WEBVTT - Cal Ripken Jr. 0:00:02.880 --> 0:00:05.560 One of the greatest baseball players ever is cal Ripken. 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:08.200 He set a record for playing in two thousand, six 0:00:08.320 --> 0:00:12.200 hundred and thirty two consecutive games over seventeen years. He 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:14.800 was an All Star nineteen times, a member of the 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:18.000 Hall of Fame, twice most Valuable Player in the American League, 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:19.360 and also once. 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:20.599 A World Series champion. 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:22.840 I had a chance to sit down with cal Ripkin 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:25.960 recently to talk about his current life working for and 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:28.960 with Baltimore Orioles, a team that he made very famous. 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:31.600 So it was said in baseball. 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:35.360 That the unbreakable record was Lou Garrick's record of spend 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:39.400 playing in two thousand and thirty games consecutively. Nobody thought 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:40.280 that could ever be broken. 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:41.080 You broke it. 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:43.320 You played in two thousand, six hundred and thirty two 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:45.600 games consecutively over seventeen years. 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:47.680 Why did you do that? 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:51.559 I mean, did you ever think if maybe taking a 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:52.240 day off. 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:52.880 Would be a good thing? 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:54.120 Or so? 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:58.200 You're not going to ask me what my secret was, right, Wow, 0:00:58.240 --> 0:00:59.480 I'll get that. I don't know if I have one. 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:02.440 I mean, I love the game a lot. Your everyday 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:06.800 player was to find in those years as playing every game, 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:09.800 and it was an honor to be thought of and 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:12.120 counted on each and every day by your teammates. So 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:15.800 I had my dad, who was also a coach when 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:18.120 I first came in, probably for the first eleven or 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:21.679 twelve years of my career. And I think the real 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:24.959 reason that I played is that I couldn't come into 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:27.720 a ballpark and say you have turf toe where you 0:01:27.720 --> 0:01:29.679 stubbed your toe and say, okay, I might need to 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:32.440 miss a game or two. I couldn't face my dad, 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:35.160 you know, let alone the manager. 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:37.680 Of the team like I've been, you know, working for 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:41.520 many years, and I have not done seventeen years consecutively, 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:44.080 going in every day. You know, you have a headache, 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:46.320 someday you don't feel good. You never had a headache, 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:48.440 no cold, nothing happened. 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:52.000 Yes, all of those things that fight through it. You 0:01:52.080 --> 0:01:54.440 learn to play through different things, and you find out 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:57.840 really quickly that I can still compete, I still can 0:01:57.880 --> 0:01:59.800 play even though I might be less than one hundred percent. 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:02.560 Baseball was called the national pastime for a long time, 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:06.120 but obviously other sports have taken a lot of attention 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:09.560 away from baseball. Basketball and football, for example, do you 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:13.200 still feel that Americans have a certain passion for baseball 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:16.639 that is similar to what they had twenty thirty, forty 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:18.399 years ago, or do you think it's really changed a lot. 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:21.800 I think there's a deep love for baseball still in 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:24.760 the country. And I see that the ripping baseball was 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:28.359 a kids business that we developed experiential when you play 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:30.720 tournaments and we teach and those sorts of things, and 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:32.560 you can witness it right in front of you that 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:34.680 the kids eight to twelve year olds feel the same 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:37.920 way about baseball that we did. I think what's happened 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:42.320 in sports overall is that there's specialization that happens earlier 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:46.640 in the sports, and so you're not playing baseball, basketball, 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:49.960 and football all that time. You're specializing really early on. 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:52.320 So there's a lot less kids, I think that are 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:56.280 playing baseball, but the ones that are playing are actually 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:59.400 playing more of it because they play spring summer. 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:02.520 And speaking of that, lots of pictures these days have 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:06.079 elbow problems. They now get surgery called Tommy John surgery, 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:08.760 and players have to take a year and a half before. 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:09.800 They're really going to play again. 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:12.440 Why are there there's so many pitchers and I seem 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:13.880 to have this problems now and they didn't have as 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:15.680 many of those problems when you were playing. 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:17.200 Is it because they're playing. 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:19.320 So young and they're throwing so many different kind of 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:21.079 pitches that really hurt the elbow on the arm? 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:23.040 Well, I think some of that is true because Tommy 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:25.520 John surgery has come down even to like high school 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:28.680 and sometimes kids younger than that. And I think some 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:32.480 parents feel like, we'll just keep throwing and if it 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:34.320 breaks or whatever else, we can always fix it and 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:36.600 you'll come back throwing harder than you did before. I 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:38.480 think that's the wrong way to look at it. But 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:41.560 I think in the big legs, with all the analytics 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:45.760 that go around, I think pitchers are chasing velocity more 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:48.600 so there's more training for to get your arm stronger 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:51.720 to throw the ball harder, but they let they're chasing movement. 