Speaker 1: And this one is launched to left field Borba blass
Speaker 1: Off again a grand slam. It is twelve four and
Speaker 1: Casey at the bat delivers and with that, welcome everyone.
Speaker 1: This is the live show Dirt from the dugout. That
Speaker 1: play actually occurred yesterday afternoon and that was the Texas
Speaker 1: first Tennessee game three of their series. It was outstanding.
Speaker 1: We'll talk much more about that experience. But welcome in again.
Speaker 1: Happy to be joined by my partner, the recruiting guru
Speaker 1: that he is, the baseball guy. Justin Mussel is good
Speaker 1: to see you again. How was the week. How you doing.
Speaker 2: It's been awesome, Raby, great call on that, buddy, and
Speaker 2: you had a little jet behind that one that that
Speaker 2: was one of your good ones.
Speaker 3: Rabby.
Speaker 4: I gotta say, man.
Speaker 1: Thirty years into this thing, we better be able to
Speaker 1: have a good call. But yeah, I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: with what we're trying to do here, Justin, which is
Speaker 1: to help parents and their players become the best that
Speaker 1: they can be. That the one kind of take that
Speaker 1: I had, because I now think about these these games
Speaker 1: a little bit differently, was the backgrounds of the people
Speaker 1: and the players that are on these teams. And where
Speaker 1: they all come from and how they got to either
Speaker 1: Tennessee or Texas in this case, or Mississippi State. You know,
Speaker 1: last week it's it's a journey, and that's what this
Speaker 1: is all about, is trying to help parents and their
Speaker 1: players on their journeys. And I can't believe what a
Speaker 1: start we had with Mark DeRosa last week, of course,
Speaker 1: the coach and manager WBC team, and with all his
Speaker 1: playing experiences and what we're bringing to our teammates tonight
Speaker 1: and anybody that's involved with this program is a teammate
Speaker 1: of ours. We got a chance to bend the ear
Speaker 1: of one of the greatest to ever do it, Roger Clemens.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, I mean, what a journey that Clements had
Speaker 2: to right twenty four season seven, Cy Young's I mean,
Speaker 2: so many things to talk about there. D row is awesome,
Speaker 2: really exciting. Get all the feedback from last week too,
Speaker 2: I mean a lot of people loving what we're doing,
Speaker 2: RAVI and and uh just excited for it, man, I mean,
Speaker 2: I appreciate being on this ride with you, buddy, and
Speaker 2: excited to talk more with Roger tonight and and his
Speaker 2: illustrious career and I'm excited about it. Man, Lots lots
Speaker 2: to be excited about here.
Speaker 1: So your world has really revolved around scouting and recruiting.
Speaker 1: And when I talked to the coaches, you know, Jim
Speaker 1: Schlosnagel and Josh Elander this week and every of the
Speaker 1: any other college coaches, you know, their experiences with these
Speaker 1: kids and and in a sense with the parents because
Speaker 1: they play such a big role in in where your
Speaker 1: your child ends up and whether it's at the collegiate level,
Speaker 1: the professional level, the high school level. You know, the
Speaker 1: parents role in all this is super, super critical. And
Speaker 1: we'll ask Roger about, you know, the way that he
Speaker 1: was brought up and how he began and and got
Speaker 1: into the game. But it is such a critical component.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe you can shed some light on the
Speaker 1: role that you see parents or teachers or role models,
Speaker 1: whoever it may be that's influencing the kid on their journey.
Speaker 1: How important those people are.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, man, I mean you think about the journey itself.
Speaker 2: There's so much failure involved, and there are so many
Speaker 2: no's and this is an industry, right You had a
Speaker 2: lot of no's before you got your job at sports Center,
Speaker 2: at ESPN and that's how it goes. But I think
Speaker 2: just how competitive it is now, I think that makes
Speaker 2: it super challenging. There's just so many talented players, so
Speaker 2: many people that are trying to get to the college level,
Speaker 2: the pro level. I mean even just playing on a
Speaker 2: high school team now in a good area is really tough.
Speaker 2: So I mean it's a challenging ride. It's as challenging journey,
Speaker 2: but it's certainly worth it, man, And baseball teaches us
Speaker 2: so much, and so I think there's so much to
Speaker 2: learn in that grind ravy with just what it takes
Speaker 2: to overcome failure, how to how to face adversity and
Speaker 2: move forward, right, I mean, all that stuff is is
Speaker 2: life stuff. So anyone listening and you know, thinking about stuff,
Speaker 2: it's it's all about just basically, as a parent, teaching
Speaker 2: your kid how to overcome things, how to how to
Speaker 2: overcome adversity and in the challenges, because whether that's for
Speaker 2: baseball or anything else, it's going to help in life.
Speaker 2: So that's what I love about it, man, I mean
Speaker 2: that's the message I try to deliver a lot to
Speaker 2: people when I get to speak to people, it's just
Speaker 2: you know, what can you learn from the game. Scouting
Speaker 2: is really hard. Not everybody gets it right. We'll talk
Speaker 2: to Roger about this a little bit, but yeah, man,
Speaker 2: just just some great stuff. And just for anyone on
Speaker 2: tonight watching, feel free to use the Q and A
Speaker 2: on the zoom, just the button on the bottom. Throw
Speaker 2: your questions in there and we'll get to those as
Speaker 2: we go along here.
Speaker 1: RAVI yeah, so yeah, I mean, it just turned out
Speaker 1: that it was a Texas victory yesterday, and of course
Speaker 1: that is where Clemens start. That's really that's where the
Speaker 1: journey I think in the public's eye began for the
Speaker 1: Rocket was at Texas and what he did in the
Speaker 1: couple of years he was there, and winning the College
Speaker 1: World Series and the you know, the statistics and the
Speaker 1: overwhelming success that he had there is probably the first
Speaker 1: exposure that many people had to Clemens. And obviously when
Speaker 1: he got to the professional level and the major leagues,
Speaker 1: it blew up. We'll get into the twenty strikeout game,
Speaker 1: We'll get into the number of teams he played for,
Speaker 1: we'll get into all the experiences he had. But I
Speaker 1: do think college was probably our first exposure to the Rocket.
Speaker 1: But that's not where we're going to start. If the
Speaker 1: rocket is ready, let's bring Roger Clemens into dirt from
Speaker 1: the dugout here. He is here, he is. That's a
Speaker 1: great moment for Ross Rogers. Great to see you, buddy.
Speaker 1: How you doing.
