having a girl, teenage girl. And the thing
Speaker 1: is her basketball coaches were Dee Brown and Antonio Davis.
Speaker 1: Growing up. He lived right down the street from us,
Speaker 1: and I was always saying, Mr Brown, how how's AI doing?
Speaker 1: And he was she was tough today. I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: because you know, growing up, as you know, when you
Speaker 1: have kids who dads are a professional athlete. The hardest
Speaker 1: thing for us to get through to other coaches that
Speaker 1: we are dads, but don't give us some of the
Speaker 1: bullshit that you can give everybody else. We don't. We
Speaker 1: already We've already gone through all that. So uh, you know,
Speaker 1: my kids were prepared as a you know early in
Speaker 1: life that hey, these things are gonna happen. But getting
Speaker 1: back to the Hall of Fame, it's going to be
Speaker 1: a very emotional week, uh for everybody because you know,
Speaker 1: that's one of the greatest competitors that whoever that ever lived.
Speaker 1: Do you have any uh personal story that comes to
Speaker 1: mind about or an opportunity or experience you got shared,
Speaker 1: not just you know. Uh. We actually took a family
Speaker 1: vacation and it was probably the best family vacation that
Speaker 1: I've ever taken. And we planned it that it was
Speaker 1: Lebron and Kobe for Christmas Day in l A and
Speaker 1: then from l A we were going to Hawaii. My
Speaker 1: kids have never been to Hawaii, so we're like, okay,
Speaker 1: we get to Hawaii. Um, but just being able to
Speaker 1: to go in there and say hi to him. My
Speaker 1: kids look at him like, you know, what did I
Speaker 1: want to say? He had that glow like the last dragon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so when they saw they were like looking at him. Uh.
Speaker 1: And we end up going to Hawaii, and halfway through Hawaii,
Speaker 1: my oldest goes, Dad, well, we're going to Seattle because
Speaker 1: I had to take a physical. It was a two
Speaker 1: thousand eight. He said, we're going to Seattle. Why don't
Speaker 1: we stop and go to the Rolls Bowl. We gotta.
Speaker 1: So we fly from l A, go to the Rolls Bowl,
Speaker 1: and then up to Seattle to watch Chris Johnson rush
Speaker 1: for two thousand yards. So in that nin ten day
Speaker 1: period we got to see some of the you know,
Speaker 1: a football game, a basketball game, and uh two football
Speaker 1: games in the basketball game, which was pretty incredible for
Speaker 1: for my kids and and me. I was like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, probably the best time I've ever had as
Speaker 1: a dad to be able to share these type of
Speaker 1: experiences and you know, for them to be thankful, because
Speaker 1: they still thank me to this day about, Hey, that
Speaker 1: was a great trip. No, I think that's amazing. That's
Speaker 1: that's the experience last last a lifetime. You know, I
Speaker 1: was fortunate enough my last three or four years playing
Speaker 1: where the twins were traveling with me everywhere. So my
Speaker 1: final year in Golden State, coach Kerve was so cool.
Speaker 1: He let them on the team playing. They were in
Speaker 1: the hotel with us, they were in shoot around with us,
Speaker 1: you know, shooting against k D during one of our
Speaker 1: Western Conference practices. So that's the kind of stuff that
Speaker 1: they'll never ever forget, and that, like I said, those
Speaker 1: are true proud dad moments where you're really just giving
Speaker 1: these kids like once in a lifetime, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of look at our lives. You're struggling. Hit in front
Speaker 1: of your dad, and then take us back to that
Speaker 1: senior the game, your senior year over two with two strikeouts.
Speaker 1: So I you know, I've had coaches throughout my high
Speaker 1: school career go, hey, tell your dad, he can't you
Speaker 1: what you can't play in front of them. You know,
Speaker 1: my mom and dad would be talking. My mom would go,
Speaker 1: you know he did this, and he would always ask
Speaker 1: my mom, is he really that damn good? Because every
Speaker 1: time I see him he can't hit nothing. So I
Speaker 1: was over too, with two strikeouts. He leaves, go to
Speaker 1: the ballpark, I drive down and he goes, hey, man,
Speaker 1: what you do? I said, I went three for five
Speaker 1: for two home rounds of the double. He you can't
Speaker 1: do that in front of me. I'm like, nah, So
Speaker 1: my very first hit in front of him as a pro.
Speaker 1: He was in in an RV and left center field
Speaker 1: behind the Monor League field, Like, and I got a hit.
Speaker 1: He opens the window and he goes, now, was that
Speaker 1: so damn bad? And he closes the window, like really bad?
Speaker 1: You just go on the first base like, yes, I
Speaker 1: got hitting like na doubt? So was the smooth? Was it?
Speaker 1: When did you start finally start feeling comfortable hitting around him?
Speaker 1: Right in and there, right when I understood that he
Speaker 1: just like everybody else, he's a fan, but he just
Speaker 1: my dad man. Number one overall pick by the Seattle Mariners.
Speaker 1: Talked to us about where sports came. You were a
Speaker 1: multitalented athlete, played several sports. When did you know baseball
Speaker 1: was your sport? Um? I knew baseball was always my sport.
Speaker 1: That's the thing in my household how he grew up
Speaker 1: is you're gonna play everything. Um. The only thing that
Speaker 1: my dad insisted on was that you knew of the
Speaker 1: rules where you started playing. Um. You know, he didn't
Speaker 1: quiz you on it, but you know, hey, if something happens,
Speaker 1: what do you do? Um? Or baseball it was easy
Speaker 1: because I was I grew up watching my dad. But
Speaker 1: basketball and football, UM, he wanted to make sure that
Speaker 1: I knew the rules and and you know, go out
Speaker 1: there and play as hard as I could. And you know,
Speaker 1: he didn't care about the wins and losses as a
Speaker 1: as a kid. It was more or less the effort
Speaker 1: that was given throughout the day. The key for me
Speaker 1: growing up, UH was it It was always about effort.
Speaker 1: You know, I can't control with four other guys do
Speaker 1: on the court, or I can't control you know, ten
Speaker 1: other guys on my football field, but I can control
Speaker 1: what I do. And uh, he would never ask me,
Speaker 1: you know, hey what do you do in the game?
Speaker 1: He hey, how did your team do? And then we
Speaker 1: would go on from there and probably about forty minutes
Speaker 1: into the conversation, he was like, hey, what do you
Speaker 1: need to work on? So it was always a constant work,
Speaker 1: uh kind and work throughout you know, my little league,
Speaker 1: my high school, even my pro days. UM. You know,
Speaker 1: the one thing that was constant is the phone call
Speaker 1: the talking. Um. You know, he's still you know, he's
Speaker 1: always he will always be my dad. Uh. And so
Speaker 1: he can't stop that. So even now I'm fifty and
Speaker 1: he's still telling me what to do, and I just
Speaker 1: look at him. I'm calling. But like back, I got
Speaker 1: this part of it. But now he's like, you know,
Speaker 1: he's like grandfather, so he thinks he can controls it.
Speaker 1: I'd like, look, man, you'll live here. Your mail coming
Speaker 1: to your my house with your name on it after
Speaker 1: you told me that when I was a kid. But
Speaker 1: it's it's beautiful to hear the relationship you and your
Speaker 1: father have because there's a fact and there's some stigma
Speaker 1: about you know, absent absent fathers in the black community
Speaker 1: and the households. And you were someone who got to
Speaker 1: have a father, having to make relationship with the father
Speaker 1: and not only do that, but play on the same
Speaker 1: team as your father. That was what that was like. Well,
Speaker 1: go back a little bit, um, I actually met my grandfather.
Speaker 1: When you talked about absentee parents, My grandfather and my
Speaker 1: grandmother got to force when my dad was too. I
Speaker 1: was nineteen years old and I was in the lobby
Speaker 1: and my grandfather showed up and I had no idea
Speaker 1: what he looked like. And I just looked over and
Speaker 1: I was like, man. And Harold Reynolds was with me,
Speaker 1: and I said, I think that's my grandfather. He goes,
Speaker 1: what I go, I've never met him, so Harold was like,
Speaker 1: let's go because he looked just like one of my uncles.
Speaker 1: So Harold introduced me to my grandfather for the first time.
Speaker 1: I was nineteen years old. Uh. So then I called
Speaker 1: my grandmother. I was like, hey, I just met She
Speaker 1: was like stay away from up. Was like, okay, cool
Speaker 1: because I've known you all my life. I just met
Speaker 1: this man. So what Grandma said that was the law.
Speaker 1: And the next time I saw him, I was twenty five. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, and then I had to get some stories
Speaker 1: from my dad. Um. He actually was really crazy. Is
Speaker 1: he went to high school and played baseball with Stam Usual,
Speaker 1: So they were high school teammates, and Stam would always say, hey,
Speaker 1: your grandfather was one of the best athletes I've ever
Speaker 1: played with. But getting back to my dad, everything that
Speaker 1: my grandfather did, he didn't want to make that same mistake.
Speaker 1: So as many games as he wanted to, you know
Speaker 1: that he could because he was still playing, so he
Speaker 1: would show up when he could, um, and he was like,
Speaker 1: this is the way it's supposed to be. So I
Speaker 1: learned from him, Hey, you got to show up to
Speaker 1: as many games as possible, because I was that kid
Speaker 1: who who you know, every Saturday, my dad's playing and
Speaker 1: they got all the dads there, and my dad's still
Speaker 1: not able to come unless we had that early game
Speaker 1: and they were at home. But he probably saw me
Speaker 1: thirty times from Little League until I turned pro. He
Speaker 1: did what he could. The money is, you know, the
Speaker 1: money is definitely different where you know you can charter
Speaker 1: playing home, uh and watch the kids and and be
Speaker 1: back in the same city in the same day. I
Speaker 1: mean I did it. You know, when I was in Cincinnati,
Speaker 1: my little guy and my oldest guy had game one
Speaker 1: in game two, so game one was seven thirty to
Speaker 1: eight thirty and nine o'clock to eleven. I jumped back
Speaker 1: on a plane at at eleven thirty twelve o'clock and
Speaker 1: be back in Cincinnati at one thirty and for a
Speaker 1: night game. And nobody knew what happened. But you know that,
Speaker 1: you know, the uh, just the learning of what my
Speaker 1: dad did help me, you know, try to be a
Speaker 1: better parent. Yes, yes, I love that. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of talk right now with Lebron James possibly being able
Speaker 1: to play with his son Brawny, and that would be
Speaker 1: in an amazing feat. As we mentioned earlier, you and
Speaker 1: your dad got a chance to play with each other. Uh.
Speaker 1: Actually the only father's son duel to hit back to
Speaker 1: back home runs, which is incredible. What was it like to, Okay,
Speaker 1: you're here now and then you've always grown up seeing
Speaker 1: your dad. Now you're playing with your dad. Although it
Speaker 1: wasn't very long, you still got a chance to do
Speaker 1: it and you you made some history. Uh in the process.
Speaker 1: What was that like? Dad was funny because um, when
Speaker 1: he got there, he said, hey, this is your team.
Speaker 1: This is your team. This is not my team. This
Speaker 1: is your team. You toss in the backyard. It's a
Speaker 1: little different now were in uniform and we actually getting
Speaker 1: paid for this, so it's different than the father and
Speaker 1: son games and things like that. He's in left. I'm right,
Speaker 1: but we had a beat. Whoever got the first hit
Speaker 1: the other one had to pay for dinner. But the
Speaker 1: other one had a chance to tie, so he bad
Speaker 1: a second, I bad a third. So he gets a single.
Speaker 1: But while he's while he's up at the plate, I
Speaker 1: yelled out, come on, Dad, get a hit. I turned around.
Speaker 1: Everybody in the dugouts laughing, and I go, what's so
Speaker 1: damn funny? They go, you know, that's the first time
Speaker 1: that it's been said, because you know, you get fossil,
Speaker 1: old man, Graybeard, you know, you get all these names.
Speaker 1: Come on, pops, you know, things like that. And I
Speaker 1: was like, come on, Dad, get a hit. And they
Speaker 1: were like, that's the first time. And then this history
Speaker 1: of this game that somebody actually said it and meant it.
Speaker 1: That was their daddy. So he gets a hit, and
Speaker 1: then I get a hit, and I was like, yes.
Speaker 1: So he actually hit three seventy seven the six weeks
Speaker 1: that he played with us, he led our team in hitting.
Speaker 1: I had three home runs. I keep laughing at him
Speaker 1: because you know, when they start him off at a fastball,
Speaker 1: they throw me a curveball. When they started him off
Speaker 1: with a curveball, they threw me the fastball. They never
Speaker 1: pitched us the same. But I learned a lot about
Speaker 1: hitting because this guy looked like I look like him.
Speaker 1: I watched him set up pitchers. I watched all the
Speaker 1: things that he did, and I said, for seventeen years
Speaker 1: that I lived in your house, I learned more about
Speaker 1: hitting in the six weeks hitting behind you. Then I
Speaker 1: would the things that every man has heard in their house.
Speaker 1: While you live in my house, you live by my rules. Well,
Speaker 1: my dad stayed with me. My my dad stayed with me.
Speaker 1: So I got to say it to my dad. His
Speaker 1: ass moved out. He was trying to hear, but yeah,
Speaker 1: we're going to uh, we're going to um Anaheim. And
Speaker 1: he hits a two run homer and he shakes my
Speaker 1: hand and he said, that's how you do his son.
Speaker 1: And I just turned around and looked at him like
Speaker 1: I can't believe you're just gonna and he goes and
Speaker 1: he goes. He watched my intensity change like, oh, I
Speaker 1: got to do this, and so I hit it out.
Speaker 1: I gave me a three oh pitch, I got the
Speaker 1: green light. I hit it out. I'm running around the base.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to shake his hand. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: sitting there like that. Yeah, I got him. Uh. He
Speaker 1: made me shake everybody's hand first before he shook mine.
Speaker 1: And then we sat. We sat next to each other
Speaker 1: and he said, uh, you know what we just did.
