Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, and welcome to the latest edition A Dirt
Speaker 1: from the Dugout, part of the parent Dugout, which is
Speaker 1: growing by leaps and bounds. In fact, by the end
Speaker 1: of this program, Justin Mussel, we may have a new
Speaker 1: name for it. It may just be called the best
Speaker 1: show ever. I think I've heard that recently, and I
Speaker 1: think that may be the direction we go. In a reminder,
Speaker 1: we have a phenomenal guest tonight. His name is Buck
Speaker 1: show Walter. He'll join us in a moment. We invite
Speaker 1: you to please ask your questions through the chat. He's
Speaker 1: a baseball encyclopedia. We've had a lot of those on
Speaker 1: but YouTube and ex chat and justin just quickly, I'll
Speaker 1: take you back to two thousand and one in Seattle.
Speaker 1: It's the All Star Game. Buck is working with us
Speaker 1: at ESPN. We are all ESPN folks gathered in a hotel.
Speaker 1: It is the night before the All Star Game, so
Speaker 1: it's Monday. I think this pre dated home Run, Derby's
Speaker 1: or things that we were involved in. Ordered some Chinese
Speaker 1: food to the room. I got chicken in broccoli. It
Speaker 1: was delicious. I ate it. I took a nap, I
Speaker 1: woke up and my face and throat were swollen like
Speaker 1: a blowfish. I was having an allergic reaction. I'm allergic
Speaker 1: to shellfish. I called the restaurant. I said, I ordered
Speaker 1: chicken and broccoli. Was there any seafood or shellfish in there?
Speaker 1: And they said, yeah, we cook it an oyster sauce.
Speaker 1: I said, oh God, that's awful. So I immediately I immediately
Speaker 1: called my teammate Buck Showalter in the hotel and said,
Speaker 1: you need to take me to the hospital right away.
Speaker 1: And he took me to the hospital in Seattle right away.
Speaker 1: I got adrenaline and an eppie pen and whatever else
Speaker 1: they pump into you, and he and his son, who
Speaker 1: I call Ethan, which is not his name, but I
Speaker 1: call him Ethan anyway, they spent, you know, three to
Speaker 1: four hours in the hospital room with me. So in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, our guests tonight literally help save
Speaker 1: my life. So I'm indebted to him forever. That's one
Speaker 1: of a billion Buck show Walter stories I have for
Speaker 1: you tonight.
Speaker 2: That is a great story, rab I had never heard
Speaker 2: you share that one. That's that's pretty impressive, man. And
Speaker 2: you made it, you pulled it, you pulled through for us.
Speaker 2: That's great, Buck pulled through for us.
Speaker 1: So let's uh, let's bring one of my favorite human
Speaker 1: beings on the planet onto our show, Dirt from the
Speaker 1: Dugout and invite you all at home through the YouTube
Speaker 1: and x chat to ask questions. Buck, Welcome to the
Speaker 1: best show ever. This is Dirt from the Dugout. Where
Speaker 1: our goal is, through your experiences, to help parents of
Speaker 1: ball players hear what you did your journey so that
Speaker 1: they may take some things, discard some things, but more
Speaker 1: importantly learn from you about how you got to where
Speaker 1: you got to. So welcome to the program. It's great
Speaker 1: to see you.
Speaker 3: Hey, Carl justin, nice to meet you. You know he
Speaker 3: doesn't tell the rest of that story that Carl's a
Speaker 3: handsome young man at that point, not that he isn't now,
Speaker 3: but his nose, his lips, his face, his ears, what
Speaker 3: is it? Will Smith movie remember where he took something
Speaker 3: the largic reaction? My son, My son was like eight
Speaker 3: years old. He goes, Dad, is mister Rabbit's gonna die?
Speaker 3: And I said we better get on the move because
Speaker 3: it didn't look good. But you know, there's such a
Speaker 3: good This is a great exercise. You guys do I
Speaker 3: applaud you for it. It's a I kind of shake
Speaker 3: my head sometimes. You know, I don't want to be
Speaker 3: the old guy on the front porch scream at the
Speaker 3: kids in the front yard. But you know, I have
Speaker 3: four grandsons now and I go to a lot of
Speaker 3: their games. And actually my wife makes me go stand
Speaker 3: out in left field because he's afraid I'm gonna say something.
Speaker 3: You know, I grew up in a in a especially,
Speaker 3: you know, I have a great memories of my childhood
Speaker 3: because you know, he's right out of the movie Sandlight.
Speaker 3: We had. You know, you got a T shirt. You
Speaker 3: took him out as you Marky wrote your name on
Speaker 3: the back, your number on the back of it. We
Speaker 3: only had six guys on the team. We built our
Speaker 3: own backstop and this was we called it a Dungaree League,
Speaker 3: back when East called Jeans Dunger East. And I learned
Speaker 3: how to hit the ball the other way because they
Speaker 3: couldn't put a guy in the left field. I was
Speaker 3: left hand hitter. You know, you learn how to argue,
Speaker 3: you learn how to make your point. If you pull
Speaker 3: the ball too too much, the ball went in the
Speaker 3: creek and the game was over. So you know, and
Speaker 3: I grew up in the area where you played football, baseball, basketball, football,
Speaker 3: baseball basketball, one reason why I probably stayed out of trouble.
Speaker 3: But I also grew up in Maybury. You know, twenty
Speaker 3: five hundred people. Everybody knew everybody, and it was an ideal.
Speaker 3: But you fought your fights, you know, not physically necessarily,
Speaker 3: but the whole travel ball thing, it's a sore point
Speaker 3: for me, you know, when.
Speaker 1: You're suespecially covering a million subjects, and I just I
Speaker 1: just want to for me, justin growing up when when
Speaker 1: we didn't have enough players, you actually couldn't hit it
Speaker 1: to right field because nobody's out there to get it,
Speaker 1: as opposed to I'm going to hit it to right
Speaker 1: field and I'm going to run around the bases because
Speaker 1: there's nobody out there in right field. Did you have
Speaker 1: similar situations?
Speaker 2: Justin one hundred percent, we played, uh what was called
Speaker 2: Hoggin rules. Shout out to Joe Joey conn Up and
Speaker 2: some of the some of my boys from the sandlot
Speaker 2: in baseball Park. But our role was so we would
Speaker 2: usually we were lucky buck you got six on the team,
Speaker 2: we were lucky to get like four. And the rule
Speaker 2: was oh yeah, oh yeah, ghost arms. We had huge
Speaker 2: debates over center field, so that was our cutoff on
Speaker 2: any out was like anything away, any any opposite field hit,
Speaker 2: it was automatic out. So guess who grew up as
Speaker 2: a big time pull hitter. Buck, It's all It's all
Speaker 2: I did, man. But but we it's like you said,
Speaker 2: you learn how to you learn how to handle things,
Speaker 2: You learn how to talk through things. You you have
Speaker 2: debates as friends and what happened, and you learn some
Speaker 2: true like adversity stuff on the field where no other
Speaker 2: parents are on to take over. But I want to
Speaker 2: jump in on that really quick, though, Buck, because you
Speaker 2: know we're not here to bash anything, to go into
Speaker 2: the negativity around so many things in youth sports right now.
Speaker 2: We want to lift it up. We want to be
Speaker 2: the positive people at the parent dugout. We want to
Speaker 2: be positive on the show. But I do want to
Speaker 2: ask you this, Like you were in baseball a long time,
Speaker 2: what are some of the changes that you'd love to
Speaker 2: see at the youth level if you could just flip
Speaker 2: a switch and it was changed. What are some of
Speaker 2: those things that stand out from all the stuff you've
Speaker 2: watched with your grandkids?
Speaker 3: Well, it can't happen, but I wish sometimes, you know,
Speaker 3: the parents end up being the coaches because nobody else
Speaker 3: is willing to do it. And if you have to
Speaker 3: pay for a guy. And I watched one of the
Speaker 3: travel ball teams where I know the coaches. I would
Speaker 3: hate to see how much money some of these coaches
Speaker 3: and leagues are making off these these families. And that's
Speaker 3: the subject for another day. But probably the teaching of
Speaker 3: the game alone, you know, teaching them how to have fun.
Speaker 3: You know. I took over my son's high school practice
Speaker 3: one time when he was in the tenth grade. The
Speaker 3: coach just said, you know what's going on. We don't
Speaker 3: have many guys out for baseball. I said, that's your fault.
