Speaker 1: Boom. If you thought four hours a day, minutes a
Speaker 1: week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants of
Speaker 1: the old republic a sole fashion of fairness. He treats
Speaker 1: crackheads in the Ghetto Cutter the same as the rich
Speaker 1: pill poppers in the penthouse, the clearing House of hot takes,
Speaker 1: break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben
Speaker 1: Maller starts right now, nine nine in the air. Everywhere.
Speaker 1: The weekend is back upon us. Happy Friday. Friday Friday,
Speaker 1: another addition of the Fifth Hour with Ben Maller, because hey,
Speaker 1: four hours a night in the overnight or not enough.
Speaker 1: We thank you for finding the podcast, subscribing to the podcast,
Speaker 1: telling friends about the podcast. We do this eight days
Speaker 1: a week in a spinoff of the Overnight Show. An
Speaker 1: overnight show, so every Friday we try to catch up
Speaker 1: with someone that we like or someone that we know,
Speaker 1: and it's a chance to do something we don't normally
Speaker 1: do in the overnight. We don't normally do that, we
Speaker 1: don't have an opportunity to have people come and hang
Speaker 1: out with us. We're on the middle of the night.
Speaker 1: Management wants us to do a show around calls and
Speaker 1: and hot takes and so that's what we do. So
Speaker 1: this is a chance to get out of our Norman
Speaker 1: this week. I am excited. Now. I am a baseball guy.
Speaker 1: I'm a baseball guy, and I remember as a kid
Speaker 1: watching baseball. This is the guy we have on today.
Speaker 1: Is a person that I watched as a kid. He
Speaker 1: was at the end of his career, but is someone
Speaker 1: that is in a very small, very small group of
Speaker 1: people in the history of the modern world that has
Speaker 1: had a medical procedure named after them. And I am
Speaker 1: referring to Tommy John. Now, if you're of a certain age,
Speaker 1: you know who Tommy John is. But if you're younger,
Speaker 1: you're like, I know Tommy John, Tommy John surgery. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's the guy that was patient zero for Tommy John surgery. Obviously,
Speaker 1: and that has become the norm if you have an
Speaker 1: arm injury. Tommy John surgery is just a routine procedure.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't. It was an exploratory procedure when Tommy
Speaker 1: John was pitching. Played twenty six years in the big leagues,
Speaker 1: a lot of years with the Yankees. Pitched mostly with
Speaker 1: the Yankees, the White Sox, and the Dodgers, along with
Speaker 1: some other stops along the way and when games he's
Speaker 1: not being in the Hall of him I'm actually gonna
Speaker 1: make my pitch here because wins twenty six years. People
Speaker 1: say that's not enough, but I will make my pitch
Speaker 1: to Tommy the man himself. Why. I think he's got
Speaker 1: a strong case to get in for the Veterans Committee
Speaker 1: for the Hall of Fame. And we'll obviously get to
Speaker 1: the medical procedure as well. So I am excited to
Speaker 1: talk to a baseball legend of my youth, someone I
Speaker 1: grew up watching. I was watching this Weekend Baseball and
Speaker 1: Tommy John would change teams. Mel Allen was in twib notes.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about Tommy John is on the move, and
Speaker 1: we are joined by the man, the myth, the legend himself,
Speaker 1: the great Tommy John, joining us here on the fifth
Speaker 1: Hour with Ben Mallory. Tommy, welcome, and let's start with this.
Speaker 1: How have you been What have you been up to
Speaker 1: here recently? How long is the show? Do you have
Speaker 1: enough time? Oh? We have endless amounts of time. Tommy,
Speaker 1: please come on, this is a podcast. We can go forever. Okay, December,
Speaker 1: I contracted COVID and my wife the same thing. We
Speaker 1: both had COVID and I fell out of bed, hit
Speaker 1: my head on the end table, on the on the nightstand,
Speaker 1: cut my head open, Take me to the hospital, patch
Speaker 1: me up. Three days later I fall again. They I've
Speaker 1: been to the hospital. This this happened five times. And
Speaker 1: you know, as I'm getting, as I'm getting over COVID
Speaker 1: and all that, um, I contracted a thing called gian
Speaker 1: Barre syndrome. And if you look it up, gian Barre
Speaker 1: syndrome paralyzes your lower extremities. Wow, you've had a tough
Speaker 1: time here recently. And then um, well it's just you know,
Speaker 1: but I'm over it now. And despite what Dr Fauci says,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to get vaccinated because I've got all
Speaker 1: the antibodies and in my body. And my wife had
Speaker 1: COVID also, and she had pneumonia with her. But you know, so,
Speaker 1: so what was it? I mean, tell me, iously, you're
Speaker 1: you're a little older now, you you play a long
Speaker 1: time in the big leads. How how bad was your
Speaker 1: experience with COVID or obviously you said you had a
Speaker 1: lot of side effects. You filled down a lot. I mean,
Speaker 1: how you've been sick before. I'm sure at other point
Speaker 1: in your life, like, how does this rank among other
Speaker 1: illnesses that you had? Well, let me put it to
Speaker 1: you this way. I came within a phone call of dying. Wow.