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:56.040 So there's two things that happen. If you throw a fastball, 0:03:56.640 --> 0:03:58.640 you get behind the baseball. But then when you try 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:01.440 to make it move with the same power, you're torquing 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:05.240 your your elbow or your wrist right at the end 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:07.400 to try to make it move, to try to and 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:09.800 then all these pressure goes right here. And I think 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:14.760 a lot of chasing speed and chasing movement. The combination 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:16.479 of those two is causing it. 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:19.400 When a golfer is lining up a pott on a tournament, 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:21.160 everybody has to be quiet. 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:24.080 Nobody's throwing anything in his head. Why does he need 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:25.279 to have so much quiet? 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:27.440 But you're not allowed to talk or say anything when 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:29.839 you're putting for five inches, But if somebody's throwing a 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:31.640 ball at your head one hundred miles an hour. 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:32.599 They can scream and yell. 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:34.720 Why doesn't it seem much ass backwards? 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:39.320 Yes? Yes, the uh It is interesting though, when you 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:42.160 play in front of a packed house, it's just noise, 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:44.760 you know, it's not you don't hear the individual things. 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:47.320 I mean. In here in New York, I think the 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:49.440 fans felt that they were part of the game, and 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:51.320 so they were trying to get inside your head. They 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:53.400 were screaming things out at you try to play a 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:56.200 little mind game with and and if you beat them 0:04:56.240 --> 0:04:58.560 and you did really well, you know, it'd almost go 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:00.840 ah caw see you tomorrow. It was all part of it. 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:03.440 The Boston fans were a little different, is that they 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:05.800 were they were more personal that if you beat them 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:08.159 or whatever else, they'd hold against you for your whole life. 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:11.760 You can challenge a call now and they go up 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:13.320 to New York and they watch it on video and 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:14.240 they make a decision there. 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:15.320 You think that's good or bad? 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:18.640 I like it, yeah, I mean because one play could 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:21.120 turn the whole outcome of the game, and they have 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:23.440 the technology to do it now. And I think what 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:25.160 you're going to see in the next couple of years 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:28.880 is some form of the robotic strike zone. You know, 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:32.360 whether they're testing it in the minor leagues on a 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:36.880 challenge system or like every third game, they just they 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:38.680 have something in the year of the umpire and the 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:41.800 robot or whatever calls the whole game based on when 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:43.680 the balls on the plate. He just tells the guy 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:46.040 what to do. And so they're testing those things out, 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:48.400 and I think the challenge system might be good because 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:50.920 a key pitch in the eighth inning with the bases loaded, 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:53.160 you know, and it's called a ball or a strike, 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:56.200 you know, the ball turns it in favor of the 0:05:56.240 --> 0:05:58.440 team that's got the bases loaded. A strike kind of 0:05:58.440 --> 0:05:59.080 gets them out of it. 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:00.880 Professional athlete are idealized. 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:02.840 I mean, it's hard to believe this, but they're like 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:06.800 more than politicians, right, So athletes are really well liked 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:09.279 and admired and so forth. But then when you finish 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:12.400 your career, you have the whole different life. So you 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:15.320 were tired at what age? Forty one? 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:15.760 Pretty one? 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:18.960 You played twenty years, twenty two years, twenty one years 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:21.440 in the major leagues, and you were tired at an 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:25.000 age that you know is old for a professional athlete, 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:27.760 but young for somebody in private equity or something like that. 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:30.400 So when you were tired at that age, did you say, 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:31.839 what am I going to do the rest of my life? 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:34.000 And what did you decide to do for the remaining 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:36.320 ten next twenty years of your life? 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:36.840 What did you do? 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:39.120 So if you save your money pretty well, then you 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:41.280 have choices, you know, and you could decide to learn 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:43.000 how to play golf and like a lot of people 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:45.320 do and kind of retire early. 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:46.120 Are you a golfer? 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:50.839 I play a little bit, but no, I could be 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:51.360 pretty good. 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:53.480 I think I have try a minutes for golf. That's 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:53.760 what I do. 