Speaker 3: That's not their fault. Your practices, I mean, Carl, I
Speaker 3: was justin I was entertaining thirty year old Major league
Speaker 3: vectorum in spring training. I had about a twelve minute
Speaker 3: tension span. So the next day they came out and
Speaker 3: I said, hey, you guys don't need to stretch where
Speaker 3: you go on. You woke up limber when you're sixteen
Speaker 3: years old. Whoever stretched at sixteen, you know? And then
Speaker 3: I said, what do you want to do. I've always
Speaker 3: wanted to play short stuff. Go play short stuff. What
Speaker 3: about you? I want to catch. Put the gear on.
Speaker 3: We're going to play pushing them up as o two
Speaker 3: count and I'm pitching, so we're not striking out. We're
Speaker 3: running the bases. We're going to catch the ball. I said, coach,
Speaker 3: you just had a kid stand out in left field
Speaker 3: for an hour and a half picking his teeth during
Speaker 3: batting practice. It's awful. But this is great game, if
Speaker 3: you'll so to answer your question justin let's accentuate the
Speaker 3: things that make it a great game instead of making
Speaker 3: this dull drum where's my sliding pad? I saw an
Speaker 3: eight year old kid wanting to know where sliding wristband
Speaker 3: was or whatever. But Carl, you see it at the
Speaker 3: Little League World Series. They're emulating what.
Speaker 1: They see, no question. Yeah, there's no question. They pattern
Speaker 1: They pattern bat flips and other things off of you know,
Speaker 1: major leaguers. Let me ask you this question because we've
Speaker 1: had many people on this program who emphasize the fun
Speaker 1: in the game, which you just did, which is great
Speaker 1: and we echo that for everybody. But what was your
Speaker 1: first affair with the sport love? Like did you love
Speaker 1: baseball from jump Street or did did it evolve? Did
Speaker 1: you begin to love it as opposed to the first
Speaker 1: few times you were there. How would you describe your
Speaker 1: relationship with baseball when you were young.
Speaker 3: Carl, I loved them all. I you know, it was
Speaker 3: a very I was just competitive, you know, my dad
Speaker 3: and I'm never They never pushed. They never pushed me
Speaker 3: at anything. But they made it available to me when
Speaker 3: we you know, I had three sisters. We didn't have
Speaker 3: a pot to pee in. It was uh, you know,
Speaker 3: it was pretty close ranks, but they somehow always made
Speaker 3: it available. It might have been a back, you know,
Speaker 3: second hand glove or a taped up bat, but I
Speaker 3: had what I needed. But I just loved, uh being
Speaker 3: outside and playing with the guys and competing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you didn't necessarily care baseball, football, soccer, basketball, tennis.
Speaker 1: It just give me a ball, give me something and
Speaker 1: we're good to go. Hey, you want to say something
Speaker 1: before we get to some of the questions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've got one thing. I will tell you this.
Speaker 3: Through the years, I've become a real you know, I
Speaker 3: look at bios a lot of players I get in
Speaker 3: the big leagues, and I spent a lot of time
Speaker 3: looking at the bios, and the one common denominator of
Speaker 3: the really good players that they played multiple sports. They
Speaker 3: weren't year round baseball. There's exceptions to every thing, you know.
Speaker 3: I asked a pitcher one time, what positions you play
Speaker 3: when you didn't pitch? He goes, well, I didn't, I go,
Speaker 3: excuse me, that guy didn't last too long. If I
Speaker 3: see guys who have played multiple sports or are well rounded,
Speaker 3: and their shoulders and elbows and knees take some time
Speaker 3: off from the pounding of baseball, they're usually better player
Speaker 3: at the major league and the college level. I want
Speaker 3: those guys that have played multiple.
Speaker 1: Sports, right, yeah, great, great answer, great? All right, So, Buck,
Speaker 1: the beauty of what we do here is we allow
Speaker 1: our members to ask questions of you. It's great access,
Speaker 1: and then they're really good questions. So our first question
Speaker 1: comes from Chan and he says, Buck, you know, we
Speaker 1: appreciate you much for being on here. And the question
Speaker 1: is what strategies do you think are essential for building
Speaker 1: a successful baseball team? Not a player, because I think
Speaker 1: you've shed some light on that, but strategies for building
Speaker 1: a successful baseball team.
Speaker 3: Well, I think You've got to find players who matter,
Speaker 3: that's what their teammates think. That's one thing I've always
Speaker 3: tried to do was, you know, I was a ship
Speaker 3: passing the night the way I looked at it. You know,
Speaker 3: managers come and go, and the shelf life gets shorter
Speaker 3: of head coaches and sports. But I wanted to find
Speaker 3: guys that their pure pressure meant something to them, and
Speaker 3: then you sup ground them with the right peers. I
Speaker 3: was picky about picking who was around these guys. Parcels
Speaker 3: had a great line years ago. You want me to
Speaker 3: cook dinner, but you don't want to pick the groceries.
Speaker 3: And I worry a lot of times that guys don't
Speaker 3: know what they're looking for. And you see it now.
Speaker 3: But I always want to surround myself with people that
Speaker 3: wanted to please each other.
Speaker 2: Good answer, that's really good, buck. I want to share
Speaker 2: something And this is something that I wish I could
Speaker 2: have done a little bit more. But in my time,
Speaker 2: in my time with the Brewers, one of the things
Speaker 2: that I was always wanting to do is talk with
Speaker 2: the coaching staff more about what did they want? Uh,
Speaker 2: you know, big, big part of my role completely almost
Speaker 2: has focused on the domestic draft, and I always wanted
Speaker 2: to know, like, what what are you? What do you
Speaker 2: guys want? What are you looking for? Do you think
Speaker 2: that's a missing link in today's game between the coaches
Speaker 2: on the field and the front offices, because it, yeah,
Speaker 2: go ahead, Buck, I.
Speaker 3: Just you know, I always talk about your identity. Who
Speaker 3: are you if you've played half the season and your
Speaker 3: team doesn't have an identity of what you're about. But
Speaker 3: that comes from having a clear message to the scouts
Speaker 3: in front of the coaches, this is who we are,
Speaker 3: this is I liked it. In Baltimore. We went through
Speaker 3: periods where we'd see a player and the guys would go, ow,
Speaker 3: he's a nice player, but he doesn't fit us. He's
Speaker 3: not a plus defendery, not a you know, a smart
Speaker 3: baseball player. So I think have an identity and letting
Speaker 3: people know what you what they'd like for you to
Speaker 3: look for. This is what we all. You know, we're
Speaker 3: all looking at the same analytics. So what's the separator?
Speaker 3: It's what you choose to wait. Maybe you wait on
Speaker 3: base percentage, but you know what do you choose to wait? Well,
Speaker 3: we choose to wait makeup defense and intelligence. You know,
Speaker 3: baseball intelligence and it takes a human being to make
Speaker 3: that evaluation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, which doesn't really doesn't require a lot of
Speaker 1: mind reading because you know who we are, so you
Speaker 1: don't need to really come and ask me. We like makeup,
Speaker 1: we like defense, we want pitching, we need athletes. Good answer.
Speaker 1: Here's a question from Don Bucky says, after spending decades
Speaker 1: around the game, what's one thing and remember this is
Speaker 1: for parents of players of all ages, is there one
Speaker 1: thing you wish every baseball parent understood?
Speaker 3: H You know, the coach doesn't get up in the morning.
Speaker 3: I told the guy one time. You know, I don't
Speaker 3: get up in the morning trying to figure out a
Speaker 3: way to to hurt you. You know, I'm really trying
Speaker 3: to put the best team out on the field. I
Speaker 3: may be wrong, but there's really not a vindictums about it,
Speaker 3: and we sometimes I think we need to quit taking
Speaker 3: it so seriously. It's easy for me to say, you know,
Speaker 3: and the whole scheme of things, you know, your child.
Speaker 3: I tell players all the time, the greatest two challenges
Speaker 3: you're going to have just to be a good father
Speaker 3: and be a good husband. And I think that impact
Speaker 3: you have on that the kids will serve them a
Speaker 3: lot better than whether or not something quite well in
Speaker 3: a baseball game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and Buck, I want to I want to
Speaker 2: go to ninety five. Okay, So I'm a kid, I'm
Speaker 2: a huge, huge griffy guy who isn't right at that
Speaker 2: time as a youngster, you're you're you play.