Speaker 3: Damn, I'm doing great, guys. I appreciate you having me on. Man,
Speaker 3: it's anytime you can had this kind of platform. And
Speaker 3: and uh uh, you know we talked a little earlier,
Speaker 3: but you know my foundation, I get letters, you know,
Speaker 3: obviously to help underprivileged kids, like we do, but I
Speaker 3: get a ton of letters from single parents, single moms
Speaker 3: wanting to help their their youngster. And so I I
Speaker 3: really enjoy that because I was one of them, There's
Speaker 3: no doubt about it. So I love that aspect of
Speaker 3: like you guys are talking about when you first came on,
Speaker 3: about the journey and about how important your your parents are,
Speaker 3: even if it's in my situation. You know, my pops
Speaker 3: passed away when I was nine years old. I was
Speaker 3: raised by two strong willed women, my mother and my grandmother,
Speaker 3: and they taught me a lot of things, you know,
Speaker 3: like baseball teaches you. It's a game of life. It
Speaker 3: teaches you a lot of things. Uh, there's there's peaks
Speaker 3: and valleys and uh, and there's times when you feel
Speaker 3: like you're at the top of the mountain and uh.
Speaker 3: But it's it's it's a it's a hard road. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's not when I talk about the transitions. The physical part.
Speaker 3: You're in charge of your body and how you look
Speaker 3: physically and how you are physically and maybe better than
Speaker 3: the next guy physically. Second is the mental part of
Speaker 3: the game. I think it is so important to mental
Speaker 3: your your ability to focus better than the next guy.
Speaker 3: I tell people, you're gonna suck a lot at this
Speaker 3: wonderful game. You just got to suck a little less
Speaker 3: than your opponent, you know. And and then third, third,
Speaker 3: emotions come into play, and I tell people, you know,
Speaker 3: in my twenty four years at the highest level, you know,
Speaker 3: I might have shown my backside a few times, not
Speaker 3: proud of it. But like my mother said, you you
Speaker 3: represent that city on your chest and you take pride
Speaker 3: in that and everything that goes along with it. So
Speaker 3: there's a lot that goes into it behind the scenes
Speaker 3: that you know, you just don't wake up and have
Speaker 3: a I feel very fortunate to have the career that
Speaker 3: I had, So it's very meaningful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt, there's so much to unpack there. That's
Speaker 1: a great answer and a great start. So let's start there,
Speaker 1: because I do think a lot of people got to
Speaker 1: be familiar with who you are when you were at
Speaker 1: Texas and started to get that national exposure. And I
Speaker 1: know what happened a little earlier, but I think the
Speaker 1: masses were that's their first exposure. But take us even
Speaker 1: further back. You know when you discovered the game, you
Speaker 1: had a mom, you had a grandma. I mean, when
Speaker 1: did you fall in love with or did you fall
Speaker 1: in love with the game?
Speaker 3: Yeah, great question. I mean we just had you know,
Speaker 3: Mother's Day who just passed, And obviously every Mother's Day
Speaker 3: I think about my mom and everything that she did
Speaker 3: as a single parent. I tell people, you know, it
Speaker 3: kind of it chaps to me when somebody said, oh,
Speaker 3: you million dollar ball players silverspoon this and that's a
Speaker 3: hold up a second, I said, do your homework. If
Speaker 3: you're going to make a statement like that, I said,
Speaker 3: you know, my mom raised six of my pops passed
Speaker 3: away when I was nine. My mom raised six of us.
Speaker 3: When we were here in Houston, she was trying to
Speaker 3: buy her town home. There was a high school called
Speaker 3: bel Air, very good baseball school. She knew I loved
Speaker 3: the game of baseball. I was probably a better defensive
Speaker 3: end that I was pitcher first baseman. My mom was
Speaker 3: a stickler on education. I graduated, took classes, and graduated
Speaker 3: early at seventeen, so I was still extremely raw green,
Speaker 3: whatever you want to call it. But I was fortunate.
Speaker 3: I had three wonderful coaches on my way through college.
Speaker 3: They were great coaches. There were better teachers of the
Speaker 3: game of life, if you will. My high school coach.
Speaker 3: All three of these coaches have since passed away, but
Speaker 3: my high school coach, Charlie Marianna at Spring was He
Speaker 3: was almost like a father figure to me. I think
Speaker 3: he saw the direction I wanted to go in have
Speaker 3: a vehicle, Thank goodness. We only lived about two and
Speaker 3: a half miles from my high school, so I basically
Speaker 3: ran after practice with my backpack. I jogged back to
Speaker 3: our our our town home. And yeah, I mean, hey,
Speaker 3: I mean I I still when I sit here and
Speaker 3: talk about you and you all asked me the questions
Speaker 3: I think about. You know, a couple of times our
Speaker 3: electricity got turned off. My mom didn't know how you know,
Speaker 3: were the next bills. She was an accountant by day.
Speaker 3: I helped their stock coolers on the weekend at convenience store,
Speaker 3: and we cleaned buildings at night where I would do
Speaker 3: my homework. Why she cleaned buildings so I could have
Speaker 3: a sweet, brand new glove and a sweet pair of
Speaker 3: cleats every every season. I thought, there's a rocket.
Speaker 1: How did how did you? How did you decide on baseball?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you got all these stories you're running,
Speaker 1: you're a defensive end, Like why the game of baseball
Speaker 1: for the parents at home who've got kids that are
Speaker 1: that are doing multiple sports? You know, at what point
Speaker 1: did did the love? Was there a love? I mean
Speaker 1: it was did baseball takeover? Because I know football is
Speaker 1: a big deal in Texas?
Speaker 3: Man, it is it is. And I was, like you said,
Speaker 3: I fell in love with the game of baseball. And
Speaker 3: then when I started pitching, you know, I was lucky
Speaker 3: throughout my whole journey. They really I really was pretty
Speaker 3: religious on you know, back then, we didn't have all
Speaker 3: the videos like the the it boys have now and
Speaker 3: everything you can go look at video, so I had
Speaker 3: and I think Ravin, you know, the deal obviously, my
Speaker 3: two guys that I watched was Nolan Ryan and Tom
Speaker 3: sever And so I would sneak into the astrodome and
Speaker 3: watch Nolan just warm up. I had a little connection
Speaker 3: with one of the security guards and they would let
Speaker 3: me sneak in there, and all I would do is
Speaker 3: go down the bullpen and watch me warm up, you know,
Speaker 3: in the astrodome, Nolan throwing warming up, throwing ninety five
Speaker 3: ninety seven miles an hours. It sounded like when it
Speaker 3: hit that mint, one hundred and seven miles an hour.