Speaker 1: My wife. My wife called the hospital out here and said,
Speaker 1: you gotta he's gotta have because they worked attacking the problem,
Speaker 1: you know. Oh well, yeah, he's okay, so send him home.
Speaker 1: To send him home. They finally said, you know, look
Speaker 1: if we can't keep him here, so we're gonna send
Speaker 1: him to a nursing home in Banning. Wow. And my
Speaker 1: wife gets on the phone and shell calls a doctor
Speaker 1: at usc Keeck Medical Center and gave him all my
Speaker 1: all my information and she and he said, whoa, he's
Speaker 1: got a blood clot someplace. So they sent a in
Speaker 1: an ambulance for me from Indio to check, which is
Speaker 1: about hour and minute drive. I get in, They take
Speaker 1: me right into the operating room. They put a capital
Speaker 1: uh through my growing into my lungs and I had
Speaker 1: two huge blood clots on both lobes of my my line,
Speaker 1: upper and lower. Wow. And once they broke it up,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, my breathing came back and I
Speaker 1: so I had this lady that is my wife. She
Speaker 1: saved my life because if I would have listened to
Speaker 1: the hospital here in tom Springs, I probably would be
Speaker 1: dead right now. Wow, I mean you weren't kidding, Tommy.
Speaker 1: You were not kidding when you when you said you
Speaker 1: had a lot to say. That is uh, that is
Speaker 1: an amazing roller coaster. I did not I got when
Speaker 1: I was very excited, you know, I'm I'm really I
Speaker 1: was looking forward this. I did not expect that. I
Speaker 1: had no idea that any of this happened to you.
Speaker 1: I feel so terrible that you had to go through that, Tommy.
Speaker 1: That's horrible man. But you know, um, like I said,
Speaker 1: Cheryl and I both have the handad bodies in our system,
Speaker 1: and so um yeah, all the all the craft that's
Speaker 1: going on now, I just I shake my head and
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, it can't be that tough. It really can. Well, um,
Speaker 1: it's always tough to transition. I I I know, I
Speaker 1: want to talk baseball talk. I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, is that okay? Alright? Alright? Um, I guess.
Speaker 1: I mean you've been through a lot of medical stuff
Speaker 1: here recently. How much how much baseball do you still
Speaker 1: watch these days? And you played like almost thirty years
Speaker 1: in the big leagues. None I watched none. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: why is that? It's not the game that I played? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you play You've got all these computer geniuses and
Speaker 1: the analytics and all this. I would have a manager
Speaker 1: or a pitching coach call one pitch for me and
Speaker 1: make me throw it. I'd walk off the mound, throw
Speaker 1: my glove at him and say see you later. I'll
Speaker 1: pitch the way I want to pitch, the way I
Speaker 1: feel I have to pitch, not the way some numbers
Speaker 1: said that. You know, yeah, at plus who was it?
Speaker 1: Um might have been last year how to shut out?
Speaker 1: And he got two out in the seventh inning and
Speaker 1: they pulled him out of the game. You would have
Speaker 1: put you you would have tried to pull me out
Speaker 1: of the game with a shutout and two outs in
Speaker 1: the seventh inning. There would have been a fist fight
Speaker 1: on the mountain. Yeah, and you but you know, it's
Speaker 1: just it's not played the same way. Yeah. And what
Speaker 1: about when did the You'd be the perfect guy to
Speaker 1: ask to because you played in the sixties and the
Speaker 1: seventies and the eighties, when would the when did the
Speaker 1: hundred pitch thing become the barometer where if you get
Speaker 1: around a hundred pitches, you gotta get out of the game.
Speaker 1: You can't be in the game anyway. Was that around
Speaker 1: in your days or did that start you know, started
Speaker 1: a little a little after me, okay, And I don't
Speaker 1: know why. Maybe they looked at the number of pitches
Speaker 1: that the guys threw and when they started to fall
Speaker 1: you know, when they're pitching abilla, they started to fall off,
Speaker 1: and it was around the hundred pitch mark. I but
Speaker 1: you know how to get out of that now it's
Speaker 1: through the hundred pitches. Yeah, I threw a baseball off
Speaker 1: the mound to a catcher every day I was on
Speaker 1: the field. I didn't pitch the night threw And the
Speaker 1: more you throw like that, the more you your I
Speaker 1: get stronger. Yeah, what's the most get stronger? How do
Speaker 1: you how do you get your arms? It's not lifting weights,
Speaker 1: it's not doing bands, it's not doing towel drills, it's
Speaker 1: not doing all this. It's throwing a baseball. Yeah, what's
Speaker 1: the most time? What's the most pitches? You know? I
Speaker 1: don't know, they didn't really, I guess keep pitch counts.
Speaker 1: Earlier in your career, I would think, but what's the
Speaker 1: most pitches you were called throwing roughly like a ballpark
Speaker 1: figure in it. Wow, that's it's like double what they
Speaker 1: more than double what they do the days. And what
Speaker 1: about now you pitch twenty six years in the big
Speaker 1: things and so now the big thing. And I loved
Speaker 1: your I agree with you on analyst. I'm not totally
Speaker 1: against analysts, but I think there has to be field
Speaker 1: of the game that has to be part of it.