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, we went back to back, not understanding
Speaker 1: the magnitude of history, you know, him being thirty eight
Speaker 1: and me being twenty, not understanding any of that. I'm
Speaker 1: still in game mode. He's over there done. He don't
Speaker 1: switched out of game mode. He didn't thought about, you know,
Speaker 1: the Hall of Fame, you know what this means in
Speaker 1: baseball history. I'm still in you know, the third or
Speaker 1: fourth ending. I'm still right there. He's sitting there talking
Speaker 1: to me, and I'm like focused like they had, you know,
Speaker 1: just blah blah blah. And I didn't realize what it
Speaker 1: meant until I started passing guys on the home run chart,
Speaker 1: when I got to Frank Robinson and certain guys that
Speaker 1: now I understand what he felt like, because it was
Speaker 1: around the same age thirty eight that I'm started passing
Speaker 1: these guys on this chart. And I'm like, so, this
Speaker 1: is what my dad felt like, you know, eighteen years ago.
Speaker 1: And uh. I sat there for a second then, and
Speaker 1: I was playing right field at the time, and I
Speaker 1: just shook my head like, okay, now I get it. Now,
Speaker 1: I understand. Now now we're could So I called and
Speaker 1: I said, now, I understand, dad, but you feel twenty
Speaker 1: years ago, you know when I when we went back
Speaker 1: to back, he was like, it took you that damn
Speaker 1: long to realize it, you know, but I always got
Speaker 1: to be smart somewhere around. But now, but he he was,
Speaker 1: he was a teammate, which was great. Um, Brownie makes it.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be there with my dad. To be sitting
Speaker 1: in the stands, that's something that doesn't happen often, and
Speaker 1: you want to be a part of it. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we were just sitting there like and you know,
Speaker 1: we're trying to calculate. Okay, he's this age, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: He got three and a half years, four years before
Speaker 1: you you know, before you can play. And we're like,
Speaker 1: all right, if you stick around four years and he
Speaker 1: makes it, okay, we're gonna be there because it is special.
Speaker 1: It is special. It's it's it's one of those things.
Speaker 1: And you know, and I tell everybody, it's whether you
Speaker 1: play professional to be outside being able to play with
Speaker 1: your kids and still be healthy enough to play with
Speaker 1: your kids, that's the most important thing, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: people look at it. Oh you you're I mean The
Speaker 1: thing about this, my dad went through two strikes and
Speaker 1: a lockout before he could play with me. Now he
Speaker 1: had to stick around, you know, nineteen years and I
Speaker 1: had to get out of high school and play within
Speaker 1: a year and a half to be in the big
Speaker 1: leagues for this to happen. So there's a lot of
Speaker 1: factors that have to happen in baseball that you know football.
Speaker 1: And I don't think it's ever gonna be done. It
Speaker 1: can't be. But yeah, unless you have a baby at
Speaker 1: twelve and and you know, we work on it. I mean,
Speaker 1: but it was you know, he, like I said, he
Speaker 1: was a teammate, He didn't. He didn't treat me any
Speaker 1: differently other than the fact that we rode together, we
Speaker 1: went to lunch together, and he paid because I called
Speaker 1: him Mr. Provider. I didn't ask to be born in
Speaker 1: this world. Uh, just so happen. Yeah, And it's funny
Speaker 1: is my kids doing it to me? My son looking
Speaker 1: at me and trade six. I was like, y'all, Matt,
Speaker 1: you know, like, no, dad were having for dinners? Gonna
Speaker 1: be dead? Yeah, yeah, that's a good feeling. Though you
Speaker 1: played in the air, I couldn't imagine what you would
Speaker 1: have been like in a in a social media era
Speaker 1: with the way your style of play, your swing, the
Speaker 1: I mean, how good you were with this last dance. Now,
Speaker 1: we never got to see that backstory of Mike. He
Speaker 1: was like the one superstar that we uh you know
Speaker 1: as basketball fans every really got to see the other
Speaker 1: side of So with this last dance and the way,
Speaker 1: it's kind of pulling back the curtain on what things
Speaker 1: were like back there. What have you been taking away
Speaker 1: from this? Well, I've been sitting there with the kids
Speaker 1: and you know, my wife and we've been looking at
Speaker 1: each other and she would start laughing at but like,
Speaker 1: what are you laughing about? She goes, that sounds just
Speaker 1: like you. That intensity is you. I was like, no,
Speaker 1: I wasn't like that. She goes, oh yeah. The difference
Speaker 1: in in baseball that I'd said in other sports is
Speaker 1: baseball is the only sport where I can neutralize the
Speaker 1: best player. If I don't want him to play, I
Speaker 1: just stick out four fingers and he can go to
Speaker 1: first base. Like you tend to say, you know, you're
Speaker 1: hitting a round ball with a round back, square hand,
Speaker 1: eye coordination, other things. But I don't take anything away
Speaker 1: from anybody's other sport, whether it be football or basketball,
Speaker 1: because that's a whole lot of pounding that y'all do
Speaker 1: that people don't see. They don't see the elbows to
Speaker 1: the ribs, the shots that you guys take going to
Speaker 1: the whole, the guy's tackling and things like that. They
Speaker 1: see a good tackle, they understand that, but they don't
Speaker 1: understand what happens. Because everybody follows the ball, every sport
Speaker 1: follows the ball. They don't see everything else that goes on.
Speaker 1: But you know, I sit there and you know, for me,
Speaker 1: I just had surgery twelve weeks ago, to be twelve
Speaker 1: weeks tomorrow, shoulder surgery, UM, which was number twenty for me.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah. So when people say, hey, you should have
Speaker 1: played at this whatever, like now, I'm good. I'm happy
Speaker 1: where I right where I because I do see, you know,
Speaker 1: having a kid who played you know, high school, college
Speaker 1: and pro I see, you know, when he comes in
Speaker 1: Monday morning, how beat up he is. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I do see my my little guy who's a corner,
Speaker 1: what he looks like on Sutnurday, Sunday morning. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I do see, you know, and it's a little it's
Speaker 1: a whole lot different from girls basketball, the physicality from
Speaker 1: girls to boys and basketball wise. Uh, but I do
Speaker 1: see how sore my my daughter was playing, and I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm good. I don't want to be running that far.
Speaker 1: I don't want to do all that and I don't
Speaker 1: want nobody to hit me. I'm happy right where I'm at.
Speaker 1: You got throw me a three two slider either. I
Speaker 1: hate it. I don't. It's okay. But the intensity from
Speaker 1: you know, and I've known Mike for twenty plus years,
Speaker 1: you know, so a plus. Uh, but you've always heard
Speaker 1: about the intensity and how he was. Now you're seeing
Speaker 1: a little bit of it now. But you know the
Speaker 1: thing is that you start laughing because you see him
Speaker 1: now after playing owning a team. He still got that
Speaker 1: competitive edge, but he's just not uh as fiery that
Speaker 1: you saw back then because you're not playing, I mean
Speaker 1: thinking about it, we're all retired. We're sitting there like, yeah,
Speaker 1: some of that stuff don't even matter no more. We
Speaker 1: just sit there and twenty years ago we would have
Speaker 1: been a blue gasket see it. But the difference for
Speaker 1: me is, like, you know, my dad played baseball. He
Speaker 1: helped a lot of guys out. Um, so when we
Speaker 1: had a team fight, they was pushing me out, like
Speaker 1: just so along to you. We're just gonna have you play. So,
Speaker 1: I mean there's been plenty time Dave Parker grabbed me.
Speaker 1: We're fighting Oakland and Dave was like, now, I just
Speaker 1: don't gone back here soon. And they don't have nothing
Speaker 1: to do with this one. And I'm like, I want
Speaker 1: to get into it. They're like, this is the guys
Speaker 1: that need to get into it. You're gonna take You're
Speaker 1: gonna take our game to another level. And he knew
Speaker 1: at that, you know, And I'm like, well, he like,
Speaker 1: just shut your butt over there in this corner. A
Speaker 1: matter of fact, if I see you in this I'm
Speaker 1: a grabbing And I was like, man, I don't want
Speaker 1: him to grab me. Bide. Yeah he he, he did
Speaker 1: some things to me. Uh that wasn't fair. But but
Speaker 1: I mean that's the way thing. You know, you have
Speaker 1: certain guys, even though they played for another team, you
Speaker 1: know that that's the kid who who's going to elevate
Speaker 1: the game, and you try to take care of him
Speaker 1: and let him understand that, hey, you need to do X,
Speaker 1: Y and Z. So this game could get to the
Speaker 1: next level. You started a partnership with Nike, released a
Speaker 1: shoe in nineties six to me one of the best
Speaker 1: cross trainers, right up there with Dion's and and Bruce Smith's. Uh.
Speaker 1: Talked to us a little bit how that start and
Speaker 1: how that made you feel men to have your signature
Speaker 1: shoeing baseball, and that was kind of uncommon at the time.
Speaker 1: You know, you grow up. My dad was a Chuck
Speaker 1: Taylor fan Converse, so you know, growing up, and you know,
Speaker 1: he didn't have a contract. The funny thing is with
Speaker 1: the Reds you had it was only I think Johnny
Speaker 1: Bench was the only one who had a contract shoe contract,
Speaker 1: but he had that rawlings leather bottom, three spikes, uh.
Speaker 1: And he was like when he got to New York,
Speaker 1: he was able to get a contract. So he wanted
Speaker 1: Converse and we was like, nah, we want Nike, you know,
Speaker 1: we want Nike. He was like, nah, you know Magic
Speaker 1: and Bird my guy. So he signed with Converse. I
Speaker 1: would refuse to wear him. I just like, I ain't
Speaker 1: wearing him, you know. He was like that. Dad. It
Speaker 1: was like, oh, you're gonna wear these, you know, and
Speaker 1: the leather too. And at that time. You know, you're
Speaker 1: looking at seventy eighty so the leather, you know, I
Speaker 1: was like, I ain't wearing him. So I told my mom,
Speaker 1: I said, I'm gonna have my own shoe, and she,
Speaker 1: you know, like every other mom, Yeah you go ahead, baby, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know how that is. I wish you luck. And
Speaker 1: finally I got one, and uh, the first time they
Speaker 1: put it in my hand, I just stared at it.
Speaker 1: I just looked at it like, wow, this is happening.
Speaker 1: And I still have it. It's it's under lock and key.
Speaker 1: But it was just one of those moments. I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, you feel that you have arrived and say
Speaker 1: that you were going to do something and you did it,
Speaker 1: um not knowing how far it was gonna go. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, because you always want to leave the sport
Speaker 1: better than when it came in, better than when you
Speaker 1: came in. And you know, my dad not being able
Speaker 1: to have a shoe because they weren't. That wasn't popular then.
Speaker 1: Only basketball, you know, I tell everybody Basketball, it starts
Speaker 1: a whole lot of stuff. Basketball had hot tops. All
Speaker 1: of a sudden, Baseball got hot tops. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: football got hot top. Basketball went three quarter. Then everybody
Speaker 1: went through the three quarter, and then basketball started with
Speaker 1: the lows and now everybody got a speed sho even
Speaker 1: in uniforms that you know, you guys have have started
Speaker 1: the tight fit uniforms and everything else the back in
Speaker 1: the day, the teraraway jerseys, UM, just everything that you
Speaker 1: guys have done over the years. You know, other sports
Speaker 1: have followed marketing Basketball has wanted. You know, back I
Speaker 1: couldn't remember back in the day, it was fantastic. I
Speaker 1: couldn't wait to find out who said it, and you
Speaker 1: know that was the highlight. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, you know, basketball has done a
Speaker 1: lot for for culture, and you know, as other sports,
Speaker 1: we have to follow it because I think that you know,
Speaker 1: there's some some great minds in basketball, UM for marketing
Speaker 1: their players. You know, they don't have you know, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm six too, and I don't stay got like a
Speaker 1: sore thumb. You know, I can go somewhere. Somebody come
Speaker 1: in six five taller. You know, they're like, you know,
Speaker 1: they automatically think you play basketball or you do play UM.
Speaker 1: So I was able to to hide where. You know,
Speaker 1: basketball you can't UM football, you can hide because you
Speaker 1: had a helmet on. But you know, the promoting of
Speaker 1: the players. Uh, you guys have been on top, you
Speaker 1: know since day one. How do you promote your players
Speaker 1: is unbelievable job, day in and day out. Um, no matter.
Speaker 1: You know, if they're the best player on the team
Speaker 1: to the twelfth guy on the team. You know, Uh,
Speaker 1: they get in some airtime and people know who they are.
Speaker 1: I mean even in the city of Orlando. You know,
Speaker 1: they'll name, you know, seven guys off the top of
Speaker 1: the head and they'd be like, hey, we need to
Speaker 1: get rid of this. I feel like. But the only
Speaker 1: thing I don't like is uh for me to fantasy
Speaker 1: football and basketball and baseball, because you know, now you
Speaker 1: start rooting. You know, you have your team that you're
Speaker 1: playing for, and you're rooting against him because you've got
Speaker 1: a guy that's playing for this team. I'll be to
Speaker 1: have uh, you know, because I get in trouble because
Speaker 1: I was born outside of Pittsburgh and my entire family
Speaker 1: except like three people are die hard Stealer fans, and
Speaker 1: I get in trouble because I'm a Cowboy fan. But
Speaker 1: I grew up you know, my uncle went to high
Speaker 1: school with Tony Dorsett. So I went that way, like right,
Speaker 1: So he went to Tony door said he was like, hey,
Speaker 1: watch this kid. And I think I was like six
Speaker 1: and seven, and so I just started following him and
Speaker 1: I just became a cowboy fan. And and I don't
Speaker 1: know about you guys. How superstitious are you? Guys? I'm
Speaker 1: somewhat uncertain things, putting certain things on a certain way. Yeah, sacks,
Speaker 1: what are you? Oh No, I'm good, I'm good. I'm good.
Speaker 1: I'm not superstitious. Oh man, I got a I got
Speaker 1: a strong belief in God. So I leave it at that.
Speaker 1: I'm really superstitious to the point where I have I
Speaker 1: have traded in cars because I ain't get no hit in.
Speaker 1: I had one of my friends. Uh, that's crazy. I
Speaker 1: walk up to home plate the same way. You know.
Speaker 1: If I come in on the first day side, I
Speaker 1: walk straight in. If I come back, if we're on
Speaker 1: the third base side, I walked behind the umpire and
Speaker 1: come in through the first base side. Uh, three swipes
Speaker 1: clear out my area back dig in. So I don't Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I don't touch any lines. I don't run over
Speaker 1: the mound. I touched third base. I touched. When I
Speaker 1: run out on the field for the first time, I
Speaker 1: touched first base. If we're on the first bay side
Speaker 1: and third base on on the third bay side, you
Speaker 1: have a getting back to my my trading in car
Speaker 1: actually had one of my friends, he's from Cincinnati at
Speaker 1: the time. He actually drove one of my cars up,
Speaker 1: handed me the keys, and then drove back. So he
Speaker 1: drove twenty six hours just to give me a car.
