Speaker 1: Welcome to Is this a great game or what? And
Speaker 1: our special guest today is Hall of Fame broadcaster and
Speaker 1: my dear friend Eric Nadell. Eric, meet Jeff Kirchen. You
Speaker 1: haven't seen him since he was like four feet tall, which.
Speaker 2: Was two weeks ago. But say hi to Jeff after
Speaker 2: all these years.
Speaker 3: Hi, Jeff, How tall are you now? Jeff?
Speaker 4: I'm a whopping five foot six and a half, which
Speaker 4: is considered a giant in the Kirkchen family.
Speaker 1: Right right, So Eric, let's start from the top here.
Speaker 1: You signed in for this podcast as Jeff Stone, one
Speaker 1: of my all time favorite players. Explain the thinking there.
Speaker 3: I just knew he's one of your all time favorite players,
Speaker 3: the name that would amuse you the most. Else I
Speaker 3: consider Jeff Bronki because he was born in Afghanistan, and
Speaker 3: I believe he's the only Major leaguer from Afghanistan. But
Speaker 3: I figured Jeff how to go with Jeff Stone because
Speaker 3: of how many good quotes he gave you over the years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, Jeff. Jeffstone is one of the sweetest men
Speaker 1: I've ever met. He was a good baseball player, but
Speaker 1: he was much better than the minor leagues in the
Speaker 1: big leagues. But he's the guy who grew up in
Speaker 1: a cornfield in Missouri and ends up in Oregon for
Speaker 1: his first year.
Speaker 3: In pro ball.
Speaker 1: And he's standing in the outfield during a pitching change
Speaker 1: and he asks the right fielder is that the same
Speaker 1: moon that they have at home? But that's the question
Speaker 1: that Jeff Stone asked the right fielder. But he was
Speaker 1: at Eric. I'm right about him, right.
Speaker 2: He was absolutely as friendly and as nice a guy
Speaker 2: as you've ever met.
Speaker 3: Right, he was. He was outwardly friendly, and he was
Speaker 3: really fast. Now he didn't have all the skills you
Speaker 3: needed to be a major league, but he was really fast.
Speaker 1: Jeff he played winter ball in Mexico and bought a
Speaker 1: television there and then left it in Mexico when he
Speaker 1: came back to the States, and they said, why did
Speaker 1: you bring the TV back? And he said, well, I
Speaker 1: didn't think it would get the stations here in this country,
Speaker 1: so he left it in Mexico. And I repeat, it
Speaker 1: sounds mean spirited, I'm not. This is Jeff Stone, sweet,
Speaker 1: sweet guy and one of my favorite guys I ever covered.
Speaker 3: Sorry about that, you know what I think about the
Speaker 3: same moon. They made a movie called a Miss Ma Luna,
Speaker 3: which means the same Moon, and it's about a woman
Speaker 3: who immigrates to the United States and leaves her child behind,
Speaker 3: but points at the moon before she leaves and says,
Speaker 3: every night, look at the moon and know that I'm
Speaker 3: looking at the same moon, and that will bond us together.
Speaker 3: And I've seen the movie a couple of times. It's
Speaker 3: a really sweet movie. But every time I see the
Speaker 3: name of the movie, I think it just.
Speaker 1: It's so good. And speaking of movie, Jeff, speaking of movies.
Speaker 1: When when I first off that the house that you
Speaker 1: were born in, or after you were born, the house
Speaker 1: you went to was like three hundred yards from Eric
Speaker 1: Nadell's house. He was the one that told me, Tim,
Speaker 1: there's a house on our street or it's one street over,
Speaker 1: you should buy that house. And then we did. We
Speaker 1: bought that house, so I did. I got through my
Speaker 1: early years in Texas because of Eric. He told me
Speaker 1: what to do there.
Speaker 2: Eric, you remember finding the house for us, right absolutely?
Speaker 3: And you know when I'd walk by that house walking
Speaker 3: the dog, every time i'd see it, I think, you
Speaker 3: guys there now dunk sitting in that car. Oh, we
Speaker 3: need completely trash.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we need to explain. We had a dog, Donkey,
Speaker 1: the greatest dog ever. All he wanted to do is
Speaker 1: go in the car, And there were certain days he
Speaker 1: would just get in the car, knowing this is going
Speaker 1: to leave for the park at some point and I
Speaker 1: don't want to miss it. So yes, Eric was not
Speaker 1: the only guy to see our dog sitting in the car.
Speaker 1: He had in and out privileges. We weren't locking him
Speaker 1: in there. He chose to do this. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: thinks well the things were Eric.
Speaker 4: You know, there's so much history between the two of you.
Speaker 4: First of all, it is really neat to be on
Speaker 4: the call with two Hall of famers, So I have
Speaker 4: to say this is a real treat for myself and
Speaker 4: for our incredible listeners. But let's take it back, because Dad,
Speaker 4: you started with the Rangers in what year?
Speaker 1: I started in eighty two. I covered baseball for three
Speaker 1: years before that in Baltimore. But as Eric knows, you
Speaker 1: really don't start your baseball career until you're the play
Speaker 1: by play guy or the beat guy. And I became
Speaker 1: the beat guy for the Texas Rangers in nineteen eighty two. Eric,
Speaker 1: those players that team, what what a learning experience? That
Speaker 1: was for all of us. You had the same experiences
Speaker 1: what you took over in nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 3: Agreed, Agreed, Yeah, I was twenty seven years old. Most
Speaker 3: of the players on our team were older than me then.
Speaker 3: You know, we had Ferdie Jenkins and Doc Meditch and
Speaker 3: Richie Zisk and Al Oliver and all of these guys
Speaker 3: were older than I was. And now, you know, and
Speaker 3: now most of the players could be my grandkids. But
Speaker 3: it was very different back then. And you know, back then,
Speaker 3: the players saw us, the people who were there every
Speaker 3: day covering them, as part of the family. We really
Speaker 3: were all part of the same group and there was
Speaker 3: a communal feeling about it that unfortunately doesn't exist anymore. Also,
Speaker 3: you know, there were a lot more characters back then.
Speaker 3: You know, there wasn't as much money involved, players weren't
Speaker 3: as dedicated as they are now, and a lot more
Speaker 3: funny stuff happened back then and does now. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've told this story many times, Eric, but my first
Speaker 1: spring training with the Ragers, after three weeks, Mickey Rivers
Speaker 1: came up to me and said, Tim, can I borrow
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars? Vickey, I make eleven thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 1: I don't have two thousand dollars to loan you. Does
Speaker 1: that sound like Mickey to you?
Speaker 2: Eric?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? Absolutely? Yeah, what a what a team we had then,
Speaker 3: and what a season two, you know, to start out
Speaker 3: as contenders. You know, they traded Al Oliver in spring
Speaker 3: training and got Larry Parrish and Dave Hostetler. They made
Speaker 3: that ridiculous trade to get Lee Mozilly where they traded
Speaker 3: Ron Darling and Walk Terrell to get Lee Mozilly when
Speaker 3: they already had two center fielders, they traded for another one.
Speaker 3: And Mozilly was not exactly pleased to play left field,
Speaker 3: right he said it was an idiot's position.
Speaker 1: Yes he did.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Canstremsky did not take that well, by the way, who
Speaker 1: was still playing at the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he didn't care. Remember Jim Rice didn't quite care
Speaker 3: for that either. And the whole season went could put
Speaker 3: in early May when they lost twelve games in a row.
Speaker 3: They went on a road trip. They lost every game
Speaker 3: if I remember correctly. On one road trip to Detroit
Speaker 3: and Boston, they lost a game in each place when
Speaker 3: they could have ended the game with a double play,
Speaker 3: and instead the second baseman got taken out, threw the
Speaker 3: ball away, and they lost the game on that same play.