Speaker 1: And it's got two are to analytics. But when you
Speaker 1: would get through the third time through the order, like
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's always the big thing these days
Speaker 1: with the people freak out when you go through the
Speaker 1: third time through, Like what was your mindset back in
Speaker 1: those days, because now it's like people start losing their
Speaker 1: mind when you have to get to that third time
Speaker 1: through the order. No, I'll knew what I threw these guys. Um.
Speaker 1: I had a manager back with the White Sox. His
Speaker 1: name was Eddie Stanky. He knew nothing about pitching, nothing,
Speaker 1: but he called me in I I pitched the game
Speaker 1: against the Yankees. He called me into the office the
Speaker 1: next day and he said, young man, sit down here,
Speaker 1: and I went, oh god, what did I do? He said,
Speaker 1: let's go over last night's game. Okay, what do you
Speaker 1: first hit? Or what do you do? Uh? Grounded the
Speaker 1: short stop. What was the count? Uh? Uh? And I
Speaker 1: couldn't get four or five innings and I couldn't go.
Speaker 1: He said, Okay, we're gonna do this again. You should
Speaker 1: be able to go through first hitter to your last
Speaker 1: hitter and go. The count was three and two and
Speaker 1: and that showed me there that I can face you
Speaker 1: four times. And just because I'm facing you four times
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that you've got a better chance to hit
Speaker 1: hit me. It's if I make good pitches, it's going
Speaker 1: to be the same. You're gonna have a hard time
Speaker 1: hitting me. Yeah, but if I make mistakes. If I
Speaker 1: make mistakes, then whether it's the first time or the
Speaker 1: fifth time or whatever, you're going to hit the ball hard. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it's always that guessing game, right. I mean, you,
Speaker 1: as the picture have the advantage because you know the
Speaker 1: hitter doesn't know what's coming you. You know what you're
Speaker 1: gonna pitch, so you have the you know. And the
Speaker 1: thing that I did is I I um, if I
Speaker 1: got you out and I got you on sinkers and
Speaker 1: your your third time up and I hadn't thrown you
Speaker 1: a curveball yet. Why would I throw you a curveball
Speaker 1: If I'm getting you out with sinkers away? You have
Speaker 1: not adjusted to my pitches. You know, pitching is adjustment.
Speaker 1: You throw a sinker away and the right hander goes
Speaker 1: out there and maybe doesn't hit it, but goes after
Speaker 1: it blowing away. Okay, now you gotta get him back
Speaker 1: off that, so you gotta throw something up and end
Speaker 1: middle end curveball in you know you you you gotta
Speaker 1: keep him away from the outside corner. And uh, it's
Speaker 1: just it's just keeping track of what you of what
Speaker 1: you're doing. You know, you faced the guy two times
Speaker 1: you go slinker. You're throwing in fifteen pitches all slinkers,
Speaker 1: and now you go out and you throw him a
Speaker 1: got off a curveball. It's probably gonna take it because
Speaker 1: he hasn't seen it. So why would you throw him curveball?
Speaker 1: First pitch, second pitch? You throw it where you got
Speaker 1: two strikes. So yeah, yeah, for sure, I'm right. I'm
Speaker 1: right there with you. I mean, you know better than
Speaker 1: any but you did it. You lived the life for
Speaker 1: for all those years and and and since you've retired,
Speaker 1: you know, back in the eighties. Now it's gone completely
Speaker 1: the opposite where they like they have this defeatist attitude
Speaker 1: with pictures where if you get to a hundred pitchers,
Speaker 1: you gotta take you out of the game, and if
Speaker 1: you can't go third times through the lineup. Be sure
Speaker 1: to catch live editions of The Ben Miller Show weekdays
Speaker 1: at two am. But isn't it more of an issue Tommy,
Speaker 1: where it's like the the pictures today when they're coming
Speaker 1: up in high school and in college and the minor leagues,
Speaker 1: they're they're taught this, like this is what they know,
Speaker 1: right you were You were not taught this? You Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you're absolutely like they're they're taught three times through, they're done.
Speaker 1: So when you lower the bar of expectations, you will
Speaker 1: pitch to those expectations. Yeah, for sure. Um, and now
Speaker 1: some of the other things, and you say, don't watch
Speaker 1: baseball anymore. It's a different game. But I know you're
Speaker 1: aware that they added a a ghost runner. They're gonna
Speaker 1: get rid of it next year, they say, but they've
Speaker 1: the last two years here they've had a ghost runner
Speaker 1: in extra inning stuffy that just a runner magically appears
Speaker 1: at second base when you get to the tenth inning.