Speaker 1: And I said, man, when you get it back, go
Speaker 1: ahead and get rid of it. Because the end I went,
Speaker 1: oh for levin in it. I couldn't do it. No,
Speaker 1: it can't be me, Like I said, it can't be me.
Speaker 1: It happened, damn car, no question. That wasn't routine. That
Speaker 1: wasn't routine. More the superstitious. Now because I drove the
Speaker 1: other car, it got a hit. You knew it, right,
Speaker 1: I car. What's different than baseball is you know you
Speaker 1: got your coming out in music at the beginning. That's
Speaker 1: it when they introduced youall one time, so we get
Speaker 1: it four times and depending on my mood swings. Uh
Speaker 1: was how I played my music. So you know it
Speaker 1: could be you know dmx n W A uh eminem
Speaker 1: uh had a little reik A in there mm hmmm
Speaker 1: with Kamali Morley. Uh but I just it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, being superstitious, and if a media person asked
Speaker 1: me the wrong question, I played my music that way
Speaker 1: so he could hear it, so he knew, you know,
Speaker 1: so he could hear what I was saying. He could
Speaker 1: feel you without you having to say it. I've had
Speaker 1: a couple of people. I had a couple of media
Speaker 1: come up to me, was like, um, hey man, uh
Speaker 1: was that song meant for somebody from like now what
Speaker 1: you're talking about? Because I got ripped for something I
Speaker 1: didn't do, but it is what it is. And uh
Speaker 1: so I played did you have? I am whatever you
Speaker 1: say I am. But the funniest thing I've done a
Speaker 1: couple of funny things I've done is J. Buner came
Speaker 1: up to hit and we had those phone hats and
Speaker 1: the big phone cowboy hats, and I played Bonanza when
Speaker 1: he came up and he put the bat between his
Speaker 1: legs and started jumping like this. That was one. And
Speaker 1: everybody knows uh um Bell tray that Uh well, he
Speaker 1: doesn't wear a cup playing third base. I don't know
Speaker 1: how you at third base you're not wearing a c
Speaker 1: So he got hit, so you know, he was out
Speaker 1: for six to eight weeks. He comes back. The first
Speaker 1: at bat that he came back, I had him played
Speaker 1: the nutcracker when he walked to play. But do you
Speaker 1: know how bad? How bad that to be out six
Speaker 1: to eight weeks from getting here? And that had to
Speaker 1: be Patty just like you, Matt, he Patty, just like you.
Speaker 1: I love hearing this. I would do the same kind
Speaker 1: of ship. And you know, I mean, we play a
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty two games and a hundred days, so
Speaker 1: so we're there every day. Now. Now, I had a
Speaker 1: guy Manzania, Jose Manzanilla. He got hit. Picture and he
Speaker 1: was down on the ground and Jeey Cors standing over
Speaker 1: top of him. You run on this field, you run
Speaker 1: the funk off the field. And he got up and
Speaker 1: ran and when at the end of the we came
Speaker 1: in at the end of the inning, he was like this,
Speaker 1: like he was swollen down there like that, and we
Speaker 1: started laughing. So he had to go. He had surgery.
Speaker 1: They had to sew it together. So he was out
Speaker 1: for like he was out for like two and a
Speaker 1: half three months. But we were all laughing because the runoff,
Speaker 1: he said, you run on the field, you run off,
Speaker 1: And then we got in the dugout were like we
Speaker 1: got in the training room, he was like, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I might have walked that one off. But know but
Speaker 1: you know what funny is that when when when you
Speaker 1: when you down, you know, the one thing in baseball
Speaker 1: is like they give you the all the teammates figuring
Speaker 1: you ain't doing nothing. So they give you like the
Speaker 1: lover's package has got feathers and glitter and all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff that they you know, because you're gonna be
Speaker 1: at home for a while, you might as look at
Speaker 1: re acquainted with with mama. Well, we couldn't do that
Speaker 1: with him. He wasn't able to do nothing. So we
Speaker 1: was over looking at him like, oh, we were looking
Speaker 1: at him like you can't do nothing. It's gonna be
Speaker 1: all right, but we're just gonna look at you like
Speaker 1: so I saw him, you know, we saw him. You know,
Speaker 1: he got back. We like you were in the cup
Speaker 1: and every then they start cup checking him making sure
Speaker 1: he wore one. I was like, come on, dog, I
Speaker 1: didn't wear one because to me, if I got hit
Speaker 1: from three feet, I deserve to get hit. You know
Speaker 1: if I if a ball bound three, you know it
Speaker 1: broke three, you know, three feet and I can't put
Speaker 1: glove on. I deserve. Yeah. Yeah, that's why I got
Speaker 1: all them. Yeah balls, they never balls. Balls, they never
Speaker 1: get touched. Got the globe. Talk to us a little
Speaker 1: bit about the creation of your commercials. Like one of
Speaker 1: my all time favorite commercials was was I Got It?
Speaker 1: Where you basically ran to California to catch you pop
Speaker 1: up from New York and threw it back in. Talk
Speaker 1: to how part you know, how how hands all were
Speaker 1: you in the creative process of those commercials. Well, they
Speaker 1: they already had the creative done for me. They just
Speaker 1: asked me that I want to do it, and I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I do it. Um. I actually ran
Speaker 1: across the bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge. I actually was in
Speaker 1: Times Square in full UNI running in between calves that
Speaker 1: ship though. Well, the funny thing is what's the liability
Speaker 1: of a team now would say absolutely not, He's not
Speaker 1: doing any of that question. There was a cornfield in
Speaker 1: the middle of l A that I ran through. Um.
Speaker 1: They had Little small Town, USA, which is in l A.
Speaker 1: And I ran through that. It was the wildest thing
Speaker 1: I mean, I spent five days running and we actually
Speaker 1: you know l a uh be a little known fact
Speaker 1: about that commercial. Vivica Fox was in that commercial. She
Speaker 1: was one of the extras in that commercial. Really, I
Speaker 1: think I never caught her that. That's one of your
Speaker 1: famous lines. Man, I got it, I got it, I
Speaker 1: got it, I got it, I got it. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: I say that now, But now it was. You know
Speaker 1: you know that nowadays is they try to figure out
Speaker 1: your personality. Um, and what can you do? My thing
Speaker 1: is I could I could play ball, man, I can
Speaker 1: help you sell shoes, because it's all about putting yourself
Speaker 1: in a position where people like you. Um, my dad
Speaker 1: wasn't a painting the ass, so I didn't have that
Speaker 1: problem of people thinking that I was going to be
Speaker 1: that person. Um. All the people that my dad has helped,
Speaker 1: they helped me. I mean from your Dave Winfield, Ricky Henderson,
Speaker 1: Kirby Pucket, uh, Chili Davis, Um, you know, Eddie Murray,
Speaker 1: all these guys when they came into my town where
Speaker 1: I was in their town. Hey, we're taking you to lunch,
Speaker 1: we want to pick your brain, we want you to
Speaker 1: be the guy. So I was basically groomed to be
Speaker 1: that guy at an early age, and I understood it.
Speaker 1: Even though I was still young, I understood certain things.
Speaker 1: I was still wanting to be a teenager. I still
Speaker 1: wanted to be a twenty year old. I mean, think
Speaker 1: about I was two years in the big leagues before
Speaker 1: I was allowed to go to a club. So by
Speaker 1: the time I was twenty one going to a club,
Speaker 1: I was like, I've already spent two years in the
Speaker 1: big leagues. I know what I need to do to
Speaker 1: stay here, and so I just learned that. You know,
Speaker 1: people like, well, you missed all the you know, you
Speaker 1: missed the college experience, you missed this, you missed that.
Speaker 1: But I tell people, no, I didn't miss that because
Speaker 1: here's where I wanted to be. I want to be
Speaker 1: in the big leagues. And you know that would have
Speaker 1: kept me off the pay roll for three, three more years,
Speaker 1: four more years, because you've been three years in college
Speaker 1: before you get drafted. And then you know, unless you
Speaker 1: that monster uh coming out of college, which very seldom
Speaker 1: that you have a position player, they still want you
Speaker 1: to go from looming it back to wood bats. So
Speaker 1: they want to see you know, throwing, having a guy
Speaker 1: throwing hundred. He ain't gonna spend much time in the
Speaker 1: Mount of Leagus, but they want to see guys that
Speaker 1: that you know, performed day in and day out with
Speaker 1: a wooden bat. So um, yeah, but it was you know,
Speaker 1: it's a learning curve for you know, from you guys
Speaker 1: from the college to to to pro ball, from high
Speaker 1: school to you know, pro ball, I mean, and you
Speaker 1: just have to have you know. I think the thing
Speaker 1: that we're missing as a group is the mentorship that
Speaker 1: people people want and need. Uh. People think that they
Speaker 1: could do it all by themselves. No, they can, you know,
Speaker 1: and the getting into the mentorship now. But the the
Speaker 1: mentorship is for me the most important thing because everybody
Speaker 1: can you know, you can shoot, you can run, you
Speaker 1: can dunk, you can you know, pass the ball. But
Speaker 1: it ain't about what you do on the field. That's
Speaker 1: important is how you carry yourself off the field, because basketball, football,
Speaker 1: and baseball that's going in. What can you do after?
Speaker 1: You know, what kind of what do you want to
Speaker 1: do with your life after I played twenty years as
Speaker 1: a pro, which is half my life, so half my
Speaker 1: life I'm not a pro. What do I want to do? Um,
Speaker 1: I've been fortunate enough to to get in a couple
Speaker 1: of businesses and try to move forward from that. I
Speaker 1: think it's amazing because I think we speak on it
Speaker 1: today that there's the league is so young now, particularly
Speaker 1: the NBA, that there's no veteran leaders anymore, and you know,
Speaker 1: to hear that your dad kind of did so much
Speaker 1: for other guys. He was one of those true back
Speaker 1: in the day, let me help you avoid the potholes.
Speaker 1: And it's seldom you find that anymore. Your dad had
Speaker 1: a very long successful career, um, you know, All Stars,
Speaker 1: one true World Series. What was it like as a
Speaker 1: child growing up with the dad that was a successful
Speaker 1: professional athlete? He was it reciprocated, you know. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: I tell you what's funny about that is, I didn't
Speaker 1: realize who my dad was until like I was in
Speaker 1: eighth grade. I had like a New York Yankee starter
Speaker 1: jacket on, and I was at school when somebody said,
Speaker 1: where'd you get dad? I was like my dad? He
Speaker 1: was like, what, your dad plays for the Yankees? I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah. He didn't come home and project that
Speaker 1: he was this baseball player, and he just was dad. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, when he came in the house. I didn't
Speaker 1: know if he went over for four for four, um,
Speaker 1: but the things that you know he taught me was,
Speaker 1: you know, number one, you work hard. There's other people involved.
Speaker 1: They're going to help you. Take the information that is
Speaker 1: given to you and apply it to your game. If
Speaker 1: it works, it works, If it doesn't, then you can
Speaker 1: talk about it that person. Talk with it, talk with it,
Speaker 1: talk to that person about it. Um. That's the hard
Speaker 1: thing is now you've got guys that don't want to listen.
Speaker 1: They think they know, and I'm like, dude, you I
Speaker 1: had an argument with the catcher one year and he
Speaker 1: was like, I see the ball so perfect. I said, dude,
Speaker 1: then why are you batting up up ninety? If you're
Speaker 1: seeing the ball that great and we're in we're in
Speaker 1: high A, you ain't gonna make it because there are
Speaker 1: certain things that you are not doing. I'm here to
Speaker 1: help you. And I told him, I said, look my
Speaker 1: speech that's coming in and at the time of yeah,
Speaker 1: so five years from now, two thousand sixteen, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna mention your name that I helped you. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to help you. I'm not trying to hurt you. And
Speaker 1: I think that's where people you know, Uh, Cincinnati did
Speaker 1: the same thing for a while. They didn't allow the
Speaker 1: guys to show up, so you know, you couldn't see
Speaker 1: you know, my dad couldn't show up. My dad could
Speaker 1: you up because he worked for the team. But Johnny
Speaker 1: Bench wasn't there a live Joe Morrigan, Chuck Harmon sr.
Speaker 1: These guys that that paved the way for for athletes
Speaker 1: today who have seen baseball for thirty forty fifty years
Speaker 1: were not allowed to be seen in the locker room
Speaker 1: to help the guys, and we needed those guys. So
Speaker 1: when you go into a locker room, you're not going
Speaker 1: to a locker room representing yourself. You rob him. You're
Speaker 1: you're wanting to help a younger kid, you know, make
Speaker 1: as much money as he can, but also talk to
Speaker 1: him about life situations where they don't get caught up
Speaker 1: in some of the bs that people and caught up in.
Speaker 1: And so we get you know, from me, fortunate that
Speaker 1: I worked for the Mariners and they allow me to
Speaker 1: do that. I come in, we have conversations. My phone
Speaker 1: doesn't stop ringing until you know, one to three o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning. Sometimes the guys, the young kids want
Speaker 1: to just talk about sports that came. You know. The
Speaker 1: biggest thing is how come I don't show up more.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm there five times a year. It's like,
Speaker 1: we need you more, we need to see you more.
Speaker 1: I'm like, you can call me, we can FaceTime. We
Speaker 1: want you to be here. So, uh, you know. So
Speaker 1: I think that's the thing is trying to get these
Speaker 1: young kids to understand that, yeah, it may be basketball,
Speaker 1: but there are other things. This game is gonna continue
Speaker 1: to go on with or without you. Just you know,
Speaker 1: go out there, do the right thing. You know, every day,
Speaker 1: go out there and work your butt off, but do
Speaker 1: the right thing. You have to ask yourself, what is
Speaker 1: it gonna cost me off the field? You know, good question,
Speaker 1: you know that's the key. What does it go? How
Speaker 1: much its gonna cost me? It may not cost me
Speaker 1: any money because that, but it could cost me, you
Speaker 1: know later on being able to to to have that
Speaker 1: that sponsorship job, you know, promoting a product. And I
Speaker 1: think people don't look at they look at what's now
Speaker 1: instead of what I want when I'm not playing this game,
Speaker 1: because that money. You know, what, what's the rookie minimum.