Speaker 3: I think it happened to Doug Flynn, and I think
Speaker 3: the other game was Bill Stein got taken out. A
Speaker 3: second one was by Kurt Gibson, and I don't remember
Speaker 3: who the Boston guy was who took out the second baseman.
Speaker 3: But they went from on the verge of winning to
Speaker 3: losing the game and one fell sweep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that team in May, Eric said, lost twelve
Speaker 1: games in a row. And I staggered into Don Zimmer's
Speaker 1: office and I have this haggard look on my face
Speaker 1: and he looks at me. He goes, what's wrong you?
Speaker 1: And I said, well, Zim, I must tell you it
Speaker 1: hasn't been as much fun covering this team as I
Speaker 1: thought it would be. And he looks at me, and
Speaker 1: I'm quoting here. He goes a quit complain and look
Speaker 1: at you. You're young, you're good looking, you got your
Speaker 1: whole life in front of you. Look at me. I'm
Speaker 1: old and fat, I'm bald and ugly. I got a
Speaker 1: plate in my head, and I've got this team to manage.
Speaker 1: I'm the one with all the worries.
Speaker 2: So quick complaining and recognize how lucky you are to
Speaker 2: be here.
Speaker 1: Now, Eric, does that not sound like Don Zimmer?
Speaker 3: To you? Sounds like Zim? And then he wasn't He
Speaker 3: wasn't long for that team. As it turned out well,
Speaker 3: after that twelve game lising streak, they fired the general manager,
Speaker 3: not the manager, right right. They fired Robinson.
Speaker 1: Eddie Robinson, right right.
Speaker 3: And then later on You're in July, they fired Zim
Speaker 3: but asked him to keep managing until they can find
Speaker 3: a replacement.
Speaker 1: Jeff, he man three games after being told you're fired.
Speaker 1: And then this is Eric, I don't think you were
Speaker 1: here this night, but we but Zim took all the
Speaker 1: writers and all the guy the coaches out to dinner
Speaker 1: to mister Catfish. After that it was finally over. He
Speaker 1: was officially fired. So I'm sitting there with the other
Speaker 1: beat writers, Jeff, this was incredible, and this guy who
Speaker 1: I've never seen before, rolls in. He picks up a
Speaker 1: goblet of beer and throws it across the table at
Speaker 1: Jim Reeves, who I was sitting next to one of
Speaker 1: the beat writers, And we have to get under the
Speaker 1: table so we don't get hit by a flying glass.
Speaker 1: And I looked at rebo and I said, who was that?
Speaker 1: He goes, that's Brad Korbott. He used to own the teams.
Speaker 1: The owner of the team came in and threw a
Speaker 1: beer at remo. Does that sound like Brad Korbant to you, Eric?
Speaker 3: Brad Korbott is the reason that I got this job
Speaker 3: because he was so impulsive. He was playing golf one
Speaker 3: day with Harmon Killerbrew, and Harmon had done a little
Speaker 3: bit of broadcasting for the Twins and Brad said, you know,
Speaker 3: I'd like to have you as our TV announcer and
Speaker 3: Harmon said great, I'd love to do that. So Brad
Speaker 3: went to Roy Parks, who was running the broadcast department then,
Speaker 3: and it was actually the City of Arlington, you know,
Speaker 3: not the Rangers or the radio station. And he said
Speaker 3: to Roy Parks, next year, we're going to have Harmon
Speaker 3: Killerbrew as our play by play announcer. And boy said, well, no,
Speaker 3: we're not. I have an agreement with Channel five here
Speaker 3: that I have to use one of their sports guys
Speaker 3: as the play by play guy, and it happens to
Speaker 3: be Frank Lieber and he's really good, and no, I'm
Speaker 3: not going to hire Harmon Killbrew and Corbett said, well,
Speaker 3: if you won't hire Harmon Killerbrew, then I won't let
Speaker 3: you use Ken Suarez as the color man on TV.
Speaker 3: Ken Suarez was a former Ranger player who worked for
Speaker 3: Corbett selling plastic pipe in Corbett's Plastic Pipe company, and
Speaker 3: Corbett would let him off work to go do the
Speaker 3: third games that we did on TV back then, and
Speaker 3: I hadn't I was doing minor league hockey at the time.
Speaker 3: And roy said, well, I'm sorry, I can't hire Harmon Kilber.
Speaker 3: I can't break this contract. Corbett says, well, you can't
Speaker 3: use Ken Suarez anymore, and Royce said, all right, I'll
Speaker 3: find somebody else. I was at somebody else and that's
Speaker 3: how I got them that Eric.
Speaker 1: I have never heard that story. Harmon Kilbrew is one
Speaker 1: of my favorite people ever. But as a play by
Speaker 1: play guide, they were going to hire the big, stocky
Speaker 1: first baseman to be a play by play guy.
Speaker 3: That's ridiculous, exactly as the TV play by play guy.
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Speaker 1: If you were doing women's basketball and minor league hockey,
Speaker 1: among other things, before you became the voice of the Rangers, agreed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I thought, you know, growing up in
Speaker 3: New York listening to Marv Albert, I was just captivated
Speaker 3: by listening to New York Rangers games on the radio.
Speaker 3: I loved it. I got my homework done early every
Speaker 3: day the Rangers were playing, so I could listen to
Speaker 3: Marv and I would tell people, say, what are you
Speaker 3: going to do when you grow up? And I'd say,
Speaker 3: I'm going to be the radio voice of the Rangers.
Speaker 3: And we met the New York Rangers, and you know what.
Speaker 3: I broadcast hockey in college, and when I got out
Speaker 3: of college, I got a job in Muskegon, Michigan, at
Speaker 3: the lowest level of minor league sport. It was like
Speaker 3: the movie Slap Shot. Really was like that. In fact,
Speaker 3: we had the two guys, we had the Hanson brothers
Speaker 3: in our training camp. Their name was actually Carlson. We
Speaker 3: had them in our training real Hanson brothers, before the movie,
Speaker 3: before any of that, and they didn't make our team.
Speaker 3: They didn't skate well enough to make our team. We
Speaker 3: were in the International Hockey League, which sounds really impressive,
Speaker 3: except that none of the teams were in any country
Speaker 3: other than the United States. And he was able to
Speaker 3: catch on with a team in the Eastern League, Jeff Carlson,
Speaker 3: and I don't remember what the name of the other
Speaker 3: brother was, but he caught on with the Eastern League
Speaker 3: and got jobs there. But I got a job in Muskegan, Michigan.
Speaker 3: Then I got a job in Oklahoma City, and that
Speaker 3: saved my career because after three years in Muskegan, Michigan,
Speaker 3: I figured, if I can't get in a better job
Speaker 3: than this, I probably really suck at this. And so
Speaker 3: I started applying to law schools. And then then I
Speaker 3: heard that there was a job open in Oklahoma City.
Speaker 3: I read in the Hockey News that a job had
Speaker 3: opened up in Oklahoma City that the announcer there, John Brooks,
Speaker 3: had taken a job as the voice of the Oklahoma Sooners,
Speaker 3: and he was having to give up his job as
Speaker 3: the voice of the Oklahoma City Blazers. So I called
Speaker 3: up directory information for Oklahoma City and asked to talk
Speaker 3: to the general manager. And this guy named ramy Ron,
Speaker 3: and he says, yeah, the job's open. I'm the general manager.