Speaker 1: It's very, very bizarre. And what was the reasoning on that, Well,
Speaker 1: they didn't want the games to go They thought the
Speaker 1: games are going too long long, and they said they
Speaker 1: you know, they used how is that, I think I'm
Speaker 1: part called more strikes. Yeah, the strike zone, Yo, strike one,
Speaker 1: strike two, ye, strike three, You're gone, let's go boom
Speaker 1: next guy. But they've got the strike zone so tight. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's just you know, and then they then they want
Speaker 1: the games to go along quicker. Well that's hard to do, yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's it's almost like they want both things though,
Speaker 1: because they want, you know, for television, for the for television,
Speaker 1: they need to sell commercial times, so they need the
Speaker 1: games to go a certain amount of time. But then
Speaker 1: they also say, well, it's like the pace of the
Speaker 1: game and all that. But I'm right there. You know,
Speaker 1: obviously you're biased time because you're pitched as a strike.
Speaker 1: You want the bigger strikes. But I agree. I think
Speaker 1: one of the biggest problems with baseball is every hitter
Speaker 1: now you get paid to walk. That's as big as thing.
Speaker 1: You know, home runs and what the read true outcomes
Speaker 1: to baseball? Home run, walk, strike out for hitters these days,
Speaker 1: that's the analytical crowd and and nobody. And the other
Speaker 1: thing is nobody ever chokes up on the bat, Tommy.
Speaker 1: This this drives me insane. When you have you know,
Speaker 1: runner on third base and you know, two outs, runner
Speaker 1: onund segment whatever, they don't just choke up trying to
Speaker 1: get a base in. They're still trying to hit the
Speaker 1: ball to the upper deck. It drives me nut to drive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're absolutely correct, Yeah, it's it's frustrating. Um So, now
Speaker 1: you you came up with Cleveland, correct. I mean I
Speaker 1: think of you as a Dodger and a Yankee, you
Speaker 1: know when I was, you know, a kid, but you
Speaker 1: you can't play with the Yankees. You mentioned the White
Speaker 1: Sox the Cleveland Indians last week and asked they will
Speaker 1: no longer be the Cleveland Indians. They're changing their name
Speaker 1: to the Cleveland Guardians. As someone that came up with
Speaker 1: the Cleveland Indians, Tommy, what was your reaction to that news.
Speaker 1: I just this whole thing is is so screwed up.
Speaker 1: Uh M. A Indian is an Indian. There's nothing racial
Speaker 1: about it. That's what they are. They're in India. You
Speaker 1: know a guide born in India. He's an Indian. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're an Indian. Uh, You're you have Native American blood
Speaker 1: in you. You're an Indian. It doesn't mean that you're
Speaker 1: going to scalp somebody for peace's sake. But I think
Speaker 1: I think he's got to get his head out of it.
Speaker 1: But too, I'm not a big fan Rob Manford. You
Speaker 1: the community, I'm right there with you. I'm right he's done. Boy,
Speaker 1: We've I've sent a lot of nights Tommy on the
Speaker 1: overnight ranting and raving about Rob Manford the commissioner of
Speaker 1: of Baseball. So yeah, but I don't see it changing anytime.
Speaker 1: A lot of stuff going on right now. It just
Speaker 1: is yeah, wild, But I think we're on the the
Speaker 1: same page on some of that. So when when I
Speaker 1: was when I was younger, you remember you played with
Speaker 1: the Yankees, uh and in the Dodgers. As I said,
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, and you played for the
Speaker 1: Yankees in the eighties and the seventies with with George
Speaker 1: Steinbrenner as the owner, I heard amazing tales as a
Speaker 1: kid about you know how crazy George Steinbrenner was as
Speaker 1: an owner. How wild he was when you were playing
Speaker 1: for the Yankees. You do you have a really good
Speaker 1: story about George Steinbrenner. Is that all media hype and
Speaker 1: it's not true the way it's portrayed and the way
Speaker 1: I read it as a kid. Nope, it's true. So
Speaker 1: really what it was the Bronze When I was where
Speaker 1: it was, I uh oh. We were in Fort Lauderdale
Speaker 1: with the Yankees trained in Fort Lauderdale and Hank Steinbrenner,
Speaker 1: Hank ran George's horse farm up in o'calla Lada. Hank
Speaker 1: was out are saying, these salaries are so high there,
Speaker 1: this is that, And I said, hey, who talk to
Speaker 1: your old man. He's the one running the prices up.
Speaker 1: He hands out these big contracts. He said, I know
Speaker 1: he doesn't have an F and clue. And I said,
Speaker 1: now you said that I didn't. But George was a
Speaker 1: football man. He didn't play football. He was like a
Speaker 1: student manager in college or something, and he hung around
Speaker 1: the football teams and coaches, and he tried to run
Speaker 1: a baseball team like you do a football team. Well
Speaker 1: in football, you know, it's kind of set in stone
Speaker 1: what you do, and and he uh, if you go
Speaker 1: back on the nineteen one World Series Game six, Yankee Stadium,
Speaker 1: I'm pitching. I give up the first run of the
Speaker 1: World Series that I gave up in the top of
Speaker 1: the fourth inning. Yeah, fib and the fourth inning they
Speaker 1: pinched it for me. I'm going crazy. And I find
Speaker 1: out later from a guy that was like a I
Speaker 1: and the Sky. For the Yankees, Steinbrenner's rule was get
Speaker 1: a lead early and then go to the bullpen. Win
Speaker 1: it out of the bullpen. And Bob Lemon, being a
Speaker 1: good trooper, he wanted to get a lead. So the
Speaker 1: score was tied one to one. Bob or the fourth
Speaker 1: we had two runners on two out, pitcher coming up.
