Speaker 1: Charges. That's created by Portalais and Control Media. It's produced
Speaker 1: by dB Podcasts in association with I Heart Radio. This
Speaker 1: time a former Son's player who you might remember as
Speaker 1: t Rex. More video in just a moment, but this
Speaker 1: is Rex Chapman's mug Shawn, and we are learning a
Speaker 1: lot more about the charge of the Charge. What were
Speaker 1: the darkest moments for you? You You know, were there times
Speaker 1: that you thought you were at your wits in man,
Speaker 1: it was difficult, and there were times that I had
Speaker 1: to be strong for the boys during the day, but
Speaker 1: then I would go out at night in my backyard
Speaker 1: and I would just break down. Here was this Jim Lair,
Speaker 1: It's going through this Dui man spotter and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, now add on life beater. People always
Speaker 1: ask me, would you change anything about your life? And
Speaker 1: I said I would not change anything. But that night,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Charges. I'm your host Rex Chapman. Today on
Speaker 1: the show, we have someone who's been on the top
Speaker 1: of the mountain and also made a fatefulness vision that
Speaker 1: led to a mountain crumbling beneath him, almost completely swallowing
Speaker 1: him whole. Thankfully, brick by brick, he built his way
Speaker 1: out from under the rubble and destruction to have a
Speaker 1: life of service to on their tragedy. My guest today
Speaker 1: is a fellow Kentucky Wildcat, though he's most known as
Speaker 1: one of the most clutch hitters in New York Yankees history,
Speaker 1: Jim lay Ritz. If you watch baseball in the nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: you had to know Jimmy behind the plate and in
Speaker 1: the batter's box. He wasn't someone who necessarily dominated the
Speaker 1: stat sheet day to day, but when it was your
Speaker 1: team in October, you better believe he was a guy
Speaker 1: you wanted to see up there. So what happens when
Speaker 1: you're the literal king of New York and you're playing
Speaker 1: day's end right off into the sunset? Show up every
Speaker 1: fall in the Big Apple, have fans by the steak dinners,
Speaker 1: and you dine out the rest of your day as
Speaker 1: a hero? Right well, not exactly. In fact, in two
Speaker 1: thousand seven, a tragedy happened that costs one person their
Speaker 1: life and put the rest of gems on trial. The
Speaker 1: purpose of this podcast us is to give my peers
Speaker 1: a platform as they bear themselves to the mercy of you,
Speaker 1: the public. Some stories are cheerier than Others be warned
Speaker 1: that this episode may be difficult to listen to at times.
Speaker 1: I'm honored to have here today Jim Layris to tell
Speaker 1: us his story and talk to us about the journey
Speaker 1: he has been dedicating his life to making sure his
Speaker 1: second chance is its lasting legacy. Jim, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: How are you, my fellow Wildcat brethren. Hey listen. When
Speaker 1: I heard Rex Chapman wanted to have me on and
Speaker 1: I'm going to UK alum and as a kid growing
Speaker 1: up in said Santi, how I loved basketball, was my
Speaker 1: first love and didn't watch you come in university Kentucky.
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to be interviewed by you. Man. That
Speaker 1: means it really does mean a lot. I know, the
Speaker 1: older we get it. It sounds better to hear those
Speaker 1: things from back in the day. So I don't take
Speaker 1: it lightly. But I played every sport growing up, baseball, football,
Speaker 1: I swam um baseball. I couldn't hit. I mean I
Speaker 1: was scared to get hit right, I was stepping out
Speaker 1: all the time. But by the time I got to
Speaker 1: a Kentucky you were a legend. I mean you played
Speaker 1: for coach Madison, Keith Madison at UK. You know, I
Speaker 1: hung with some of the baseball players as well after
Speaker 1: you left, and you were famous before the internet, Man,
Speaker 1: we didn't have a lot of guys going and playing
Speaker 1: in the big leagues from UK at that time. Tell
Speaker 1: me about the game of baseball. You're a kid in Ohio,
Speaker 1: doesn't follow, you know, any traditional route to the big leagues.
Speaker 1: How did you come into the game and what did
Speaker 1: it mean to you? Yeah, you know, it was a
Speaker 1: situation I grew up and again, like I said, basketball
Speaker 1: was my first love. But after my junior year school
Speaker 1: high school, my dad said, listen, realistically, if you want
Speaker 1: to be a professional athlete, you have to play baseball.
Speaker 1: And it was a tough thing to hear. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, I was just you know, I was
Speaker 1: like okay, and um, you know I played with a
Speaker 1: guy that you know, guy named Barry Larkin. Him and
Speaker 1: I were teammates. Yeah. So coming from Cincinnati, I grew
Speaker 1: up a big Red Machine fan. Uh, that was my influence.
Speaker 1: Tommy Brennaman was one of my best friends growing up,
Speaker 1: and I used to go to spring training as a
Speaker 1: bat boy in the in the seventy four seventy six,
Speaker 1: the big years of the big red machine, and it
Speaker 1: was just something that you know what, I remember, Johnny
Speaker 1: bench Uh one time gave me his catchers but signed
Speaker 1: it to me. As a whole story behind it. We
Speaker 1: don't have time for all that, but he signed it
Speaker 1: to me, and that day I became a catcher. And
Speaker 1: because of that is the reason I got an opportunity
Speaker 1: to play in the Biglicks. Growing up in Kentucky, we
Speaker 1: didn't have pro sports anywhere around. We had to go
Speaker 1: to Indianapolis to watch the Pacers, and we had to
Speaker 1: go to Cincinnati growing up there. I can only imagine
Speaker 1: that that team Pete Rose, Dave Concepcion and George Foster
Speaker 1: and all those guys. I only came to a couple
Speaker 1: of games, but man it it made such a huge
Speaker 1: impression on a kid from you know, the country in Kentucky,
Speaker 1: Jim Layritz was an absolute stud as a young baseball
Speaker 1: player and was projected as the number two prospect before
Speaker 1: Hall of Famer Barry Larkin. He had played at a
Speaker 1: junior college and Origina before transferring to the University of Kentucky,
Speaker 1: where he became a stud. Four days before the MLB draft,
Speaker 1: Jim fractured his foot playing tennis and found himself going undrafted.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about your journey from college to the
Speaker 1: big leagues, especially in the late eighties and nineties. What's
Speaker 1: it like in the minor league farm system? You know,
Speaker 1: how do you as a catcher show your value? Yeah? See,
Speaker 1: back in those days, Um, I was never drafted, and
Speaker 1: so I was playing in a collegiately got in Hayes,
Speaker 1: Kansas and they signed me out of there. And it's
Speaker 1: just really interesting because the only reason I signed with
Speaker 1: the New York Yankees it was between them and the
Speaker 1: Kansas City Royals. It is because the Yankees said, we'll
Speaker 1: pay for you to go back to college and finish
Speaker 1: your college. And my mother was like, you take that offer,
Speaker 1: because I want you to finish your you get your degree,
Speaker 1: which I never did. But I spent four years in
Speaker 1: the minor leagues. After my first year in the in
Speaker 1: the minor leagues, had a great year. Uh, And then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I went to Double A and
Speaker 1: the Yankees drafted a kid in the first round, a
Speaker 1: catcher out of Stanford University, and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: they came to me and said, hey, listen, you're not
Speaker 1: gonna catch anymore, you're gonna go back and learn how
Speaker 1: to play the outfield and third base again. And so
Speaker 1: it was just a continual thing of changes. And I
Speaker 1: look back at it now, Rex and I go listen,
Speaker 1: thank god they did, because that versatility is what kept
Speaker 1: me around eleven years in the big leagues. You know,
Speaker 1: at the time, the Yankees stunk, so it was an
Speaker 1: opportunity to go through the minor leagues fairly quick and
Speaker 1: get a chance to play at the big league level.