Speaker 1: I think probably probably wasn't a big griffic guy at
Speaker 1: that point.
Speaker 2: I understand I was so bug probably in my mind,
Speaker 2: one of the greatest eeries of all time. And you're
Speaker 2: on the other end of that, on the losing end
Speaker 2: of that. But I think we talk about it a
Speaker 2: lot on here. It's the adversity, the ability to overcome
Speaker 2: things and the challenges that you face. And the game
Speaker 2: has some highs and it has some lows. What's your
Speaker 2: advice for people coming, for players, coaches, parents, maybe watching listening.
Speaker 2: What's your advice for handling that adversity? What do you
Speaker 2: say when you get to the clubhouse that night after
Speaker 2: that heartbreaking loss, where you know, maybe the country is
Speaker 2: happy for the Mariners, right, the sort of the underdogs,
Speaker 2: and you guys are the big Yankees, the big powerful Yankees.
Speaker 2: What is that like walking into the clubhouse and how
Speaker 2: do you handle that adversity, and what's your advice to
Speaker 2: other people on how to handle adversity?
Speaker 3: You know, looking back at that, you know, we did
Speaker 3: win two games in that series, but it really was
Speaker 3: the other way around, looking back, because they had like
Speaker 3: four or five Hall of Famers on that team, and
Speaker 3: because they played and said a lot of people didn't know.
Speaker 3: And I look back on that as that helped get
Speaker 3: baseball back from where it was during the strike year.
Speaker 3: That's the first time I heard a lot of people
Speaker 3: say we started loving baseball again. So that that's but
Speaker 3: you know, I don't want anybody to ride that plane
Speaker 3: from Seattle back to New York. That was tough, but
Speaker 3: you know, you learn. You learn a lot of stuff
Speaker 3: from that about yourself and about people and and how
Speaker 3: fleeting everything is. Let's face it, guys. Leadership is basically
Speaker 3: about defining reality. And if you define enough reality along
Speaker 3: the way, you're probably going to tick off some people
Speaker 3: and you're gonna be job hunting. Okay, So you know,
Speaker 3: it doesn't keep you from doing the right thing, but
Speaker 3: I just you know, you had to keep defining reality.
Speaker 3: It's like a father and a mother. It's tough. You
Speaker 3: know my Luckily, my dad didn't want to be my pal.
Speaker 3: He wanted to be my father, and sometimes those two
Speaker 3: don't mix the same way with coaching.
Speaker 1: I think part of that for me covering the sport
Speaker 1: for that many years, that the Marinders teams of the nineties,
Speaker 1: especially the nineties and early two thousands, they may have
Speaker 1: beat the Yankees, they were probably, I think collectively the
Speaker 1: biggest disappointment, and that they didn't win a World Series
Speaker 1: given the talent that they had to kind of support
Speaker 1: Buck's point about just how good you know the players were.
Speaker 1: Here's one from Danny Buck says you joined the Diamondbacks
Speaker 1: twenty eight months before they ever played a game. I remember,
Speaker 1: I remember being there for the expansion draft. But the
Speaker 1: question is what's it like building something completely from scratch,
Speaker 1: no players, no history, no fan base. And I think
Speaker 1: the story that you tell about the decision you made
Speaker 1: in New York with regards to your coaches and taking
Speaker 1: a new contract or not which led you to Arizona
Speaker 1: is as good a story that you can tell. But
Speaker 1: answer the question and then maybe if you want combine
Speaker 1: the two of them, because that was a justin Buck
Speaker 1: had to make a really big decision which led him
Speaker 1: to Arizona.
Speaker 3: Well, basically, it came down to mister Steinburn and wanted
Speaker 3: to fire four of my coaches. I never complained about
Speaker 3: We all knew the job description in New York. I'd
Speaker 3: been there nineteen years, so people didn't want to hear
Speaker 3: you complain about it, and it just you know, you
Speaker 3: were working on a day to day contract. But I
Speaker 3: knew that I couldn't set foot in the locker room
Speaker 3: and look those players in the face, knowing I'd given
Speaker 3: up four great coaches who ended up having thirty year careers.
Speaker 3: So we took them to Arizona. But if someone called
Speaker 3: me and said, hey, we'd like for you do the
Speaker 3: expansion lead the expansion deal again, I'd go almost died
Speaker 3: out there. I have never worked hard in my life.
Speaker 3: Those two years off the field. I'm talking about minor leagues, Japan, Korea, Venezuela,
Speaker 3: Dominican Republic, Cuba, you name it. We were everywhere the scouting,
Speaker 3: the expansion drafts and getting on this field in spring training.
Speaker 3: You know, our first spring training was in you, Arizona,
Speaker 3: because there have been to you Arizona in the spring pool. Baby,
Speaker 3: but you know you know. We had to design the
Speaker 3: Tucson Complex, the Springtran Complex, designed the locker room, everything,
Speaker 3: put the scouting department together and the player development, and
Speaker 3: it was a great education for me. Luckily, I brought
Speaker 3: a lot of that with me from New York. But
Speaker 3: it was a challenge. It was a challenge, but one
Speaker 3: that I'm very proud of what we accomplished. I think
Speaker 3: we had the biggest turnaround in baseball history the ninety
Speaker 3: nine season and took a lot of pridet I was
Speaker 3: with Carl the night that the Diamondbacks beat the Yankees.
Speaker 3: I was out in the left field and walked back
Speaker 3: to my hotel listening to the diamonback fans after Game seven,
Speaker 3: realizing I lost my Navy d out in Arizona. I
Speaker 3: carried it with me, but I kind of lost it there.
Speaker 1: Said yeah, well, Buck didn't win a World Series. But
Speaker 1: the truth was Buck won a few World Series in.
Speaker 2: My opinion, yep, well yeah, yeah, Buck. What is that
Speaker 2: like to work so hard for so long and the
Speaker 2: pinnacle is what you do it for, right? Obviously it's
Speaker 2: the relationships and the other things that you think about later,
Speaker 2: but when you're in it, the whole goal is to
Speaker 2: win at all. Yeah, is there do you feel that
Speaker 2: missing piece from your career?
Speaker 3: No, I don't. You know, that's a good question. I don't.
Speaker 3: I feel for I feel good for other people. You know,
Speaker 3: life's too short. You know, Joe Tory got exposed to
Speaker 3: what a good baseball guy he was. You know, I
Speaker 3: look at a lot of things that happened with Ron Washington,
Speaker 3: for instance, and yeah, it just you know, things happen
Speaker 3: for a reason. I don't dwell on it, and I'm
Speaker 3: just glad that some other things happened well. And I've
Speaker 3: been completely lucky and honored to be in this game
Speaker 3: for a long time. It's been very good to me
Speaker 3: and my family. And heck, I met my wife of
Speaker 3: forty three years in this game, so you know, it
Speaker 3: worked out. I'm not going to sit around and say
Speaker 3: what if. I'm just happy for the people that I
Speaker 3: had a lot of help along the way. Boy did
Speaker 3: I have a lot of help. And I was. I'm
Speaker 3: pretty good at picking good people and getting out their
Speaker 3: way and letting them do what they I know that
Speaker 3: they can do. The great greatest accolade you can pay
Speaker 3: one of these guys is they're asked their opinion or ladies.
Speaker 3: We had some great women that worked with us through
Speaker 3: the years that were instrumental and what we did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and to your point, it's such a I
Speaker 1: do think we as people evolve over time. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can be a child rooting for the team, and
Speaker 1: if you're involved, if you're lucky enough to be involved
Speaker 1: in this game, in this sport, whether you're covering it,
Speaker 1: playing it, managing it, eventually you come to appreciate how
Speaker 1: hard it is. And then you root for people. You
Speaker 1: don't necessarily root for the name the uniform, you root
Speaker 1: for the name on the back. You root for the people.
Speaker 1: And I think, uh, you know, that's a that's a
Speaker 1: great perspective that you know that Buck shares an important
Speaker 1: at every level. You know, root for other teams. Sometimes
Speaker 1: when you see the root for the kid that's playing,
Speaker 1: that's that's really important. They're all in this thing together
Speaker 1: and it's damn hard to play this game. Voice ask Buck,
Speaker 1: if you could go back and manage one game differently
Speaker 1: in your entire career, do you have one and what
Speaker 1: would you change? Or is honestly it's like me doing
Speaker 1: a show. There's a million shows I'd like to do
Speaker 1: over again. Of course is that true with games?