Speaker 1: They pin ship for me and I asked women, I said, um,
Speaker 1: who who's coming in? He said George Fraisier. I said,
Speaker 1: shut lim Frasier. Haven't gotten anybody out all series. You're
Speaker 1: going to don't tell me out a minute And I said, well,
Speaker 1: I'm just telling you he hasn't gotten anybody out. And
Speaker 1: then who would you bring in? I said, well, you're
Speaker 1: taking out your starter, which is your night's best pitcher,
Speaker 1: the day's best pitcher, and you're saying that it's the
Speaker 1: seventh or eighth inning. Who would you bring in in
Speaker 1: the seventh or eighth inning of football game? I bring
Speaker 1: Gaussie Gin. Then I'd bring gassie Gin right now. But
Speaker 1: he can't go all the way. Uh. He goes two
Speaker 1: or three innings, and then you go to the next
Speaker 1: guy and then you work your way through the ball game.
Speaker 1: If you're going to you're going to manage like that.
Speaker 1: But that was how George, George would have these um
Speaker 1: Fox like they do. Well, we're gonna we're gonna run
Speaker 1: the fullback over left tackle. Uh, he's not real good.
Speaker 1: You know. Well that's football and baseball is totally different, pitching,
Speaker 1: hitting and all that. But that's the way George ran
Speaker 1: the game. And he he just he was very demanding.
Speaker 1: But I like the guy I played for him. Again, Yeah,
Speaker 1: yes I can't because he's dead. Well, that's true. That
Speaker 1: would be That would be amazing, though, Tommy, if you
Speaker 1: came back and pitched and he came back and owned
Speaker 1: a team, that would be uh, I would be yeah.
Speaker 1: Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Maller
Speaker 1: Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific on
Speaker 1: Fox Sports radio and the I Heart Radio app. Hey
Speaker 1: it's me Rob Parker. Check out my weekly MLB podcast,
Speaker 1: Inside the Parker for twenty two minutes of piping hot
Speaker 1: baseball talk featuring the biggest name to newsmakers in the sport.
Speaker 1: Whether you believe in analytics or the I Test, We've
Speaker 1: got all the bases covered. New episodes drop every Thursday,
Speaker 1: So do yourself a favor and listen to Inside the
Speaker 1: Parker with Rob Parker on the I Heart Radio app
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcast. So, So, now this
Speaker 1: is why So in those days and you played in
Speaker 1: the days where you know the guys that the players,
Speaker 1: even though you respected the other player, right, you were
Speaker 1: not buddy buddy with the You had rivalries, right, guys
Speaker 1: that weren't and you weren't hanging out with each other
Speaker 1: all the time. That's the perception I had you. You
Speaker 1: lived the life. But you went from the Dodgers to
Speaker 1: the Yankees and they were a pretty big rival. How
Speaker 1: how awkward was that going from from l A. You
Speaker 1: pitched in a World Series with the Dodgers against the Yankees,
Speaker 1: and then you ended up going to the Yankees and
Speaker 1: pitching against the Dodgers in the World Series. How how
Speaker 1: odd was that? Um? I called friends that I knew, Uh,
Speaker 1: in the league, who's got the best endfield? The offensive endfield?
Speaker 1: And everybody said, well the Yankees. Um, you know, Chamblis, Randolph,
Speaker 1: Bucky Dent and Nettles there. The Brewers are good, but
Speaker 1: the Yankees are better. Okay, all right? Because I wanted
Speaker 1: guys that could field the ball because they're going to
Speaker 1: get a lot of balls hit to them. And so
Speaker 1: that's how I made my choice. And and like I said,
Speaker 1: I would do it again. But it's just I don't know.
Speaker 1: Stif was a character, a big character. But the guy
Speaker 1: that I loved playing for was Losorda and I only
Speaker 1: played two seasons for him, Sevenday seven. And yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what I want to ask you, because Tommy, I I
Speaker 1: started covering as a baseball reporter when I was in radio.
Speaker 1: I my first gig, one of my first gigs as
Speaker 1: a reporter was covering Losorda. But I saw Tommy at
Speaker 1: the end of his career, the last few years he
Speaker 1: managed the Dodgers. I covered the Dodgers, and and I know,
Speaker 1: you know, Tommy was like a bigger than life character then.
Speaker 1: But what was it like when he was starting his
Speaker 1: his run with the the It was a young Tommy
Speaker 1: los sort of like before he became the established over
Speaker 1: the top personality. I always had the personality, But what
Speaker 1: was it like before he became a legend if you will?
Speaker 1: He uh, he was the cheapest s O B in
Speaker 1: the world. He never paid for a meal. He'd have
Speaker 1: um and now he's getting the same meal money that
Speaker 1: we're getting m hm. And he just he would find
Speaker 1: somebody to pick his breakfast tab up or lunch or whatever.