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:58.080 So I looked at it as you know, you kind 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:00.400 of get bored. How can you do that? I look 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:04.200 at it as a second chance for a career opportunity, 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:06.640 And so you look I wanted to learn business, and 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:09.640 we bought minor league teams and so you could. It 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:12.080 was a comfortable business model that you can kind of 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:15.440 learn business that way, and that was kind of fun. 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:19.000 At first, it felt like I gave I spotted everybody 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:21.520 else twenty years ahead of me. I'm forty one, but 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:23.800 it seemed like I'm twenty one. You know, in the 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:26.680 business world, you come out and then you learn that 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:28.520 a lot of the things you learned along the way 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:32.520 in baseball can apply to your I mean, your worth, work, ethic, 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:35.280 how you go about doing picture preparation, and all that 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:37.760 kind of stuff that all applies to what you're doing now. 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:41.360 So now that you're an owner of the Baltimore Orioles, well, 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:44.080 how do you feel about these high price contracts that 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:46.640 players are getting. Used to be a player, probably wanted 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:49.840 higher price contracts. Now you're an owner, how do you 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:51.080 look at that differently? 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:56.240 Slightly? I try to think of what are the other 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:59.920 other intangible values that you can offer a player besides 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:02.200 the bottom line dollars because the bottom line dollars are 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:04.440 so big now or whatever else that you can make 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:06.400 a case you're saying, well how much? But I mean 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:08.520 it's about ego, and it's about breaking the bank, and 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:11.080 it's about agents wanting to continue to make it go 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:13.520 up for other people that come through. But if you 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:19.640 take my situation, was I wanted to play in one place. 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:21.600 I wanted to have control of playing in one place. 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:23.720 So I think if we get to a point where 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:26.000 we're trying to convince one of our players to stay, 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:27.920 you know, you want to try to tell them all 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:31.080 the values that are associated with you know, Derek Jeter 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:35.319 playing his whole career in a Pinstripe uniform, Me playing 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:37.520 my whole career in the Orioles And what's that mean 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:40.160 for you in the bigger picture? And hopefully they'll value 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:42.199 some of that. But it's going to be a competitive 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:44.719 landscape where we're going. 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:47.280 To have to pay some excite And Baltimore is a 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:49.440 smaller city compared to some of the New York. 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:51.599 Los Angeles. 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:53.960 Is that a big problem and you're in a smaller 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:55.200 city in Major League Baseball? 0:08:56.200 --> 0:08:59.400 I think overall, I never liked the idea because you 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:02.360 were a small market team you couldn't compete, Because I 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:05.959 think competition is in your knowledge. You know you're drafting, 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:08.520 you get the draft you get to sign players, you 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:11.280 get to develop players. You know, that's not all free 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:15.040 agency that's happening. But if you're a big market team 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:17.280 and you make a mistake in judgment or a player, 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:20.360 you can throw more money at your mistakes. When you're 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:23.000 a smaller market team, you have to be better at 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:24.160 your baseball decisions. 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:27.880 So I played the Little League All Star shortstop and 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:30.000 when I was eight to nine, and I didn't know 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:31.400 whether I was going to get to the major leagues 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:33.360 or not. When did you realize you were going to 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:35.560 be better than someone like me? Did you realize that 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:37.840 you were a little leaguer when you were a little leaguer, 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:39.719 Did you really realize you were going to be really 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:41.120 good enough to play in the major leagues? 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:45.240 I knew pretty quickly. I grew up in around baseball. 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:47.839 Dad was a manager of the minor leagues for the 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:50.000 Oils in the first fourteen years of my life. So 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:52.960 I went to work with my dad, you know, or 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:55.079 as early as eight or nine. He put me in 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:58.240 a uniform, was the bat boy. I shagged in the outfield. 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:00.760 I had a chance to ask all the players, you know, 0:10:01.240 --> 0:10:03.480 how they did, how they caught the fly ball, how 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:06.120 they swung the bat. So I had all these teachers 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:08.520 in front of me, but I had the skill. You know, 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:10.640 that was pretty obvious early on. 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:12.760 Okay, so you played in high school. I assume you 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:15.720 did very well in high school. Yes, okay, So you 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:18.880 get drafted by the Orioles. And at what point, when 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:20.559 you're in the minor leagues all the players played in 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:22.480 the minor leagues for a while, did you realize you 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:24.240 weren't just going to be an average player, you were 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:26.280 really going to be a super player or did you 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:28.320 not realize that in the beginning. 