Speaker 1: And when I first got caught up in you know,
Speaker 1: the Yankees were horrible. Gene Michael was the GM at
Speaker 1: the time, and he called me in the office. He said, listen,
Speaker 1: Mr steinbergers on suspension. It's the only reason I'm giving
Speaker 1: the minor league guys an opportunity because normally Georgia trade
Speaker 1: for the free agent. He didn't bring up the minor
Speaker 1: league kids. And he goes, I'm gonna give you a chance.
Speaker 1: If you do good, you're gonna open up the door
Speaker 1: for a lot of your other teammates. Now I'm going, well, yes,
Speaker 1: thank you, but okay, now that's not too much pressure, right,
Speaker 1: And what hell are you At the time, twenty five ish,
Speaker 1: I was actually twenty six years old. Yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 1: See back then you had to spend three or four
Speaker 1: years in the minor leagues before you even got a chance,
Speaker 1: uh to get called up. So at twenty six today,
Speaker 1: it would be I would be old getting called up.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you, because you come through in the clutch,
Speaker 1: and that's a big part of your professional career. Were
Speaker 1: you that guy in baseball basketball growing up? Were you
Speaker 1: not afraid? Did you have success doing it early as
Speaker 1: a young kid, because I know I kind of did
Speaker 1: and it it just bred the success. Did you always
Speaker 1: have sort of that clutch thing? And you two things
Speaker 1: happened to me that at age fourteen, I wanted that pressure.
Speaker 1: And when number one was my father. And the funny
Speaker 1: thing about my father, he was a mix between Bobby
Speaker 1: Knighton and what if I scored twenty points in the
Speaker 1: game he did, why don't you score thirty? You know
Speaker 1: I went three for four? Why didn't you go for
Speaker 1: for four? He was that kind of guy. And then
Speaker 1: the other one was Pete Rose. Uh, Pete Rose. At
Speaker 1: fourteen years so old, I was picking up balls in
Speaker 1: the batting cage and you know, Pete was hitting and
Speaker 1: we were picking the balls up for me and Tommy,
Speaker 1: and I stopped him and I said, Mr Roys, can
Speaker 1: I ask you a question, how are you so clutch?
Speaker 1: You know, because at that time he was Mr Clutch,
Speaker 1: He was you, Mr Hustle and everything else. And you know,
Speaker 1: I said, He said, well listen, Jimmy. He said, you
Speaker 1: see right now spring training. I treat every at bat
Speaker 1: during this spring training like I do the last game
Speaker 1: of the World Series. And I said, well, why do
Speaker 1: you do that? He said, because no matter if I
Speaker 1: treat every at bat is the most important thing that
Speaker 1: I will never think about what's going on around me,
Speaker 1: whether it's the World Series, whether and he said, it
Speaker 1: takes away the pressure as far as my thinking goes.
Speaker 1: And I was like, wow, you know, and this is
Speaker 1: fourteen years old. And from that point on, Rex my
Speaker 1: mindset was give me the ball. Give me the ball,
Speaker 1: whether it was you know, come up in the last
Speaker 1: inning to hit, or I take the last shot. The
Speaker 1: other thing my dad taught me was, even though our
Speaker 1: sport were team sports, there were two moments in one
Speaker 1: in baseball one in basketball that it wasn't a team sport.
Speaker 1: It was when you were going into the batter's box,
Speaker 1: and it was when you were shooting a free throw,
Speaker 1: and my dad said, you can't blame anybody else if
Speaker 1: you miss your free throws. And he used to make
Speaker 1: me and that was his thing. He shot, like, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: You know, but I think that's really why I really
Speaker 1: wanted that pressure moment. I love that pressure moment, and
Speaker 1: I was able to come through because I didn't think
Speaker 1: of what was going on around me. I was concentrated
Speaker 1: on the most important thing was that at bat. Awesome. Awesome.
Speaker 1: What's it like being a major league baseball player? A
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty two games a year plus the playoffs,
Speaker 1: especially as a catcher, you know, one of the more
Speaker 1: daunting and taxing positions in the game. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: that's where I kind of had a break because I
Speaker 1: wasn't the everyday catcher. You know, I caught Andy Pettitt
Speaker 1: was I was his personal catcher, and you know, there
Speaker 1: would be one or two other guys a week that
Speaker 1: I would catch. But I was able to play other
Speaker 1: poss asians. So it was able to give me a
Speaker 1: little bit of a break, a little bit of arrest,
Speaker 1: but it was I was still able to play in
Speaker 1: the lineup, which is a huge thing because most catchers,
Speaker 1: when they don't play, they're not in the lineup, you know,
Speaker 1: because they can't play other positions. Man, it's got to
Speaker 1: be a grind though, I mean, no matter what you're
Speaker 1: you know, if you're relieving all of it, because I
Speaker 1: mean just the you know, some of the monotony of
Speaker 1: the days. You're spending days in different cities, and look,
Speaker 1: I know, you know, I know, we have the greatest
Speaker 1: job in the world as a professional athlete, but it's
Speaker 1: not without its issues. How daunting is it? Just getting
Speaker 1: up and going every single day, every single day? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was interesting. In my first couple of years in
Speaker 1: the big leagues, I lived in Florida and my family
Speaker 1: was from Ohio and they all still live in Cincinnati,
Speaker 1: and every offseason I'd come home, like when you come
Speaker 1: into Ohio, I'm like, guys, I've been traveling all year.
Speaker 1: If you want to come see me, you come to Florida,
Speaker 1: which wasn't a bad place to go to. But in
Speaker 1: the beginning they didn't understand, and then all of a
Speaker 1: sudden they started to realize, well, you know, you're on
Speaker 1: the road, and even like no one lives in the
Speaker 1: spring training town. So you're away thirty days right then,
Speaker 1: and then you go away for your season, you know,
Speaker 1: which was I went from Florida to New York. So
Speaker 1: if I saw my house three months out of the year,
Speaker 1: I was lucky, you know. And especially in ninety and
Speaker 1: when we started winning and going to the playoffs in
Speaker 1: the World Series. We never got home to the end
Speaker 1: of October, and so you had November, December, January. In
Speaker 1: February you were packing back up and going to spring
Speaker 1: training again. So it was a little bit difficult. And
Speaker 1: like you said, the mental grind of a hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty two games in a hundred and eighty days plus
Speaker 1: spring training, that was more of a grind than anything else.
Speaker 1: And everybody always says today, hey, what do you miss
Speaker 1: about the game? What do you miss? Do you miss playing?
Speaker 1: And I said, I missed playing, I missed the camaraderie
Speaker 1: with the guys, I miss seeing the fans. I don't
Speaker 1: miss the travel ever in the field, back in the
Speaker 1: track and the room, dancing in the streets in New
Speaker 1: York right now and it's the County Stadium, all right.