Speaker 3: I'm also the coach. Send your stuff and i'll get
Speaker 3: back to you. When he got back to me in
Speaker 3: a few weeks, and he said, you're one of two
Speaker 3: finalists for the job, and I want you to fly
Speaker 3: to Montreal for the Hockey Annual meetings and I'll go
Speaker 3: to dinner with you one night and i'll go to
Speaker 3: dinner with the other finalist one night and we'll see,
Speaker 3: you know, who gets the job. So I got there
Speaker 3: in the first night. We go to dinner and he
Speaker 3: starts drinking before we even sat down. He ordered a
Speaker 3: drink by that person stand and Eric, what would you like?
Speaker 3: So I just ordered whatever he ordered, which was a
Speaker 3: blonde Dubonet. That's what he liked to drink dinner, a
Speaker 3: blonde Dubnet. So I'm drinking blonde Dubonets with Ray and
Speaker 3: we sit down and we have this fantastic meal with
Speaker 3: I don't know how many drinks, but I was just
Speaker 3: completely polluted by the end of it. But we have
Speaker 3: a great thing, and I went back to my hotel
Speaker 3: room thinking I did really well. I think, I think,
Speaker 3: you know, I might get this job. And then he says,
Speaker 3: I'm going to go out tomorrow night with the other finalist.
Speaker 3: And the next night I get a caller on midnight
Speaker 3: and it's from Ray and he says, Hey, Eric, it's Ray.
Speaker 3: I just want to let you know you got the job.
Speaker 3: And I said, that's great. He says, but I've got
Speaker 3: this problem. He says, I don't know how to tell
Speaker 3: Mike Emrick that he didn't get the job, and all
Speaker 3: I could think of was, as far as I knew
Speaker 3: at the time, Mike Emrick didn't drink much, if at all.
Speaker 3: So if Ray was looking for a wingman when the
Speaker 3: team's on the road, he figured I'd be better than
Speaker 3: Mike Emrick because I can drink that. And that's the
Speaker 3: only reason in the world I could possibly have ever
Speaker 3: gotten a job broadcasting hockey over Mike Emrick, who's like
Speaker 3: the Vin Scully of hockey broadcasting.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: Eric, that is unbelievable. I'd never heard that story before.
Speaker 1: Now before I forget Moose Lallo was where in your
Speaker 1: he was the coach Jeb and tell us about.
Speaker 3: Moose Lalo was was the Yogi bearra of hockey. He
Speaker 3: would come out with these things called moosism's. Moose had
Speaker 3: grown up in Timmins, Ontario and an Italian family. One
Speaker 3: of his parents was French, you know, French Canadian, so
Speaker 3: he spoke Italian and French before he learned English, and
Speaker 3: English was his third language. It was very distant third
Speaker 3: to the other two. So he would completely mauwl the language,
Speaker 3: you know. He he He would say things like this contract,
Speaker 3: this printer. He screwed us on the contract. Next time,
Speaker 3: I'm going to sign the contract, and you're going to
Speaker 3: sign the contract, and we're going to take it to
Speaker 3: a rotary public And he had a road trip to Iowa.
Speaker 3: It was the only place where you had to change
Speaker 3: your clocks for time zone, change your watches. We'd go
Speaker 3: from the Eastern time zone to the Central time zone
Speaker 3: to go to Des Moines. It's about an eight hour
Speaker 3: bus ride, and we would do it late at night
Speaker 3: and we were going to play the next day. And
Speaker 3: we get to Des Moines, you know, it's the middle
Speaker 3: of the night, and we're about ready to get off
Speaker 3: the bus and Moose gets up in the front of
Speaker 3: the bus and he says, okay, now tomorrow we got
Speaker 3: to skate at ten am. I don't want anybody to
Speaker 3: be late because of this time zone thing. So everybody
Speaker 3: right now, Okay, it's four am right now, So everybody,
Speaker 3: let's just simonize our watches. And there was something like
Speaker 3: that every day, every day.
Speaker 1: How about the guy who broke his leg and what
Speaker 1: did what did Moose say after that?
Speaker 3: He took the extra Yeah, well they took X rays,
Speaker 3: but it didn't help. He still got a broken leg.
Speaker 3: And then my favorite one. On New Year's Eve, the
Speaker 3: Rangers the Mosque of Mohawks played this horrible game. They
Speaker 3: were terrible, and Moose came in after the game and
Speaker 3: he was really upset and he said, Okay, tomorrow we're
Speaker 3: having a practice. I know it's New Year's Day, but
Speaker 3: we're having a practice tomorrow. Everybody's got to be here
Speaker 3: at eleven am. And one guy piped up, is this compulsory?
Speaker 3: And Moose goes, no, f and way, You've all got
Speaker 3: to be there.
Speaker 1: So Eric, you went from you went from that, and
Speaker 1: you ended up in the Hall of Fame. This is
Speaker 1: one of the greatest journeys in the history of broadcasting.
Speaker 1: So let's go to the Hall of Fame. Eric, explain
Speaker 1: what it was like when you got the call that
Speaker 1: you're going in, and then explain what it was like
Speaker 1: when you made your speech in front of all those
Speaker 1: people and went into the Hall of Fame at Cooper's Town.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the whole thing is just so crazy. You know.
Speaker 3: I had been a finalist I think five times before
Speaker 3: I actually won the award, so I thought I was
Speaker 3: probably going to be the Susan Lucci of the ford
Speaker 3: Rick Award. But a few other guys have now gotten
Speaker 3: that distinction. I think Jock Tussett's been on the bellot
Speaker 3: a million times and somehow he has it won. Dwayne's
Speaker 3: Stats has been on it many times. Somehow he has
Speaker 3: it won. You know, I really feel for those guys.
Speaker 3: But then when, you know, when I finally got the call,
Speaker 3: you know, I got real excited and also nervous. And
Speaker 3: I go there for the weekend to the Oda Saga Hotel,
Speaker 3: you know, and step out of the car and only
Speaker 3: Hall of Famers can stay there that weekend, and some
Speaker 3: a list celebrities. Billy Crystal's there in the lobby and
Speaker 3: Tom Brokaw, you know, and a whole bunch of Hall
Speaker 3: of Fames. Ernie Banks is sitting there talking to Billy Williams,
Speaker 3: and Whitey Ford and Jim Bunning are huddled up at
Speaker 3: a table. It was crazy. And then you know, I
Speaker 3: go to my room and Reggie Jackson has taking towels
Speaker 3: off the maid's cart, you know, and crazy stuff like
Speaker 3: that was It was like I had sneaked into some
Speaker 3: private club and got away with it. Just like, what
Speaker 3: am I doing here with all of these guys and
Speaker 3: then it was great. I mean in the speech, which
Speaker 3: was at double Day Field. It was before they'd moved
Speaker 3: it to the Opera House. It was at double Day Field,
Speaker 3: so there were a lot of Hall of Famers behind me.
Speaker 3: There had to be forty or fifty Hall of Famers
Speaker 3: sitting behind me, and you know, I'm nervous as hell.
Speaker 3: And as I'm walking up to the podium, Gaylord Perry,
Speaker 3: who had played for us, and who I knew, I
Speaker 3: could hear him say, Hey, Eric, this better be quick.
Speaker 3: It was great, and then go ahead. I had had this.
Speaker 3: I had one line in there. A bunch of my
Speaker 3: friends from Brooklyn came up, you know, and we were
Speaker 3: all huge Sandy Kofax fans growing up because he lived
Speaker 3: in the neighborhood. And I had a line in the
Speaker 3: speech where I said, and thanks to all my Brooklyn
Speaker 3: friends for showing up, and I'm sorry I couldn't get
Speaker 3: Sandy Kofax autograph for all of you or any of you.
Speaker 3: As soon as the speech was over, Sandy came up
Speaker 3: to me and he said, how many autographs do you need?