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's what that's where you learn along the way.
Speaker 3: You know, we've all stepped on our tail. I just
Speaker 3: don't want to repeat them. Uh. You know, I learned
Speaker 3: as much from managers I played for and worked with
Speaker 3: about what not to do as I learned from guys
Speaker 3: about what to do.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I just i'd see a situation handled just a personal
Speaker 3: from personal nature. I go, you know, there's a better
Speaker 3: way to handle that situation. There's another mode of communication there.
Speaker 3: And I don't you know, I wish sometime when we
Speaker 3: walked very bonds with the bases loaded, I said to
Speaker 3: the media afterwards in San Francisco, I go, I wish
Speaker 3: we could evaluate whether that gave us the best chance
Speaker 3: to win instead of the results. And I know we
Speaker 3: live in a result oriented society. Wouldn't be great if
Speaker 3: we go, you know what, regards of how this works out,
Speaker 3: it's well thought out. It gives us the best chance
Speaker 3: to win. Oh, by the way, Brent Maine hit a
Speaker 3: home run and we lost. I'm okay with that. I'm
Speaker 3: at peace with that. If I've done my homework and
Speaker 3: I've given our team the best chance to win. And
Speaker 3: I never made a vindictive personal decision where you know
Speaker 3: you're mad at somebody. You can't. You can't. First of all,
Speaker 3: you can't be married for forty three years and have that.
Speaker 3: So you know, I've just learned through the years. You
Speaker 3: do your work, you make an educated decision, and sometimes
Speaker 3: you got to do it with your heart and your head,
Speaker 3: you know. Will they say, be careful about telling truths
Speaker 3: that hurt innocent people. I've had to cover for some
Speaker 3: things that would have made me look a lot probably better,
Speaker 3: but it's gonna pull somebody underneath the bus, so I'm
Speaker 3: not going to do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Buck says a lot of things, justin that we
Speaker 1: sit in the green room with him, I will say
Speaker 1: that I think one of the things I remember most
Speaker 1: that he has said is, you know, hey, Carl, just
Speaker 1: because a decision is made and it works out doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily mean it was the right decision. And just because
Speaker 1: the decision you make doesn't doesn't necessarily mean it was
Speaker 1: the wrong one. I've used that. I've used that weekly,
Speaker 1: if not daily, because I make a lot of decisions
Speaker 1: and some of them don't work, But it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: it was the wrong one. It's it's a great hill
Speaker 1: to sort of fall back on.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's hard. You get tested. You get tested sometimes,
Speaker 3: especially when you bite your lip, and there are things
Speaker 3: you know, and you know, dealing with the media twice
Speaker 3: a day for almost two hundred straight days counting spring training,
Speaker 3: there's so many opportunities to step on your tail along
Speaker 3: the way. But if you and I tell guys all
Speaker 3: the time I go, think about the weight and your
Speaker 3: words carried, you know, and the reflection they're going. That
Speaker 3: was what was so great about Derek g through the years,
Speaker 3: all the chances he had to deflect, you know, he
Speaker 3: never embarrassed his family, he never embarrassed organization, and he
Speaker 3: never embarrassed his teammates. And there's so many avenues that
Speaker 3: they try to lead you down because that's their job.
Speaker 3: But I dealt with the media lote and it really
Speaker 3: helped me through the years that we're all trying to
Speaker 3: survive and we're all trying to bring something that we're
Speaker 3: responsible for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think Buck, when you look at just
Speaker 2: the perspective you talked about, you know, cheering for others
Speaker 2: and being happy for others, I think we've almost created
Speaker 2: an environment in our society right now, in youth sports
Speaker 2: in general, where it's it's very driven on self and
Speaker 2: very driven on ego, and it's also very driven on
Speaker 2: you wanting your kid to be better than the next one.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: We've seen this dissipate a little bit where I don't
Speaker 2: know about you guys, but when I played Little League,
Speaker 2: every parent was cheering you. It wasn't we'd want we
Speaker 2: want justin to do bad so that my kid looks better.
Speaker 2: It's become an environment where I can't say that across
Speaker 2: the board. Of course there are people that still do that,
Speaker 2: but I want to I want to touch on that
Speaker 2: a little bit, Buck, because I think it's one of
Speaker 2: the missing pieces that would really bring the youth sport
Speaker 2: of baseball back a little bit closer if we if
Speaker 2: we all could see the opponent as a kid and
Speaker 2: out playing a game and you know, being happy for
Speaker 2: them when they succeed, instead of you know, maybe getting
Speaker 2: loud and cheering against them and making comments. What is
Speaker 2: your take on some of that stuff that we kind
Speaker 2: of see all too often now infiltrating the youth and
Speaker 2: high school levels of parent involvement in the stands and
Speaker 2: the fights and the shouting at the other teams. What
Speaker 2: is your take on that and and what is your
Speaker 2: advice to any parent listening or watching.
Speaker 3: Well, you know one thing you can't hide in a
Speaker 3: sport you play as often as baseball as sincerity. You
Speaker 3: know you can't hide sincerity. And is someone you know
Speaker 3: it's like a coach. I tell them, see how much
Speaker 3: fun your team can have today, tomorrow and the impact
Speaker 3: you'll have on that. What can they not wait to
Speaker 3: get to your practice? Can they not wait to get
Speaker 3: to a game? And how is that? Because there's such
Speaker 3: a positive and some of these kids come from situations
Speaker 3: where not everything's positive at home for whatever, it should
Speaker 3: be a utopian reprieve for them while they're at your
Speaker 3: field working with your team. You know, I loved working
Speaker 3: with my son's high school team. I was the groundskeeper.
Speaker 3: I painted the foul pos with my wife, I helped
Speaker 3: drag the field. I loved it, loved it. But I
Speaker 3: try to stay away from coaching, but I did. I
Speaker 3: did delve in there a little bit. Let me tell
Speaker 3: you one little story that I had a scout come back.
Speaker 3: One time we sent him in to watch a player
Speaker 3: seventeen years old. I really high pick supposedly, And I said,
Speaker 3: what do you got? He goes, well, we got rained
Speaker 3: out and I said, well, what do you guy? He said,
Speaker 3: what do you mean got rained now? I no, no, no,
Speaker 3: no no. I said, did you sit with the mom
Speaker 3: and dad? And you know, did you meet their brother
Speaker 3: and sister? Did you go to the homeroom teacher to
Speaker 3: go to the guidance counselor what kind of truck does
Speaker 3: he drive? Did you meet his girlfriend? Does he have
Speaker 3: brown eyes? Does he have slender waste? How long over
Speaker 3: his fingers? A bunch of little things, because statistically and
Speaker 3: all the other stuff is easy making the decisions about
Speaker 3: you know, how does he interact with his teammates? Watch
Speaker 3: how he treats his sister. I remember the first time
Speaker 3: Derek Jeter came to Yankee Stadium. We had just drafted
Speaker 3: him one hundred and eighty pounds, soaking wet, and I'm
Speaker 3: being nice. But the way that he interact with his sister,
Speaker 3: his mom and his dad, and the alert eyes he
Speaker 3: had taking in things around him without running his mouth
Speaker 3: while he was taking it in. But I love the way.
Speaker 3: And I said to myself, there's gonna be a lot
Speaker 3: of challenges for Derek, but handling New York City. He's
Speaker 3: got a strong base there and sometimes you have as
Speaker 3: a coach you have to be that base. I dealt
Speaker 3: with a lot of players where I had to be
Speaker 3: that tough love guy, you know. I know with Manto
Speaker 3: it was tough.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about Manavi Child at a moment. Want to
Speaker 1: remind everybody. You want to get out of the house,
Speaker 1: you want to go watch a game, you want to
Speaker 1: go to a concert. The way to do it is
Speaker 1: to use seat geek. You want to have thirty five
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Speaker 1: The other seasons are over, but the other sports are
Speaker 1: soon to start again. That's how we work. Football of
Speaker 1: course is coming as well. You can go to the
Speaker 1: app on your phone and seat geek has got your back.
Speaker 1: By the way, dirt from the dugout would remind everybody.