Speaker 1: Let's fast forward a little bit nineties six World Series
Speaker 1: Game four, you hit a three run home run to
Speaker 1: tie the game, the Yankees winning six games. What do
Speaker 1: you remember about the parade and how you were treated
Speaker 1: that summer and then you're traded, you know, being caught
Speaker 1: up in the nineties when we were losing a hundred games,
Speaker 1: and you know, we got really close to ninety four.
Speaker 1: We were going to be in the World Series of
Speaker 1: ninety four, and then of course the strike hits. Then
Speaker 1: we get to the point where we finally get down
Speaker 1: manically to a playoff game. We win the first two
Speaker 1: games against Seattle, and then we get swept. You know,
Speaker 1: it was kind of like and I hit a huge
Speaker 1: home run that year in the playoffs, but they became
Speaker 1: a footnote because we didn't win. When we get to
Speaker 1: ninety six and I come up in the eighth inning
Speaker 1: against Wallers and I hit the big home run that
Speaker 1: ties it up and completely shifted the momentum, and then
Speaker 1: we went on to win that game. On the way
Speaker 1: Bogs Walk win the series, and the parade rex it
Speaker 1: was nuts. It was I remember. I remember the ninety
Speaker 1: four Rangers winning because I was a huge hockey fan
Speaker 1: and I dragged out of the ninety four Cup with
Speaker 1: the Rangers. But I remember the Rangers the Rangers parade
Speaker 1: in ninety four, and I was like, man, that would
Speaker 1: be awesome to have one of those for us. And
Speaker 1: then we get the ninety six We win that and
Speaker 1: there were four and a half million people at this
Speaker 1: parade and it was just one of the most awesome
Speaker 1: days that we ever had, I can imagine. But then
Speaker 1: you're traded. I mean that had to be just kind
Speaker 1: of bitter sweet, right. Well, it was a situation where
Speaker 1: I wanted to play every day and I at this
Speaker 1: particular time, you know, Mr Steinbanner of me because I
Speaker 1: just hit the biggest home run for him, and he
Speaker 1: already started loving me after ninety five because I hit
Speaker 1: that one on and so we had a really really
Speaker 1: good relationship. And after the ninety six season was over,
Speaker 1: I was in Tampa working out and I walked into
Speaker 1: Mr Steinbrenner's office and said, you know, am I gonna
Speaker 1: play more next year? You know, is there any way
Speaker 1: that you can find out? Because if I'm not, I
Speaker 1: would appreciate it if you give me an opportunity to
Speaker 1: go play somewhere else. He was like, let me talk
Speaker 1: to Mr Tor and so he knew he was drinking
Speaker 1: buddies at my agent and uh, so I get a
Speaker 1: phone call. That helps. So I get a phone call
Speaker 1: like four days later from my agent saying did you
Speaker 1: talk to Steinbrenner And I said, yeah, I just kind
Speaker 1: of asked him I wanted to play every day, and
Speaker 1: I said, you know, I was comfortable doing that. And
Speaker 1: he said, well, he just called me and said if
Speaker 1: I could make a deal for you, that he'll allow
Speaker 1: you to go somewhere else to play every day. And
Speaker 1: he said, I've been on the phone for the last
Speaker 1: two days and I've got a deal with the Anaheim Angels.
Speaker 1: You're gonna get a three year contract, which was my
Speaker 1: first multi year cont racked and they want you to
Speaker 1: come there and catch every day. And I was like wow. Now,
Speaker 1: at the time, Rex, I was working out at the
Speaker 1: complex in Tampa with the Yankees. So they trade me
Speaker 1: and I come in the next day and I walked
Speaker 1: into Mr. Steinbrenner's office with my bag and I said, hey,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for everything. I appreciate you give
Speaker 1: me the opportunity to go play somewhere else. And he said, Jimmy,
Speaker 1: he said, you will always be a Yankee. He said,
Speaker 1: why do you have your bag? I said, when I
Speaker 1: can't work out it anymore. I'm an angel now. He said,
Speaker 1: you go put that bag back in your locker. You
Speaker 1: can work out at this field as long as you want,
Speaker 1: you know, as long as you don't come back and
Speaker 1: kill us. You know that that type of situation. But
Speaker 1: he was just such a great loyal guy. And and
Speaker 1: like I said, most people didn't know that I actually
Speaker 1: asked for the trade, and so it actually was a
Speaker 1: benefit for me to be able to get that opportunity.
Speaker 1: What did that three years of security? Uh? That three
Speaker 1: year deal? How gratifying was that for you? Yeah? It
Speaker 1: was something that even though I had some good years
Speaker 1: with the Yankees, even you know, I need four. Um,
Speaker 1: I wasn't getting anything more than a one year contract.
Speaker 1: And it was every off season was like what am
Speaker 1: I gonna do? What am I gonna do? Where am
Speaker 1: I gonna play? What's gonna happen to have that security?
Speaker 1: For the Angels to do that, um and give me
Speaker 1: that three year deal. I didn't really care after that
Speaker 1: whether or not I got traded seventy five more times.
Speaker 1: I knew that I had three years, you know, Baseball
Speaker 1: is different. You know. Baseball is a guaranteed contract, and
Speaker 1: to have that kind of security, Uh, it meant the
Speaker 1: world to me. And it meant that I finally had
Speaker 1: an opportunity to play every day. There was no better
Speaker 1: feeling than having that. It's amazing you admitted using infant
Speaker 1: it means during your career when they were still legal
Speaker 1: in the league. What was the process behind that? How
Speaker 1: much did it actually help? Was it for injury recovery
Speaker 1: performance or was there more to it? How did you
Speaker 1: become introduced to him? Well, this is where you and
Speaker 1: I are kindred spirits. I mean, the bottom line is
Speaker 1: I have a d h D really really bad, all right,
Speaker 1: And had they had the medicine and knowing that and
Speaker 1: fetta means helped a d h D, they probably would
Speaker 1: have given it to me back then like they do
Speaker 1: now to the players that abot you know, and I
Speaker 1: didn't know back then when I took them that that
Speaker 1: was actually helping me concentrate, That was actually having me focus.
Speaker 1: That was the advantage, you know. And again it had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with given making me stronger, making me better,
Speaker 1: you know. It was just the ability to focus the
Speaker 1: and then let my natural abilities come out, and had,
Speaker 1: like I said, had it been diagnosed back then, it
Speaker 1: would have been fine. I can't that makes complete sense, um,
Speaker 1: you know, and I would get bored in baseball, you know,
Speaker 1: I'd lose concentration for you knew it. I'm just looking
Speaker 1: at the girls and forgetting what's going on in the
Speaker 1: on the field. So that makes complete sense. And that
Speaker 1: was a situation where, you know, guys were taking a
Speaker 1: lot of guys were just taking it. Just instead of
Speaker 1: drinking five cups of coffee, it was maybe safer to
Speaker 1: take an infett a mean, you know. And again it
Speaker 1: was just one of those things that I gave you
Speaker 1: about a three and a half to four hour lift,
Speaker 1: just long enough to get through a baseball game, which
Speaker 1: unless we were playing the Red Sox, uh, but just
Speaker 1: long enough to get through a game and to be
Speaker 1: had that concentration for that full three and a half
Speaker 1: four hours. Looking back, do you think you had any
Speaker 1: any destructive character traits or vices during your time as
Speaker 1: a player that carried over into your retirement. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I made a lot of personal decisions,
Speaker 1: you know, relationships, sexual, you know, doing things sexually and uh,
Speaker 1: there were so many things that. Number one, it was
Speaker 1: just a smartasport because you were in the major leagues
Speaker 1: and everything was there. And a kid from Cincinnatio, how
Speaker 1: growing up, you know, I was not privy to that
Speaker 1: type of thing. It was you know, you get lost
Speaker 1: in it sometimes. And even though I was still having
Speaker 1: success on the field, and even though I was still
Speaker 1: doing well, it was one of those situations. Not playing
Speaker 1: every day, I had a lot of free time, you know.