Speaker 3: I'll sign anything you want. Wow. And that was like,
Speaker 3: that was the greatest thing that happened to me all weekend. Wow,
Speaker 3: it was fantastic.
Speaker 1: That is so great. Well, I got to tell a
Speaker 1: Gaylord Perry story, even though it's way off the topic.
Speaker 1: But Dwayne Kuiper, who should be in the Hall of
Speaker 1: Fame as a broadcaster, told me before his first home
Speaker 1: start as a rookie. This is Dwayne Kuiper and Gaylord
Speaker 1: Perry is pitching, and Gaylord goes to his teammate Dwayne
Speaker 1: Kuiper and says, if you make an error behind me tonight,
Speaker 1: you will never play another efing game for this team.
Speaker 1: Do you understand that?
Speaker 2: And that's what he said to Dwayne Kuiper before his
Speaker 2: debut at home behind Gaylord Perry.
Speaker 1: So when Gaylord Perry, who Eric knows, one of the
Speaker 1: very underrated pitcher in his own right, they made a
Speaker 1: statue of Gaylord Perry at outside of the Giants Ballpark,
Speaker 1: and I have a picture of Dwayne Kuiper going like
Speaker 1: this to the statue. Eric, does that sound like Gaylord
Speaker 1: Perry to you? You covered him right.
Speaker 3: No doubt, Yeah, for sure, for sure he would glare
Speaker 3: it guys when they made an error. And they don't
Speaker 3: see anybody doing that anymore.
Speaker 1: No, my goodness, that's so, that's so forbidden.
Speaker 4: Absolutely listen, Eric, I have a question because I heard
Speaker 4: you break out a little bit of a Spanish accent
Speaker 4: right at the top of the interview. And my dad
Speaker 4: commonly makes a joke that the biggest mistake in his
Speaker 4: life was taking French in high school and then going
Speaker 4: to be a baseball writer.
Speaker 1: Eric gangye left. He was really in some trouble. But here,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 4: Sixty percent of players are speaking Spanish or something like that,
Speaker 4: and you, if I'm not mistaken, have called at least one.
Speaker 1: Inning many innings in Spanish, correct I have?
Speaker 3: Yeah. And I took French also because we were told
Speaker 3: that colleges would look on it more favorably. And I
Speaker 3: grew up in New York City, you know, with like
Speaker 3: five million latinos at the time. But I learned French,
Speaker 3: which helped me a little bit in hockey. You know,
Speaker 3: every hockey team I broadcast for had one or two
Speaker 3: French Canadian guys, but they did speak English. It's not
Speaker 3: like I needed to speak French to them. When Ruben
Speaker 3: Sierra came to the big leagues in nineteen eighty six
Speaker 3: and was immediately the Rangers' best player. We couldn't talk
Speaker 3: to him. Teams didn't have translators back then, and he
Speaker 3: didn't speak English, so I would have to find Jose Guzmann,
Speaker 3: who was the only bilingual player on the team anytime
Speaker 3: I wanted to talk to Rubin, and you know, Jose
Speaker 3: had other things to do, he wasn't always available to
Speaker 3: translate from me. So I decided I'd better start learning
Speaker 3: Spanish because the Rangers, you know, they had pad Rodriguez
Speaker 3: on the way, they had Juan Gonzalez on the way.
Speaker 3: They had a whole pipeline now in Puerto Rico and Venezuela,
Speaker 3: where Louis Rosa, the famous Spanish speaking scout, was signing players.
Speaker 3: So I started taking Spanish lessons and eventually I got
Speaker 3: to the point where I was pretty good. And Luis Meyerral,
Speaker 3: who was our Spanish announcer, would work alone when the
Speaker 3: team was on the road. And Louis was a chainsmoker.
Speaker 3: He could not make it through an hire baseball game
Speaker 3: without smoking a cigarette. So he said, he said, hey,
Speaker 3: what do you think about the idea of you doing
Speaker 3: a half an inning in on the Spanish network every
Speaker 3: game while I go and you know, take my break
Speaker 3: and you know, have a dart and go to the bathroom.
Speaker 3: And I said, all right, this is what these are
Speaker 3: the words I need. And I made a long list
Speaker 3: of baseball words, you know, to translate, and he gave
Speaker 3: me the translations. I memorized him, and I started doing
Speaker 3: a half ding a game in Spanish, you know. All
Speaker 3: of which was fine until one day in Cleveland, while
Speaker 3: Louis was out smoking, there was a huge argument over
Speaker 3: whether a home run was fair or foul. It was
Speaker 3: one of these balls that had gone over the foul pole,
Speaker 3: and everybody's out on the field. Both managers are out
Speaker 3: on the field, screaming at the umpires. And now I'm
Speaker 3: no longer having to do just play by play. Now
Speaker 3: I'm having to explain something that's happening using complex tenses
Speaker 3: and other phones, with the grammar that I'm completely ignorant about.
Speaker 3: It had to sound like, you know, Chico Esquala, you know,
Speaker 3: trying to broadcast the and then but the crowd went
Speaker 3: absolutely crazy. So Louis came running in it with you know,
Speaker 3: with a half smoke cigarette. He's running out because he
Speaker 3: realized at this point something's going on that I probably
Speaker 3: can't explain.
Speaker 4: Right, you can't just use strike ball, warning track, fair foul.
Speaker 3: And everything and play by play. You know, everything's in
Speaker 3: present tense, right, You're not using a lot of different tents.
Speaker 3: Everything's in present tense and uh so. But I actually
Speaker 3: did that for a couple of years, you know, and
Speaker 3: it expanded to me doing a full inning per game.
Speaker 3: Louis got a longer break, and then eventually they started
Speaker 3: taking the Spanish broadcast more seriously and they actually hired
Speaker 3: a partner for Louis and they didn't need a gringo
Speaker 3: like me butchering the language. But it was really fun
Speaker 3: for a couple of years. And in the travels I've
Speaker 3: done in Latin America, to Cuba and Venezuela, Mexico, Puerto Rico,
Speaker 3: the Dominican I've been invited to do an inning, you know,
Speaker 3: in a couple of places in Spanish and that's been
Speaker 3: a real thrill for me. And one day Francisco Romero,
Speaker 3: who does the Astros in Spanish, invited me to do
Speaker 3: an inning in Spanish with them, and that was really fun,
Speaker 3: you know, broadcasting on the Astros Spanish network so cool.
Speaker 1: That is so great to go way back with you Now, Eric,
Speaker 1: you said something about just what a face sphere the
Speaker 1: Rangers had when you were the broadcaster and when I
Speaker 1: came there as a beat writer, Jeff, it was amazing.
Speaker 1: People from the Dallas for Orth area would come to
Speaker 1: spring training every year and spend like a week with
Speaker 1: the team. Eric, you remember that it was those things
Speaker 1: never happened today.
Speaker 3: Right exactly exactly. You know, there was a whole group
Speaker 3: there was. There was a bar everybody would go to
Speaker 3: after the game called Hanks, which was maybe half a
Speaker 3: mile from the ballpark, and you'd go in there and
Speaker 3: it was the same people were there every night. It
Speaker 3: was you know, ballplayers and a nucleus of fans who
Speaker 3: were in there with the players, and the players would
Speaker 3: be tending bar. You know, I really I remember my
Speaker 3: first year, first time I went there, Pat Putnam was
Speaker 3: tending bar and the bar had to lose hundreds of
Speaker 3: dollars that night because he was just giving beers away,
Speaker 3: you know, just pouring touring drafts for whoever he felt
Speaker 3: like it. But you know, nobody cared. It was a
Speaker 3: great time. And then eventually that moved to Smackos, which
Speaker 3: was owned by Joe Maco. The Rangers clubhouse manager and
Speaker 3: equipment manager, and Smackos became the place where everybody hung
Speaker 3: out after the game. You still have your Smackos basketball
Speaker 3: warm up jacket.