Speaker 3: And then I played with the ultimate power pitcher. I'm
Speaker 3: a power pitcher. I don't throw my power pitch when
Speaker 3: I'm in my bullpens. My side work. It's super important
Speaker 3: because then it makes everything that you do when you
Speaker 3: go out there on game day, you know, somewhat fall.
Speaker 3: I'll fall in the place you practice perfect. You're never
Speaker 3: going to be perfect, but you practice perfect for those
Speaker 3: big moments when they say, you know, the lights are
Speaker 3: the brightest and all that stuff. But I was lucky.
Speaker 3: We traded when I was jumping from high school and
Speaker 3: college here, but real quick. But my professional you know,
Speaker 3: I was a young young twenty three twenty four year old,
Speaker 3: and we made the trade for Tom Sever, So I
Speaker 3: got to actually sit on the bench and keep my
Speaker 3: mouth closed as a young and listen and just be
Speaker 3: a sponge and have the opportunity to talk to Sever
Speaker 3: one on one. Who Tom sever is the ultimate power pitcher.
Speaker 3: I mean when I watched him, he was a forty
Speaker 3: year old man out there on the mound, and first
Speaker 3: thing I'm looking and as like I told, our pitch
Speaker 3: goes Bill Fisher, who Fish actually had severer in Cincinnati.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 3: I was like, good lord, I'm never pitching till I'm
Speaker 3: forty This looks ridiculous hard. And you know what, you know,
Speaker 3: I pitched till I'm forty five. But you know I
Speaker 3: watched Sever out there, you know, hitting the corners at
Speaker 3: eighty eighty seven, eighty eight and grunting, and you know
Speaker 3: that was the drop in drive days where he would
Speaker 3: drop and you know he had a knee pad on
Speaker 3: his knee because his knee would hit the dirt and
Speaker 3: when he when he would deliver the baseball the home
Speaker 3: but uh no, I mean it was you know, he
Speaker 3: was sitting at the Universe in nine eighty eight miles
Speaker 3: an hour and get second third and one out and
Speaker 3: need a strikeout and just bust on on the inside
Speaker 3: or outside corner at ninety three miles an hour, and
Speaker 3: I would say, oh, okay, I see what's going on here.
Speaker 1: And so much you had. Man, what a classroom you had.
Speaker 3: That's a you're exactly right, you're talking about, you know,
Speaker 3: a pitching seminar. I got to see it up close
Speaker 3: in person, but every day. So again, I was young,
Speaker 3: had an opportunity to go to further education, which my
Speaker 3: mother wanted me to do. I ended up getting to
Speaker 3: junior college instead of a four year school. Texas was
Speaker 3: just going to offer me books and tuition. We couldn't
Speaker 3: afford that. You know, I had to go wherever I
Speaker 3: was gonna go, they were gonna have to pay for everything.
Speaker 3: So I got lucky. There was a man named Wayne Graham,
Speaker 3: who you guys know, who went on to take Rice
Speaker 3: University to a national championship at Omaha, and I got
Speaker 3: to play for another I think Wayne Graham was like
Speaker 3: Don Zimmer, the great bench coach for many teams. He
Speaker 3: was a baseball lifer.
Speaker 1: Coach.
Speaker 3: Graham was a baseball lifer. I don't think he cashed
Speaker 3: a check outside the game of baseball, and so I
Speaker 3: got to play for him, a lot of learning lessons
Speaker 3: with him. I got drafted. My mother said I would
Speaker 3: I had the opportunity to go to Texas. Coach Cliff
Speaker 3: Gustison came hunting me down again, and this time it
Speaker 3: was a full scolar ship to go to Texas and
Speaker 3: get into business school. So my mother again loved that.
Speaker 3: And and like you said, it kind of started there.
Speaker 3: I grew two inches to six four. Uh. We didn't
Speaker 3: have a baseball lifting program. We lifted with the football guys.
Speaker 3: So my legs got tremendous, they got strong, My fastball
Speaker 3: jumped to about ninety five and kind of the rest
Speaker 3: is history. As they say, we lost to Miami. Uh.
Speaker 3: You know, coach Gus Cliff Guston at the time was
Speaker 3: the winningest coach at that point in college baseball history.
Speaker 3: My boys, my two younger boys, Casey and Cody, got
Speaker 3: to play for another wonderful coach, Augie Garrito. And so
Speaker 3: these are these are great baseball men. When you and
Speaker 3: you guys have the opportunity to go sit down and
Speaker 3: talk to like Slosh, like you said earlier, just great
Speaker 3: baseball minds, great baseball men and really care about their players,
Speaker 3: and it means a lot. It's no different than jumping
Speaker 3: ahead when I talked tell people about, you know, playing
Speaker 3: for somebody like Joe Tory. When I was with the Yankees,
Speaker 3: Joe got fired five times before we got him. I
Speaker 3: think the headlines when the Yankees got him said that
Speaker 3: instead of shoeless Joe, clueless Joe.
Speaker 1: And but what, I'll be honest with your rocket. That's
Speaker 1: the one thing I'd never understood. Yeah, you know you've
Speaker 1: You've opened up so many doors and pathways for us
Speaker 1: to go down. I'm sorry. I just never understood the
Speaker 1: firing of a manager who one year gets fired and
Speaker 1: two years later he's Manager of the Year. Like the guys,
Speaker 1: the guy has never changed. But for the purpose of
Speaker 1: what we're doing here tonight, we have questions that come
Speaker 1: in from our teammates here, all specific related to their players,
Speaker 1: and they come from parents. The first one that I
Speaker 1: want to ask you comes from an anonymous teammate who
Speaker 1: just says, how do you think your son's journey to
Speaker 1: the majors has been different than yours? Can you even
Speaker 1: compare the two?
Speaker 3: Great question and easy answer. He Cody my youngest one
Speaker 3: still with the Twins, and he rubs it and I've
Speaker 3: already he said, I've already done two things in the
Speaker 3: Major's Dad, that you'll never do. I hit a home
Speaker 3: run at Penway Park, and uh, and I struck out
Speaker 3: Otani and I said, yeah, that's that's that. That kind
Speaker 3: of put me out of place. You know, back in Texas,
Speaker 3: my numbers retired, and I was really high up on
Speaker 3: the totem pole until Casey and Cody came along and
Speaker 3: and we're all Americans and uh, and went to the
Speaker 3: College World Series. They kind of knocked Poppy Rocket. I'm
Speaker 3: Poppy Rocket with the grand Boys now, so they kind
Speaker 3: of knocked me down a couple of notches. But uh yeah,
Speaker 3: I just kind of stay out of his way, even
Speaker 3: even if it wasn't my son. And uh, you know,
Speaker 3: all my sons played, they played at extremely high level. Uh,
Speaker 3: but you know, I stay out of Cody's way. He's
Speaker 3: a professional hitter. He loves the game. Well, his baseball
Speaker 3: i Q is off the chart. I mean, uh, you
Speaker 3: know there's more to this going to the plate and
Speaker 3: and running a pitch and trying to hunt a pitch
Speaker 3: down and hit or his fielding or whatever he's doing.