Speaker 1: You can use territory ten for ten percent off MLB
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Speaker 1: course you can scan the QR code right on your screen,
Speaker 1: all right, So it's quite clear that Buck enjoyed, you know,
Speaker 1: the Jeter experience, the two New York's, the Texas is,
Speaker 1: the Baltimore's all that. There's questions out here, and I
Speaker 1: think this, knowing your scouting background, I think it's an
Speaker 1: interesting one because you talk about clubhouse culture and Mark
Speaker 1: as is there a clubhouse story? And this is without
Speaker 1: giving away any secrets, but is there a story that
Speaker 1: you've never really been asked to tell that captures what
Speaker 1: major League Baseball is really like? Meaning like what can
Speaker 1: you share some of the things that people who don't
Speaker 1: cover the game and don't get a chance to get
Speaker 1: inside the clubhouse don't know?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, there's not many secrets, and like I said,
Speaker 3: you know, the sincerity shows up very quickly. If you
Speaker 3: try to be as these guys, it's not going to work.
Speaker 3: So you know, every spring I would have a talent
Speaker 3: show and I wouldn't make anybody participate in it wasn't
Speaker 3: some rookie hazing. I hate rookie hazing. I did not
Speaker 3: allow it. Here's somebody wearing your uniform gonna try to
Speaker 3: help us win, You're gonna make their path harder. That
Speaker 3: doesn't make any sense to me at all. You know,
Speaker 3: That's one of the things we did getting u Mel
Speaker 3: Hall away from Bernie Williams. You know, sometimes your best
Speaker 3: additions are your subtractions. I learned that too. But you know,
Speaker 3: we had we had this talent show, and we we
Speaker 3: had it in the afternoon of a night game, and
Speaker 3: we had some really interesting stuff, and I think the
Speaker 3: ability to take something out of there. I gotta tell you,
Speaker 3: I remember two guys made the team because of the
Speaker 3: talent show. Ryan Flaherty. I think Ryan Flaherty went out
Speaker 3: and rented these monkeys from the zoo that throw baseballs
Speaker 3: back and forth. I got fined for by the Health department.
Speaker 3: The animal cruelty thing got out. We got fined. It
Speaker 3: was the best money I ever spent. But these two
Speaker 3: monkeys throwing a baseball on the stage brought the brought
Speaker 3: the house down. Then we had TJ. McFarlane. His impersonation
Speaker 3: of Dick Buckets was one of the all times greats.
Speaker 3: But the best one was was with the Mets. Was
Speaker 3: a singer, took the time to get to know. It's
Speaker 3: a whole New World in English, and he got one
Speaker 3: of the cooks out of that gets him to sing
Speaker 3: it with him. And Max Scherzer and de Grom were
Speaker 3: the judges, and they brought the place down, stopped it,
Speaker 3: and gave him the first place the guts to get
Speaker 3: on the stage and do that in broken English. I
Speaker 3: got a hundred of those. But there's so many ways
Speaker 3: you can learn about players, and you'll just open your eyes,
Speaker 3: shut your mouth and listen. I used to love to
Speaker 3: walk the field during batting practice, and I'm now you
Speaker 3: can't hardly get them to hit outside. But I used
Speaker 3: to spend a lot of time with the bullpen guys.
Speaker 3: That's where I learned about handling a bullpen and just
Speaker 3: talking to him, Hey, what bothers you? What doesn't bother you?
Speaker 3: And I think the line the communication. Every once in
Speaker 3: a while, somebody will say something that you didn't think
Speaker 3: was very sharp. You went, wow, I didn't even think
Speaker 3: about that. That's pretty good. You got to have an
Speaker 3: open mind about it. Analytically, these guys would say, hey, yeah,
Speaker 3: bring it in there. Buck wants all that information, but
Speaker 3: he's gonna ask you one question, how does it help
Speaker 3: us win? Tonight. How does it help us win a
Speaker 3: game instead of you trying to cut out some niche
Speaker 3: because analytics, everybody's looking at the same numbers.
Speaker 1: Pal Yep, yeah, you hear that a lot, now, don't you.
Speaker 1: I mean that is I think Craig Breslow just said
Speaker 1: it the other day. And a deal he made, He's like,
Speaker 1: everybody's looking at the same information ultimately smarter to your point.
Speaker 1: His point about the deal he made for meat and
Speaker 1: gave up the picture early was I'm trying to win
Speaker 1: win for our team. The numbers may not suggest this
Speaker 1: is the smartest thing, but I'm trying to make our
Speaker 1: team better. We have a need. It serves the need.
Speaker 1: Let's see where we go. The idea is it's just
Speaker 1: going to help us win, you know, Carls, that's.
Speaker 3: One way the game change. It used to be you
Speaker 3: wanted whoever you traded with to be happy with the
Speaker 3: player they got from you. It was like, you know,
Speaker 3: you're always trying to win the trade. Ninety nine to one,
Speaker 3: you're not going to make any trade. But if you're
Speaker 3: fair in things. It's the same way with players. You know,
Speaker 3: if you're fair with them, if you lie to them,
Speaker 3: you're done. If you tell them truth and they hurts
Speaker 3: them down the road, they'll come back to you. But boy,
Speaker 3: do don't try that other one.
Speaker 1: Yep, yeah, buck.
Speaker 2: When you look at just the grand scheme of where
Speaker 2: we're at, though, do you see in Major League Baseball specifically,
Speaker 2: do you see that flowing back? Because I know on
Speaker 2: May end I see a little flow back now to
Speaker 2: a little bit more reasonability, the human elements of it.
Speaker 2: And what does that mean for scouting because we know
Speaker 2: how trimmed that those scouting departments have gotten now in
Speaker 2: a lot of organizations, what is your take on the
Speaker 2: ten fifteen years from now.
Speaker 3: I still don't think. I still think there's no substitute
Speaker 3: for boots on the ground, the person that goes and
Speaker 3: talks to the homeroom teacher and talks to the teammates.
Speaker 3: And this is how you make When the numbers in
Speaker 3: the in the statistics and analytics match up with the
Speaker 3: human element of it, you've got a really good deal
Speaker 3: and a really good player, you know. And then if
Speaker 3: it's like this, now you got to decide. But anything
Speaker 3: that overweights in an organization that says this this methodology
Speaker 3: will never be something we consider you lose me at
Speaker 3: Hello because there's exceptions to everything. Nobody's that smart, and
Speaker 3: the game's played with a heartbeat by players with a heartbeat,
Speaker 3: and otherwise it'd be so boring to watch. You know,
Speaker 3: sometimes things happen and we go where did that come from?
Speaker 3: That's unexpected. That's what makes it fun. You're dealing with
Speaker 3: human beings. These are the best players in the world,
Speaker 3: so that the you know, the difference between the Colorado
Speaker 3: Rockies and the Dodgers is not nearly as much as
Speaker 3: you may think it is because the psyche. The psyche
Speaker 3: really plays on you, and if you can get a mentality,
Speaker 3: things can change.
Speaker 1: So for parents at home. For parents at home, Buck,
Speaker 1: you've you've alluded to this a couple of times. You know,
Speaker 1: it's raining. What did you what did you observe about
Speaker 1: his behavior? Would you observe about the car he was driving?
Speaker 1: The home room. I don't want to think that there's
Speaker 1: sort of a top ten list for Buck as far
Speaker 1: as characteristics or traits. The question that I'm getting at
Speaker 1: for parents out there, Buck, can you train your kid
Speaker 1: to have these qualities? Are they born with these qualities?
Speaker 1: Can they develop whatever these qualities that clearly appeal to
Speaker 1: you are.
Speaker 3: I would be careful of these coaches that rent by
Speaker 3: the hour. Okay, you know there's some really good ones too.
Speaker 3: It's just for the most part, you know, you be
Speaker 3: that coach, you be that parent. You know, the biggest
Speaker 3: thing you can teach them is how they treat other
Speaker 3: people and how everything comes back. You know, the skills
Speaker 3: are going to be the skills. You know, if baseball
Speaker 3: is a game of repetition and athletics. I think one
Speaker 3: of the reason why I was pretty good in a
Speaker 3: lot of sports is that I didn't play them all
Speaker 3: the time. Does that make any sense. I never got
Speaker 3: burnt out on baseball. I never got burnt out on football,
Speaker 3: or basketball or golf. I loved you know, the differences
Speaker 3: in all the games, and you know, the competition. There's
Speaker 3: nobody more competitive than me. But you also had to
Speaker 3: learn that things didn't always work out the way you
Speaker 3: warned them to.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: It was painful, but yeah, you can train. You know,
Speaker 3: there's a certain way to do it. Please make it
Speaker 3: fun for them. You're a child only one time. You're
Speaker 3: a child one time. Make sure they look back on
Speaker 3: their childhood and their upbringing. I harp with my two kids.