Speaker 1: That is I grew Smackos was the greatest back to
Speaker 1: Pat Putnam For a minute, Jeff at Punda used to
Speaker 1: like to get into the whirlpool like a single world pool,
Speaker 1: and then he would he would go under the water
Speaker 1: in the whirlpool and then come out like a gigantic
Speaker 1: whale coming out at sea world. Eric, did you ever
Speaker 1: see him do that?
Speaker 3: Exactly? And they held a hot dog up over the water,
Speaker 3: so he was like he was like a weal coming
Speaker 3: out and grabbing a fish. He would come out and
Speaker 3: grab a hot dog and disappear under the water and
Speaker 3: eat the hot dog. No bun, just the hot dog, right, Jeff.
Speaker 1: This is when covering baseball was so much fun. Like
Speaker 1: Eric said, the players didn't make a zillion dollars there,
Speaker 1: they actually connected with us. I told Jeff the story
Speaker 1: not too long ago about Steve Comer who was on
Speaker 1: the eighty two Rangers who somehow found Don Wells Mary
Speaker 1: Ann from Gilligan's Island.
Speaker 2: He somehow found her phone number and called her one
Speaker 2: night late and she was so honored that someone found her,
Speaker 2: and then she realized he was just he was drunk
Speaker 2: at the time and she said, I gotta go now.
Speaker 2: But Eric, those things never exist anymore, but they existed
Speaker 2: all the time with the Rangers.
Speaker 3: It was crazy. And those guys, you know, they had
Speaker 3: off season jobs back then. Tommy Dunbar was a substitute
Speaker 3: English teacher back in his hometown, and he was He
Speaker 3: was not the guy would have chosen as my choice
Speaker 3: to score highest on a Grammar test. Another super nice guy,
Speaker 3: but I'm not sure he was totally qualified to be
Speaker 3: an English teacher.
Speaker 1: I had to show the greatest restraint ever. When I
Speaker 1: want to ask Tommy Dunbar, like what do you do
Speaker 1: with the off season, he goes, I'm an English teacher.
Speaker 1: I almost laughed out loud, but I stopped because it
Speaker 1: just it just was one of those things. Eric tell
Speaker 1: Jeff about the Smackos basketball team that we had. Jeff,
Speaker 1: back then Tom Greeve that the farm director of Slash
Speaker 1: general manager. There were there were clubhouse guys. Eric played,
Speaker 1: I played, Writers played. We had a Smackos basketball team. Eric,
Speaker 1: you remember, I.
Speaker 3: Remember, and I was was Tim was obviously the best
Speaker 3: guy on the team and ran, you know, kind of
Speaker 3: ran ran the team. And I hadn't played basketball in
Speaker 3: a few years and was just an absolute lummocks out there,
Speaker 3: unable to do just about anything. And then, you know,
Speaker 3: there was the day that I showed up late, showed
Speaker 3: up late, the game was already going on, and somebody,
Speaker 3: somebody pulled a muscle or something, and they put me
Speaker 3: in the game and I immediately got fouled. Haven't hit
Speaker 3: any warm ups or anything. And it's like I wanted
Speaker 3: to decline the pedal.
Speaker 1: I don't need the shots.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no thanks, and I you know, I smashed a
Speaker 3: couple of shots off the rim. You know, no, I
Speaker 3: did not make the shots right.
Speaker 1: Those days just no longer exists anymore. Jeff and I
Speaker 1: really missed the Laughing Fish Pub at you know, the
Speaker 1: Holiday Inn in Pompino Beach. And Eric explained to Jeffrey
Speaker 1: and all of our listeners how bad the spring training
Speaker 1: facility was at Municipal Stadium in Pompino Beach compared to
Speaker 1: what we have today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was. It was called Municipal Ballpark. They didn't
Speaker 3: even make believe it was a stadium. It was Municipal Ballpark.
Speaker 3: The players referred to the field as ewo Jima because
Speaker 3: of the number of lamb Moneys in it. I mean,
Speaker 3: one year, the Rangers number one prospect, Mike Richard, you
Speaker 3: know who they were touting as a possible, you know,
Speaker 3: batting champion. One day he got hit in the face
Speaker 3: on a bad hop. It broke his cheek and it
Speaker 3: pretty much ruined his career. You know, he never developed
Speaker 3: into the kind of player that we all thought he
Speaker 3: would because he'd got hit by that bad hop and
Speaker 3: it was really hot. And Bobby Valentine would work on
Speaker 3: the field, but he became the manager. He would actually
Speaker 3: go out and work on the field himself, trying to
Speaker 3: make it a little safer for the players. It was terrible.
Speaker 3: But you know, when you mentioned the Laughing Fish Pub,
Speaker 3: the first thing that came to mind was Charlie Huff
Speaker 3: breaking his finger in the Laughing Fish Pub, shaking hands
Speaker 3: with an old buddy of his who was a judge
Speaker 3: in Fort Lauderdale, and Charlie was from Florida, and the
Speaker 3: guy came up to see him and they did his
Speaker 3: big handshake, and Charlie broke his finger and missed the
Speaker 3: first couple of months of the season, and the Rangers
Speaker 3: had to I think Mike Smithson wound up starting on
Speaker 3: opening day because that's the way the rotation fell if
Speaker 3: Charlie wasn't able to make the start. Smithson was a
Speaker 3: rookie and he wound up starting on opening day for
Speaker 3: us because Charlie broke his finger doing a handshake with
Speaker 3: an old buddy in the Laughing Fitch. Right.
Speaker 1: So, Eric, when I got the beat writer job in
Speaker 1: eighty two, I go to Pompino Beach, never been there
Speaker 1: before in my life. I pick up a map to
Speaker 1: figure out how to get to Municipal Ballpark. This is
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two, and I find and it's down at
Speaker 1: the bottom of the map and it says home of
Speaker 1: the Washington Senators who had moved ten years earlier, and
Speaker 1: they still had an updated the map to the home
Speaker 1: of the Texas Rangers. Does that sound normal to.
Speaker 3: You, Eric, There was nothing at all normal about that.
Speaker 3: And you know back then too, again, the players, they
Speaker 3: weren't in the kind of condition they're in right now.
Speaker 3: The bars in Fort Lauderdale or open till four am
Speaker 3: in Pompino and Fort Lauderdale, and I would regularly see
Speaker 3: players out in the bars, you know, with me at
Speaker 3: two and three in the morning, and then they'd have
Speaker 3: to be there. I didn't have to be there early
Speaker 3: in the morning like they did. You know, the games
Speaker 3: were at one or one thirty. But those guys who
Speaker 3: would have to be there like at eight or nine am,
Speaker 3: and they were out of the bars at three in
Speaker 3: the morning, you know, looking to have fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they Jeff, one of the players, told me
Speaker 1: that a municipal ballpark, which was again had a little
Speaker 1: field and the stadium field and that was it. They
Speaker 1: had a running track there. That's how the pitchers got
Speaker 1: their running in, was running a special track. And one
Speaker 1: of the pitchers told me he found a short cut
Speaker 1: where he didn't have to run. He could sit on
Speaker 1: a park bench for like three or four minutes while
Speaker 1: everyone else was running, and then he would he would
Speaker 1: join them when they came by.
Speaker 2: Eric, Does that sound like spring training nineteen eighty two
Speaker 2: to you?