Speaker 3: There'll be certain times I'll just you know, he might
Speaker 3: be zero for three and have hit three balls on
Speaker 3: the nose, but he made two. Great he was. You know,
Speaker 3: Cody's mainly a second baseman, but he's a hybrid. He
Speaker 3: can play third, first corner, outfields, but he made like
Speaker 3: two or three game saving picks at first base. And
Speaker 3: I would just text him, love the way you're swinging
Speaker 3: the bat. I love your defense even more so as
Speaker 3: a pitcher, and I remind you, I remind him and
Speaker 3: his outfielders if there's a ball that I've thrown in
Speaker 3: a hit or hits and it stays in the air
Speaker 3: three seconds, it has to be caught. At your level,
Speaker 3: at your professional level, that ball has to be caught.
Speaker 3: So and then all of his pitchers are coming to
Speaker 3: me and wanting to see that bad boy that split
Speaker 3: hanger on my there. That's a lot of people are asking,
Speaker 3: is that you know in spring training, I want to
Speaker 3: see three of my teams and most of the time,
Speaker 3: now the pitchers that I talked to, that's you know,
Speaker 3: change ups dating. But some of them have a hard
Speaker 3: time throwing that change up, so we h it's it's funny.
Speaker 3: They go back to the split finger where they want
Speaker 3: to see exactly how I hold a split So I
Speaker 3: show them with the split finger. It's not a fork ball.
Speaker 3: It's not jammed all the way back there. Some of
Speaker 3: the guys are hooking the scene.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: The only thing about hooking a scene, when you're throwing
Speaker 3: that split it comes out a little bit like a knuckleball.
Speaker 3: Hitters are able to spot that pretty quick. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: we visit with them reve you know, anytime. And and
Speaker 3: like you know, Justin was talking about earlier, these guys
Speaker 3: there's a lot of information. You don't want to overload them,
Speaker 3: but you want to stay on point with the information
Speaker 3: you're getting giving it to them. And uh, I think
Speaker 3: they enjoy I think they enjoy it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And Roger, that brings me to this, like in
Speaker 2: all of that, right, there's so much data, so much information. Uh,
Speaker 2: you know, Todd asked the question that I want to
Speaker 2: I want to get to about keeping it light on
Speaker 2: the mound. So what's your favorite memory or advice as
Speaker 2: Todd asked for MOUM visit for kids to.
Speaker 4: Keep it light and fun.
Speaker 2: Do you have anything that comes to mind on some
Speaker 2: visits that you had over your career.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean when you're talking about a young I
Speaker 3: try and tell the dads that are really really into it,
Speaker 3: you know, it's command's during the game, and just understand
Speaker 3: a twelve year old fielding a you know pretty good
Speaker 3: hit ground ball at him at third base. When we're
Speaker 3: sitting in our losses, I mean as parents or on
Speaker 3: the you know, the the metal benches, they're watching the game,
Speaker 3: and that kid hits that ball down to your kid
Speaker 3: at third base. It looks real methodical to us. I mean,
Speaker 3: it looks like it's kate.
Speaker 1: But you don't.
Speaker 3: You can't believe how fast it is for that twelve
Speaker 3: year old. He's still trying to process that. And maybe
Speaker 3: make your mental note as a parent or write it down,
Speaker 3: and then when you get in the vehicle to go
Speaker 3: home or to go get your sandwich afterwards or in
Speaker 3: between game, maybe visit there and just and really understand
Speaker 3: that the kid. You know, I want to get my
Speaker 3: eight year old, nine year old, twelve year old, fourteen
Speaker 3: year old, I want to get him to high school healthy.
Speaker 3: I don't know what was it, probably eight ten years
Speaker 3: ago we went down to Birmingham. Doctor James Andrews, one
Speaker 3: of the best orthopedics in the if not the best,
Speaker 3: and Doc We myself and Charles Barkley and Smoltz went
Speaker 3: to Birmingham, Alabama to give Doc a Lifetime Achievement award,
Speaker 3: and I thought it was stunning. I wasn't surprised, and
Speaker 3: I shouldn't have been. But Doc said that he was
Speaker 3: doing more Tommy john on fourteen and fifteen year old
Speaker 3: kids than he ever had in his career. And so
Speaker 3: that's why I really preach these guys. You know, sometimes
Speaker 3: you might want to set the ball down instead of
Speaker 3: playing all year round and again, really take care of
Speaker 3: yourself when you're you know, when you're talking about a
Speaker 3: kid that that that that's young, you know, twelve years old.
Speaker 3: So it's so important to again know the kids, even
Speaker 3: if he's a youngster. I can go back again to
Speaker 3: Joe Tory. What Joe did. He was obviously a great manager.
Speaker 3: We had great players, we had an all star at
Speaker 3: every position. But he what he did, he he was
Speaker 3: he handled our personality. He did that famously, handle handling
Speaker 3: our personality. He knew my personality, he knew that I
Speaker 3: had a little bit of a football mentality on the
Speaker 3: mound and uh and to be able to control that.
Speaker 3: It was very obviously, as you guys know, I was
Speaker 3: very serious about my work, how I prepared. And then
Speaker 3: in the locker room, I I you know, I was
Speaker 3: called back out of retirement by Brian Cashman just to
Speaker 3: bring some fun and light moments in the locker room.
Speaker 3: You know, I like to uh, you know, I don't.
Speaker 3: I think you guys know some some of us been
Speaker 3: out there, but I like, I actually am a DJ.
Speaker 3: I've been doing DJ events. I'm DJ. No request, I
Speaker 3: play what I want to play on the music million.
Speaker 3: Yeah you can sing to man. I hey, and I
Speaker 3: got this KJAMS program. I love it. And uh we
Speaker 3: do a little singing and uh get the guys singing
Speaker 3: a little bit. So I get ready to do it again.