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:31.320 Now I was seventeen. I was a second round draft 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:34.360 pick by the Orioles. It turned to eighteen at the 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:37.120 end of the summer, and so it was my birthday's 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:39.280 August twenty fourth, So I was playing a couple of 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:42.400 months before my eighteenth birthday. And when I first went 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:44.520 away to play pro ball, you were pretty big fish 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:46.480 in a small pond in high school. You thought you 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:49.240 were pretty good, and then you go and all of 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:50.679 a sudden, you're part of a team and you look 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:53.160 around and no longer you're not the big fish anymore. 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:55.480 There was one short stop by the name of Bob 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:58.000 Bonner that came out of Texas A and M. He 0:10:58.120 --> 0:10:59.800 was like a sixth round pick for US that year, 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:02.280 and I was taking ground balls and doing stuff with him, 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:04.760 and he clearly was light years ahead of me. He 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:07.160 had a better arm, he could field the ball better, 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:09.880 he was quicker on the transfer, and I kept looking 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:12.280 at him, going, I'm never going to play. You know, 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:15.920 this guy's too good. I'm not that good. And they 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:18.839 moved him immediately to Double A, so that which opened 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:21.240 up the spot for me, and then I got my 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:23.920 feet on the ground. I started playing pretty well and 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:26.200 started hit a couple of home runs in my next year, 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:27.960 and then I got to Double A and then I 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:31.800 had a breakout season, and in two years I caught 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:34.839 Bob Bonner and passed him to the big leagues. So 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:36.959 he stayed the same and I got better. 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:38.680 What year did he get into the Hall of Fame? 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:43.760 I think he's a minister in Africa right now. 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:48.160 So, speaking of the Hall of Fame, you were elected 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:50.960 with ninety eight point five percent of the vote. Have 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:53.120 you ever figured out who that person was that didn't 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:56.120 vote for you? I mean, who is this person waiting. 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:59.840 For I've hunted all five of them down. I think 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:03.160 that my particular year, I think Marianna Rivera just went 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:05.520 in one hundred percent right, the only one of the vote. 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:10.280 And in my particular year there was a protest to 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:13.360 vote where where five people didn't turn into ballot in 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:16.360 that particular year as a protest to the steroid era. 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:19.800 They said, well, and so they counted against you. 0:12:20.040 --> 0:12:21.600 Did anybody ever come to you and say, look, you're 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:23.680 really good, but you could be even better if you 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:24.680 take some of these drugs. 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:29.280 They didn't try that, And looking back on it, you 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:32.400 could probably see signs in hindsight that players that might 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:34.960 have used. But when you're playing, if you're not in 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:38.240 this secret society, you don't know. And I didn't know. 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:41.000 So some players they were like one hundred and eighty 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:43.640 pounds and then later there are two hundred and fifty pounds. 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:48.480 You didn't suspect maybe they were doing something unusual. Yes, 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:56.480 you're six foot four and traditionally shortstops were more my height, 0:12:57.320 --> 0:12:59.440 and when you came along, people didn't want people like 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:02.720 me to be short stops anymore. So did you change 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:05.520 the game of baseball by saying short stop should be 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:07.200 big and better hitters? 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:08.959 Or or is it going back to the. 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:12.600 Old mode of speaking fast and good baseball steelers but 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:13.560 not great hitters. 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:16.160 I mean a lot of the shortstops, Derek Jeter being 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:18.600 one of them, gives me credit for my success at 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:22.720 the position as a bigger shortstop. That gave them opportunities 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:25.000 that maybe otherwise they wouldn't have had. But I kind 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:27.240 of think, Derek, you would have carved at your own path. 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:32.480 But I did move from third to short I signed. 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:35.000 I was six two when I came out of high school, 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:37.800 and then I had a lake grospur. It almost grew 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:40.520 three inches and I put on, you know, five to 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:42.400 eight pounds a year. By the time I got to 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:45.960 the Big Legs, I was almost sixty five to twenty 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:49.040 and they had put me at third base. But then 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:52.800 Earl Weaver had this vision that I could play shortstop 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:54.560 and we'd be a better team if I went over 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:57.240 to shortstop. So he one day just put me there, 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:01.400 and and my success at the position as a bigger guy. 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:06.200 Maybe it's like when I'm a basketball fan, I wish 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:08.560 I could have been a basketball player, But I remember 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:12.080 Magic Johnson changing the thought of a point guard at 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:14.079 six y nine. He's sixty nine, all of a sudden, 0:14:14.080 --> 0:14:17.040 the advantages he had at the size. I think people 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:20.640 started to understand that a bigger guy could play shortstop 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:22.920 and second base. And today there's some of the more 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:25.160 celebrated positions are contract. 