Speaker 1: I know, it's like five thirty five for baseball or
Speaker 1: five maybe six D for baseball, but it's up higher
Speaker 1: for the NBA. You're not gonna make that at a
Speaker 1: regular job, so you're spending kant overpower that. So you
Speaker 1: gotta learned a lot of things, you know, and and
Speaker 1: basketball is being part of it. But how much money
Speaker 1: do I want to keep? Where are my goals when
Speaker 1: I'm not playing? How do I want to continue to
Speaker 1: generate revenue and what we call it generational wealth, but
Speaker 1: also continuing to be able to live the lifestyle you
Speaker 1: live now, you know, I mean the lifestyle you were
Speaker 1: accustomed to in the pros as far as just your amenities.
Speaker 1: You know, you have to start planning for that so
Speaker 1: you can still be comfortable once you're done. And I
Speaker 1: think that a lot of people, a lot of people
Speaker 1: missed that boat. A lot of people miss that boat.
Speaker 1: Is unfortunate because you work your ass off. We're put
Speaker 1: here as athletes. That's what we've learned. That's what we're from,
Speaker 1: you know, since we were little. So once once that
Speaker 1: over that, that what next starts to creep in, Like
Speaker 1: you said, so you have to keep all that in mind.
Speaker 1: And Jack and I have been lucky fortunate because we
Speaker 1: we're guys who've made multiple mistakes. But I think we
Speaker 1: stayed true to ourselves and we we we've apologized when
Speaker 1: needed to, but have always been real and authentic and
Speaker 1: we've been able to although we hit some major potholes, Um,
Speaker 1: we've been able to transfer over into this next space
Speaker 1: of you know, analyzing and kind of talking for a living.
Speaker 1: But we learned a lot along the way, and that's
Speaker 1: what we try to do. We try to motivate people.
Speaker 1: You know, some people have a clearer path than others,
Speaker 1: but you can still do it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: But you always want to keep that big picture in
Speaker 1: mind because, like you said, your career is gonna come
Speaker 1: to an end. Like what is gonna be next? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's you know, you guys have done an
Speaker 1: unbelievable job of you know, I you know, we were
Speaker 1: supposed to hook up man when you were here about
Speaker 1: doing a bowling tournament, and yeah, I was gonna beat
Speaker 1: you by the way I look at it, throwing something.
Speaker 1: I gotta get in that. I gotta get in that.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of nice with bowling. I gotta get in that.
Speaker 1: Uh well, um, I'm gonna just let you all know.
Speaker 1: You know, I built my house with a bowling out
Speaker 1: in it, so we don't stand in the chance. What shop,
Speaker 1: what's you ship? We'll just hey, we'll just come to
Speaker 1: your house and play then and then go to Vince's
Speaker 1: house and play something. You know, play something else too. Yeah, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's okay. Th that's that's your sport. I'm not into
Speaker 1: that one. Like I know my limits. But I tell
Speaker 1: you know, Actually, what's funny is when the kids left
Speaker 1: for college, I end up getting rid of it. Like
Speaker 1: you know, I was like, I'm not here, nobody's bowling.
Speaker 1: So I made it a man cave. So I put
Speaker 1: you know, the ping pong table, the pool table, put
Speaker 1: at DJ booth because I want to learn how to
Speaker 1: be a DJ. I try to pick things. I try
Speaker 1: to pick things, you know, every year to keep every
Speaker 1: other year or every three years too, just to keep going. Um.
Speaker 1: In two thousand, I learned Scooba dive. Um oh six.
Speaker 1: I took flying lessons, so I learned to fly so
Speaker 1: I can fly my own plane. I figured that. I
Speaker 1: figured that my kids were going to go to school,
Speaker 1: and like somewhere in Florida and I could fly down
Speaker 1: to see him and then fly back. Now, my kids
Speaker 1: decided they want to go to Arizona, and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but my little guys, he's he's going to family. He's
Speaker 1: gonna go to family. So we're looking for Yeah, well
Speaker 1: he he's always said he wanted home school, college. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he didn't want to go far. An't want to leave.
Speaker 1: I ain't at it now. I just keep telling if
Speaker 1: I could move in with my mom, I would too,
Speaker 1: you know, becauld nobody cook like mom. You know I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make him pay room and board. So you're the
Speaker 1: overall number one pick. Uh in nineteen eighties seven Uh
Speaker 1: spent two years in the monor leagues. Make your major
Speaker 1: league debut. Tell us what that process was? Life was
Speaker 1: finally getting there. You've been around it your whole life. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know you obviously picked it up. You you you
Speaker 1: knew this was your sport. You're finally there. What was
Speaker 1: that feeling? Like they called a couple of days before
Speaker 1: the draft, and you know, they were like, we're gonna
Speaker 1: draft you, or we're gonna draft a college picture, which
Speaker 1: was my car key. I kept saying, okay, and finally
Speaker 1: they go, we want to make you our number one pick.
Speaker 1: Do you are you gonna sign? And my dad said, uh.
Speaker 1: He looks at me and goes, hey, they want to
Speaker 1: make you the number one pick. But you could say
Speaker 1: no and you can go to seven six seven. I
Speaker 1: think the Reds were Reds in Atlanta were like within
Speaker 1: the first eleven and I said, now I want to
Speaker 1: be the number one pick. And he looked at me.
Speaker 1: I was like, I want to be number one, and
Speaker 1: he said, we're gonna sign. So the the draft was
Speaker 1: actually June two, so I signed a contract. June three
Speaker 1: was my brother's birthday. June four, I was graduated high school.
Speaker 1: June eight. I was in Seattle. June six. I played
Speaker 1: my first game as a pro um and never had
Speaker 1: a summer off until two thousand ten. So from to
Speaker 1: two thousand and ten, you know, everybody, you know, I
Speaker 1: see all my friends who play other sports. They you know,
Speaker 1: they in Hawaii, They and the Bahamas, they over here
Speaker 1: in the summer. I get home, it's the it's raining
Speaker 1: in Seattle, um and you know, but it is what
Speaker 1: it is. I mean, I got you know, Christmas, you
Speaker 1: guys are playing Christmas. I'm at home in my pajamas
Speaker 1: and open up present, you know. So it's the trade off. Um,
Speaker 1: but the downfall is kids are in school, so you
Speaker 1: can't take them out where you guys have summers off
Speaker 1: and you can go on vacation and things like that,
Speaker 1: or at least part of it, because if you make
Speaker 1: the playoffs with it is at the end of June
Speaker 1: that it's over. Yeah. Yeah, so you've got one month
Speaker 1: of you know, before it starts. Yeah. And uh so
Speaker 1: for us, you know, I'm there February till October. So
Speaker 1: my kids don't, you know, don't get a chance to
Speaker 1: to go on vacation unless it's the wintertime. But it's okay,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a little bit of trade on. But
Speaker 1: being a being a baseball player, and like I said,
Speaker 1: having a dad who played, I understood how to play
Speaker 1: baseball at an early age, just like your kids know
Speaker 1: how to play basketball at an earlier age. So what
Speaker 1: you learned along the way, you're giving them that information
Speaker 1: when they can handle it. You're not gonna give it
Speaker 1: to them before then. So at age fourteen, I knew
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a pro ball player. At age fourteen, defensively,
Speaker 1: I could have played in the big leagues. Now. Offensively,
Speaker 1: you know, but defensively you know, you're I'm going to
Speaker 1: spring training. The guys are hitting major league pop ups
Speaker 1: and fly balls. I'm chasing them down. So defensively, already
Speaker 1: knew I could play here. Um, offensively with a different story. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, you gotta learn to go from in living
Speaker 1: a back to wood back and that takes some adjustment.
Speaker 1: But defensively, I was like, I can do this. Did
Speaker 1: you eat catfish while you use the seattle? No, see,
Speaker 1: I'm allergic to fish. It was my family got a
Speaker 1: spot called Catfish Corner Seattle. Look, I'll go there, but
Speaker 1: i'll get it for the guys. I'm allergic. The craziest
Speaker 1: thing is when we talk about I can eat shellfish,
Speaker 1: I can eat shrimp, lobster, crab, but can't eat regular fish. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's that's the opposite my mom. My mom did say
Speaker 1: I was abnormal and certain things. That was she said
Speaker 1: you were not normal. A lot of black man come on.
Speaker 1: But no, we just uh my kids love catfish. Um,
Speaker 1: they usually cook fish and stuff. When I'm not home.
Speaker 1: They wait, you know, to for me to get out
Speaker 1: of the house. So my little guys are he's a
Speaker 1: rich snapper guy. I don't know how. Yeah, I love
Speaker 1: red fish is the best fish. Yeah. I just sit
Speaker 1: there like I have a boat that we go to
Speaker 1: the Bahamas and we just catch fish. And I'm the
Speaker 1: one sitting in there, uh, in the middle, and I
Speaker 1: let my boys, you know, catch fish. I mean we
Speaker 1: had one time we caught two hundred pounds of mahi mahi.
Speaker 1: Uh a lot of fish. M hm. So you were
Speaker 1: All Star selection from nine to two thousand ten, ten
Speaker 1: straight All Star appearances. What was that like your first
Speaker 1: few All Star games and getting to play with, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously the best players in the world, and you're arguably
Speaker 1: one of the best. The first couple, I was so
Speaker 1: nervous that I was like, oh lord, I don't even
Speaker 1: know what I want to do. Uh. Um, first one
Speaker 1: in Chicago, I didn't think I left the hotel room.
Speaker 1: Everybody's like, hey, you gotta do this, you gotta do that.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I ain't going nowhere. I'm just gonna sit
Speaker 1: here and not waste all this energy. Um. I didn't
Speaker 1: home run Derby as that were you twenty at the
Speaker 1: time of your first All Star parents and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: so it was nerve racking, like you know, being a
Speaker 1: young guy. And here's what we talk about the pitfalls is,
Speaker 1: you know, people pulling at you left and right and
Speaker 1: not knowing who to trust. And uh so, you know,
Speaker 1: I was like pulling this direction, pulling in this direction,
Speaker 1: and finally I was like, you know what, I've gotta do.
Speaker 1: What I've gotta do. And playing baseball was it. But
Speaker 1: going to the All Star Game, You're like, you're looking
Speaker 1: around my first one, I'm like, I don't even belong here.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at all these guys, these guys that got
Speaker 1: bugs Bunny numbers, they hitting three thirty at All Star Break,
Speaker 1: they got twenty five jacks, they got seventy five three,
Speaker 1: And I'm over there looking at them like I'm over here, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm hitting two eighty. I got like seven home. You know,
Speaker 1: you just don't. And after a while you start to
Speaker 1: understand that, oh, I could play with these guys, and
Speaker 1: I'm better than these guys. And I knew that, you know, um,
Speaker 1: you know, it was an opportunity for show, for me
Speaker 1: to show that I can't play at a high level
Speaker 1: and I can play with the best players. If this
Speaker 1: is the All Star team. I deserve to be here.
Speaker 1: So my second year I got a couple of hits,
Speaker 1: and the third time I was at the All Star Game,
Speaker 1: which was I end up winning. Then m v P.
Speaker 1: From that point on it was like, oh, you could play.
Speaker 1: Everybody's gonna be looking at you, and I knew it.
Speaker 1: But again, I've had guys who were molding me to
Speaker 1: be that guy who made sure that hey, this is
Speaker 1: this is the guy, this is the kids. He's got
Speaker 1: old school beliefs, but he got a new school swag.
Speaker 1: You know, people talking about my hat backers will only
Speaker 1: won my hat packers because my dad's Hey, it was
Speaker 1: too big. He had a throw and the hat kept
Speaker 1: hitting me here, so I turned around. I just wanted
Speaker 1: to wear when my dad wore. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: be different. But the long pan George Hendrick started that,
Speaker 1: but George History played mid eighties. I came in at
Speaker 1: the end early nineties. It was like, okay, Bill buck
Speaker 1: Meyer wore the first hot tops. Well then everybody wanted
Speaker 1: to wear hot tops, but it was only cool if
Speaker 1: somebody that they could relate to warm you came in
Speaker 1: and I just left the perfect storm. I was a
Speaker 1: young kid who you know, not much older than most
Speaker 1: of the kids out of high school. I mean in
Speaker 1: high school, you know, so they could relate to me.
Speaker 1: So it was easy. You know, I wanted to be different.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be that guy. I mean, you know
Speaker 1: the mock turtleneck. Now everybody got mock turtlenecks. You know.
Speaker 1: I wanted to you know, the you know, the carbon
Speaker 1: fiber body suit. Nike actually built me one. It was
Speaker 1: ninety grandly a body suit. Yeah, carbon fiber from the
Speaker 1: elbow and knees down. You know. So having having a
Speaker 1: perfect swing helps the man. The prettiest swing ever, just
Speaker 1: a little slap hitter. Just try to make contact, not
Speaker 1: to sure nobody. I tell everybody, I try to enforce
Speaker 1: as much damage as possible. And that was the thing.
Speaker 1: But I don't have to throw my helmet, I don't
Speaker 1: have to break anything. I just got to go out
Speaker 1: there and play. You know. The hardest thing, you know,
Speaker 1: people to understand is, you know, people get mad, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, you don't have to get mad. You know
Speaker 1: what happened. Either you do what you don't you can
Speaker 1: learn from it, and we only get forward bad. So
Speaker 1: if I hit the ball hard, I can't get mad
Speaker 1: at the guys trying to make if he makes a
Speaker 1: great play. I can get mad at me if I
Speaker 1: swing and miss, and you know he fooled me and
Speaker 1: I wasn't prepared. I tell everybody I'm more prepared than
Speaker 1: most people. And they're like, sometimes you do on even
Speaker 1: care who's pitching. I was like, because I could care
Speaker 1: less who's pitching. I know what I need to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're you know. You know he has to throw it
Speaker 1: across the plate, whether it's right hand or left handed.
Speaker 1: You know that it's going to break one direction another.