Speaker 1: And I was the kind of guy that you know,
Speaker 1: I embraced New York. I wore a cowboy hat, I
Speaker 1: had a cowboy boots. I was known as Country Jim,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, my first experience in a nightclub
Speaker 1: in New York was sitting at a table that they
Speaker 1: got for me because I was Jim Larious of the
Speaker 1: New York Yankees, the new rookie sensation. And I'm sitting
Speaker 1: there with my cowboy at my cowboy boots, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, these three big black bouncers come up
Speaker 1: to me and go, excuse me, can we ask you
Speaker 1: a question? Do you mind if our client sits with you?
Speaker 1: And I'm like sure, yeah, and you know, just it's
Speaker 1: not my table, but they just put me here all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, come walking in. This is called the
Speaker 1: China Club. Back in the day, Eddie Murphy sits down
Speaker 1: next to me and you talk about complete like I know,
Speaker 1: Eddie Murphy. I'm like, oh my god, this is so awesome,
Speaker 1: this is so great. And then he sits down and
Speaker 1: he goes. Who would have thought this pairing would have happened, right,
Speaker 1: But that was my first experience. And then I went
Speaker 1: to the China Club every Monday night because I was
Speaker 1: time to go um and it just I really enjoyed
Speaker 1: the night. I wasn't a drug guy. It wasn't that
Speaker 1: besides the what I mean, I was a drinker and
Speaker 1: I like to go out at night and you know,
Speaker 1: and have a good time and and it really embraced
Speaker 1: New York City. And I think that's why a lot
Speaker 1: of fans liked me, because I was out and about.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just this standoffish guy. I was part of
Speaker 1: the community. I did a lot of stuff with the police,
Speaker 1: but nova associations I did a lot of things with
Speaker 1: because I was in the city. Uh, it was great
Speaker 1: to be part of that. But I also made a
Speaker 1: lot of bad choices that my father and my mother,
Speaker 1: uh were like, we didn't bring you up that way,
Speaker 1: young man, you know, and uh so you know, you
Speaker 1: pay the price as you get a little bit older
Speaker 1: and realized we I could have probably done some things
Speaker 1: different back then while you were playing. Did you ever
Speaker 1: have any brushes with the law. No? Nothing, And that's
Speaker 1: what I said when I first had my accident. After
Speaker 1: I got done playing and I had the accident, people,
Speaker 1: you know, most of the guys that I knew were
Speaker 1: shot there, Like, dude, you've never got a d u
Speaker 1: I you've never had a drinking problem. I mean, as
Speaker 1: many nights as I spent in a bar in New York,
Speaker 1: I never got into a fight. You know. It was
Speaker 1: one of those such we was gonna fight Jim Layer,
Speaker 1: it's in the ball, He's gonna do that. Eddie Murphy's
Speaker 1: not doing that exactly. Yeah, but you know that was
Speaker 1: that was the situation. And again, um, when we're younger
Speaker 1: and we're as we're athletes, we kind of feel invincible.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately back then there was no cell phones, there
Speaker 1: was no social media. You know, you weren't gonna get
Speaker 1: in trouble if you were doing some crazy things, you know,
Speaker 1: and it was kind of back then, Brex you know, hey,
Speaker 1: we'll keep it hush hush, don't worry. You know, we're
Speaker 1: not gonna tell anybody. Don't worry that. It was that
Speaker 1: type of thing. So you were more apt to get
Speaker 1: in a little bit more trouble because there was not
Speaker 1: as many consequences as there is today. Jim and I
Speaker 1: were professional athletes in the same era and didn't have
Speaker 1: to deal with the same public scrutiny that the players
Speaker 1: today do. I was not a drinker during my career,
Speaker 1: as I told you. Jim admittedly was. Not only was
Speaker 1: he a man of the people, but he was the
Speaker 1: king in the city that never sleeps, and he took
Speaker 1: advantage a place that has a bar on nearly every corner.
Speaker 1: He probably never had to pay for a drink. As
Speaker 1: a Yankee, some players and people are able to dance
Speaker 1: through rain drops. Jim felt invincible at the time, but
Speaker 1: to any outside observer, a clear pattern was a merging.
Speaker 1: You traveled around the league a bit, you find yourself
Speaker 1: back in pin stripes in when another World series unbelievable
Speaker 1: King of New York again until they trade you again. Uh,
Speaker 1: we're both pros, but explained to the listeners who aren't pros,
Speaker 1: or maybe who are, how it feels to be a
Speaker 1: cog that can sort of easily be replaced on a team,
Speaker 1: especially as such a clutch player you've been your whole career. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, most of my trades, I was getting traded
Speaker 1: to a team going to the playoffs. So that was
Speaker 1: a good thing because then they knew that my postseason history,
Speaker 1: the great round that we had with the Padres, you know,
Speaker 1: and then we get to the World Series. We lose
Speaker 1: to the Yankees, but we get approval for Petco Park,
Speaker 1: for the new stadium in San Diego, so you feel like, hey, wow,
Speaker 1: we accomplished a lot that year, even though we lost
Speaker 1: the World Series. I mean, I make the joke all
Speaker 1: the time. People say, what's the difference between playing in
Speaker 1: New York and San Diego. I said, Well, in San
Speaker 1: Diego we lost the World Series, but we still had
Speaker 1: a parade. I got. You lose the World Series in
Speaker 1: New York, you don't leave your house for two weeks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that was the big thing. But in ninety nine
Speaker 1: I got traded back because the Padres, you know, they
Speaker 1: got rid of everybody. I get traded back to the Yankees.
Speaker 1: We win the World Series again. We go into the
Speaker 1: two thousand season. I hit another home run in that
Speaker 1: World Series, which became the last home run of the century,
Speaker 1: and now that's fucking cool. Was yeah, I can't. I
Speaker 1: had come back to the Yankees that year from a
Speaker 1: broken hand, and in batting practice, I couldn't hit the
Speaker 1: ball out in Jeter and knob Block and all those
Speaker 1: guys were giving me such a hard time because usually
Speaker 1: batting Pactress was my main thing, and I would home
Speaker 1: runs with Strawberry. Well, I come back and I can't
Speaker 1: hit the ball and Jeter and they were making fun
Speaker 1: of me, and I go, guys, listen, this was back
Speaker 1: in July. I said, listen, when it counts, I'll hit
Speaker 1: a home run. And then, sure enough, my only at
Speaker 1: bat in that World Series, I pinched it for Strawberry
Speaker 1: and I hit that home run. I come running around
Speaker 1: the bases and Jeter is waiting there for me, and
Speaker 1: he goes, I don't believe it. I'm like, I told you,
Speaker 1: it's so great. Nothing draw it. Let's feel two thousand comes.