Speaker 3: You know, I've got four grandsons, and believe me, I
Speaker 3: I treat them a lot different than I treated my kids.
Speaker 3: I let them bother with everything.
Speaker 2: Buck, I want to I want to ask you a
Speaker 2: little bit about the that you're managing days here with you.
Speaker 2: I mean, you had the I mean you had you
Speaker 2: You had some unbelievable players that you managed in your career.
Speaker 2: We'll just put it that way, some Hall of famers,
Speaker 2: some unbelievable talents. Not just the talent side of it,
Speaker 2: but how was it managing them and in sort of
Speaker 2: the profiles that they bring versus maybe the guy that's
Speaker 2: only going to be up for three months and you
Speaker 2: know he's not going to stick. How did you handle
Speaker 2: that as you as you worked your way through as
Speaker 2: a manager. And what would your advice be to some
Speaker 2: coaches out there on how to handle, you know, the
Speaker 2: star player versus the other players. And did you want
Speaker 2: to have individual sort of approaches or did you still
Speaker 2: keep a team approach. I'd love your take on that.
Speaker 2: From all of your years and all the players that
Speaker 2: I mean you managed, well, you know.
Speaker 3: You don't treat them all the same. You treat them
Speaker 3: all fairly. You know, what's fair for Don manningly may
Speaker 3: not be fair for a twenty year old Bernie Williams.
Speaker 3: You know, I had Deon Sanders in the big leagues.
Speaker 3: In the minor leagues, I had him. You know, I
Speaker 3: had Machado, and you know Randy Johnson and Kurk Shilling
Speaker 3: and I mean just some great players that grace my path.
Speaker 3: But you know, I think it's the peripheral guys. I
Speaker 3: call them the what if players that separate you and
Speaker 3: you never know when you're gonna need them, And all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, you know that guy you're accounting on
Speaker 3: is not going to be there for a hundred games,
Speaker 3: and what are you going to do? Because the league
Speaker 3: doesn't stop and wait for you to catch up. So
Speaker 3: the way you treat people, that golden rule works really good,
Speaker 3: because all of a sudden you need that guy so
Speaker 3: U and a lot of you know, communication doesn't mean
Speaker 3: you speak to them every five minutes. It means you
Speaker 3: tell them what they need to hear. You know, I
Speaker 3: remember my coach in college. He went for a week
Speaker 3: and a half didn't say a word to me. And
Speaker 3: I'll tell I'll tell y'all I was leading the nation
Speaker 3: and hitting and finally one day I said, coach Pocus,
Speaker 3: everything all right? Did I do something wrong? Goes? You
Speaker 3: need me to kiss your ear all the time. You know,
Speaker 3: I'll let you know when you're not doing something right.
Speaker 3: You're you're you're holding your own pre fine, So everything's good.
Speaker 3: Some guys need that and some guys don't need that,
Speaker 3: you know, and understanding everybody's psyche's a little different what
Speaker 3: their needs are because you're there to serve their needs. Okay,
Speaker 3: what Manny Machado needs may not be what JJ Hardy needs.
Speaker 3: You know. Everybody's different, Thank god they are. If they
Speaker 3: were all the same, we wouldn't have a job. But
Speaker 3: you know, I just you know, instead of I had
Speaker 3: one sign up in our clubhouse. All it said was
Speaker 3: play better. I didn't want to hear about in the
Speaker 3: New Cockneys saying is the Bence Lombardi and all that stuff.
Speaker 3: It never made a player better. They're usually in the
Speaker 3: weight room. I had one two words that said play better.
Speaker 3: Now the fans don't want to hear it. Nobody want.
Speaker 3: You know, whatever fair or not fair, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: Figure out how to play better.
Speaker 1: That's all that try harder, try harder, play better. Two
Speaker 1: words here we go, Buck, This is this is sort
Speaker 1: of in your wheelhouse. It's it's sort of roster creativity.
Speaker 1: The question is should MLB let teams make four starting
Speaker 1: pitchers inactive each game so they can carry thirteen active pitchers?
Speaker 1: Would it protect arms or just create more pitching changes.
Speaker 1: You know, that's a very specific question. If you have
Speaker 1: an answer about managing or the way you would like
Speaker 1: to see Major League Baseball use arms, feel free to
Speaker 1: go that direction too. But the question has to do
Speaker 1: with it.
Speaker 3: You know. We gotta understand. We started out with nine
Speaker 3: or ten guys you broke camp with, and then it
Speaker 3: became eleven, Then it became twelve. Now it's thirteen. And
Speaker 3: every day you pick up the transition, transactions and pictures
Speaker 3: are moving. You have to have an optionable bullpen. I
Speaker 3: actually think that if they would decrease the number of
Speaker 3: pictures you could carry, they would stay healthier and you
Speaker 3: would start looking for a different type of picture down there.
Speaker 3: You remember the thing they called a longer lever. Every
Speaker 3: good club I had had a great longer lever on it.
Speaker 3: I remember I had Dave McFarland, great longer lever it's
Speaker 3: spots starter, but you know, it was very important to
Speaker 3: keep the togetherness of your team. We're getting ready to
Speaker 3: have the Chris Davis is going in the Ooral Hall
Speaker 3: of Fame here in Maryland, and just about the whole
Speaker 3: bullpen is going to be there. That stayed intact for
Speaker 3: like five or six years. And it wasn't something I
Speaker 3: did necessarily. It was just each guy had something they brought.
Speaker 3: But I worry about the constant. I actually think that's
Speaker 3: a pretty good idea. If the way I understand it
Speaker 3: is that you basically this keeps the movement back and
Speaker 3: forth at TRIPAA. You want the tough job, guys go
Speaker 3: managing Triple AVERY. I think that's the toughest job in
Speaker 3: baseball now, is managing the Triple A, because you know,
Speaker 3: twenty minutes for the game, they go, hey, you can't
Speaker 3: start your starter. We may need tomorrow, you know, and
Speaker 3: the number of pictures they're carrying. But I do I
Speaker 3: like the idea. We tried to go with four starters
Speaker 3: in Arizona, but we couldn't make a trade and we
Speaker 3: couldn't sign a free agent, and we were going to
Speaker 3: do that with all our minor league guys. But sometimes
Speaker 3: I think if we decrease the number of pictures were
Speaker 3: allowed to carry that, you know, they might stay healthier.
Speaker 2: Interesting. Yeah, let's get to let's get to Ryan's question here,
Speaker 2: because this one's really about Ravvy. So Ryan said, thanks
Speaker 2: for a question, Ryan, but he says, all right, Buck
Speaker 2: Gravey told the story about how you saved his life.
Speaker 2: In all the years you've known RAVI, what's the best
Speaker 2: story you can share with us?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: Please? And you understand we did the College World Series together.
Speaker 3: The great event had a lot of fun. You know,
Speaker 3: you really think you you think you know somebody until
Speaker 3: you're with them at one thirty in the morning doing
Speaker 3: the last Sports Center Baseball Tonight or a Sunday Baseball
Speaker 3: Today's show. There were some late nights when the closer
Speaker 3: we had these we had these nine camera uh monitors
Speaker 3: over here, and John the Great John Cruck robb NN
Speaker 3: had blown about four saves in row. So now we
Speaker 3: got to get this last out in the can and
Speaker 3: we all get to go home and drive through Taco Bell. Okay,
Speaker 3: the only thing open in Bristol Becker And believe me,
Speaker 3: John Cruck liked this Taco Bell about that time, Carl says,
Speaker 3: and we're almost done in San Francisco, and you hear
Speaker 3: the rabbits go, I mean, uh, cruck go geeve you
Speaker 3: this brightly. You said a few other things on live TV.
Speaker 3: And Carl, without missing the beat, goes and evidently robbin
Speaker 3: Inn has blown another save. I had, Carl, you remember
Speaker 3: the night I took Harrol out on the stage.
Speaker 1: I was gonna bring that up. Tello. Just tell everybody
Speaker 1: that's it. It's one of the great stories of all time.