Speaker 1: So you know his strength, you know his weaknesses. You
Speaker 1: know he's his strengths are you know if something's got
Speaker 1: a FOURK ball hits his out pitch, well, he's not
Speaker 1: gonna throw it to you the very first pitch, so
Speaker 1: I can eliminate that pitch. He's not gonna come in
Speaker 1: through his his out pitch on the first pitch. Now,
Speaker 1: if he throws it again, I've already seen it. He's
Speaker 1: gonna wait till I get two strikes. That's why they
Speaker 1: called it an out pitch. Now, if you got an
Speaker 1: overpowering fastball, all right, you just gotta change your sites
Speaker 1: to hit it more towards left center than the center. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's real simple, but you know that where everybody makes
Speaker 1: it hard, especially now with the lonch ankle. I'm like
Speaker 1: a lone ankle. So a pop up is okay and
Speaker 1: the strikeout is okay. Well back then, I mean, and
Speaker 1: you guys, knowing basketball guys shoot forty times his percentage
Speaker 1: is y'all looking at him like he's crazy. You gotta
Speaker 1: look at you. Yeah, yeah, you gotta look you know.
Speaker 1: And I tell everybody that that look from your peers
Speaker 1: is more damaging than anybody when anybody can write in
Speaker 1: the paper, because you know, when you get taken out
Speaker 1: the game and all your peers do this to you,
Speaker 1: that's right, the right that right there, because then you know,
Speaker 1: I tell everybody, when you go in that locker room,
Speaker 1: they know who who who balling and who ain't. But
Speaker 1: you know, for that lean, you know, I mean that
Speaker 1: right there hurt me more than you know what anybody
Speaker 1: can write in the paper or what anybody can say,
Speaker 1: because this is my group, right so you know nowadays
Speaker 1: they tacked on, but hey, good job, Yeah you scored
Speaker 1: twenty three, but just shot seventy five times Okay, you
Speaker 1: carried the ball a hundred and fifty times and you
Speaker 1: got two hundred yards. So you're still looking at people. No,
Speaker 1: that ain't gonna work. You know, we sit there and
Speaker 1: start laughing because no, we still you know, we start
Speaker 1: laughing because it has changed. But then where they say
Speaker 1: we wanted the old way, when you know it's physical
Speaker 1: basketball or physical baseball or physical football. When it's playoff time,
Speaker 1: you can't have both. In ninety four, at the age
Speaker 1: of you would hit forty home runs through a hundred
Speaker 1: eleven games. You gotta strike that season? Did that sixty
Speaker 1: one mark? Um creeping your mind at all? Knowing what
Speaker 1: kind of pace you're on, and you know how many
Speaker 1: more games you had to possibly get it? No, I
Speaker 1: actually had no, uh, because I don't. To me, I
Speaker 1: never thought of myself as a home run hitter. I
Speaker 1: thought of myself as a line drive hitter that happens
Speaker 1: to hit home runs. Um, you know, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to hit the ball as hard as I couldn't and
Speaker 1: hit it somewhere and if it went out, it went out.
Speaker 1: If it didn't, it didn't. But as long as it
Speaker 1: touched out, Phael grass I was happy. But but you know,
Speaker 1: but that's what draws, you know. And in all sports,
Speaker 1: that's what draws people are the numbers, you know. And
Speaker 1: and sometimes I tell people numbers lie, numbers lie all
Speaker 1: the time. Yeah I've seen something. Yeah, uh you know,
Speaker 1: and people don't know it. Doesn't that go? Okay? So
Speaker 1: you take a guy who is hitting in front of
Speaker 1: a monster, and you take him to another team and
Speaker 1: he don't have that guy hidden behind him. This his
Speaker 1: number changed absolutely. Look who bad? Look Look who who
Speaker 1: bats in front of? Like, uh, Albert Poolholes when he's St. Louis.
Speaker 1: Look who back in front of Barry Bonds. Watch those
Speaker 1: career numbers when they're bat in front compared to where
Speaker 1: they're at in a different order, right because they because
Speaker 1: the picture do this. He'll look at you and then
Speaker 1: you're looking at the dugout like, oh yeah, let me
Speaker 1: try to all right. I can't mess around with him
Speaker 1: because he back there. I don't want to give up too,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna have to concentrate on him. But I
Speaker 1: can because this guy he could put him put us ahead.
Speaker 1: But I can't really mess around with this guy. So
Speaker 1: you look at it, and the same thing in basketball,
Speaker 1: you know, guy dribbles down the court sudden, you know,
Speaker 1: you got that twelve ft instead of that. You know,
Speaker 1: the mid range jumper don't even exist no more. But
Speaker 1: that's the bread and butter, you know, you see in
Speaker 1: the paint three point line. But that seven to twelve
Speaker 1: ft range thirteen, you know, you don't see that anymore. Uh,
Speaker 1: But a guy can go down there. I mean, Jordan
Speaker 1: comes down to court, which just used, he passes off
Speaker 1: somebody else. You know, Kerr hits it with Kerr hit
Speaker 1: that bucket with somebody else. We don't know because it
Speaker 1: didn't happen. But you look at great players and when
Speaker 1: other people go to somewhere else, how their numbers either
Speaker 1: drastically drop off in the same In football, you know,
Speaker 1: offensive line Cowboys. Can you imagine if Barry Sanders was
Speaker 1: running behind that line of Emma smith Man? Could you
Speaker 1: really imagine, man, man, man man. That's why I say
Speaker 1: numbers lie because into it, Yeah, play into it. There's
Speaker 1: other pieces that that that add to that. The ninety
Speaker 1: four strike, do you feel like that hurt baseball as
Speaker 1: a hole? I mean, obviously a tennis was down after that,
Speaker 1: and it took a while to regain the steam. Anytime
Speaker 1: that a black eye is upon a sport, it makes
Speaker 1: it tough. The fans demand more, corporate sponsorship, demand more television,
Speaker 1: demands more, and uh so it made it tough because
Speaker 1: you put a lot of pressure on the guys who
Speaker 1: who were leading the charge of that that new way
Speaker 1: of going into that, you know. I mean we still
Speaker 1: had a lockout. We started a season late. They were
Speaker 1: talking about during replacement players and so we started I
Speaker 1: think two weeks late. But yeah, it hurts when when
Speaker 1: you don't have you know, your guys out there, you know,
Speaker 1: the household names that people want to see out there.
Speaker 1: But sometimes you have to do things that you don't
Speaker 1: want for the good of the sport um whether they're
Speaker 1: you know, and people don't understand that. They look at,
Speaker 1: you know, the dollars of the guys, the current players,
Speaker 1: and they don't look at, Okay, what are they striking
Speaker 1: for the guys that are having trouble paying their own
Speaker 1: bills who played in the fifty who are trying to
Speaker 1: help the guys that they're played in the Negro League,
Speaker 1: help them get some part of some benefits and things
Speaker 1: like that. But they only look at because the fan
Speaker 1: is current they look at what are they looking at
Speaker 1: right now? Not right not the big picture. And it's
Speaker 1: tough because you can't explain that and tell somebody that
Speaker 1: they know is in it. As a baseball player trying
Speaker 1: to explain it, they don't have anything. They don't They're like, whatever, whatever,
Speaker 1: you're making millions and millions of dollars to shut up
Speaker 1: a play. But they have somebody inside who knows what's
Speaker 1: going on and what they're trying to do. Then they're like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: why didn't you say that. You're like, we can't say
Speaker 1: everything because it's a negotiation, and it makes it tough.
Speaker 1: I mean, any time that you have a work stoppage,
Speaker 1: it damages your your sport. You don't want to see
Speaker 1: that at all. I mean, you know, the coronavirus has
Speaker 1: has has stopped everything, uh, you know, but it's still
Speaker 1: you know, how many people are gonna start going to
Speaker 1: basketball games? How many people want to go to basketball games?
Speaker 1: You know, So it's it's got a lasting effect. And
Speaker 1: this was nothing that the two sides argued about. It
Speaker 1: just happened to be a deadly virus and and it's
Speaker 1: still going to affect how we think, you know, how
Speaker 1: we go to games and things like that. Absolutely, you man,
Speaker 1: it's important. A lot of a lot of missnapp but
Speaker 1: we gotta get it straight before we move forward. Although
Speaker 1: you call yourself or you were a line drive hitter
Speaker 1: that happened to hit home runs, you consistently hit a
Speaker 1: large amount of home runs consistently. I kind of felt
Speaker 1: like baseball came back to life in the late nineties
Speaker 1: early two thousand's with the assurgence of the long ball um.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of controversy that kind of swirled
Speaker 1: in that era with guy's numbers starting to go crazy.
Speaker 1: As you mean, someone who consistently hit and you see
Speaker 1: these mcguires pop up with seventy and Bonds with Bonds
Speaker 1: with seventy three SOSA in the sixties. What are your
Speaker 1: thoughts when people are talking about Stobridge and you're seeing
Speaker 1: your peers put up these crazy numbers, but you're still
Speaker 1: you know, you're still true to yourself and doing what
Speaker 1: you consistently do as as as you see your peers
Speaker 1: doing what they're doing. I didn't worry about it. I
Speaker 1: never you know the thing that you know, Like I said,
Speaker 1: I grew up in a household. Never check somebody else's money.
Speaker 1: Never question somebody else's money. You know what do they do?
Speaker 1: Whatever they do, they do you you can't control that.
Speaker 1: You're not you know, you're not gonna be the biggest
Speaker 1: personal team. You're not gonna be the fastest personal the team,
Speaker 1: not gonna be the strongest. But you just don't let
Speaker 1: somebody out work you. That's was my my attitude is
Speaker 1: I would ride my bike at two in the morning.
Speaker 1: You know, I get my fifteen miles in at two
Speaker 1: in the morning. Um, you know, nobody needs to see
Speaker 1: how hard you're working. As long as you know that
Speaker 1: you're working, that's the most important thing. When I look
Speaker 1: in at mirror and go, I gave it all. That's
Speaker 1: the only thing I can do. The media, they're going
Speaker 1: to talk about what they want to talk about. You
Speaker 1: know that, And and that's the the downfall of playing
Speaker 1: you know, sports is some people have an extra grind.
Speaker 1: Some people just wake up on the bed side of
Speaker 1: the bed, and some people are true fans. And you know,
Speaker 1: you know, for for for me, did I worry about
Speaker 1: nah m hmm. I didn't worry about nothing but my
Speaker 1: teammates and what they thought about me. What happened on
Speaker 1: somebody else's time. That was there's what happened on on
Speaker 1: my field. That's the only thing I cared about. I said,
Speaker 1: for they cheatahs, and I don't want cheats. You know,
Speaker 1: this is you make a ground. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: it's still kind of a complex subject, you know, looking
Speaker 1: back now that you're done, looking back on the steroid
Speaker 1: era of baseball, you were in, you know, when it
Speaker 1: was going on. You're a part of it now kind
Speaker 1: of being removed from baseball obviously, what are your thoughts
Speaker 1: because obviously some guys are having problems getting into the
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame that that that there were good players,
Speaker 1: but their numbers were balloons once they started doing that.
Speaker 1: Looking back on all of that and knowing you were
Speaker 1: kind of in the mix playing during that time, what
Speaker 1: are your thoughts on it. Well, being a Hall of
Speaker 1: Fame member, I still don't vote. I don't have any
Speaker 1: voting rights. That's up to the media, the voting media
Speaker 1: who vote on the Hall of Fame, and you know,
Speaker 1: so I don't get to to say, yeah, this guy
Speaker 1: gets him. Yeah, there are certain guys that should be in, um,
Speaker 1: you know, and you know there's certain guys that people go.
Speaker 1: He was borderline and all of a sudden, But there's
Speaker 1: guys that were great and then now they they become monsters. Um.
Speaker 1: But to me, it's one of those things that I
Speaker 1: don't vote, so I don't really have an opinion on,
Speaker 1: you know, things that I can and can't control. That's
Speaker 1: the only thing I worry about. Um. But for the
Speaker 1: most part, you know, um, you know, Gene Kleins was
Speaker 1: my first hitting coach. He was like, numbers will take
Speaker 1: care of themselves, and people know who did the right
Speaker 1: thing and who did the wrong thing. Um, you just
Speaker 1: gotta keep playing. And he said it to me, uh
Speaker 1: after he called me so when you're nineteen in the
Speaker 1: big leagues, they you're hid and coach cause your numbnuts
Speaker 1: all day. Come here numbnuts. So he's like, and he's
Speaker 1: still called me that. I'm like, dude, I'm fifties. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't care, you're still young. Uh. He was like,
Speaker 1: your numbers will your numbers will do it. You can't
Speaker 1: worry about anything else. Go out there and play your game.
Speaker 1: And you know the media is got uh their way
Speaker 1: of doing things. You just have to go out and play.
Speaker 1: You have your wife and voting on the Hall of Fame. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's some guys that should be, and there's some guys
Speaker 1: that you know, may not ever get in because of
Speaker 1: you know, whether they're questioned or not, if they had
Speaker 1: questionable uh five or six years. But for the most part,
Speaker 1: I don't look at it as a a knock on
Speaker 1: those guys, um because you know, I try to look
Speaker 1: at both sides in a way. Uh, if you're a
Speaker 1: twenty five year old guy two kids and say this
Speaker 1: violence steroids is gonna get you, uh to be in
Speaker 1: a big leagues to provide for your family, what are
Speaker 1: you likely going to do if you're if you're on
Speaker 1: a borderline, if you're the guy that goes from Double A,
Speaker 1: I mean to me, Triple A big league, Triple A
Speaker 1: big League, Triple A big league, but just hunted dollar
Speaker 1: can keep you in a big league and you know,
Speaker 1: and you know, I got my my aunt and uncles
Speaker 1: who have to take steroids to to to live, you know.
Speaker 1: But it's you know, for breathing and everything else. That's
Speaker 1: as MU and a couple other things. But you know,
Speaker 1: so I look at it, try to be like, okay,
Speaker 1: but when it comes to sports, it's a little different
Speaker 1: because people think that everything is fair. Everybody wants things
Speaker 1: to be fair. Anytime, like I said that, you have
Speaker 1: a black eye in your sport, it becomes you know,
Speaker 1: it becomes tough for the guys who are playing. You
Speaker 1: were the kid on the scene in Seattle. Uh, you
Speaker 1: guys had a very talented team over your tenure there.