Speaker 1: I'm in the visiting team's bar in Boston. Was a
Speaker 1: place called Daisy Buchanan's. It's where we all hung out. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: we ran the same circles. But so we were in
Speaker 1: Daisy Buchanan's, David con and I and we were back
Speaker 1: behind the bar making drinks and hanging out with the
Speaker 1: bar to enders, and all of a sudden, Cony looks
Speaker 1: at me, goes, dude, look, and I'm like what. I
Speaker 1: look up at the TV and I'm a ticker tape
Speaker 1: on ESPN. It says Jim Layer It's traded to the
Speaker 1: Dodgers for Jose Biscayana. I found this out in the bar.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Because again, we didn't have cell phones
Speaker 1: back then. They couldn't call me on my cell and
Speaker 1: tell me, hey, we just traded you, right. So Coney
Speaker 1: looks at me, and I'm with Shane Spencer and his
Speaker 1: wife and my wife. We're all hanging out, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, they go, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I'm just gonna keep drinking because I
Speaker 1: can't change this. Now I'm leaving. So that's when I
Speaker 1: went to the Dodgers, and then I end up getting
Speaker 1: hurt with the Dodgers. Uh later in that year, and
Speaker 1: that was the last time I was at the major
Speaker 1: league level. Yeah, well when did you know? Did you
Speaker 1: know right then that that you needed to hang it up?
Speaker 1: I mean, what was actually? I went home. Uh, it
Speaker 1: was a torn rotator and torn labor on my right side,
Speaker 1: and I went to Dr Andrews. He fixed it all up. Um.
Speaker 1: I went to spring training in two thousand one with
Speaker 1: the Mets, and I was gonna try to make their
Speaker 1: team out of spring training and I end up getting
Speaker 1: hurt again. But yeah, I think it was March seventeenth.
Speaker 1: I got hurt again and they released me. Uh. Then
Speaker 1: I went home and I found this thing called h
Speaker 1: g H, and one of the doctors in Florida told me, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: you want to get healthy quicker, you can take this
Speaker 1: h g H and you'll recover quicker. It's not a
Speaker 1: steroid because I couldn't take steroids because I had prostate
Speaker 1: cancer in my family and steroids would just kill you
Speaker 1: right away if you took that, And he said, h
Speaker 1: g H is much safer. Try this. So for about
Speaker 1: six weeks I took the h g H. Where the
Speaker 1: problem was my p s A level started to go
Speaker 1: through the roof and I had to stop taking that also,
Speaker 1: but I got healthier and I end up going to
Speaker 1: UH independent League in the Newark Bears, and I played
Speaker 1: there for twenty six games. In the San Diego Padre
Speaker 1: signed me and I went back to play Triple A
Speaker 1: and UH first game back, I get hit in the
Speaker 1: hand with the pitch and I break my hand. But
Speaker 1: it's crazy sometimes how things happen. When I looked back
Speaker 1: on it, and you know, I've had a rebirth with
Speaker 1: christ after everything I've been through, and you know, I
Speaker 1: look back now and and I'm like, I didn't know
Speaker 1: at the time that my ex wife was at My
Speaker 1: wife at the time was having drug problems because I
Speaker 1: was away trying to play and get my career back,
Speaker 1: and she was using and the kids were I had
Speaker 1: a nanny and the housekeeper that thank goodness because they
Speaker 1: took care of the kids while she was out doing
Speaker 1: her thing. But long story short, I come home and
Speaker 1: it's a mess, and I took her back for a while.
Speaker 1: She relapsed again. We end up getting divorced. Um, I
Speaker 1: end up doing more rehab on my shoulder and a
Speaker 1: two thousand three, the Padres called me up and say, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: we heard that you're healthy. Do you want to come
Speaker 1: back and play. We'll offer you a million dollar contract
Speaker 1: to come back and play. Well. Rex, I had just
Speaker 1: gotten a full custody of my three boys. They were
Speaker 1: two years old, seven years old, and nine years old
Speaker 1: at the time, and the judge and Florid at my
Speaker 1: family court judge, I went to him and said, listen,
Speaker 1: I want to keep custody. I want to take the
Speaker 1: boys with me to say die go. I'll have a nanny,
Speaker 1: you know, and they'll be taken care of. And the
Speaker 1: judge in Florida said, listen, if you go back to
Speaker 1: play baseball, even though your wife's addicted to drugs and
Speaker 1: has major issues, those kids will go back to her.
Speaker 1: And I just said, that's it, you know what. And
Speaker 1: I called up Kevin Towers and said, Kevin, thank you
Speaker 1: for the offer, but I can't leave these boys in
Speaker 1: a situation like this. And to this day, it's my
Speaker 1: father's proudest moment. He called me up when I made
Speaker 1: the choice, and he said, I was happy with the
Speaker 1: World Series. I was happy with everything you accomplished in
Speaker 1: your life. But that decision right there is the reason
Speaker 1: why I raised you the way I did, and you
Speaker 1: know what, you'll be rewarded for that decision. And sure enough,
Speaker 1: I don't regret a day not signing back with the
Speaker 1: padres Man. It makes me want to cry. I've got
Speaker 1: goose bumps. Good for you, really. On this podcast, we
Speaker 1: pride ourselves in shining the light onto darkness, coming straight
Speaker 1: from the perspective of the person who lived the events
Speaker 1: you have heard and are about to hear. While the
Speaker 1: story ahead maybe upsetting for some, it's important for it
Speaker 1: to be heard. In Jim's words, the turning point of
Speaker 1: his life took place at three am on a road
Speaker 1: in Fort Lauderdale. Two strangers in the night who had
Speaker 1: decided to get behind the wheel of their vehicles after drinking.
Speaker 1: One was Jim, the other was a thirty year old
Speaker 1: mother of two. Only one lost their life. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: here on charges we enjoyed talking about the good times,
Speaker 1: but I also got to talk about the bad times too,
Speaker 1: you know, for the betterment of ourselves in our community
Speaker 1: of listeners. If you don't mind, tell me about the
Speaker 1: night you went out to celebrate your forty fourth birthday. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was crazy. It was a situation where, um, you know,
Speaker 1: I was turning forty four years old. Uh. And at
Speaker 1: the time, again, I had the kids with me. Uh,
Speaker 1: the boys and I. We spent all day at the
Speaker 1: beach together. We uh we hung out. I took him
Speaker 1: out to dinner around seven o'clock. And why we were
Speaker 1: at dinner and my ex wife called me and said,
Speaker 1: you know, because she was clean at the time and
Speaker 1: so her and she said, hey, listen, it's your birthday.
Speaker 1: Do you want to go out with some of your friends.
Speaker 1: I'll watch the kids tonight, but I have to work
Speaker 1: at eight o'clock in the morning, so you have to
Speaker 1: pick them up at seven, you know, unless you're planning
Speaker 1: you know whatever. And I said, well, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm not planning on going out doing much tonight, you know.
Speaker 1: And it was a Thursday night. I got the phone.