Speaker 3: I remember they didn't. They didn't have a gym, they
Speaker 3: didn't have any sort of a workout room. The exercise
Speaker 3: bike was on the concourse of the stadium, which wasn't much,
Speaker 3: but you could see the stadium, and I remember Charlie
Speaker 3: Huff being being on the bike when he broke his
Speaker 3: finger and he couldn't pitch. He would do his work
Speaker 3: on the bike every day on the concourse and it
Speaker 3: went over. One day I went over, I had something
Speaker 3: I wanted to talk to him about, and he was
Speaker 3: on the bike smoking a cigarette. Well you don't see
Speaker 3: much of that anymore either, you don't.
Speaker 1: It was so much fun back then, and God, I
Speaker 1: loved Al Oliver. And that was my first spring training.
Speaker 1: Like Eric said, they made two, as it turned out,
Speaker 1: two terrible trades. But the Al Oliver trade came like
Speaker 1: right before the start of the season. Larry Parrish and
Speaker 1: uh and Dave Hostler showed up. I'll never forget and
Speaker 1: I love Al Oliver. Please don't take any of this
Speaker 1: the wrong way. I had to do a story with
Speaker 1: Al on like looking ahead to the Rangers season. So
Speaker 1: I said, Al, you can just you could just talk
Speaker 1: to me and I'll write it, and he said, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'll write it myself. I'll bring it to you tomorrow.
Speaker 1: So this was a preview of the Rangers twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty two season, and the first sentence was my father
Speaker 1: died when I was five years old, and it was
Speaker 1: actually really well written, but it was not It was
Speaker 1: not a preview of the season. Does that sound like
Speaker 1: Al Oliver to.
Speaker 3: You, Eric, Yeah, it was like Al. And you know,
Speaker 3: I remember the Rangers played a game at the Superdome
Speaker 3: in New Orleans at the end of spring training, and
Speaker 3: that was the first time I think we actually saw
Speaker 3: Mozilli and Larry Parrish, who they had gotten for Al
Speaker 3: Oliver play a game. And I remember that the way
Speaker 3: the field was laid out, the goalposts were on the field, they.
Speaker 1: Were Jeff, that was the first time I'd ever been
Speaker 1: to New Orleans. And I asked the other beat writers,
Speaker 1: who were really experienced at a lot of things, including
Speaker 1: drinking beer, and I said, what's it going to be
Speaker 1: like in New Orleans? And they looked at me and
Speaker 1: they said, you are going to stay up all night,
Speaker 1: That's what it's going to be like.
Speaker 2: And I think, for the only time in my life,
Speaker 2: I stayed up all night in New Orleans because everyone
Speaker 2: else was.
Speaker 1: It was incredible. So, Eric, you've been through all this
Speaker 1: crazy stuff, okay, but then you get to the World
Speaker 1: Series with this team for the first time, the team
Speaker 1: has been there two years in a row, so this
Speaker 1: is this is difficult, I know, But what what was
Speaker 1: going through your mind when the Rangers should have won
Speaker 1: the World Series in twenty eleven against the Cardinals but didn't.
Speaker 1: What were you thinking at that point, having covered the
Speaker 1: team for that long, coming this close and not completing
Speaker 1: the job.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was so, you know, afraid really that I
Speaker 3: would screw up the call. So I actually wrote down
Speaker 3: a few things that I wanted to say as part
Speaker 3: of the call if they actually won, and they were
Speaker 3: you know, when they got to the point where they
Speaker 3: were one out away and one strikeaway. You know, I
Speaker 3: had this little note in front of me so that,
Speaker 3: you know, when I made the call, i'd remember to
Speaker 3: say this, I'd remember to say that. And then when
Speaker 3: David Freese hits the fly ball that you know, Nelson
Speaker 3: Cruz didn't catch and the Cardinals tie the game, I
Speaker 3: crumpled it up and I fired it down on the
Speaker 3: floor underneath the counter. And then in the tenth inning,
Speaker 3: Josh Hamilton hits the home run in the top of
Speaker 3: the tenth inning, and I go crawling under the counter
Speaker 3: to find that piece of breaker. It's all crumpled up
Speaker 3: and I write really badly anyway, and I open it.
Speaker 3: I can barely read the thing, but I'm ready to
Speaker 3: go now for the final or the final out again.
Speaker 3: And then it doesn't happen. Lance Berkman gets this lucky hit,
Speaker 3: little lucky, little blue hit in the center and ties
Speaker 3: the game. I chucked it under there again, never never
Speaker 3: to be found. And that was just it was a
Speaker 3: it was horrible, just a horrible feeling. And you knew
Speaker 3: how the Ranger fandom felt after all of those years,
Speaker 3: you know, forty some odd years at that point, not
Speaker 3: you know, not having a champion and coming some close,
Speaker 3: so close and not doing it. And I honestly felt,
Speaker 3: you know, that was my chance. You know, I was
Speaker 3: very fortunate. I got to broadcast two World Series, you know,
Speaker 3: the one in twenty ten where the Rangers lost to
Speaker 3: San Francisco and we're not really all that competitive in
Speaker 3: the series, and then twenty eleven when they should have won,
Speaker 3: and I figured that's it, you know, I had my chance.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm grateful to have done a couple of
Speaker 3: World Series. And then when the Rangers got there in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three, you're quite unexpectedly, I thought this is
Speaker 3: you know, this is a real Cinderella story here. And
Speaker 3: I wasn't going to get ready for a call like
Speaker 3: I did the last time. I figured I jinxed it
Speaker 3: the last time. But on the day of in the
Speaker 3: day of Game of five, when the Rangers Game six
Speaker 3: no Game five, part of me when the Rangers had
Speaker 3: a chance to win, and I really felt they were
Speaker 3: going to win. They had of all deep pitching that night.
Speaker 3: We were really confident. I did an interview with somebody
Speaker 3: that day who was asking me, you know, the same
Speaker 3: sort of questions, what's it like for you after all
Speaker 3: this time, And it dawned on me, I really believe
Speaker 3: we're going to win the World Series today. This can't
Speaker 3: possibly be true, you know, I must be dreaming. And
Speaker 3: I thought that's something that all the Ranger fans have
Speaker 3: to be thinking, that this can't be real. They must
Speaker 3: be dreaming. And I grabbed a piece of notepaper from
Speaker 3: the Arizona Biltmore where we were staying, and I just
Speaker 3: scribbled down on it you you're not and I stuck
Speaker 3: that in my wallet. And then in the top of
Speaker 3: the ninth inning, when Marcus Simeon hit the home run,
Speaker 3: you know, to give the Rangers a big lead. I
Speaker 3: pulled it out of my wallet and I put it
Speaker 3: down on top of my score book and said to myself,
Speaker 3: you know, don't forget to say you're not dreaming, because
Speaker 3: that's what everybody's going to be thinking. And so when
Speaker 3: I made that call, you know, I managed to get
Speaker 3: that in and you know, didn't screw up the rest
Speaker 3: of it. And now you know, when when different things
Speaker 3: happen for the Rangers, they flash up on the video board,
Speaker 3: you're not dreaming, and people, you know, ask me to
Speaker 3: sign baseballs and write You're not dreaming on it, and
Speaker 3: it's become it's become kind of my legacy where for
Speaker 3: all of these years, my legacy was as the bearer
Speaker 3: of bad news. And then finally, finally the Rangers won,
Speaker 3: which gave everybody a whole lot of satisfaction and gave
Speaker 3: me this call that now everybody here is in love
Speaker 3: with Wow.
Speaker 4: It's become a rally cry. And you wrote it on
Speaker 4: a piece of paper and it didn't jinx the team,
Speaker 4: which is great.
Speaker 3: And then we auctioned off the piece of paper and
Speaker 3: we got over one thousand dollars for the piece of
Speaker 3: paper and that the headset that I was using, and yeah,
Speaker 3: i'll raise some money for charity.