Speaker 1: Tell us what it was like when Alex Rodriguez came along,
Speaker 1: because he was someone you know, they were just exercised,
Speaker 1: you know, for him as they were for you, because
Speaker 1: they saw the potential superstar Hall of Fame talent and
Speaker 1: a young kid and you guys were together. So what
Speaker 1: was that like? Uh, you know, the first couple of years,
Speaker 1: Alex was you know, Alex, Alex was young, trying to
Speaker 1: mold him to get him there. And you know, once
Speaker 1: he played a couple of games and started getting comfortable,
Speaker 1: once he was at short and he knew he was
Speaker 1: going to be the everyday short short stop. Um, you
Speaker 1: could see him really settling Batman and Robin. That's you
Speaker 1: know what it was like in our locker room. And
Speaker 1: I started laughing, And one day I made a comparison.
Speaker 1: I said, it's like mikel and Scotty. I just hope
Speaker 1: people realize sooner than later how good this kid can be.
Speaker 1: And it was just funny because you know, you could
Speaker 1: see him as a kid start develop and get bigger
Speaker 1: longer and watch him because he bat a second, not
Speaker 1: bat a third, so I could just see him what
Speaker 1: you know, playing got a birds of view and you know,
Speaker 1: they show a clip of in Baltimore. I mean, we're
Speaker 1: at home playing in Baltimore, and they took my back
Speaker 1: which he used so they can X ray it. And
Speaker 1: so I just you know, I have you know, I'm
Speaker 1: on the on deck circle. I threw my other bat
Speaker 1: to him and he went up and hit you know,
Speaker 1: he hit a home run with it. I think that
Speaker 1: year he had over four hundred against Baltimore. So they
Speaker 1: were trying to mess with him. See baseball, you can
Speaker 1: you know, hey, he's doing this, he's doing that, trying
Speaker 1: to get you out of your game plan. But he
Speaker 1: went up there and hit a home run and he
Speaker 1: started laughing. Um, but yeah, he you know, the six
Speaker 1: years we played together, he was you know, Alex, you
Speaker 1: know what you see is what you get, uh, wanting
Speaker 1: to you know, learn the game, uh and study it
Speaker 1: like everybody else. You gotta still love a friendship. You
Speaker 1: gotta still communicate every now and then we get a chance.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know him in Miami, you know, traveling
Speaker 1: the world. You know, he got j Low. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: he traveling all over the place. He's doing. You know.
Speaker 1: I'm more of a homebody. Uh, you know, try to relax,
Speaker 1: raise kids and and and that's it. But uh, you
Speaker 1: know we see each other every now and then. Was say, hi,
Speaker 1: you know certain things you know, you know, the spring
Speaker 1: training you're all Star break, uh, and a couple other
Speaker 1: events that I gotta do that I'll run into him.
Speaker 1: What was it like after your tenure in Seattle to
Speaker 1: go back home? Obviously your first first year with the
Speaker 1: Reds you hit forty home runs. What was it like
Speaker 1: going back and playing in Cincinnati? A little strange at first,
Speaker 1: wearing the same uniform that my dad wore for so
Speaker 1: many years. Just an adjustment from city to city. And
Speaker 1: people don't realize how hard that is, you know. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you know where to eat, you know where
Speaker 1: to go, even though I grew up there. Last time
Speaker 1: I was there for an extended period time, I was
Speaker 1: seventeen years old. I was seventeen so seven team the thirty.
Speaker 1: I was in Seattle basically so learning how you know
Speaker 1: where to go, what routes to take. Um, you know
Speaker 1: what restaurants are are good? Um, you know, trying to
Speaker 1: get a new cell phone. Uh. Small things, the things
Speaker 1: you take for granted. You know you take those kind
Speaker 1: of things for grant because you're so accustomed to them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So like you know, hey, you gotta change my number. Okay. UM.
Speaker 1: It was funny. It's like the lady I called, I said, hey,
Speaker 1: I need to get a cell phone, and she like,
Speaker 1: you want me to give it to you. I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you my addressing, my credit card. She
Speaker 1: automatically assumed that I just wanted you to give me
Speaker 1: the phone. I'm like no, I mean and uh. For
Speaker 1: fifteen years until she passed away, we were pretty good friends.
Speaker 1: I mean she had stopped over and make sure I
Speaker 1: was okay. She was like my mom. You know, she
Speaker 1: would come in and say, hey, you need anything. I
Speaker 1: was like nah. She was like, I was just in
Speaker 1: the neighborhood doing my my cell phone stuff. I figured
Speaker 1: I stopped by and say hi, bring over food. Uh.
Speaker 1: When I got hurt a couple of times. She made
Speaker 1: the family come over and keep me company, So you
Speaker 1: know it was it was pretty The hard part, like
Speaker 1: I said, is you know the adjustment. People can make
Speaker 1: the adjustment. Uh, if you're a superstar, it takes a
Speaker 1: little longer because there's certain things that you have. And
Speaker 1: I'm not asking for anything different, but I know things
Speaker 1: are different. Where can you go to hang out and
Speaker 1: be okay? You know if if you then on the team,
Speaker 1: you can go anywhere. Nobody really know what you're playing.
Speaker 1: But if you're the number one guy, you know you
Speaker 1: gotta yeah, you know so. But the funny thing is
Speaker 1: is um I ate at the same Bena Hunnas from yes,
Speaker 1: from age seven till now. So every time I go
Speaker 1: to Cincinnati, always go there and it's the same one
Speaker 1: wrong been m You go in there, walk me through
Speaker 1: this twenty four hour phase. September two thousand one, you're
Speaker 1: in Chicago playing against the Cubs and the next day
Speaker 1: is nine eleven. Talk to us what that was like
Speaker 1: because baseball was the one sport I always say through tragedy, Uh,
Speaker 1: sports is what's been able to pull us together. Unfortunately
Speaker 1: through this. You know that this pandemic. We have no
Speaker 1: sports but for nine eleven what was that? Like that
Speaker 1: twenty four hours and then being able to get back
Speaker 1: to baseball knowing how bad the world needed it. I
Speaker 1: just woke up, Um happened to be watching CNN, and
Speaker 1: I was like, man, that's a hell of a movie.
Speaker 1: Like it like you're looking at something. And they were like, uh,
Speaker 1: live and then I you know, I was like, oh my,
Speaker 1: um you immediately pick up the phone. Uh. I called
Speaker 1: Melissa and she was like, hey, this is going on.
Speaker 1: I said, are you watching? And she goes yeah, um,
Speaker 1: and it was just so real, like you like. And
Speaker 1: then they said all games are canceled and we were
Speaker 1: like what, Like we knew it like before we even
Speaker 1: got on the bus. So like the first bus is
Speaker 1: like at one thirty, we knew that, Hey, ain't no
Speaker 1: games being played today? We are, you know, and and
Speaker 1: it's a scary thing because you know, we're away from
Speaker 1: our families. You know, my wife is in in in Florida.
Speaker 1: I'm in Chicago. Uh, you know, we just had an
Speaker 1: attack on our country. Uh what do we do now? Um?
Speaker 1: So we had to sit there for a couple of
Speaker 1: days and finally I was like, Oh, I'm about buy
Speaker 1: a car and drive back. I'm gonna drive back to Cincinnati,
Speaker 1: or I'm gonna drive to Florida. Uh. And one of
Speaker 1: my friends, Big Frank, who passed away and to be
Speaker 1: it will be twelve years tomorrow. Yeah, he's the one
Speaker 1: that also draw my car up from Florida to the
Speaker 1: one you want to slumping the one you had to
Speaker 1: slump in. Yeah, so Big Frank uh was in Cincinnat
Speaker 1: he drove picked me and Barry Larking up and drove
Speaker 1: us back. And then uh, my wife drove up from Florida.
Speaker 1: And I remember opening the back of the suburban. It
Speaker 1: was packed like she wasn't going back. Uh, And all
Speaker 1: I see is a little a little rock while her
Speaker 1: head sticking out the back of it. But you know,
Speaker 1: you have a suburban. She packed it like we're not
Speaker 1: going back. Whatever happens, we're all gonna be together. And
Speaker 1: I think that's what what helps is like when you
Speaker 1: with somebody through you know, whether you know pandemics or
Speaker 1: a terrorist at which you with family, you grow and
Speaker 1: you're you're better for it, and uh, you know. But
Speaker 1: it was the most unnerving probably week and a half
Speaker 1: that I've ever had, because you never you're not you
Speaker 1: don't know what's going on. How many times? You know,
Speaker 1: is it gonna happen again? Because you hear the stories
Speaker 1: are they're gonna do it to a next time, to
Speaker 1: a sports arena. We're the only ones playing at the time. Um.
Speaker 1: So it was like one of those things like West
Speaker 1: Next isn't gonna hit a baseball or basketball football. You know,
Speaker 1: something's gonna, something's gonna you know. So the security changed, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, being able to go from the bus to
Speaker 1: the plane, that changed different, different, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know I remember as a kid, you know, I
Speaker 1: could run all the way to the gate to go
Speaker 1: see my dad when he came off the plane being pajamas.
Speaker 1: It's seven years old, going to see dead at the gate. Now, no,
Speaker 1: you need you need an idea. You need an idea
Speaker 1: seven years old? Now, yeah, look at I d at
Speaker 1: least two forms. Uh. But the other thing is, you know,
Speaker 1: leaving the ballpark now you know you got t s
Speaker 1: A that wants you before you even get on the bus.
Speaker 1: You know. So it's changed a lot. You know. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know I know that people complain, you know, but
Speaker 1: it's the safety, for for the not just for you
Speaker 1: know you, and you know that's it. You know, people
Speaker 1: are so worried about themselves all the time that they
Speaker 1: don't see that, you know, there's other people on this
Speaker 1: you know, they don't unless you're a celebrity. They don't
Speaker 1: name but one person on that plane, if you celebrity.
Speaker 1: And now you know they name everybody. You know, they
Speaker 1: don't name everybody, they just name that one. So you know,
Speaker 1: I try to tell people, you know, hey, it's for
Speaker 1: the good of the country. Uh, you know, even now
Speaker 1: they here in Florida, they talk about you know, they're
Speaker 1: gonna start letting businesses get back, but you still leary
Speaker 1: about you know, do you want to you know, uh
Speaker 1: what was it? Nel salions, were barbershop, a couple of
Speaker 1: restaurants and tattoos. I'm like, okay, well I don't visit
Speaker 1: three of those, so we could there, you know, but
Speaker 1: that food I got to but you know, you got
Speaker 1: to have it. Yeah, you know, but it's just a
Speaker 1: matter of how we how we do things. And you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, going back to nine eleven, it's just scary.
Speaker 1: It was the scariest time that I had as a
Speaker 1: pro uh, because of the uncertain tees that go along
Speaker 1: with it, and everybody had pretty much. But you know
Speaker 1: exactly where you are, not eleven right, and you always
Speaker 1: remember that time right. But there's certain things. But there's
Speaker 1: certain things in your life that you know, like I
Speaker 1: know exactly where I was at when I heard Kobe
Speaker 1: pass right. I remember, you know, looking at the temperature
Speaker 1: of the time and everything else, calling people that we're
Speaker 1: close to him, like, man, please tell me this ain't true.
Speaker 1: You know, the certain things is you never want to
Speaker 1: hear and that and never want to see and that
Speaker 1: was one of them. Um, two thousand two to two
Speaker 1: thousand four, pretty injury ridden time for you. You miss
Speaker 1: games over three seasons two thousand and five to two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven. It looks like you get your swag back.
Speaker 1: What was it like? Because people don't understand the mental
Speaker 1: that comes along with As bad as we want to
Speaker 1: get back out there, but the mental process of being
Speaker 1: able to recover and then recover to a level where
Speaker 1: you're coming back and you're back to being successful as
Speaker 1: you were before. Because sometimes a lot of athletes don't
Speaker 1: get to regain what they lost from those injuries. My
Speaker 1: mental focus is probably different. Like I told our trainer,
Speaker 1: who um when I tore my hair string um. I
Speaker 1: was riding a bike and he sat like, right here
Speaker 1: the top of me riding a bike, and I said, look, man,
Speaker 1: this bike ride could be forty five minutes or it
Speaker 1: could be four hours. And he was like, what do
Speaker 1: you mean. I said, Look, it is my name on
Speaker 1: the back of that jersey. It is my career. It
Speaker 1: may say Cincinnati is on the front, but they don't go.
Speaker 1: Since they read, they look at and go, oh, that's
Speaker 1: King Griffe Jr. I'm gonna do this workout, but if
Speaker 1: you stand behind me, it's gonna take long. I said,
Speaker 1: because what you have is a test after each session,
Speaker 1: here's what we need for you to be at these
Speaker 1: these certain benchmarks. But if you stand behind me, those
Speaker 1: bench marks get longer because I'm not doing it. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna sit here and slow play you. The next day
Speaker 1: he was in the He was in his office doing
Speaker 1: his work, and I was doing my work. It is
Speaker 1: my career and I will bust my butt. I don't
Speaker 1: like people looking over my shoulder. I want to be
Speaker 1: looking over somebody's shoulder. You gotta be able to trust me.
Speaker 1: And I told the surgeon. I said, look, man, pep
Speaker 1: gonna stand here. We're gonna be here all day. He'd like,
Speaker 1: don't stand there. He liked to do. I like, I
Speaker 1: get my work in, I get out, um and you
Speaker 1: know here six weeks later we were able to run.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you look at it, I played in
Speaker 1: ninety five when I shot at my wrist, I played
Speaker 1: the playoffs with a plate and screws in it. You know, amazing, amazing,
Speaker 1: amazing catch, by the way, and I don't. And the
Speaker 1: crazy thing is is, um, I had this surgery in
Speaker 1: December so I can make it to spring training to
Speaker 1: remove the screws and play. Injuries are part of the game. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm I've only I've got three at bats on a
Speaker 1: minor league extent. So I went down when I shout
Speaker 1: at my wrist. I had three in bats. I flew
Speaker 1: myself to Minnesota, looked at loose and I'm ready. Was like,
Speaker 1: huh by that time, they couldn't even have The doctor
Speaker 1: was like, well, he already there. He I guess he's ready.
Speaker 1: Um any I've never gone on a rehab stint again
Speaker 1: because I told him I'm not I'm not going back
Speaker 1: to the monor league, no matter what. The only time
Speaker 1: y'all gonna see me as going back to my league
Speaker 1: as if I'm coaching or I'm doing something, but as
Speaker 1: a player, I will not put on a minor league uniform.