Speaker 1: I called one of my friends up and said, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: what do you guys doing tonight? And it was a
Speaker 1: girl and her boyfriend and they said, well, we're gonna
Speaker 1: go to dinner with our parents, but if you want
Speaker 1: to meet at ten thirty for a drink, you know,
Speaker 1: we'll have a drink with you for your birthday. But
Speaker 1: we have to leave because we're flying out the next
Speaker 1: morning to the Bahamas for New Year's and of course
Speaker 1: it was decembery which was my birthday, and I said, okay,
Speaker 1: so we met out for a drink. And you know,
Speaker 1: I was so fortunate that I was forty four years old,
Speaker 1: number one, and that I knew that I had to
Speaker 1: get up at seven in the morning, that I wasn't
Speaker 1: going to have a big drinking night. This is gonna
Speaker 1: be a couple of drinks and just kind of hang
Speaker 1: out and you know, celebrate with some friends. And sure enough,
Speaker 1: you know, we go out and I didn't meet them
Speaker 1: to almost all in o'clock at night. We had a
Speaker 1: drink and the night, you know, we went to another
Speaker 1: bar and we were hanging out and around two thirty
Speaker 1: they all decided to leave. Well, there was one kid
Speaker 1: there that was a friend of hers, and he said,
Speaker 1: can you take me home? I'm not you know, I
Speaker 1: don't live here. And Robin goes the other the girl
Speaker 1: that I was with, she goes the other way and
Speaker 1: I'm on your way home. Can you take me home?
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, sure, no problem. He had been drinking,
Speaker 1: you know, and I was like, listen, I'll take you home.
Speaker 1: So long story short, I had maybe had two or
Speaker 1: three drinks the entire night, which was good, you know,
Speaker 1: over three or a hered. But I'm getting ready to
Speaker 1: leave the bar and all of a sudden, a Red
Speaker 1: Sox fan sees me and they say, hey, dude, and
Speaker 1: I saw my World series I had in my World
Speaker 1: series ring out. They're like, hey, we got another one
Speaker 1: of those, and I said, yeah, you know, I just
Speaker 1: got done. I was doing the World series for Fox.
Speaker 1: I was covering the Red Sox and he's like, no way,
Speaker 1: you were covering him. I'm like, yeah, I go. Kevin
Speaker 1: Nucleus is from Cincinnati. We hung out together. You know,
Speaker 1: we had a great time. I love those guys. He's like, well,
Speaker 1: let's have a drink at a shot, you know, for
Speaker 1: their victory. And you know, it was almost three o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning. So I'm like, okay, sure, whatever. So
Speaker 1: I took a drink and I took a shot with him,
Speaker 1: literally not even a minute and a half, got out,
Speaker 1: went and got my car and went to go home
Speaker 1: and take this kid home. Well next literally five minutes later,
Speaker 1: this accident happens. This woman who had been drinking, she
Speaker 1: comes through a red light. It's a blind intersection. I
Speaker 1: catch her back end. You know, she flips. She flips.
Speaker 1: She didn't ever see it fell on. She got ejected
Speaker 1: from the car and the impact from the cement is
Speaker 1: what caused her death. And it was just a situation.
Speaker 1: We pulled the car over. I went back to the
Speaker 1: scene and it was just a surreal moment, uh, seeing
Speaker 1: someone laying there and she was still alive at the time,
Speaker 1: and just what's gonna happen? What's going on? You know,
Speaker 1: why did this happen? That type of situation? And estrangely enough,
Speaker 1: I had some calmness to me, like, Okay, this is
Speaker 1: a huge scenario. What are you gonna do here? And
Speaker 1: I went back to my car, I picked up my
Speaker 1: own I called people and I said, hey, listen, I've
Speaker 1: been an accident. You know, I need somebody to come
Speaker 1: and so forth. Long story short, They end up giving
Speaker 1: me a d UI test, which is online everybody can
Speaker 1: see it. Do you have any injuries? Necktid? Yeah, she
Speaker 1: hit me, Jewer and glasses contest, take any medications? Listen
Speaker 1: under Florida while you require and submit to a breakthfest
Speaker 1: to determine the alcohol content to your breath. Do you understand?
Speaker 1: Are you willing to submit to testing. Listen, should you
Speaker 1: refuse to submit to the the test and requesting Department of
Speaker 1: Highways the Motor Vehicles for spend your driver's life for
Speaker 1: period of one year for your first refusal eighteen months.
Speaker 1: If you're like this has been previously suspended for refusing,
Speaker 1: it's to make way breath buttter you're in test. You
Speaker 1: understand that's so farfasting now where I'm also going to
Speaker 1: advise you while we're going on video, is um the
Speaker 1: person the other vehicle had passed away to dive so
Speaker 1: with you may so be subject to is a blood
Speaker 1: draw with or without your consent? So are you willing
Speaker 1: to give me that blood? That? Um, I'm still going
Speaker 1: to refust that it be done. Um, that it would
Speaker 1: be without your consent. That I didn't want to have
Speaker 1: to fight it together in that we'd cooperate with that
Speaker 1: at least, even though I understand you're not gonna list
Speaker 1: them do it. I'm not just wanting to help it.
Speaker 1: From the moment this happened, did you know your life
Speaker 1: had changed forever? Well? You know it was weird because
Speaker 1: I was thinking to myself, Okay, I didn't cause this accident.
Speaker 1: I know I didn't cause it, you know, and once
Speaker 1: all the facts come out, I won't be in any trouble.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, I had the d
Speaker 1: u HI cop show up and he gives me the
Speaker 1: d u I test and then he puts the cups
Speaker 1: on me, and I'm like, you know, you can see
Speaker 1: me in the video, go what why? Why are you
Speaker 1: trusting me? You know? And that video happened to be
Speaker 1: the best piece of evidence that the jury had to
Speaker 1: show that I wasn't It didn't look like And the
Speaker 1: reason why is because that drink in that shot had
Speaker 1: not got into my system to affect me, because it
Speaker 1: takes forty five minutes to an hour for alcohol to
Speaker 1: get into your system to affect you, and realistically medically,
Speaker 1: you know, Without getting into all the detail, I was
Speaker 1: a point four point three at the time of the accident,
Speaker 1: and because they got my blood two hours later, it
Speaker 1: was elevated to a point one too. So long story short,
Speaker 1: we knew we had all of the facts and everything
Speaker 1: was in our favor. I was not going to take
Speaker 1: a plea. I was willing to accept the d u
Speaker 1: I from day one. Because I was drinking and driving.
Speaker 1: I admitted that, but the state attorney was running to
Speaker 1: become a judge, and just like the Duke Lacrosse situation,
Speaker 1: this state attorney was using my name to try to
Speaker 1: boast her career. And again it was one of those
Speaker 1: situations where I went to my attorney and he came
Speaker 1: to me after two and a half years of waiting
Speaker 1: for trial, and said to me, they're throwing all the
Speaker 1: evidence about the other driver out. The jury is not
Speaker 1: gonna hear it. You might want to take a plea.
Speaker 1: And it long story short, it was a ten year plea,
Speaker 1: five years no license, a tenure approbation, five years no license,
Speaker 1: felony on my record, all this other stuff that I
Speaker 1: didn't do. And I said to my attorney. I went
Speaker 1: out to California and Pastor Rick Warren said a prayer
Speaker 1: over me, and in his prayer, the final words he
Speaker 1: said was give Jimmy the strength to see this to
Speaker 1: the very end. And David, my attorney's name was David.