Speaker 4: I have a question that's a little more personal to
Speaker 4: you and my dad's relationship. So in my little home
Speaker 4: studio here you can see above my head hence what
Speaker 4: my dad was pointing at.
Speaker 1: That's me.
Speaker 4: It's a painting done by my mother's mother, so my
Speaker 4: maternal grandmother, And it's a painting done of me and
Speaker 4: my paternal grandfather, my dad's dad, who I was named after.
Speaker 4: But I was named after his nickname Jeff. But you
Speaker 4: never called my grandm father Jeff right, you called him
Speaker 4: by his real name.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's Armenian name.
Speaker 1: Yes, you would always killer. His name was Badrig, and
Speaker 1: we got such a kick out of it because Badrig
Speaker 1: used to visit with my mother Joy all the time
Speaker 1: in Texas. When Eric was living four hundred yards from
Speaker 1: our house. They were there all the time, so Eric
Speaker 1: met my mother and father a lot of times. When
Speaker 1: my dad died in two thousand and three, I got
Speaker 1: a call from Eric and he said, I'm so sorry
Speaker 1: Badrig died. And he was the only guy because he
Speaker 1: always used my father's name Badrig back then. Sorry, it's
Speaker 1: been a long time, Eric, since we've talked about Pop here.
Speaker 1: But this whole podcast, my whole career is based on
Speaker 1: my father and his love for the game.
Speaker 2: So this whole thing and Jeffrey, this is all about
Speaker 2: my dad. And that's a picture of bad Rig over
Speaker 2: Jeffrey's head there.
Speaker 3: That's fantastic. I love it.
Speaker 4: And Eric, I have to let you off the hook here.
Speaker 4: You know, my dad and I most of our guests
Speaker 4: right know him very well. They go way way back,
Speaker 4: and my dad looks at me and he goes you
Speaker 4: have to ask him about Pop because he always called
Speaker 4: him bad Drig, And I know he's gonna remember.
Speaker 3: You know, I just turned seventy five, and there are
Speaker 3: some serious holes in my memory there are. You know,
Speaker 3: it's really weird. The stuff you can remember details of
Speaker 3: games I went to when I was seven years old,
Speaker 3: but the stuff that slips my mind, which is mostly names,
Speaker 3: it's a little frustrating. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, Eric's memory is amazing, and unfortunately so is mine
Speaker 1: on a lot of levels. But jeff when I was
Speaker 1: living around the corner from Eric, I would ask him like,
Speaker 1: where do we go get pizza? Where do we go
Speaker 1: get Chinese food? Henry Chang's or Henry Chen's or whatever
Speaker 1: it was. I still remember that. But I remember asking Eric,
Speaker 1: give me a movie I should watch that I haven't seen,
Speaker 1: that you really like that not everyone has seen. And
Speaker 1: the answer was Searching for Bobby Fisher, the great movie
Speaker 1: about the chess prodigy. I've probably watched that movie fifty times,
Speaker 1: maybe more. I know every line from it. And this
Speaker 1: was just another suggestion by Eric that made my life better.
Speaker 1: Do you remember when you used to tell me go
Speaker 1: watch this movie? It's great, sure, you know.
Speaker 3: And I still do that with people when I see
Speaker 3: something that I think they think they need to see.
Speaker 3: I remember, you know, sending a lot of people to
Speaker 3: see Searching for Sugarman, which wound up winning the Documentary
Speaker 3: Academy Award one year. It's about a singer named Rodriguez
Speaker 3: from Detroit who is completely unknown in the United States
Speaker 3: but becomes this incredibly huge star in South Africa without
Speaker 3: ever having set foot in South Africa. And if anybody's
Speaker 3: never seen that movie, you got to check it out.
Speaker 3: Searching for Sugarman is the name of it. Great music
Speaker 3: in there too. Rodriguez is the singer. You can find
Speaker 3: his stuff on Spotify. And iTunes and all those places too,
Speaker 3: if you just want to hear the tunes.
Speaker 4: Very cool, Eric, You have no idea how much searching
Speaker 4: for Bobby Fisher has been immersed into my childhood at
Speaker 4: this point. I remember we were moving my sister into
Speaker 4: an apartment for a summer in New York City when
Speaker 4: she was an intern, and I showed my dad that
Speaker 4: there's a thing called YouTube, and you can look things
Speaker 4: up on YouTube.
Speaker 1: You can look up videos. And I kid you not.
Speaker 4: I've never told this story. Three years on the podcast.
Speaker 4: Dad figures out what YouTube is, and the first thing
Speaker 4: he says to me is pull up the scene from
Speaker 4: Searching for Bobby Fisher when the dad talks to the teacher,
Speaker 4: think about the world, of all of the videos in
Speaker 4: the history of the world, all of the baseball highlights,
Speaker 4: and he.
Speaker 1: Says, pull up that scene.
Speaker 4: He is better at this than anything you'll ever be
Speaker 4: in your entire life.
Speaker 1: It was those are the day, all right, Eric, before
Speaker 1: we let you go. Two months ago, I had lunch with,
Speaker 1: among others, Nolan Ryan, and then that night I had
Speaker 1: dinner with, among others, Dwight Gooden. So in one day
Speaker 1: I had lunch, dinner in person with eight thousand and
Speaker 1: seven strikeouts was so incredibly great. His recall was amazed.
Speaker 1: We all know what a kind man he is, what
Speaker 1: a funny man he is, what a charming man he
Speaker 1: can be. And he, by the way, he told us
Speaker 1: the story about when he was the club president for
Speaker 1: the Astros that a young intern came in with you
Speaker 1: know lyon all sorts of books in hand and all
Speaker 1: sorts of information and says, in two weeks, I'm going
Speaker 1: to know everything that you know about pitching. That's what
Speaker 1: the intern said to sixty five year old old Nolan Ryant.
Speaker 1: But instead of being offended, which he should have been,
Speaker 1: he just laughed it off. What was it like for you, Eric,
Speaker 1: to cover Nolan Ryan for his entire time while he
Speaker 1: was a Texas Ranger.
Speaker 3: It was amazing. Was the first time the Rangers had
Speaker 3: anybody who you know, people around the country really wanted
Speaker 3: to see. It was the first time we had autograph
Speaker 3: seekers lined up outside the hotel, you know, when the
Speaker 3: team would arrive, you know, to check into a hotel.
Speaker 3: And the thing with Nolan was, you know, no matter
Speaker 3: what time it was, he would get off the bus
Speaker 3: and he would sign autographs and He would usually sign
Speaker 3: for everybody who was there who wanted his autograph, And
Speaker 3: there would be times after a game where people would
Speaker 3: come up near the bus in the other cities, and
Speaker 3: you know, they can't do that now, you can't get
Speaker 3: anywhere near where the bus is. But I remember at
Speaker 3: County Stadium one day in Milwaukee where the bus was
Speaker 3: just parked in the parking lot and people could get
Speaker 3: up real close to the bus. And you know, Nolan
Speaker 3: was one of the first guys out of the clubhouse.
Speaker 3: He hadn't pitched that day, and he stopped to start
Speaker 3: signing stuff, and he had on a sport jacket. You know,
Speaker 3: was a road trip. We wore sports jackets back then.