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:29.600 I think your highest compensation level six million dollars a year. 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:32.760 Six million dollars a year. That's a good compensation level 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:35.680 in those days, for sure, and today for the average 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:38.320 person that's a great income. But today there are some 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:41.080 players that are making two three four hundred million dollars 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:43.280 over here yours one seven hundred million dollars. Do you 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:45.640 ever think maybe you should have waited a little bit 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:47.520 longer to play in the major leagues? And do you 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:49.280 evergre at the fact that some people are making seven 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:51.680 hundred million dollars and they're not likely, you know, be 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:53.280 as good as you, So every. 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:57.480 Day I think that, yes, No, it is really interesting 0:14:57.600 --> 0:14:59.960 is that I had a really good job. You know, 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:01.720 I was a baseball player, and you got paid for it, 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:05.200 and in the compensation, I was one of the early 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:07.360 ones that broke a million a year, and then I 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:09.800 got to two million a year, and then and then 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:12.640 after the towards the end, you know, I was at six, 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:16.680 but then it started going crazy, and you know, I 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:18.880 look at it and I remember all the old players 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:21.240 that said, you know, I wish that I would have 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:25.200 played in that era. But I think the game evolves 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:28.920 the business of the it used to be in baseball. 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:31.480 I think we looked, at least I looked at myself 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:33.640 as a sportsman. You know, maybe the value of the 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:36.120 entertainment was in the collective where you're playing well as 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:39.160 a team and you win and that's cool. Then all 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:41.600 of a sudden it seemed to step over to I 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:43.320 think a lot of players might think that they are 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:46.000 entertainers now. So it's a little bit more than what 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:49.120 you do in the field, and it's what maybe your commercials, 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:51.400 things you do off the field. I think they see 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:52.440 themselves differently. 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:54.200 Do you think that's good to have the games now 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:56.280 maybe two hours, twenty minutes or something like that. 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:57.560 Is that making better for the fans? 0:15:57.640 --> 0:15:59.800 Or are they saying I want more baseball and I 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:01.000 want the game the last longer. 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:02.880 Well, it's better, And I think what they did is 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:04.800 they cut out the dead time. At the end of 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:07.280 my career, the walk up music started to become popular. 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:09.800 The young players kind of liked it, and they would 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:13.040 tell them what to do. And sometimes they'd be when 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:15.560 the on deck circle and they hadn't played the song yet, 0:16:15.640 --> 0:16:17.920 and so they'd wait and look upstairs like this until 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:19.760 they played the song, and then they'd make their entrance 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:22.680 to the ballpark. The shot clock or the pitch clock 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:27.480 that they have now allows the umpire to to gives 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:30.280 them an enforceable tool to shape the behavior. There was 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:32.040 always a rule that the pitcher had to throw it 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:36.040 within twenty seconds of each pitch, but that got away 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:38.920 from everybody, and now it's shaped the behavior, and I 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:39.920 think the game moves. 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:42.160 When you were playing, it was sometimes said that pittress 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:44.880 might put the substances on the baseball, or it was 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:45.600 called a spider. 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:46.960 Did you ever see that? 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:51.000 Gaylord Perry was the most famous of all spitballs. He 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:53.400 actually wrote a book called Me and the Spinner. So 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:55.720 the first time I face him, ball comes in, it 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:57.520 sinks a little bit, and then I hit a groundball 0:16:57.520 --> 0:16:59.760 to shortstop by make another out, and I'm thinking, if 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:02.560 that's that's a spider's that's nothing special. But then I 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:04.680 came up with the bases loaded my third time up, 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:07.560 and he threw me three pitches that dropped about this 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:10.840 far and instruck me out, you know whatever else, and 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:13.040 then kind of walked off and shook his head at me, 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:14.280 like that's the spider. 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:17.600 I have a grandson who four years old. If he 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:20.159 wanted to be a major League baseball player. What's the 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:22.320 best advice you would give to a young person? He 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:24.520 meets a little young for advice, maybe, but what is 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:26.240 a six or eight year old or ten or year 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:27.720 old who aspires to be a baseball player? 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:28.359 What should they do? 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:31.480 Well? I think the worst thing you could do is 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:33.840