Speaker 1: But he was he was good at that, really good
Speaker 1: at that. Yeah, And I remember he has been around
Speaker 1: him a little bit, like he knew everybody and everybody
Speaker 1: loved him and so like I remember, there would be
Speaker 1: at one time. I'm sure this happened a lot when
Speaker 1: you were there, probably back in there, but but Frank
Speaker 1: Sinatra showed up and this was big. You know, Frank
Speaker 1: was late in his life and he showed up there
Speaker 1: and that was like a huge deal and stuff. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, he knew all the big celebrities of the
Speaker 1: day and they all wanted to like hang out with him.
Speaker 1: It was the wild, wild experience. And I guess in
Speaker 1: the old days when the Dodgers first came out here,
Speaker 1: the Hollywood stars, when all that would be at Dodger
Speaker 1: Stadium all the time. But Wald Alfston, being the stuff
Speaker 1: coat that he was, um didn't make them feel welcome.
Speaker 1: So um they wet coming. And when La Sorta came, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I used to go down in his office and just
Speaker 1: see who was there. And you would see run Maysak
Speaker 1: all the time. He would come down there, and I
Speaker 1: mean guys that you would never put the two guys.
Speaker 1: When Losorda's daughter got married, we had the wedding ceremony
Speaker 1: and reception. I can't think of the he was a
Speaker 1: player with Dodgers, and we had everything at his house
Speaker 1: and it was supposed to start. Let's say at seven o'clock. Well,
Speaker 1: now it's like and nobody has shown up yet, Big
Speaker 1: Limo pulls up out, gets Sinatra and his wife, and
Speaker 1: John Rickles and his wife. Now the wedding ceremony started.
Speaker 1: Then the reception. Rickles did thirty minutes of comedy and
Speaker 1: Sinatras saying and all that but you. When my son
Speaker 1: Tommy was born, he's got a sterling silver cup. Tommy,
Speaker 1: Welcome to our world. Our world, Barbara and France's Sinatra.
Speaker 1: That's great. That is that's awesome. That's that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: So I mean that's just that's living. And you live
Speaker 1: that life with the Dodger. I'm sure when you're with
Speaker 1: the Yankees there were celebrities that would go to those
Speaker 1: games too, right, I mean that was yeah, the future
Speaker 1: may Oh he was the only one. Okay, all right
Speaker 1: down there. They didn't want to go to the Bronx
Speaker 1: in those days. They didn't want to not. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: so listen, I as a basebook, I want to talk.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the Hall of Fame a
Speaker 1: little bit. I mean, because I know the writers, the
Speaker 1: dope writers didn't vote you in. They get I think
Speaker 1: the most you got was like thirty one percent or
Speaker 1: something like that. But there's still the Veterans Committee. There's
Speaker 1: still a chance you can get the Hall of Fame.
Speaker 1: Have you heard from any of those people from the
Speaker 1: Veterans Committee? Have you? Hasn't we reached out to you? Uh,
Speaker 1: because I think you've got a pretty compelling case. But
Speaker 1: I'm slightly biased because I like you. But have you
Speaker 1: heard from anybody on that over the years since you
Speaker 1: ran out of eligible years you have not no, so
Speaker 1: make make your pitch right now. You know. He's the thing.
Speaker 1: I won two ball games, uh pits twenty six years
Speaker 1: the two wins. I had the most no decisions in
Speaker 1: the history of baseball A no decisions. Well I didn't
Speaker 1: know that. Yeah, so you know, okay, no decisions a
Speaker 1: quarter of the uh, that's forty wins on that's halfway,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean it's just people look at and
Speaker 1: they said, well, he pitched along time, he should have
Speaker 1: all those wins. Really really, that's not just because you
Speaker 1: pitched a long time doesn't mean that that you're gonna win.
Speaker 1: It just means that you pitched a long time. Sure, sure,
Speaker 1: and uh and I looked. I looked at the Baseball Reference,
Speaker 1: the stat website, and they have this thing called the
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame monitor, and they say the Hall of
Speaker 1: Famer just on this thing they said Hall of Famer
Speaker 1: as a score of a hundred. You had a score
Speaker 1: of a hundred and twelve for your pitching, So according
Speaker 1: to that, you're Hall of Famer. I know a lot
Speaker 1: of the How frustrating it though, Tommy, I know, you
Speaker 1: know it's a Hall of fames. They wet fine, whatever,
Speaker 1: but some of the guys you pitched with who were
Speaker 1: of a similar look, like bly Levin pitched in your
Speaker 1: you know, at the end of your your run there
Speaker 1: and Don Sutton. These guys are in the in the
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame, so well, you know. Obviously there was
Speaker 1: a sports rider and I confronted him on it after
Speaker 1: I came back from surgery. I had a hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty four wins to less than kofas one in his
Speaker 1: career and that's after you had unbelievably experimental surgery. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And the sportswriters said, yeah, but Sandy's wins were better
Speaker 1: than you. That here, what's the zeal you know? And okay,
Speaker 1: was it more strikeouts? Yea? Was it fewer hits? Yes?