Speaker 1: And I promised myself that and my attitude and my
Speaker 1: mentality was I'm going to work to get back there
Speaker 1: because it's people don't know professional rehab. It's totally different
Speaker 1: than the Mom Paul rehab that they have no idea
Speaker 1: what real rehab is. Like, No, we go, uh, hey,
Speaker 1: come see me Tuesday, Thursday. We see you next two
Speaker 1: day around the clock right. Uh. You know, I had
Speaker 1: a little bit of tough time in Cincinnati. Uh going
Speaker 1: back to that when I did get hurt is I
Speaker 1: was visiting that one of Big Frank softball games. It was,
Speaker 1: you know, nine ten o'clock at night, and people are
Speaker 1: just ragging me on the radio talk about his as
Speaker 1: should have been rehabbing. What did you tell me? What
Speaker 1: rehab place is? Open? It at a ten o'clock. It back.
Speaker 1: But people don't understand that. They feel that, you know,
Speaker 1: they feel that they can say whatever they want. But
Speaker 1: then when an athlete says something back oh, we're the
Speaker 1: bad guy, you know, and that ain't necessarily true. Is
Speaker 1: how you approach me is how I'm gonna approach you.
Speaker 1: You know. If you come up to me man, I
Speaker 1: like blah blah blah. You know, but then you know
Speaker 1: they feel that they can say something and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, well he he was an ass. I'm like,
Speaker 1: no dog, you came in me a certain way. Uh.
Speaker 1: But those are the type of things because I got
Speaker 1: hurt quite a few times, and Cincinnati, it ain't my fault,
Speaker 1: you know. I got hurt on the field trying to
Speaker 1: make our team better A round a third upout my
Speaker 1: patel attendant hamstring, an ankle where I had my apparently
Speaker 1: no longest tendant. I don't even know how you pronounced that,
Speaker 1: but uh, it stibilizes your foot, you know. Um. I
Speaker 1: have eighty stitches from my ankle bone to that little
Speaker 1: almost through that little bone and then hangs out by
Speaker 1: your pinky tongue. I got eighties stish. They had to
Speaker 1: sell it together. I've got six titanium screws in my shoulder.
Speaker 1: I've got three in my tailbone. I just had my
Speaker 1: other shoulder done, you know, twelve weeks ago. Um, do
Speaker 1: I complain, Absolutely? Not? Do I what? I do it
Speaker 1: all over again, absolutely, because it's the game that I
Speaker 1: love to play, and you only know one way to
Speaker 1: play and has to play hard. So when it comes
Speaker 1: to getting my work in, it's the same thing. In
Speaker 1: order for me to get out on the field. I
Speaker 1: gotta put my work in to get out on the field.
Speaker 1: And people don't see that. They think that, you know, hey,
Speaker 1: what are you doing to rehab? Well, my rehab starts
Speaker 1: at nine o'clock and then I got till one, and
Speaker 1: then i'm when the team goes out on the field.
Speaker 1: Then I rehab from seven and no seven to nine
Speaker 1: ten o'clock, and then I do it all over again.
Speaker 1: So my rehab where at the ballpark. You know what
Speaker 1: when the team was in town, it was at the ballpark.
Speaker 1: When the team was out of town, I would go
Speaker 1: to a rehab facility and work from like eight to four. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then I come home and you know, watch part
Speaker 1: of the game, fall asleep, and then get up the
Speaker 1: next morning and do it again. But when the team
Speaker 1: was in town, I still, you know, nine to one,
Speaker 1: when when all the guys got off the bus and
Speaker 1: stuff like that coming into the ballpark. You know, the
Speaker 1: trainers gotta you know, they got a job to do
Speaker 1: with the other guys, and then I would go back
Speaker 1: when they went out of the field to play the game,
Speaker 1: I would still be at there at the ballpark during
Speaker 1: my second round of therapy. No, it's a grind, definitely grind.
Speaker 1: The everyday person has no idea. Now it's a lot
Speaker 1: easier to play the game than actually rehab because if
Speaker 1: I yeah, because rehab is not one of those things
Speaker 1: that uh, like I said, is it's one of those
Speaker 1: things where you like, I don't wish this on anybody.
Speaker 1: And I had to do it for basically two and
Speaker 1: a half straight years. M hm hmmm. That's tough. And
Speaker 1: I remember that those days. Those are tough. Um. So
Speaker 1: two thousand nine, you returned to Seattle eventually retire in
Speaker 1: two thousand and ten. Was it important for you to
Speaker 1: get back to where you started as a professional retire
Speaker 1: and what was it like realizing Okay, it's time to
Speaker 1: hang it up. You always want to retire where you started.
Speaker 1: They gave you your opportunity. Um, whether it's good or bad. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, there's two things happened that but you still
Speaker 1: have to be able to contribute to a team, and
Speaker 1: the team's got to be able to want you. So
Speaker 1: fortunately for me, I was able to do both. I
Speaker 1: was still able to contribute. Being thirty eight, I knew
Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna play every day, you know, but I
Speaker 1: can help the younger guys in the clubhouse get them ready.
Speaker 1: How do I how do I approach the game where
Speaker 1: they needed to see because you know, when you have
Speaker 1: a guy who's done it UM constantly and throw up
Speaker 1: some numbers when he going there into a locker room,
Speaker 1: you automatically look at him, going, that's him, that's that guy. UM.
Speaker 1: And having a young coaching staff that Seattle had at
Speaker 1: the time, they weren't gonna be able to do that.
Speaker 1: And so they brought in Mike Sweeney and myself, uh,
Speaker 1: to to be able to to help with the club
Speaker 1: out situation, and uh, we're able to do that, and
Speaker 1: then about retiring UM. And to be honest, I just
Speaker 1: got tired of being lied to, Not so much that
Speaker 1: I got tired of the team being lied to by
Speaker 1: a certain individual. I won't mention his name, uh, but
Speaker 1: I told him, I said, look, when I become a distraction.
Speaker 1: I'm gone and they knew that. And I always said this.
Speaker 1: I said, I ain't gonna have this big old fan fair.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna have a press. I'm not gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna just get my car and send the fact talk
Speaker 1: about he gone. Well, when athletes say that and they
Speaker 1: do it, people have to go up and you know,
Speaker 1: they get lived like he didn't have this, he didn't
Speaker 1: like like I already told y'all a while ago, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna just get my car. I'll be gone. Um, and
Speaker 1: I did. I jumped in my card like three am
Speaker 1: and started driving. I drove from Seattle to Orlando NonStop myself.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's a I love that take you. That's a drive.
Speaker 1: That's a drive. Bro. It took me forty three hours.
Speaker 1: And that was it. That was off. That was it.
Speaker 1: I called. You know, I called a couple of people
Speaker 1: because you know, all my friends and family who, man,
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear about you retiring on ESPN
Speaker 1: called me. So I called the people that I need
Speaker 1: to call. When I got home. Um, the assistant GM
Speaker 1: flew in that day and looked at me. He was like,
Speaker 1: you know, Roger was like, you're all right. I go yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm all right. He goes you look okay, I go yeah.
Speaker 1: And I looked at Melissa and I was like, hey,
Speaker 1: what's next. She was like what we got girls basketball,
Speaker 1: We're gonna be in Chica. We got Atlanta, we got Atlanta, Tennessee, Chicago,
Speaker 1: and then back to Atlanta. I was like, okay, let's go.
Speaker 1: And I knew from that point on, I was dad, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and you know, I didn't worry about, you know,
Speaker 1: the baseball part of it now. And then a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks later, um, they re leaved the whole staff
Speaker 1: of the baseball department. Uh okay, the manager and his crew,
Speaker 1: and they asked me that I want to come back.
Speaker 1: I was like na, because then people, you know, the
Speaker 1: one thing about athletes is we have to look at
Speaker 1: it two things, two ways. If we do something, what's
Speaker 1: the positive, what's the negative? If I were to come back,
Speaker 1: they would be like, well, he only came back because
Speaker 1: they and so, And I was like, you know, so
Speaker 1: it wasn't a positive. It wouldn't have been a positive
Speaker 1: spinnip Otter came back. So I was like, no, I'm good.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stay retired by oh blah um. I got
Speaker 1: a couple of calls a couple of months after that,
Speaker 1: and they said, hey, we want you to join our
Speaker 1: front office staff. Here's what we want you to do, X,
Speaker 1: Y and Z. We want you to go see these
Speaker 1: kids in the minor league. We want you to talk
Speaker 1: to him. I haven't. My phone number has been the
Speaker 1: same for twelve years. I have changed my phone number
Speaker 1: twelve years because the kids that that have it want
Speaker 1: that need for me to talk to they know that
Speaker 1: they got it. If you got my number, there's a
Speaker 1: reason why you have it. You know. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: my wife is constantly telling me, hey, you need to
Speaker 1: get you a new phone number. This thing brings two
Speaker 1: minutes two months and I'll be looking at going, oh,
Speaker 1: screen time with five thousand minutes or something like. You know,
Speaker 1: but it is what it is. But it was time.
Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't want to be a distraction. I
Speaker 1: didn't want everybody just to be able to talk about me.
Speaker 1: Once you start talking about me and I'm not playing
Speaker 1: in then I can't have that. Two thousand sixteen, you're
Speaker 1: in the Baseball Hall of Fame. What was that experience?
Speaker 1: Like you get the call, but it's like one of
Speaker 1: those slow motion calls. You don't really know what to say,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, you don't know what to say.
Speaker 1: And I get done with the call, and I was
Speaker 1: just like, then we fly up to New York and
Speaker 1: that's a like a press conference, press press conference there
Speaker 1: for two days. Ring the bell, which was cool. You
Speaker 1: got to ring the New York Stock Exchange bill. You
Speaker 1: see that on TV. I finally got to do it.
Speaker 1: We actually get to Hall of Fame on Wednesday, get
Speaker 1: their Wednesday night. I'm sitting around all day Thursday. Um,
Speaker 1: I was funny. Wednesday, there's like a couple of hundred
Speaker 1: people in the hotel. Come Thursday. Ain't nobody in the
Speaker 1: hotel because they took the hotel, So nobody's in the hotel.
Speaker 1: But you know, the Hall of Famers, so they start
Speaker 1: coming in and and uh so Friday I sit down
Speaker 1: to write my speech. I only I started writing Friday,
Speaker 1: and again, being superstitious, I played in three Hall of
Speaker 1: Fame games and never walked into the building until I
Speaker 1: was a Hall of Famer. Mm hmm. Uh So I
Speaker 1: started writing my speech. I gave it to him, they
Speaker 1: gave me back to me on Saturday, They were like
Speaker 1: they were getting nervous because I didn't write anything down.
Speaker 1: They were like, you're gonna write your speech. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just you know, I wanted to be there and
Speaker 1: be able to think about it and have the row
Speaker 1: emotions about being a Hall of Famer, then to be
Speaker 1: able to be sitting in my office going okay, so
Speaker 1: this is the way it is. You know. I was there,
Speaker 1: I have my family, was there. I had some close friends,
Speaker 1: so I was able to to really concentrate and think
Speaker 1: about it. Where you know, me being in the house
Speaker 1: you can look at Okay, So I want to talk
Speaker 1: about this situation, but you know, I just want to
Speaker 1: hit certain people in my speech, you know, mom, dad, wife, kids,
Speaker 1: my agent, uh, Lynn from Nike and and y'all know Lynn. Uh.
Speaker 1: But you know there were certain you know people that
Speaker 1: I just wanted to hit uh and keep it moving.
Speaker 1: I didn't want it to be one of those you know,
Speaker 1: long drawling out things now the hat backwards part um.
Speaker 1: They had to talk me into it. Frank Thomas is like,
Speaker 1: you better do it, you better do it. I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I can't do it. He like you better do it,
Speaker 1: and like, id I do it. The feeling that I
Speaker 1: had was, I was overwhelmed because you're NonStop with the
Speaker 1: interviews from Wednesday Thursday, and when I finally got to
Speaker 1: sit down Friday, Uh, I was good at thenner Saturday,
Speaker 1: I got to play golf, which was a little weird,
Speaker 1: like they got the little golf course next to the thing,
Speaker 1: you and then there's people lined up on the road.
Speaker 1: I want to get autographs, and I'm like, let me
Speaker 1: just drive on this side and we stay over here.
Speaker 1: Uh and if you you know, and like you know,
Speaker 1: the Hall of Fame and you know for basketball and
Speaker 1: based it's such a small place, you know, small city.
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't, you know, I didn't realize how
Speaker 1: small it was until I yea, this is our downtown
Speaker 1: was a close supermarket about fifteen twenty minutes away. I'm like, huh,
Speaker 1: how y'all getting anything here? And uh yeah, but it
Speaker 1: was great. I mean I was you know, I was
Speaker 1: glad it was over because then you know, seventeen eighteen
Speaker 1: and nineteen, I got to chill. You know, I have
Speaker 1: no interviews. I had none. I was over there like
Speaker 1: this all right, don't want it first day work. But
Speaker 1: you know, it's also like I you know, I got,
Speaker 1: I brought my dad with me, you know, and you
Speaker 1: know half of the big red machines, you know, they're
Speaker 1: they start lying, you know those stories that y'all here,
Speaker 1: and you know even today, you know, if Dr Jay
Speaker 1: walked in there and he started lying about them, stories
Speaker 1: about him and Oscar Brobson and somebody else, you'd be like, man,
Speaker 1: look dog, y'all. But but it's funny, you just like really,
Speaker 1: but all these guys that I got to grow up watching,
Speaker 1: I am now looking at them and in baseball and
Speaker 1: I don't know how to work out basketball boat. We
Speaker 1: got sections. We got the big boys section. So if
Speaker 1: you got you know, four or five hundred, six hundred
Speaker 1: home runs, you said, at this table, three home rolls
Speaker 1: over there, you got you know, so uh, they were teasing.
Speaker 1: You know, the guys who have rate at two hundred,
Speaker 1: they call it the kids section. They'll be able to
Speaker 1: this is that, y'all sexual y'all get a happy meal.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the funniest egos in the world because
Speaker 1: they know they stats and they'd be firing off their
Speaker 1: stats to somebody else. But you know, when you have
Speaker 1: like like Hank he said, it on table, hanking. When
Speaker 1: they they there on table, you know, that's what that's
Speaker 1: funny thing, that's that, that's that grown folks territory of
Speaker 1: the children. But then they go, you've got six hundred,
Speaker 1: you sit over there too, I'm like, I ain't sitting
Speaker 1: next to them because I don't because those those are like,
Speaker 1: you know, I tell everybody those so like, that's baseball royalty.