Speaker 3: We'll have a dinner or end up in my buddy's
Speaker 3: place down there in Dia Monte and Cabo and we'll
Speaker 3: have some good It's a great way to kill her out.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I like anyway, I do know this though,
Speaker 1: you I mean, you could get a little warm when
Speaker 1: you're on the mound. So so to the question, was
Speaker 1: there anybody who could lighten the mood for you when
Speaker 1: they realized, like we're losing the rocket. I mean, he's
Speaker 1: just he's off right now. Was there anybody that could
Speaker 1: lighten it? Or was that not something that they realized,
Speaker 1: like we're not doing that. He just stay in his lane.
Speaker 3: Now, the guys are all pretty good. I mean when
Speaker 3: you what comes to mind is when when maybe somebody
Speaker 3: boots the ball behind me and then instead of them
Speaker 3: having to answer questions to the media, I know, if
Speaker 3: I can strike this guy out or get him out
Speaker 3: and so my guy doesn't have to answer to that.
Speaker 3: You know, your teammates really, uh receive that extremely well.
Speaker 3: Light moments would be I mean I tease the guys
Speaker 3: now because I get on. You know, I didn't want to,
Speaker 3: you know, you don't want to go hey back when
Speaker 3: I played or this or that. But some of these
Speaker 3: cats are only going four or five innings. And you remember,
Speaker 3: you know, I had the same question asked when I
Speaker 3: was out there the pitching coach you come. You know,
Speaker 3: he'd hear me grunting or I'm you know, getting one
Speaker 3: hundred and twenty pitch area and we're trying to finish
Speaker 3: the game. I mean, we were trying to you know,
Speaker 3: I think one yard. I had thirty two starts, eighteen
Speaker 3: complete games, and if either one of you were my
Speaker 3: pitching coach and you came out in the sixth inning
Speaker 3: like you were going to take me out, I had
Speaker 3: the ball tuck underneath my armpit and like, what the
Speaker 3: heck are you doing out here? Get back in the dugout,
Speaker 3: you know, get back in the dugout. I want to
Speaker 3: finish this thing.
Speaker 1: So, uh, I've heard great story some starters. I'm sure
Speaker 1: you do the same thing. I've heard stories from starters
Speaker 1: who who saw the manager come out the starting pitcher
Speaker 1: would look over his over his shoulder and say, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, you're telling me you're taking me out to
Speaker 1: bring that guy in, Like that's not going to happen,
Speaker 1: and you seem like the ideal guy to do that.
Speaker 1: Here's another one, Rocket and your foundation. Your foundation is
Speaker 1: phenomenal and it does help underprivileged kids. So the question
Speaker 1: comes from another one of our teammates. Any advice for
Speaker 1: players and families who don't have access to the best resources.
Speaker 1: What should they do?
Speaker 3: Oh man, there's plenty of there's plenty of Hey, I learned,
Speaker 3: I learned how to pitch. My mom got me a
Speaker 3: pitch back. Oh yeah, a little screen. She brought me
Speaker 3: a pitchback. I have it for my twin grandboys that
Speaker 3: are nine years old, and have them. Have them throw
Speaker 3: their ball into that little square on the pitch back
Speaker 3: and it bounces back to them. I tell them, hey, Poppy,
Speaker 3: this how Poppy learned how to Grandma got him one
Speaker 3: of these when when I was nine, and I wore
Speaker 3: that thing out. And so, yeah, you don't have to
Speaker 3: have the best hitting coaches. I mean I looked at
Speaker 3: like I said, we didn't have videos. So I looked
Speaker 3: at eight x ten photos of where Tom Siver was
Speaker 3: kicking his leg up to and maybe another still shot
Speaker 3: of his delivery getting out over his front knee. The
Speaker 3: proper way, the proper way. That's the first I checked.
Speaker 3: I checked big league guy's grips to see where they're at,
Speaker 3: if they're off center, or where they're at on the baseball.
Speaker 3: The proper way to hold the two seamer or the
Speaker 3: cross seamer. Details, man, it's it's it's about details. Then
Speaker 3: it comes down to I tell him how fortunate you
Speaker 3: are even to be playing. I said, you should never
Speaker 3: get out, hustle, take zero talent to hustle zero. We
Speaker 3: have a children's wing down here with my name on it,
Speaker 3: and there's two little guys down there. One of them's
Speaker 3: missing his foot, one of them's missing his hands. He
Speaker 3: would love to be at home plate and take a
Speaker 3: swing and hit a dribbler dribbler back to the picture
Speaker 3: and run like Derek Jeter with chalk coming off the
Speaker 3: bottom of his shoes down to first base. So it
Speaker 3: takes zero zero talent talent to hustle. Have the kids
Speaker 3: make sure they're paying attention. I have no problem with
Speaker 3: a physical physical mistake, a guy laying out for a
Speaker 3: ball farm me missing it and the guy getting a triple.
Speaker 3: But if if you're if you're missing a cutoff man,
Speaker 3: and you're you're not paying attention out there, then then
Speaker 3: we got a problem.
Speaker 1: That's great.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's awesome.
Speaker 2: And Roger, I'm gonna you know, twentieth anniversary right of
Speaker 2: your twenty twenty K performance.
Speaker 3: Uh performance forty forty all.
Speaker 4: Right, sorry, forty forty years I wish it was. You're
Speaker 4: older than that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's there, it is right there, forty years ago, man,
Speaker 2: twenty K performance. I want to ask you man there's
Speaker 2: a there's a backstory behind that that I had never
Speaker 2: heard until in the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 4: A lot of people don't know that.
Speaker 2: You don't have to rehash the whole story, but yeah,
Speaker 2: fascinating to hear that you were almost late to the
Speaker 2: You were late to the ballpark.
Speaker 3: I was late. I was late.
Speaker 4: You dive into that. Man, that's a wild story.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Let me give a little shout out to my
Speaker 3: Red Sox too. They're doing an anniversary Bibblehead. They have
Speaker 3: a Bibblehead Day coming up this month, and it was
Speaker 3: really cool. Instead of doing it on the actual date,
Speaker 3: they moved it back to when the Minnesota Twins are
Speaker 3: in Boston, So my youngest one's going to be there,
Speaker 3: Cody with the twins, so it's going to where the family,
Speaker 3: everybody's going up. So it's going to be a fun
Speaker 3: couple of days. Yeah. Man, I was doing my routine.
Speaker 3: You know, the game started at seven thirty five back there,
Speaker 3: and I usually like getting to the ballpark around six,
Speaker 3: about an hour and a half before showtime. I liked
Speaker 3: getting there and going right into my routine and making
Speaker 3: things happen. And the reason I say that there's other
Speaker 3: pictures that for seven or seven thirty game. They'll get
Speaker 3: there two o'clock and play solitaire and look at stats
Speaker 3: and the media stuff, and you know, they'll sweat through
Speaker 3: two T shirts, you know, worrying about the game sometimes.