Speaker 1: I said, I will wait and see this to the
Speaker 1: end because I believe that the Lord has taken care
Speaker 1: of me here. And we waited seventeen days of a trial.
Speaker 1: The jury took less than thirty minutes to throw the
Speaker 1: d u I. Man sat a trial out and they said,
Speaker 1: even though it was proven that I was a point
Speaker 1: zero four at the time of the accident and that
Speaker 1: was under the d u I, that because I admitted
Speaker 1: to having a drink in a shot, that they had
Speaker 1: to give me a d u I, you know, just
Speaker 1: for the sake of it. Because the case was covered
Speaker 1: on TV by you know, in session TV Court TV.
Speaker 1: So they were like, we can't tell the public it's
Speaker 1: okay to do a drinking a shot and get in
Speaker 1: your car. So I ended up getting a d u I.
Speaker 1: And it was a tough three years. As tough as
Speaker 1: it was on me, this is the other family was
Speaker 1: dealing with the death of a mother of you know,
Speaker 1: two children from two different families, but dealing with you
Speaker 1: know what was going to be the finality there. We
Speaker 1: were dealing with we couldn't move on with our life either.
Speaker 1: And my three boys didn't have a stable mother that
Speaker 1: was assuring them that, hey, daddy's gonna be okay. Daddy's
Speaker 1: gonna be okay. She was telling them, oh, you better
Speaker 1: enjoy the time with your father. He's gonna be away forever.
Speaker 1: And it was just a horrible situation for everybody, and
Speaker 1: certain things that we go through, the pains that we
Speaker 1: go through, you know what, it's painful to talk about,
Speaker 1: but you if you don't share that pain with other
Speaker 1: people to maybe help them get through what they're going through.
Speaker 1: You know, you went through some of your things to it.
Speaker 1: If we don't share that pain, then we're not doing
Speaker 1: it for the right reasons. We're not. We can't get
Speaker 1: over what happened to us if we don't share that
Speaker 1: with other people and maybe help their pain. And that's
Speaker 1: what we need to continue to do. And that's what
Speaker 1: my podcast Catching Heat is all about. It's all about
Speaker 1: athletes that have success, but they've maybe fallen off the
Speaker 1: case and then come back, whether it was a different
Speaker 1: career or whether it was giving back to charities or
Speaker 1: foundations in their new life. That's what it's all about.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what you're doing also, And like I said,
Speaker 1: it's a fellow alum that brings us together. But everything
Speaker 1: that we've gone through, the pain of having the getting
Speaker 1: the highs of the highs of being a professional athlete,
Speaker 1: but hitting some lows because of situations, our situations, but
Speaker 1: being able to bounce back from that, knowing that we
Speaker 1: have the strength to do that. That's why you and
Speaker 1: I are sitting here today, and we're able to help
Speaker 1: maybe other people with some of the pain that we've
Speaker 1: been through no remembered. Nearly three years since the tragic
Speaker 1: night of the crash, a jury handed down their decision
Speaker 1: on the case against Jim lay Ritz. Jim's blood alcohol
Speaker 1: level was point zero four, which is below the legal limit,
Speaker 1: at the moment of the accident. Three hours later, when
Speaker 1: the blood was drawn, his blood alcohol level was point
Speaker 1: one four. Testimony around the central accusation of the case,
Speaker 1: that he ran a red light before colliding with the
Speaker 1: other vehicle, was inconclusive. A jury acquitted Jim of DUI manslaughter.
Speaker 1: If charged, he would have faced up to fifteen years
Speaker 1: in prison. He was convicted of misdemeanor d u I instead,
Speaker 1: which carries a maximum of six months. Earlier that year,
Speaker 1: Jim had already settled a wrongful death suit in the
Speaker 1: same case, agreeing to pay three d and fifty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars in insurance and personal funds. Whoever was to blame.
Speaker 1: A young woman lost her life here that time between
Speaker 1: your accident and your event short trial was like two
Speaker 1: and a half years. What were the darkest moments for you?
Speaker 1: You know, were there times that you just you thought
Speaker 1: you were at your width in I mean, I'm only
Speaker 1: asking because you know you're probably somebody out there struggling
Speaker 1: like this. Having three kids aged two, seven, and nine
Speaker 1: was a savior for me, besides reading the book The
Speaker 1: Purpose Driven Life and realizing sometimes we go through tough
Speaker 1: situations that make us stronger, uh, and there's a purpose
Speaker 1: for it. Um. But those three kids, you know, and
Speaker 1: not having a stable mother, someone who I could say, well,
Speaker 1: if I go through my stuff, at least they have
Speaker 1: a stable mom to take care of them and they'll
Speaker 1: be okay. They weren't gonna be okay if I wasn't.
Speaker 1: And it was a situation that I knew that even
Speaker 1: though I shouldn't have been drinking and driving, that was
Speaker 1: a mistake I made that all the other stuff that
Speaker 1: I was being you know, accused of and and claimed
Speaker 1: on that I needed to be strong and beat those accusations.
Speaker 1: You know, I went through a domestic violence situation and
Speaker 1: during that time with my ex wife who falsely accused me,
Speaker 1: and I proved that in court eventually, but the damage
Speaker 1: was already done. You know, the damage was done because
Speaker 1: here was this Jim light Ritz going through this d
Speaker 1: UI manslaughter, trunk murderer, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: now add on wife beater. That's probably the twelve days
Speaker 1: I sat in jail because I was having my rebirth
Speaker 1: with God. I was trusting in the Lord. I was
Speaker 1: trusting that he had me, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: this thing with my ex wife happens, and I'm sitting
Speaker 1: in jail, going God, you know that I didn't see her,
Speaker 1: I didn't touch her, I didn't do this. Why am
Speaker 1: I going through this? And why why is this happening
Speaker 1: to me? And it was interesting Rex. I was handed
Speaker 1: a Bible in jail, which most of the time that's
Speaker 1: what they give you. It's either you can read, and
Speaker 1: I was. I was reading in Psalms, and it spoke
Speaker 1: to me that says, remember this is temporary. This is
Speaker 1: not a permanent situation. And at the time I had
Speaker 1: a brother in law who was going through lou Garreg's disease.
Speaker 1: In his situation was permanent, it wasn't gonna get better.
Speaker 1: And it really gave me the strength to say Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna fight this. I'm going to prove to my
Speaker 1: the court, to the public that I didn't even see
Speaker 1: my wife, that I did I didn't touch her, that
Speaker 1: she's kind of sick, and that she's making this stuff
Speaker 1: because she's trying to get back at me. And it
Speaker 1: took a while, but man, it was difficult, and there
Speaker 1: were times that I had to be strong for the
Speaker 1: boys during the day, but then I would go out
Speaker 1: at night in my backyard and I would just break down.