Speaker 3: And he he signed while we were waiting for all
Speaker 3: the other guys to get on the bus, probably another
Speaker 3: twenty minutes. He signed for that entire time. Meanwhile, these
Speaker 3: other players, you know, infielders batting two point fifteen, are
Speaker 3: walking past the autograph seekers, you know, just completely blowing
Speaker 3: them off getting on the bus. Well, Nolan Ryan is
Speaker 3: out there, you know, on a ninety degree day in
Speaker 3: his sports jacket, signing autographs. And I remember him getting
Speaker 3: on the bus and his sports jacket had sharpie marks
Speaker 3: all over the sleeves and people were just you know,
Speaker 3: people were just kind of grabbing stuff and pushing stuff
Speaker 3: at him, and he just, you know, calmly, calmly signed
Speaker 3: them all. And the greater experience for me, obviously, watching
Speaker 3: him pitch was unbelievable. You you got to see him do
Speaker 3: his three hundredth win and his five thousand strikeout and
Speaker 3: his six and seven no hitters. But more impressive to
Speaker 3: me was what he was like when he was our
Speaker 3: team president for five years and we actually worked for him.
Speaker 3: I had a detached retina in two thousand and nine
Speaker 3: and I couldn't work for a couple of weeks, and
Speaker 3: I remember Nolan calling me, said, you know when you're
Speaker 3: going to come back, And I said, well, I think
Speaker 3: I'll be back on Friday. But the doctor told me
Speaker 3: I have to wear a patch over my eye, and
Speaker 3: I'm very self conscious about that, and I'm also you know,
Speaker 3: I'm a little worried that i won't really be able
Speaker 3: to see well enough. But the big thing is that,
Speaker 3: you know, everyone's going to laugh at me. I'm walking around,
Speaker 3: you know, look like a pirate something like that. And
Speaker 3: Ola said, you know, I don't worry about it. It'll
Speaker 3: be all right. And when I walked in on Friday
Speaker 3: and went into the press dining room, everybody in the
Speaker 3: press dining room was wearing a patch over their eye.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Nolan had gotten patches for everyone to
Speaker 3: wear in the press dining room, so I wouldn't feel
Speaker 3: so uncomfortable walking there with a patch o from my eye.
Speaker 1: Do you know that story? Eric, I have never heard
Speaker 1: that story before. And this is this is Eric. His
Speaker 1: recall is just unbelievable. I know I've told this story before,
Speaker 1: but they once to ask Rance Molini's what the world
Speaker 1: would be like if everyone was like Nolan Ryan, and
Speaker 1: he famously said everyone would love each other and no
Speaker 1: one would get a hit.
Speaker 3: That kind.
Speaker 1: That kind of sums up who Nolan Ryan is, isn't it.
Speaker 3: Eric.
Speaker 1: I mean you called his two no hitters like you said,
Speaker 1: and his three hundredth win and his five thousand strikeout.
Speaker 1: I mean you must. You will never forget those moments
Speaker 1: for the rest of your life.
Speaker 3: Correct? Absolutely? Yeah. For me, especially the five thousand strikeout.
Speaker 3: Because I was doing the middle three innings then Mark
Speaker 3: Holtz was our lead announcer. I would do the fourth, fifth,
Speaker 3: and sixth inning, and I was just lucky enough that
Speaker 3: the five thousand strikeout fell in one of my innings.
Speaker 3: It was the first time I ever got to make
Speaker 3: like a really big call. And I remember the call
Speaker 3: was played on the Today Show the next day and
Speaker 3: my parents got to see it in New York. You know,
Speaker 3: it was before you could listen to a game, you know,
Speaker 3: anywhere in the country, and it was the first time
Speaker 3: they'd actually heard me, you know, on a broadcast network
Speaker 3: outside of coming to Texas to listen to the games.
Speaker 3: And that was so that was really cool for me.
Speaker 3: The five thousand strikeout, it was Ricky.
Speaker 1: Ricky, Ricky. Gosh, yes, Ricky, I should have known that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Ricky was also four nine hundred and ninety eight.
Speaker 3: And then he went through the lineup another time, striking
Speaker 3: out only one guy and got to Ricky again and
Speaker 3: got him for fivesand it was almost as if he
Speaker 3: had wanted Ritty to be the five thousand, Right.
Speaker 1: Jeff, ask your final question, if you have one. We've
Speaker 1: kept Eric for an hour. He's going to Cuba. How
Speaker 1: many times have you been to Cuba.
Speaker 3: I've been there a lot, you know, I've watched a
Speaker 3: lot of baseball down there. I've spent a lot of
Speaker 3: time talking to their announcers, practicing my Spanish, you know,
Speaker 3: learning Spanish down there. And right now things are very,
Speaker 3: you know, really dire down there. They don't have any fuel,
Speaker 3: they don't have power more than twelve hours a day,
Speaker 3: so people's food is spoiling, and refrigerators and you know,
Speaker 3: I've got some friends down there, and I'm going to
Speaker 3: go down there. I have a suitcase full of food
Speaker 3: that I'm bringing, which is non perishable stuff like tuna
Speaker 3: fish in packets and peanut butter and oatmeal. And you know,
Speaker 3: there's a few families down there who I'm close to
Speaker 3: from all of my trips down to Cuba, and I'll
Speaker 3: be bringing a bunch of stuff down for them, going
Speaker 3: to some community centers and talking to people and talking
Speaker 3: to announcers and seeing, you know, just seeing just how
Speaker 3: dire the situation is, because it really sounds bleak.
Speaker 4: Well, that's amazing what you're doing, and we won't keep
Speaker 4: you much longer. I just want to ask one last question,
Speaker 4: because those who listen to the podcast know that on
Speaker 4: April the twentieth, my dad hinted at the all four
Speaker 4: twenty team that he put together, and you had messaged
Speaker 4: him saying, can you just send me.
Speaker 1: The list because I'd love to see it. Eric, am
Speaker 1: I supposed to know what for twenty means? Because I
Speaker 1: didn't know what it meant. And then our pal Bill
Speaker 1: Flanagan said, in the all four to twenty team, I
Speaker 1: looked at.
Speaker 2: It like ten times and I said, I don't even
Speaker 2: understand what this is. And then you needed to see
Speaker 2: that list. That team, Tim is that correct.
Speaker 3: Absolutely wanted to see it. And Bill Flannagan's a friend
Speaker 3: of mine and he's extremely clever and smart, and I
Speaker 3: love it. You know, off the top of my head,
Speaker 3: I thought old Justin Smoke's got to be on there.
Speaker 3: But then he went so he went so deep on
Speaker 3: that it was. It was phenomenal.
Speaker 1: Oh that was just another poor pop pop moment where
Speaker 1: he just doesn't understand how the world works. But you know,
Speaker 1: to sum this all up, Eric taught me so well
Speaker 1: how the world worked. When I got to Texas in
Speaker 1: eighty two, I didn't know anybody there. I didn't know
Speaker 1: anything about Texas. Famously, when I went to the Dallas
Speaker 1: Morning News for the first time nineteen eighty one, I
Speaker 1: walk into the newsroom at the Dallas Morning News, and
Speaker 1: you remember Harless Wade. Eric, he used to be at
Speaker 1: all Harless Wade looks at me when I walk into
Speaker 1: the Dallas Morning News office for the first time. He
Speaker 1: looks at me and he goes, you must be the
Speaker 1: new guy. And I said yeah. He says, you are
Speaker 1: the smallest damn yankee I have ever seen in my life.
Speaker 1: That was the first guy I met when I walked
Speaker 1: into the Dallas Morning News. So I was lost. I
Speaker 1: was away from home for the first time. I didn't
Speaker 1: know what to do, and Eric helped me with places
Speaker 1: to eat, things to do, movies to watch and Eric
Speaker 1: all kidding aside, thank you so much for helping me
Speaker 1: get through my life, especially early on, and mostly thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us today and making us laugh for
Speaker 1: over an hour here.
Speaker 3: This is ridiculous that it was so much fun. Thanks
Speaker 3: for having me