Speaker 3: But I liked to getting there and getting underway. Well,
Speaker 3: I got stuck in traffic on store drive. There was
Speaker 3: actually a concert going on at the Boston Commons, and
Speaker 3: I totally missed out and forgot that the Celtics had
Speaker 3: a playoff game, So the traffic was a mess. Wasn't
Speaker 3: moving in traffic at all. It was kind of panicing
Speaker 3: a little bit. Had boots, jeans, and a golf shirt on.
Speaker 3: I knew I had running shoes in the trunk of
Speaker 3: my vehicle, and I could see the sit CO sign,
Speaker 3: so I knew I couldn't be more than a mile,
Speaker 3: maybe a mile and a half. And now the clock
Speaker 3: is ticking, so I jump out. I jump out and
Speaker 3: rip my boots off, put my running shoes on. I'm
Speaker 3: going to run. And a Boston police officer saw me,
Speaker 3: and he freaked out that I wasn't that I was,
Speaker 3: you know, I wasn't at the game. He knew I
Speaker 3: was pitching and he kind of split the sea. And
Speaker 3: I get there and get through the clubhouse door at
Speaker 3: about seven seven to ten. And when I came through
Speaker 3: the clubhouse door, all the vet you know, Jim Rice,
Speaker 3: Dwight Evans hers, Yeah, they're looking at me like, you know,
Speaker 3: you rookie. You know, they're they're ready to light into me.
Speaker 3: And my pitching coach brought me in the manager's office
Speaker 3: and they said, we've already scratched you from the start.
Speaker 3: We got a long man warming up. And I said, no, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: We're not doing this. I'm not answering to that. And
Speaker 3: so I went and dressed in a phone booth.
Speaker 1: Hold on one second, just hang on one second. What
Speaker 1: you as a as a kid, the authority to say no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we're not doing that.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know. I don't know that. You know,
Speaker 3: obviously didn't have any clout, but uh I just I
Speaker 3: just don't have anything to do with it. And uh,
Speaker 3: I said, this is not going to work. So I've
Speaker 3: never seen my fish had to be in the sixties
Speaker 3: and and you know it's a pretty good jump from
Speaker 3: the boat the Red Sox dugout to the bullpend. So
Speaker 3: we hauled booty all the way out there. Running out there,
Speaker 3: I warmed up. It was terrible warm up on bouncing
Speaker 3: balls and everything got a temple headache. The only piece
Speaker 3: the two minutes to breathe was during the anthem. And
Speaker 3: then I went out there against the Mariners and and
Speaker 3: they kept the guy warming up down there. The long
Speaker 3: fish said, he ain't he hasn't thrown a strike yet.
Speaker 3: He's not getting out the first in. We'll just leave
Speaker 3: this guy, you know, keep our long man hot, and
Speaker 3: the rest is history. Man, I started turning it loose
Speaker 3: and it was jumping, and the Red Sox said it
Speaker 3: was the most I had no idea about a strikeout
Speaker 3: record either until they on the board they put the
Speaker 3: Red Sox record.
Speaker 1: Yes, Billy Monboquette, you never knew that until that night.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. The books, Yeah, yeah, So I.
Speaker 2: Want to ask you on this. I want to ask
Speaker 2: you on this. This is one of my like the
Speaker 2: biggest questions I have of all that. You know, it's
Speaker 2: it's such a routine practice for pictures, right, especially nowadays,
Speaker 2: to have everything that they do to line up to
Speaker 2: make sure that they are ready to go right, I mean,
Speaker 2: and that's that's just the way it is.
Speaker 4: What what gave you the mindset?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 2: What what brought you to this mental point of having
Speaker 2: that sort of elite mindset where you can flush all
Speaker 2: that behind you? Man, go have a terrible bullpen, probably
Speaker 2: not even fully warmed up, and go out there and
Speaker 2: do that. What what do you attribute that to you?
Speaker 2: And what can you pass along from that now?
Speaker 4: College?
Speaker 3: Yeah, having a great routine. It was the three or
Speaker 3: four days before, so I did everything that I need
Speaker 3: to do to get ready for that start. So that's that.
Speaker 3: That's the easiest part. I tell one of my one
Speaker 3: of my great lines, and it holds true. It's true,
Speaker 3: and they actually have it in our our pitching Clint
Speaker 3: Pitching Lab, whatever you want to call it, at the
Speaker 3: University of Texas and a couple of the other stadiums
Speaker 3: have it underneath the stadium. One of my saying is
Speaker 3: my only day off was the day I pitched, And
Speaker 3: that that held true because you know, all the work
Speaker 3: that I've done before, I know leading up that I'm
Speaker 3: ready to go at that point, and I might not
Speaker 3: have my best stuff, but once I get on the
Speaker 3: main mound, the crowd gets into it, you know, then
Speaker 3: then you get on times and again, being a power pitcher,
Speaker 3: I feel I can win if my arm is quote
Speaker 3: underwater where I'm throwing ninety one ninety two, which I
Speaker 3: had some of my best games where I just wound
Speaker 3: up and played pitching catch with the with with my
Speaker 3: pitch with my catcher. Had some wonderful catchers. Man. I
Speaker 3: hear from them all the time during these They'll text
Speaker 3: me or call me during these these uh, you know
Speaker 3: record games that I had over my career, and oh
Speaker 3: a lot of them. And my pitching coaches for watching
Speaker 3: my hot points on the mound, so you know, they
Speaker 3: would whistle from the dugout. They didn't have to come
Speaker 3: out to me. And when they would stay they would
Speaker 3: they would say something like, hey, your chin, you're drifting.
Speaker 3: I had hot points where I wanted to you know,
Speaker 3: the first half of my career in the major leagues,
Speaker 3: we had, uh there was no really height requirements on
Speaker 3: the mountd You could have fifteen sixteen eighteen inch mounds.
Speaker 3: I mean we go on to Baltimore and that mound
Speaker 3: was giant because they had a bunch of breaking ball guys.
Speaker 3: Palmer h yeah, well yeah, and a bunch of breaking ball,
Speaker 3: but now there's supposed to be about eleven inches, so
Speaker 3: the dropping drive days are over. You want to feel tall,
Speaker 3: whether you're five five or six five, you want to
Speaker 3: feel tall and you want to create angles, work downhill.