Speaker 1: We're in a studio. I'll just set up the studio.
Speaker 1: The studio has got it's not a hard word floor,
Speaker 1: but it's a hard floor. There's no grass. The MLB
Speaker 1: network now has these really cool fields that you can
Speaker 1: demonstrate stuff on. We did not. We had a fairly
Speaker 1: large studio. We made up a field. We had bases
Speaker 1: on the field, but it was a very like like
Speaker 1: that's what the floor was like. Go ahead, I tell
Speaker 1: this story. This is all class.
Speaker 3: So there was a Rivet there too, So I told
Speaker 3: him we were talking about turning double plays back when
Speaker 3: you could really chase a guy and hit him anyway
Speaker 3: you want to. Obviously, Herold's the second baseman. So we're
Speaker 3: going to demonstrate coming into second base. Now, how Harold
Speaker 3: keeps from getting hit. So I told the camera CROs says,
Speaker 3: when we got one shot at this and I'm gonna
Speaker 3: knock him on his rear. They went, what Carl, Carl?
Speaker 3: You know, Carl goes go for it. So we got
Speaker 3: this old burlap sack there and Carl feeds feeds, uh
Speaker 3: Harold ball. I said, hang him out just a little bit, Carl,
Speaker 3: hang him out just a little in other words, for him,
Speaker 3: a little bit of a change up where you don't
Speaker 3: get it to him too quick. So I come running
Speaker 3: down there in a two piece suit, okay, tie and everything,
Speaker 3: and I get him. I give him just and I
Speaker 3: split my hands down the side on the rivet and
Speaker 3: you know, you know that's that We won an Emmy
Speaker 3: that year for the show. And that's the clip they
Speaker 3: sent in.
Speaker 1: It's right over my shoulder I have right now. That's
Speaker 1: how you got he took He literally took him out
Speaker 1: ass over tea kettle in the middle of a in
Speaker 1: the middle of a live show. He wiped out Harold,
Speaker 1: and Harold's like, what do you what are you doing?
Speaker 3: He still hasn't forgiven me still hasn't.
Speaker 1: Talking about all the time. Yeah, talked about all the time.
Speaker 1: Here's just here's just a thought. Boy. This is a
Speaker 1: good one that comes in from one of your fans
Speaker 1: who doesn't really have a question, But it never hurts
Speaker 1: because I do think I think everybody needs and likes
Speaker 1: positive affirmation in any event. They say, Hey, look, we
Speaker 1: just want to tell Buck how much we miss him
Speaker 1: in Baltimore. We appreciate everything you did for us, uh
Speaker 1: and the city. He brought winning and exciting baseball back
Speaker 1: after some tough years. So Buffett, thank you very much
Speaker 1: for sending that into Buck.
Speaker 3: Buck.
Speaker 1: We on this program, we're about set to kind of
Speaker 1: start to wrap it up. We do what's called the
Speaker 1: kitchen sink. So these questions don't necessarily have to do
Speaker 1: with baseball. They're kind of quick hitters just to get
Speaker 1: your thoughts. Uh. So I'll start this four of them,
Speaker 1: and the first, the first question that comes on the
Speaker 1: kitchen sink, sort of out of nowhere, is what's your
Speaker 1: best George Steinbrenner story.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, you know this is one. It's nothing.
Speaker 3: You just had to be there. I had a great coach,
Speaker 3: Brian Butterfield. I took with me to to On as
Speaker 3: one of the guys Miss Steinber and won a fire.
Speaker 3: Years later, my first year managing, It's seven thirty in
Speaker 3: the morning, we're going over the schedule. Steinbrenner walks in,
Speaker 3: turns to Brian Butterfield and goes you out. And Cleet
Speaker 3: Barrier and Frank Howard are in there, and he didn't
Speaker 3: ask them to leave. He just told the rookie coach Mike,
Speaker 3: one of my best friends, you leave, So Frank, howd
Speaker 3: them go in there? And they take down Butter's uh
Speaker 3: name tag and put you e we like the lamb
Speaker 3: and the rest of the spring they called him coach
Speaker 3: you and finally stem Better asking him one time, he goes,
Speaker 3: I thought his name was Butterfield. What do you got?
Speaker 3: You guys keep calling him you and and they and
Speaker 3: you know, Frank, he wasn't fraid anything. Well, mister Stunbentner,
Speaker 3: Uh you know, you called him you and we thought
Speaker 3: maybe we had his wrong name. I got plenty he called.
Speaker 3: He called me in one night. I'll stop right there
Speaker 3: though he was. But you had to know the job description.
Speaker 3: If you didn't know what was coming, then you you
Speaker 3: hadn't been watching, right.
Speaker 2: That's awesome, man, that's awesome. All right, let's get to
Speaker 2: the next one. Here. Is there a proper way to
Speaker 2: cut the outfield grass?
Speaker 3: I don't like the crisscross. Anybody that says the ball
Speaker 3: doesn't snake when it's coming to you hasn't played in
Speaker 3: the outfield. All these beautiful designs you see where the socks,
Speaker 3: the sock is cut in Fenway Park. Outfielder's nightmare. They
Speaker 3: hate it. That's another change I'd make. I'd make all
Speaker 3: you know, all these groundskeeper that do all these fancy cuts,
Speaker 3: it's a nightmare for outfielders.
Speaker 1: I love that. I knew that that's a good hot take.
Speaker 1: I knew the outfield grass would get there. That's one
Speaker 1: of the all time great field maintenance guys. If you ever,
Speaker 1: honest to God, if you ever needed somebody to take
Speaker 1: care of your field, that's the guy right there that
Speaker 1: I would hire. He is absolutely the best.
Speaker 3: Carl. I gotta tell you one on myself. Opening day Arizona.
Speaker 3: If you'll notice the game started eight minutes late. Jim
Speaker 3: Quicks behind the plate, first game in diamond back history.
Speaker 3: I had asked Mark Connor Pitton goes, do anything I
Speaker 3: can do to help the pitchers here, and he goes, yeah,
Speaker 3: he didn't get them to stand in the batter's box.
Speaker 3: They go, what do you mean? You know? The first
Speaker 3: thing guys doing they get up there is they start
Speaker 3: digging the chalk away and they end up getting about
Speaker 3: three inches deeper in the box. Well, three inches is
Speaker 3: a lot for a fastball, so I thought, and I
Speaker 3: thought I had two years. I took a two by
Speaker 3: four the width of the back of the batter's box,
Speaker 3: and I buried it like a half an inch below
Speaker 3: the back the dirt line. So, in other words, when
Speaker 3: Hard Barnard with the San Francisco Giants is digging out
Speaker 3: the dirt, he keeps digging, he keeps coming up white, white,
Speaker 3: white white. Because I got a Jim quick looks over.
Speaker 3: He looks over and Barnard's spikes start hitting wood, and
Speaker 3: he calls me out, and I go, I made a mistake,
Speaker 3: Carl saying with Jim, we're just trying to help you
Speaker 3: enforce the rules.
Speaker 1: I never heard that story. That's a great one.
Speaker 3: That so we we had to get Grant Trimbeth out
Speaker 3: and dig up the back of the batter.
Speaker 1: That is amazing. I'd never heard that. All buck. Here's
Speaker 1: the next one, kitchen and sink. Do the do the
Speaker 1: many donkeys uh you have at the farm? Do they
Speaker 1: have names?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, well we used to have Teddy, Teddy and
Speaker 3: uh in days you were at the other farm, and
Speaker 3: then we moved them. Uh now they're both. I don't know.
Speaker 3: We like them. My wife likes them. I swear that
Speaker 3: when I'm gone, she lets them in the house and
Speaker 3: they sit in the easty chairs just like any other
Speaker 3: are What are their names, Carl? It makes her happy? Okay,
Speaker 3: I answered, Finn, Finn and Oliver.
Speaker 1: Right, so not baseball names, Finn and Oliver.
Speaker 3: You know, you know she she kisses that donkey, Morgon,
Speaker 3: who kisses me? There's two jackass she kisses every day.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. Let's get to the next one. Last
Speaker 2: one here, then we're gonna get to your m v P.
Speaker 2: But favorite analysts to work with on ESPN.
Speaker 1: Favorite analyst? Who is your favorite?