Speaker 1: But it's a win. A win is a win. He
Speaker 1: he started the game to win. I started the game
Speaker 1: to win, and I won two less games than he did,
Speaker 1: but his were better. When when the guy told me that,
Speaker 1: I just thought to myself, that tells me how little
Speaker 1: I know about the Yeah is it? It's also a
Speaker 1: lot of this is a popularity contest, right like who
Speaker 1: you the if the writers like and love you and
Speaker 1: just kind of sucked up to him a little bit.
Speaker 1: That helps you out. That's also seems to be part
Speaker 1: of the Hall of Fame fame process. But and you
Speaker 1: finished You didn't win a cy young, but you finished
Speaker 1: second twice. Right you were you were, and you were
Speaker 1: at the top ten a bunch of times, so you
Speaker 1: had you were right among the top pitchers in baseball
Speaker 1: for for a good stretch of time there. Uh, but
Speaker 1: I can't talk to Tommy John without talking about the surgery,
Speaker 1: which is in nineteen seventy four. So you know, I'm
Speaker 1: a you know, I'm I'm middle aged now, but I
Speaker 1: was a young guy obviously, you know when this this happened,
Speaker 1: even before I was around. So kind of paint the
Speaker 1: picture for those lists and Tommy that we're not we're
Speaker 1: not around. Like, what was it like in those days
Speaker 1: when you had an injury like this? Did they just
Speaker 1: say that's it, go get a job, you're done. I mean,
Speaker 1: was there anything they could do before this or what
Speaker 1: what led you to go down this path to have
Speaker 1: this radical surgery. At the time, well, I've hurt my arm,
Speaker 1: and Dr Job said, well, let's give it about three
Speaker 1: weeks reps and then we'll start back and see maybe
Speaker 1: wee and wuck out and it'll heal and you won't
Speaker 1: need uh surgery. Okay, you know I had. He never
Speaker 1: said what kind of surgery or whatever? You won't need surgery. Well,
Speaker 1: I rested three weeks, came back and I threw a
Speaker 1: little bit, and I just I couldn't throw. My arm hurt,
Speaker 1: the elbow hurt. So then we sit down and we
Speaker 1: just had like a father and son talk. Um. I said, okay,
Speaker 1: you're my dad. What would you do? He said, well,
Speaker 1: you've torn a ligament in there. Now nine there were
Speaker 1: no m R s. All they had were X rays
Speaker 1: and X rays only. They only h X ray bone,
Speaker 1: not muscle or tendons or ligaments. But Dr job mandiculated
Speaker 1: my arm and he said, yeah, you can see here
Speaker 1: that joint is really loose. Um. You you know you've
Speaker 1: torn the ligament. I said, okay, what do you do
Speaker 1: to fix it? He said, well, there's a ligament transplant
Speaker 1: surgery that I've done on polio patients, but I've never
Speaker 1: done it. You know, I've never done it on a
Speaker 1: baseball player. And I said, well, that's the only way
Speaker 1: I'm going to get back to pitch again. Isn't it,
Speaker 1: and he said probably. And I said, okay, then let's
Speaker 1: get it done. Let's do it. And and I've read
Speaker 1: tom I mean you were not he was not very
Speaker 1: confident you would be able to come back. I mean
Speaker 1: the odds were not in your favor at least. I've
Speaker 1: read some stories on this and they they didn't really know, right,
Speaker 1: Doctor Job didn't know And this was said they had
Speaker 1: no idea what was going to happen. M Yeah, they
Speaker 1: had no idea what what was going to happen? And um,
Speaker 1: but I had the utmost confident and Frank Job, it's
Speaker 1: Dr Joe would have told me we can we can
Speaker 1: fix this. But here's how we're gonna do it. You
Speaker 1: go gather all your German shepherd's poops and put him
Speaker 1: in a bucket and go back a second base at
Speaker 1: Dodgers Stadium and dig a hole and bury those poops
Speaker 1: back there and your armor heel. I would have done
Speaker 1: it because I believed a thousand per cent and Frank
Speaker 1: Job if he told me, Tommy, I really don't think
Speaker 1: you can pitch. I think you should look for In fact,
Speaker 1: he told me, he said, do you have another job
Speaker 1: to go to or a way of making a living.
Speaker 1: If this doesn't work. Oh no, not if this when
Speaker 1: this doesn't work, is what he said. And I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've got a friend of mine back home. That's um.
Speaker 1: It's in the car business. And you know I can
Speaker 1: sell cars, or I can scow, or I can coach
Speaker 1: your manage in the minor leagues or whatever. I said,
Speaker 1: I've got ways of making it. But Job, because I
Speaker 1: was just married and I was operated on the September
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four. My first child, Tamara, was born September
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four. So that was why Dr Job wanted
Speaker 1: me to have a fallback that you know, your first child.
Speaker 1: You don't want to sit there and and go down
Speaker 1: the shoot thinking that you're gonna come back when the
Speaker 1: odds are that you weren't. But I knew that if
Speaker 1: in fact, I told Dr Job this, I said, if
Speaker 1: you do your job, I will more than do my job.