Speaker 3: I would love the current strike zone right now where
Speaker 3: they do it. They pinch you east and west, but
Speaker 3: north and south is beautiful because you can feature the
Speaker 3: high fastball and then of course a devastating split down
Speaker 3: in the bottom of the zone that would would make
Speaker 3: it really nice. But you know, you just rocket.
Speaker 1: Your point is so is so valuable, especially to parents
Speaker 1: and these kids, is that you know, look, if you're
Speaker 1: in school, you don't begin to prerare for the test
Speaker 1: the morning of the test. You have to prepare for
Speaker 1: the test days in advance. You were prepared for that
Speaker 1: twenty strikeout night because of what you did four and
Speaker 1: five days before, and you talked about the routine. And
Speaker 1: sometimes you have to be able to deal with things
Speaker 1: that you don't anticipate, like that night along those lines
Speaker 1: for parents of kids when things don't go right as
Speaker 1: a team. We get a question from Adam, one of
Speaker 1: our teammates, who says, and you remember this really well
Speaker 1: and Chris Burke remember it really well. But your zero
Speaker 1: five Astros team started twenty three and thirty five made
Speaker 1: it to the series. So how do the club house
Speaker 1: stay invested despite the slow start? Little leaguers, high school players,
Speaker 1: college players. As you said, you're going to suck. Your
Speaker 1: team's gonna suck. How do you keep everybody together, you know,
Speaker 1: pulling in the same direction. What'd you notice about that
Speaker 1: awesome question?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's you. It's definitely your teammates. I mean,
Speaker 3: when it comes down to it, it's not your managers
Speaker 3: and coaches. They're putting you in pretty good situation to succeed.
Speaker 3: You know, your roles as relievers when you're going to
Speaker 3: come in. I think anything in baseball, you know, when
Speaker 3: you talk about even in football NFL defense, they say
Speaker 3: wins championships, you got to catch the ball and you
Speaker 3: got to throw the ball. In the major leagues, like
Speaker 3: I tell them, right now, our relievers are getting taxed
Speaker 3: already because the starters are only going four or five innings.
Speaker 3: I think you know better than I would. You could
Speaker 3: look at we could look it up when we when
Speaker 3: we get down to nitty gritty, But I think the
Speaker 3: last four or five World Series teams on a twenty
Speaker 3: six man roster. I think these over fifty pl lot
Speaker 3: of starting pitchers, but even more so relievers came up
Speaker 3: and down. You have guys Dodgers.
Speaker 1: Right away at the team that jump. The Dodgers are
Speaker 1: doing it again this year. Rocket, the Dodgers using you there.
Speaker 3: There's there's there's guys in triple A right now that
Speaker 3: don't know it, but they're going to be in a
Speaker 3: World Series game in a massive moment and they're they're
Speaker 3: sitting in Triple A somewhere right now. So you you
Speaker 3: got to stay ready. You got to stay ready.
Speaker 1: Somebody told me Rocket because you were a power pitcher.
Speaker 1: But they also told me that you used to have
Speaker 1: a case for your glove that you would have a
Speaker 1: softball in so you could blow up your gloves so
Speaker 1: no one would know whether you're throwing a fastball or
Speaker 1: a split finger. Is that true? Uh? And and what
Speaker 1: led you to a decision like that? What should the
Speaker 1: kids be doing so they're not giving stuff away?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So I make it real simple with prayer position,
Speaker 3: where you go where your hands are in prayer positions.
Speaker 3: Some guys, the reason why we went over our head
Speaker 3: a guy like Nolan orceivers because our your chin comes
Speaker 3: down you you don't drift and you're not a mitt.
Speaker 3: If you're a MIT looker, you can't drift with your chin.
Speaker 3: That's you'll have a power outage. So it's really important
Speaker 3: and I would look down in the dirt, but I'm
Speaker 3: setting myself to deliver that pitch. As far as my
Speaker 3: gloves go, yes, I went through about four gloves h
Speaker 3: every season and uh, they were big glove obviously where
Speaker 3: I had my hand back in the day before they
Speaker 3: some of the some of the guys had gloves and
Speaker 3: you would know them. They'd have a on the outside
Speaker 3: of the glove. They would have another piece of leather
Speaker 3: where they could hide their pointer finger in there. And
Speaker 3: the reason they did that because we would catch guys.
Speaker 3: Now in Boston, I had two of the best sign
Speaker 3: if you if you gave your pitches up on the mound.
Speaker 3: I had two guys, Marty Barrett and Dwight Evans, studied
Speaker 3: pitchers and it got me to really to the point
Speaker 3: where I really started studying pictures and watching them closely.
Speaker 3: And when we talked about practicing perfect when you get
Speaker 3: in a high pressure situation, you're gonna go to your
Speaker 3: bad habits. Now, we had two or three pitchers that
Speaker 3: would come set, and they had to come set to
Speaker 3: get their fast crazy they would have about their nose,
Speaker 3: but to get their breaking ball, they would come and
Speaker 3: they would touch the bill of their hat almost. It
Speaker 3: was like a two or three inch difference. And if
Speaker 3: you're doing that in the majors, we got you. It's
Speaker 3: going to make a two eighty hitter a three eighty hitter.
Speaker 3: The other thing I was talking about, we had a
Speaker 3: guy that on opposing team and very famous pitcher. You
Speaker 3: guys would know him. And when he threw his fastball,
Speaker 3: he went over his head and he has nothing happened
Speaker 3: with his fingers, his finger, his pointer fingers outside of
Speaker 3: his glove. When he threw his curveball, for some reason,
Speaker 3: that point finger would go up, and so we got
Speaker 3: we got, we got you. So once he found that out,
Speaker 3: that's where those leather pieces came to hide your glove. Now, you.
Speaker 1: Stuff, you wanted no one to know anything.
Speaker 3: And the reason and the reason and the reason, man,
Speaker 3: is because when I had that glove wide open, we
Speaker 3: had other guys on other teams that had real flimsy
Speaker 3: almost kind of cheap gloves, and when they would throw
Speaker 3: fastball would be here, and when they're going to get
Speaker 3: their change up, they'd go way in their glove. It
Speaker 3: would fan like a jellyfish, and so you'd see their
Speaker 3: glove open up. So there's a lot of things going on,
Speaker 3: right I mean, if you even seasoned coaches when we
Speaker 3: sit down have round table talks like we're having right
Speaker 3: now on your show. Uh, they're they're like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: I didn't even think about that. I did. I can't
Speaker 3: believe that you're even saying that. So so yeah, here's
Speaker 3: a good one.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing I know about Rocket. Rocket was pitching
Speaker 1: for the Astros and somebody fouled a splitter off. He
Speaker 1: would tell Pettitt, get over here. I need you down
Speaker 1: here right now. You explain what I'm doing. What am
Speaker 1: I tipping? Because there's no way anybody should know that
Speaker 1: a splitter is coming, and they should never put a
Speaker 1: bat on it, right, you know.