Speaker 3: You know you realize how one thing about Let me
Speaker 3: tell you one last one on Carl. If you weren't
Speaker 3: prepared and you weren't good at what you did, Carl
Speaker 3: had so much pride in that show. And if you
Speaker 3: just showed up and I won't name a Hall of
Speaker 3: Famer that would just show up like we the world
Speaker 3: and ESPN owed him a job, Carl would bury you
Speaker 3: on the air in his own way. Like you would
Speaker 3: say something passing, Carl would stop the show and go explain,
Speaker 3: explain what you meant by saying that, uh uh we
Speaker 3: Carl took so much pride in the show that if
Speaker 3: there was an ant, it wasn't bringing it. And I'm
Speaker 3: not talking about intelligence or baseball now, I'm just talking
Speaker 3: about it didn't work at his job. You were not
Speaker 3: gonna like the end of the show. I'm talking, but
Speaker 3: I was. I had the great Tim Kirchen, you know,
Speaker 3: the great uh you know with Buster Olie of course
Speaker 3: John Crook Carl together combination that was must. Every once
Speaker 3: in a while, I catched myself on the air just
Speaker 3: watching and listening to them, and they go, Buck, are
Speaker 3: you going to bring anything? I said, no, I'm listening
Speaker 3: to these two guys.
Speaker 1: They were great. Yea, we we had an amazing team
Speaker 1: that it was a great, great show. Let me tell you.
Speaker 3: Carl One on Chris Berman first hit I did on
Speaker 3: Sports Center, he goes, here's the deal. I'm gonna talk.
Speaker 3: I got some things to get out. When I run
Speaker 3: out of breath, you talk, That's it. I kept waiting
Speaker 3: until he ran out of breath and finally went, okay,
Speaker 3: but what do you think.
Speaker 1: The other the other great boom the other great Berman story, Buck,
Speaker 1: I know you know this one, but this involves Krucky.
Speaker 1: So it's a it's Kyle Losche is on the mound,
Speaker 1: and Kyle Losch has a pretty good game, must have
Speaker 1: gone six innings or whatever. And you know, usually the
Speaker 1: host asks a question of the analyst. In this case,
Speaker 1: Boomer or Berman would say to Buck, when I'm done talking, Utah.
Speaker 1: In this instant, kruck is sitting next to him, and
Speaker 1: kruck has really not experienced the Chris Berman experience very often.
Speaker 1: So Kyle Losh gives him, let's say, six and two
Speaker 1: thirds of one run ball, two hits, seven k's and
Speaker 1: Boomer looks at looks at looks at Krucky and says, Krucky,
Speaker 1: Kyle Losche, we knew, but we didn't know. And Cruck's like,
Speaker 1: what do I do with that? What does that mean?
Speaker 1: And he looked at him and he said, what is that?
Speaker 1: We knew, but we didn't know. It's like his own language.
Speaker 1: And cru Kruck was the other great Cruck story too.
Speaker 1: For some reason, we decided to eliminate people and we
Speaker 1: got these cameras that were robotic, and Kruck and I
Speaker 1: are doing a show at a studio and the robotic
Speaker 1: camera continues to move in on Kruck like this, and
Speaker 1: he keeps going and it ends up banging into the set.
Speaker 1: There's nobody controlling it, like the robotics have gone haywire,
Speaker 1: and Kruck thought he was being attacked by a camera.
Speaker 1: We can tell stories about the set.
Speaker 3: Let me get one more, so John Cruck. Most people
Speaker 3: put a dude not disturbed sign. We all stayed. He
Speaker 3: had a sign made up and said marinating, don't disturb, perrinating.
Speaker 3: So we're there. When we used to do the show
Speaker 3: called Baseball Today, and you got to understand, you're just
Speaker 3: shots the half hour show from the waist up, Well,
Speaker 3: the great Peter Gammons would come in and khaki shorts
Speaker 3: and flip flops. Well I didn't know he was or
Speaker 3: what ever. And you know, like most men, you know,
Speaker 3: one of the most unattractive features of their self, this
Speaker 3: might be their feet. So I'm sitting there, wouldn't think anything.
Speaker 3: All of a sudden, Cruck leans over. He goes, what
Speaker 3: do you got on Peter's feet and his toes? You
Speaker 3: think he trimmed his nails today? And all I did,
Speaker 3: Carl's talking getting ready to come to me. I look
Speaker 3: down and I went, oh my god, Carl. Carl goes, Buck,
Speaker 3: what do you mean, are you impressed by something?
Speaker 1: I go, yes, I am, hey, that is amazing. Before
Speaker 1: we before we get to the m v P, just
Speaker 1: a reminder, of course, trade deadline is coming up here
Speaker 1: in a short order, and foul territory is all over
Speaker 1: the trade deadline.
Speaker 3: It's always a hope with this guy. It's always a hope.
Speaker 3: Oh we hope he stays healthy.
Speaker 1: Oh we hope he's good.
Speaker 3: He's send Miller to the San Diego Padres.
Speaker 1: Trade.
Speaker 3: Let's get to Shane Bieber. He is a Toronto blue Jay.
Speaker 3: Let's hit the inside scoop. It's EEPTI senior insider Ken Rosenkalf.
Speaker 3: The Astros got Carlos Korea back to Houston.
Speaker 1: Just like a Jent Freller said, you ain't in the
Speaker 1: big leagues. You don't.
Speaker 3: I got a big one.
Speaker 1: Under a minute under a minute Bowel Territory Trade Deadline special.
Speaker 1: All right, Buck, before we uh, before we say thank
Speaker 1: you and goodbye to you, justin t up the most
Speaker 1: important question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Buck, we ask everybody on our show man, uh,
Speaker 2: who is your m VP? The most valuable person in
Speaker 2: your life growing up? You know, all the years you
Speaker 2: had mentioned some of the people around you. You mentioned
Speaker 2: your dad earlier, But who is it for you that
Speaker 2: you would you would make your m VP.
Speaker 3: Oh? It was my mom and dad as a unit.
Speaker 3: It really was because they they had the to make
Speaker 3: the tough calls along the way. And more I've gotten
Speaker 3: away from I had my own kids and grands children.
Speaker 3: I'm very lucky. And that doesn't mean that you can't
Speaker 3: be a good human being without that strong two parent unit.
Speaker 3: But I was so lucky looking back on and a
Speaker 3: lot of the things that people were challenged with, I
Speaker 3: didn't have that challenge because my parents had the guts
Speaker 3: to lead me down the right path about human beings
Speaker 3: and our fellow man. And to this day it served
Speaker 3: me well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, awesome, good hey, Buck. So as we say goodbye here,
Speaker 1: we've want to thank you you. You absolutely were the
Speaker 1: perfect guest for this program. You educated people, you entertained people.
Speaker 1: Would how would you describe the concept of the parent
Speaker 1: dugout and trying just to make sure that what people
Speaker 1: are learning. There's just so many different ways to skin
Speaker 1: a cat.
Speaker 3: Well, Carl, I really come in y'all for this this angle.
Speaker 3: It's so hard being a parent. It's so hard being
Speaker 3: a kid, you know, and just being there more than
Speaker 3: anything else. When I look back and I hear my
Speaker 3: parents said, you know, my parents were there. That doesn't
Speaker 3: mean that you have to be so involved in every
Speaker 3: little aspect of their life and just being there and
Speaker 3: make it fun, you know, as a coach, as a parent.
Speaker 3: You know, I always ask my grandsons when they again
Speaker 3: and you have fun today, what was the most fun
Speaker 3: you had? Life's too short, man, And if you do
Speaker 3: the percentage we're going to play in college or professional sports,
Speaker 3: it's a pretty low percentage. So get on with learning
Speaker 3: the game of life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, beautiful, Thanks you, Buck, Thank you very much. We
Speaker 1: really really are grateful. You killed it. You were great.
Speaker 1: Thanks man. Good to see your Doud blessed.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me, Thank you, blessed.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Bud, And again, everybody get content like Buck Show, Walter,
Speaker 1: We got Alex Kor coming up in the next couple
Speaker 1: of weeks. Please join the parentdugout dot com. Become a member.
Speaker 1: You know about the content. Uh, you know about Justin's
Speaker 1: baseball recruiting confidential. You can ask us anything you want.
Speaker 1: Questions about the parent Dugout send them to info at
Speaker 1: parent dugout dot com. Another great one of the books, Justin.
Speaker 1: We'll talk soon.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Ravi.
Speaker 1: Hmmm,