Speaker 1: I will more than do my job. If it takes
Speaker 1: a year, it's a year. If it takes two years,
Speaker 1: it's two years. I said three. Three. No, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: go three, but you know, and the rest is uh.
Speaker 1: He did the same surgery two years later on a
Speaker 1: pictured named Brent Strom m hm and uh Strommy said,
Speaker 1: if if they do the surgery on the picture and
Speaker 1: he doesn't come back, it's called Brent Strom surgery. He
Speaker 1: does come back and pitches, it's called Tommy John surgery.
Speaker 1: That's great, that's great. And how soon after you had
Speaker 1: this surgery? I mean you missed the seventy five season, right,
Speaker 1: and so when did you know, hey, this thing works? Like,
Speaker 1: when did you know I can still pitch? I got
Speaker 1: my arm back. Well, I went out to Arizona, pitched
Speaker 1: in the Arizona Fall Lake. Uh, I've started seven games
Speaker 1: in twenty eight days, that's every four days. I was
Speaker 1: on the mountain pitching and my arm didn't hurt. And
Speaker 1: I said, well, you know, now was my stuff good? No?
Speaker 1: Was it? But I found the next year about halfway
Speaker 1: through the season. You know, the art of pitching. Anybody
Speaker 1: can pitch when you've got your best stuff. But the
Speaker 1: art of pitching is being able to pitch and compete
Speaker 1: when you don't have your best stuff. And that's what
Speaker 1: I couldn't do until of about halfway during the seventy
Speaker 1: sixth season, I started to get the feeling, whoa, okay,
Speaker 1: I can get You know, you don't throw every fastball
Speaker 1: you throw, you throw here, hold fastball, you throw one?
Speaker 1: You I mean you very speech or at least I did.
Speaker 1: And um, it wasn't until halfway through the seventy six
Speaker 1: season that I started to get the confidence. Okay, I
Speaker 1: can back off my fastball and throw it harder. And
Speaker 1: here a hard curveball and a slow curveball and a
Speaker 1: flop curn balls. Um, but it just takes time. But
Speaker 1: nobody can tell you that. There's no doctor, there's no
Speaker 1: pitching coach, there's no therapist. They can't they can't tell
Speaker 1: you that you have to do it on your own.
Speaker 1: So as we Temmy, as we wind this down here again,
Speaker 1: Tommy John, what you're one of very few people that
Speaker 1: has had a medical procedure named after them. How how
Speaker 1: odd is it your name is in the news all
Speaker 1: the time that this is a common procedure now among athletes.
Speaker 1: And what is it like to be Tommy John? And
Speaker 1: and a lot of kids, you know, the younger people
Speaker 1: might not know you who's Tommy John? But I mean
Speaker 1: your your name is on the surgeon. What's that like?
Speaker 1: Having lived that and and experiencing that and seeing your
Speaker 1: name all over the place. When somebody has this operation,
Speaker 1: well named it Tommy John surgery was Dr Job and
Speaker 1: people think I did. I don't. But he would get
Speaker 1: talks about the surgery and what he did and all
Speaker 1: this and uh, you know, ligament replacement surgery reconstruction with
Speaker 1: the Paul Merrith's longest tendant. That's the name of the surgery.
Speaker 1: And then he said, you know the surgery I did
Speaker 1: on Tommy John. You know Tommy John surgery. And when
Speaker 1: when he said that, the doctors went, oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and the look at that replacement okay, bom And that's
Speaker 1: how it came about. And somebody asked me, They said,
Speaker 1: why didn't you patent put a patent on it? And
Speaker 1: I said because of Dr Joe. I couldn't do it.
Speaker 1: Because of him. I had so much love for him
Speaker 1: that I just I couldn't do it. Yeah. It's gonna
Speaker 1: make you feel good though, right, I mean you you
Speaker 1: were the first, you know, it's ever having an orthopedic
Speaker 1: surgery named after you. That a proctological that is that
Speaker 1: is correct? Yes, I would I would have. I would
Speaker 1: agree with her surgery. Oh man, we got that one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that would not be that would not be as glowing
Speaker 1: a review for for people. But listen, Tommy, it's been great.
Speaker 1: You've been unfiltered. I loved watching you pitch when I
Speaker 1: was a kid. I'm glad you're you're you're over the COVID,
Speaker 1: you're doing better now and and uh continued good health.
Speaker 1: And I hope the Veterans Committee someday put you in
Speaker 1: the Hall of Fame here, hopefully sooner then later. Because
Speaker 1: I just li to me, Tommy, I'll make the pitch
Speaker 1: for you. You're two wins the career you had, and
Speaker 1: I think the thing that pushes you over the top
Speaker 1: is the surgery you have saved because you were the
Speaker 1: ginea pig. You have saved so many, so many pictures
Speaker 1: that have gone on and had great careers and Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame careers that would not have been possible if
Speaker 1: you had not taken that dive. So I think that
Speaker 1: should put you in the all of him. But what
Speaker 1: do I know, right, Tommy, what do I know? I
Speaker 1: would vote? Call you? Thank you all right, Thanks Tommy,
Speaker 1: appreciate it, Okay, thanks for having me. Bye bye.