Speaker 1: And I understand that to two people that I am
Speaker 1: to a certain extent, but I have a different view
Speaker 1: like everybody else. When they walk into the room, I'm
Speaker 1: like this, Like my last year I walked path was
Speaker 1: in San Francisco and I walked past the training room
Speaker 1: that's excuse me, not training from the clubhouse door, and
Speaker 1: Willie and McCovey were sitting there and I tried to
Speaker 1: sneak by, and Willie goes, excuse me, you've got enough
Speaker 1: home runs you can sit in this room too, And
Speaker 1: I was like, and I had to look like I'm
Speaker 1: still a kid, like you know, I'm like, man, that's
Speaker 1: that's really basic. Yeah, And they started laughing because I
Speaker 1: immediately when I sat down after I talked to him,
Speaker 1: went back to the I called Barry and Berry said,
Speaker 1: he started laughing. He goes, I told you that was
Speaker 1: crazy because you know, and then uh, Barry came in
Speaker 1: the next day to see me. But uh, it's so
Speaker 1: funny that you know when as kids, you know, there's
Speaker 1: certain people who walk into a room that y'all watch
Speaker 1: growing up that they just don't seem real, even though
Speaker 1: you may have played against him and you know they
Speaker 1: talked to you used to look at him like and
Speaker 1: then he ain't real. He just there And that was
Speaker 1: you know that, you know, you know Hank the same way.
Speaker 1: You know, Uh, hain't got mad at me last time,
Speaker 1: I said, he said, because I ain't getting my hug.
Speaker 1: I said, Man, I just hugged you. He was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that was you. I said, yeah. He was like yeah,
Speaker 1: because I gave my side hug because he wasn't looking
Speaker 1: at me. He was in the middle of a conversation.
Speaker 1: I don't want to interrupt him, so I just gave
Speaker 1: him a little a little hug. Again. There's certain people
Speaker 1: that you know, you know when they walk in that room,
Speaker 1: like them numbers there and we all know those guys.
Speaker 1: You know, y'all having basketball. Somebody walking there and y'all
Speaker 1: just that's him. M hm, there that man. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: I grew up like Willie Stargel Hankkaren Uh. You know
Speaker 1: I would see those guys constantly. But at ten eleven twelve,
Speaker 1: you have no idea historical context, right, and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden you get hit upside you. He had like,
Speaker 1: and that's the thing that you know. After that, my
Speaker 1: dad was like, you gotta learn the history of the
Speaker 1: game that you want to perfect. And that's why I
Speaker 1: started studying, studying baseball. You know, I study other sports.
Speaker 1: You know, I could run a high school football team,
Speaker 1: and I could probably get you a girl's basketball team. Well,
Speaker 1: see the girls basketball team. They're much more easier than boys.
Speaker 1: Boys want to hand want somebody all day. Girls fundamentally sound.
Speaker 1: You know, I got a chance to meet you when
Speaker 1: I played in Orlando. I would always see you at
Speaker 1: the game. No, you're a big basketball fan. Who were
Speaker 1: some of the teams you were following U this year
Speaker 1: and players that you follow and enjoy watching Lebron? Uh?
Speaker 1: You know, I'm a what's crazy is you hear about
Speaker 1: my man? The Greek freak a lot? You know, Being
Speaker 1: in and Uh on the West Coast, you know Kyrie, uh,
Speaker 1: waiting to see when Durant gets back. I met Porzingis
Speaker 1: uh a couple of years ago. So I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: so I look at it as I don't really look
Speaker 1: at teams. I just see my guys, like you know,
Speaker 1: the people that I know, um, and see what they're doing.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's you know, the people that I know,
Speaker 1: and I go from there. But you know, being at Lebron's,
Speaker 1: I'm like, so I'm you know, I'm like, okay, here's
Speaker 1: I'm gonna watch Milwaukee because you hear a lot about
Speaker 1: Milwaukee Lebron and then uh New York. But the thing is,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, the Nets not the next because
Speaker 1: they are a little bit of trouble right now. They
Speaker 1: can't figure out the front office situation. Uh. But you
Speaker 1: know I look at it that way. You know. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, back when we started, you looked at the
Speaker 1: team and if your guy left the team, he would
Speaker 1: know part you don't even mess with him no more,
Speaker 1: he ain't on my team. Now people change teams follow
Speaker 1: their players now, driven Yeah, so you know players sit there. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, I watched Houston because you am a man
Speaker 1: left heart and left and and Westbrook now joined him
Speaker 1: after you know, how did that cane work? CP three?
Speaker 1: What's going on with it? I mean, you know I
Speaker 1: look at it. Uh, you know, it is player driven.
Speaker 1: But these are the guys that you know, number one,
Speaker 1: my kids look at um. So we can have some conversations.
Speaker 1: So the dialogue not so much about uh sports with him,
Speaker 1: what about his game? Um, look what he's doing in
Speaker 1: the community and things like that. You know, I always say, hey,
Speaker 1: anybody can play the game. What is he doing to
Speaker 1: better his community? Uh? And and that's it. I mean
Speaker 1: I was on the governing board for twenty years. I
Speaker 1: actually paid to be on that board. What I do
Speaker 1: it again? Absolutely? You know the Boys and Girls Club
Speaker 1: here they know and I'm in Orlando, so you know
Speaker 1: they know they can count on me. They call, hey,
Speaker 1: can we you know we need auction out of what
Speaker 1: you want? There's no question, it's like what you want.
Speaker 1: They're like, hey, uh, we got a lot of people
Speaker 1: that want to play golf with you. How many of
Speaker 1: you got We've got five. We've got five foursomes that
Speaker 1: paid the same amount. All right, let's go. And I
Speaker 1: got no problems doing it. Uh, you know, like all
Speaker 1: my friends. Know, you know y'all got a charity event,
Speaker 1: be moren happy to show up, play golf, help y'all
Speaker 1: out and that man, thank you, that's what's up. That's
Speaker 1: little and get you on us a bowling. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: ready for that. How do you feel about that today's
Speaker 1: game compared to back in the nineties early two thousand's
Speaker 1: just like anything else they've they've you know, a little
Speaker 1: bit softened it up. Um. You know, the big money
Speaker 1: has come in and made sure that these guys are
Speaker 1: on the field. If I take out my best player,
Speaker 1: people ain't taking vacations to come see guys play, you
Speaker 1: know back then you know, uh, man, but it's different
Speaker 1: than baseball because if he takes the day off in baseball,
Speaker 1: you know you you might be there, you're going to
Speaker 1: be there three days. Um in basketball, you're there one
Speaker 1: night and gone. So you know, when you hear lower management,
Speaker 1: we always started looking like, what is lower management? In baseball?
Speaker 1: We go, yeah, he took a day off, he a
Speaker 1: little sore, you know, he got you know, we got
Speaker 1: a day off tomorrow, so we've given him two days. Uh.
Speaker 1: But you know when people look at you know, the
Speaker 1: word load management, they get upset. But um, we play
Speaker 1: a hundred and sixty two games. You know, we're in
Speaker 1: the town for three days. Um, people have an opportunity
Speaker 1: and if you're hurt, they know that you're hurt prior
Speaker 1: to that. It's not you show up at the arena
Speaker 1: and uh, but it it's hard, but I understand. You know,
Speaker 1: you want to see your best players. So when a
Speaker 1: guy is making thirty six set thirty forty million, you
Speaker 1: want him out there and that's what you know. Buttsing
Speaker 1: them seats is the most important thing. And uh, you know, Um,
Speaker 1: it's tough. I mean it's it's tough because you you know,
Speaker 1: you want to be able to give the fans everything
Speaker 1: you have, but you also know that you need your
Speaker 1: rest and how do you do it? You know, it's
Speaker 1: that fine line, you know, how do we rest you know,
Speaker 1: our our our big guys, because they're the ones that's
Speaker 1: driving this this this engine. But but people also have
Speaker 1: to Africa understand the opportunity that you're going to see
Speaker 1: a guy who may not normally play that might be
Speaker 1: become your favorite player. Next yeah it was next up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, he might get an opportunity, he might drop thirty,
Speaker 1: but like I like him. You know, I have mentioned
Speaker 1: I mentioned to this, you know, my kids all the time.
Speaker 1: You know. Uh, that's a guy called Wally Pip. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he decided he want to take a day off and
Speaker 1: he didn't play because the Iron Horsemen said, uh, don't
Speaker 1: worry about I got this. You know. Luke said, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna play it every day. The restless history. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: you know, and that's the hard part is as athletes,
Speaker 1: we know we want to go out there every day,
Speaker 1: you know, and everybody knows. You could tell when somebody's
Speaker 1: run down, but you still want to give the people.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're a starter, you know that you
Speaker 1: want to go out there and and give it. You're all.
Speaker 1: You may need to take a breather here there, but
Speaker 1: you want to be out there because those people come
Speaker 1: to see you play. Being a big part of Seattle
Speaker 1: sports tradition in history. Um, with the Sonics obviously leaving,
Speaker 1: I thought Seattle was a great city. Uh, Jack and
Speaker 1: I both got a chance to play against the Saunus
Speaker 1: before they left. Do you have any good stories about
Speaker 1: Sean Kemp or Gary Payton? Why are you out there
Speaker 1: as a as a player, Well, I had courts sad seats,
Speaker 1: but I had court site like like I was next
Speaker 1: to the bench, uh, on the baseline. So I always,
Speaker 1: you know, when they called time out, I always act
Speaker 1: like opposite everything. I thought she was on the team. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So one day, uh, George happened to look over and
Speaker 1: look at me, and uh after the time out and
Speaker 1: everybody went out there, he slipped, but he said, what
Speaker 1: were you doing? Ibou to look? I was just trying
Speaker 1: to see if I can get me like, you know,
Speaker 1: two or three shots up while you know, I go
Speaker 1: in there. And he said absolutely not. I said that.
Speaker 1: You know, my daddy scored twenty points against you in
Speaker 1: high school, so you know, he was like, oh you
Speaker 1: know that. I was like, oh, absolutely, you know. I
Speaker 1: was funny that, but you know it's funny because like
Speaker 1: Gary and and uh, the one person I tell you
Speaker 1: I was scared of was X Man because he just
Speaker 1: looked me and all the time, but he'd always give
Speaker 1: me high five, like, man, what's up? Bro? I was like, uh, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: all right, But but you know when when you know,
Speaker 1: when you in such a small city and and I
Speaker 1: call a small city a small group, uh, and these
Speaker 1: guys you know when they want to come baseball games,
Speaker 1: we want you know, like now, you know, you go
Speaker 1: to different sporting events and they're like, hey, man, I'll
Speaker 1: leave you this, come on in to come on and
Speaker 1: we got the parking here, we got this. You gotta suite.
Speaker 1: You know, we got you and uh, you know, you
Speaker 1: take care of Back then, you took care of everybody
Speaker 1: that was in your city, even though they may have
Speaker 1: play at a different sport, it was still your city. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was y'all. See. I find that I don't find
Speaker 1: that as much nowadays. You know, when you know, when
Speaker 1: guys have three, you know, three sports franchises, they don't
Speaker 1: they don't reciprocate the baseball team and go to the
Speaker 1: football team to football team. Um, when I got hurt
Speaker 1: in Cincinnati, I was the very first person to work
Speaker 1: out at the Bengal Stadium as a pole. I mean like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm I was going on the the underwater treadmill and
Speaker 1: they were like, we we don't allow anybody over here,
Speaker 1: but you're the first. I'm like, huh, are we all
Speaker 1: to build build this city together? It's just crazy. It
Speaker 1: was mind boggling to me that, you know, hey, if
Speaker 1: there's a piece of equipment that can help, you know,
Speaker 1: bring awareness to to you know, get a guy back,
Speaker 1: but also bring awareness to my city. I gotta do it.
Speaker 1: And it just it was mind boggling. And now they
Speaker 1: work together, but before their name worked at all together.
Speaker 1: It's different times. All right, last question, I'm gonna put
Speaker 1: you on the spot here. You're all time top five
Speaker 1: in the NBA in any order, any order, don't have
Speaker 1: to be a order. All right, We'll go with Michael
Speaker 1: Kobe lebron Ai mm hmm like that. M hmm, Dr
Speaker 1: Jay and Dr Okay our respective five. There will be
Speaker 1: a dead go to. I kind of lied about the
Speaker 1: order things. So it's George in your duty. Is Jordan's
Speaker 1: the greatest player of all time? Do you see? Here's
Speaker 1: the thing I argue with my my my friends all
Speaker 1: the time about this. I don't have the greatest of
Speaker 1: all time. I have the greatest of his era. Okay,
Speaker 1: because Michael didn't play against all the old greats, and
Speaker 1: I just feel that you've got to play against those guys.
Speaker 1: So when they talk about the top fifty best players,
Speaker 1: I look at it. No, you can have the top
Speaker 1: fifty of an era, not so much because how many
Speaker 1: home runs would Hank Garon William Mays hit if they
Speaker 1: didn't and I used in baseball terms, uh, if they
Speaker 1: didn't get thrown at, if they had to travel that
Speaker 1: we had, if they had two conditioning that we had.
Speaker 1: So I can't you know, the Jordan's learned something from
Speaker 1: you know, Dr j uh Kobe learned something from from
Speaker 1: Michael you know. So it's a passing of the torch.
Speaker 1: So I can't say who's better. Basketball is different in
Speaker 1: every era and people have to adapt to that, just
Speaker 1: like you have to adapt in baseball and football. You
Speaker 1: know now you can't hit a quarterback below the waist
Speaker 1: and above the shoulder pad before you asked Terry Bradshaw
Speaker 1: all that. So I just look at it as is
Speaker 1: he the best of his era? Absolutely? Uh? And because
Speaker 1: the game has always changed, you know, adaptability and availability
Speaker 1: to the two biggest things in sports. If I can
Speaker 1: adapt and be available, I could play. But you can't
Speaker 1: go wrong whatever. But with you know saying m J,
Speaker 1: you can't argue that. No. Absolutely, absolutely, that's a great
Speaker 1: point though, that's a great point. Can thank you for
Speaker 1: your time for sitting down, Thank you of you today
Speaker 1: thank you for you to come back on Absolutely That's
Speaker 1: a wrap all the Smoke Uh special episode with Ken
Speaker 1: Griffith Jr. We appreciate your time, Jack, great show, Good job, Bro.
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