Speaker 1: I would cry, I would pray, I would just say,
Speaker 1: you know, God, you know, just give me. And it
Speaker 1: was it was hard. You know, you're sentencing Jim, which
Speaker 1: was probation and a fine. You said in part that
Speaker 1: you were going to commit your life to changing lives
Speaker 1: and making a difference so this woman's death would not
Speaker 1: be in vain. Why did you say that? Just because,
Speaker 1: I mean, it was a situation where I knew, even
Speaker 1: though she was at fault, I was guilty of drinking
Speaker 1: and driving two I was doing the wrong too, and
Speaker 1: being in the wrong. Sometimes you want to take a
Speaker 1: negative and turn that into a positive. And unfortunately she
Speaker 1: did pass away. She wasn't gonna have an opportunity to
Speaker 1: make right what she did wrong that night, And I
Speaker 1: felt like it was my obligation because Number One, God
Speaker 1: gave me that platform from being that professional athlete, gave
Speaker 1: me that platform to be able to have the opportunity
Speaker 1: even though it's gonna be difficult because I was the
Speaker 1: pride in the beginning, But I felt like I owed
Speaker 1: an obligation to her to be able to change and
Speaker 1: make sure maybe our children, maybe her children, and maybe
Speaker 1: the people around us made better decisions when it came
Speaker 1: to drinking and driving, when it came to wearing a seatbelt,
Speaker 1: because those are the things that caused all of the
Speaker 1: heartbreak that night, and how easily they could have been
Speaker 1: avoided had both of us made different decisions. And that's
Speaker 1: the most important thing. That we try to make sure
Speaker 1: that other people are learning and listening. And if one
Speaker 1: person puts a seatboat on, if one person doesn't take
Speaker 1: a drink and drive, then I feel like, you know what,
Speaker 1: They've got my point and I've done something positive out
Speaker 1: of something that was so tragic and so negative. Beautiful. Uh,
Speaker 1: when you look back at your career as a baseball player,
Speaker 1: in your life since that tragic day on your forty
Speaker 1: four birthday. What sticks with you the most? Jim. Yeah.
Speaker 1: People always ask me would you change anything about your life?
Speaker 1: And I said, I would not change anything but that night,
Speaker 1: that one night, because it's unfortunate that she lost her life.
Speaker 1: And at the same time, that night is what's brought
Speaker 1: me to where I am. And again, something so tragic,
Speaker 1: something that was so difficult to get through um has
Speaker 1: made me into the person I am today. And I
Speaker 1: would not change anything but her death. When you're involved
Speaker 1: in something like that, you never lose that night, you
Speaker 1: never get rid of it, but you learn how to
Speaker 1: cope with it, and you learn that you can take
Speaker 1: that pain, You can take that situation and help other
Speaker 1: people not make the same mistakes or get draw strength
Speaker 1: from what you went through. And if you don't take
Speaker 1: that opportunity, you know, shame on you. What are you
Speaker 1: doing today with your life, man, charitable work and podcast
Speaker 1: catching heat with Jim Layer. It's as you mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: Just give me a brief look at what you're doing now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know. I do title insurance is my main business.
Speaker 1: I would do commercial and residential title out here in
Speaker 1: California and New York, but I've been part of a
Speaker 1: charity in New York called Pink Tie for the last
Speaker 1: six years that raises money in for different charities and foundations.
Speaker 1: I always work with a L S Foundations because of
Speaker 1: my brother in law Uh and then, of course uh
Speaker 1: Stork Media came to me just about six months ago
Speaker 1: and said, hey, we're starting a new podcast. We want
Speaker 1: to have a sports person to a podcast. What would
Speaker 1: you like to do because we want you to do
Speaker 1: the podcast. And I said, okay, I'll do a sports
Speaker 1: related or celebrity related podcast, but it's not gonna be
Speaker 1: a daily thing. I want to do once a week,
Speaker 1: and I want to do a story on guys who
Speaker 1: have been through some hard times, or guys that have
Speaker 1: used their platform, from their playing days, from their music days,
Speaker 1: from whatever that might be, to turn around and do
Speaker 1: something else that is positive and doing something for other people.
Speaker 1: And I want to I want to do more stories
Speaker 1: on that, because there's enough negativity in this world. I
Speaker 1: don't think there's enough people doing the positive things being
Speaker 1: able to show, Hey, did you know that Darryl Strawberry,
Speaker 1: besides being an addict and being kicked out of baseball,
Speaker 1: has now changed his life and become a pastor and
Speaker 1: is preaching the gospel and bringing people to God that
Speaker 1: he's opening up rehab centers all around the United States.
Speaker 1: The New York Post, the Daily News, the mainstream media
Speaker 1: doesn't really care about you once you've left the lionelight.
Speaker 1: But you know what, the things that he's doing now
Speaker 1: is so much more important than any home run or
Speaker 1: any World Series or anything that you did on a
Speaker 1: basketball court. The things that you're doing now are so
Speaker 1: much more important and should be highlighted because you are
Speaker 1: out there helping people, changing lives. And that's the biggest
Speaker 1: gift that God can give all of us. And something
Speaker 1: I say on this pod all the time is you're
Speaker 1: never as bad as your worst moment if you learn
Speaker 1: from it work to improve yourself. You seem like that
Speaker 1: exact model, the exact model of that mantra. Man, what
Speaker 1: do you want people to remember about you? And what
Speaker 1: do you want people to learn from you and your journey?
Speaker 1: I think the most important thing is I never settled
Speaker 1: for the less than the truth. You know, um, I
Speaker 1: never gave up. I was never drafted, but yet I
Speaker 1: was able to turn it into a big league career.
Speaker 1: Have a moment that every kid would dream about in
Speaker 1: the World Series, a couple of them, you know. And
Speaker 1: but I also that was my baseball legacy, and I
Speaker 1: always talked about it in my speaking engagement. I wanted
Speaker 1: to also leave a life legacy for my kids, for
Speaker 1: other people. And you know what, this situation I went through,
Speaker 1: it really made me reboot my entire life. And we
Speaker 1: always said the same thing, Rex, as a professional athlete,
Speaker 1: it's only one third of our life. We've got two
Speaker 1: thirds that we live afterwards that we don't think about
Speaker 1: when we're playing. But man, when you have a setback,
Speaker 1: when you have something like that happened, you know, Pastor,
Speaker 1: my pastor always says, you know your setback is setting
Speaker 1: you up for your best comeback. Well, that's kind of
Speaker 1: how I looked at this situation. Was my comeback was
Speaker 1: even greater from a personal legacy, to be able to
Speaker 1: leave my children. That says God is your center point,
Speaker 1: that God is your is your savior, that you can
Speaker 1: get through all things with his strength and with his thing.
Speaker 1: And you know what, it's not gonna all be good.
Speaker 1: You're still gonna have problems, You're still gonna go through heartaches.
Speaker 1: But you know what, if you keep God as your
Speaker 1: center point, you'll be able to get through them. And
Speaker 1: as long as you have a breath, you can help
Speaker 1: other people. Jim Brother, thank you so much. I can't
Speaker 1: thank you enough for doing this really and you let
Speaker 1: me know if I can ever do anything for you.
Speaker 1: I appreciate day man. Thank you for having me. And
Speaker 1: like I said, it's great to catch up with the
Speaker 1: uk A line You're too buddy charges Selling no Runnians
Speaker 1: with the law charges set least send the tennis and
Speaker 1: ball as a charge is the celebrity gank forlorums and
Speaker 1: charges we came along with from Living Lawless Charges. Selling
Speaker 1: no Runnians with the law charges super least send the
Speaker 1: tennis and ball as charges. The celebrity gank Forums Charge
Speaker 1: we came along with from Living Lawless Charge Charges is
Speaker 1: created by Portlay and Control Media. It's produced by DV
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Speaker 1: from my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app,
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