Speaker 3: And you a hundred percent, and you know what it was.
Speaker 3: I had a long sleep, I had a long sleeve
Speaker 3: shirt on and it was covered right here, and this
Speaker 3: would be the one I had with a baseball in
Speaker 3: my hand long sleeve shirt with this. Well, when I
Speaker 3: had my glove on and I had to throw a fastball,
Speaker 3: you wouldn't see agin. You wouldn't see any skin. And
Speaker 3: then when I get my it, you would see more skin.
Speaker 3: And so that's why I didn't care. From that point on,
Speaker 3: I didn't care how cold it was. I pitched and
Speaker 3: cut off sleep. I cut my sleeves off about it
Speaker 3: at my elbow.
Speaker 4: Now we know you so interesting? I like it.
Speaker 3: Somebody, Yeah, somebody makes an adjustment. You have to make
Speaker 3: an adjustment, and they're going to take away in the
Speaker 3: big leagues. They're going to take away what you do best.
Speaker 3: So like a young kid, a young kid, if you've
Speaker 3: got two fastballs, use it. You use it. And I like,
Speaker 3: I tell the kid when on your way on your
Speaker 3: journey up. When you get to the big leagues, you've
Speaker 3: seen ninety seven ninety eight mile and everybody throws one hundred,
Speaker 3: by the way, but you've seen ninety eight mile and
Speaker 3: hour fastballs. You've seen devastating two seemers, you've seen great curveballs.
Speaker 3: You've seen now what they call a sweeper, which is
Speaker 3: a which is basically a slur. The only thing that
Speaker 3: you're going to see in the big leagues that you
Speaker 3: haven't seen on your way up. You're going to face
Speaker 3: a couple of guys like myself or Pedro that can
Speaker 3: throw a change up anytime they want, or I can
Speaker 3: throw my split at any time. A guy's on third,
Speaker 3: he's a big time hit. I mean, I think Pools
Speaker 3: one time I threw him. I might have thrown him
Speaker 3: to get him out. Man on third, one out, I
Speaker 3: think I might have thrown him six straight split fingered fastballs.
Speaker 3: I say, this guy's either going to hit it or
Speaker 3: he's not. I'm not giving into this guy at all
Speaker 3: right now. He's a professional hitter. So yeah, and you've
Speaker 3: been back then, that's when they were jail. That's you back.
Speaker 1: That's the hours, Roger. Everybody throws a hundred. There's another
Speaker 1: question here, and you, I mean, I know you saw this.
Speaker 1: So the miss Jacob Mizerowski's throwing one hundred and three
Speaker 1: miles an hour? Do you ever think we'd see somebody
Speaker 1: do that like what he did the other night? Does
Speaker 1: it surprise you how far we've come? Is it good
Speaker 1: that he's doing that?
Speaker 3: When I see somebody throwing one hundred miles an hour
Speaker 3: or better, Rebbie, I look at their mechanics, and their
Speaker 3: mechanics are beautiful. Last year when they asked ros are
Speaker 3: talking about trades or possibly be getting some people, Griff
Speaker 3: my two guys that I told them to look at
Speaker 3: that I loved, And obviously I got to see Griffin
Speaker 3: Jacks because he was pitching in Minnesota for Cody just
Speaker 3: fantastic mechanics. Would be a guy that might not knock
Speaker 3: on wood, you know, have an elbow issues, shoulder issue
Speaker 3: because he has such great mechanics. And then my favorite
Speaker 3: is Mason Miller. He's a hundred and two. He's one
Speaker 3: hundred and one hundred and two, looks like he could
Speaker 3: go to one hundred and six with his mechanics, with
Speaker 3: his fastball and just a devastating slider. Their mechanics are
Speaker 3: so important. Now you have skeins in a couple of
Speaker 3: these big boys. He has a lower half that can
Speaker 3: hopefully save his shoulder and arm as he gets older.
Speaker 3: There's been other guys the same size to him that
Speaker 3: when they came set on the mound, they came set
Speaker 3: fifty to fifty on their lower half. You never want
Speaker 3: to be fifty to fifty when you come set, because
Speaker 3: then you have to rock back to deliver, and when
Speaker 3: you come out you lead with your elbow. For instance,
Speaker 3: I was probably I pitched. I was probably towards the
Speaker 3: end of my career. I gained about a pound a
Speaker 3: year through my twenty four years, so I was probably
Speaker 3: six four to two thirty five, two thirty eight something
Speaker 3: like that. When I came set in the stretch position
Speaker 3: or when I turned in the wind up position throw,
Speaker 3: I probably had eighty percent of my weight on my
Speaker 3: back leg, twenty percent on my front. That way that
Speaker 3: leg comes up, the quad comes up super easy. I
Speaker 3: can deliver ball home plate when I come set eighty twenty.
Speaker 3: I can. Even as big as I am, I can
Speaker 3: still turn and be athletic trying to pick a guy
Speaker 3: off first again. And I don't know if he's listening
Speaker 3: or if you'll ever see this, but he knows. One
Speaker 3: of the best closers, the best closer in the history
Speaker 3: of the game. MARIOO watched Mo when he came set,
Speaker 3: he was almost ninety ten. His front foot would tap
Speaker 3: coming back to get set. It almost looked like he
Speaker 3: had a piece of glass in his shoe or something,
Speaker 3: and he was an athlete. I mean he could cover
Speaker 3: first base. He would come set ninety ten on his leg,
Speaker 3: quad comes up and boom.
Speaker 1: Boom, He's gone a couple of quick things there before
Speaker 1: I let you go here. All right, So on dirt
Speaker 1: from the dugout, we throw the kitchen sink at our guests,
Speaker 1: which means four random questions that don't have much to
Speaker 1: do with baseball, but they can be connected to it.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna fight off the kitchen stake. First question,
Speaker 1: is your favorite teammate you ever played with?
Speaker 3: Too many? I couldn't even I couldn't even tell you
Speaker 3: too many. But when you asked the question. The main
Speaker 3: reason why I wanted to make it to the big
Speaker 3: leagues once I got drafted so fast, I wanted to
Speaker 3: pitch against it and face Reggie Jackson, and I was
Speaker 3: able to do that. He was a California Angel.
Speaker 1: Awesome. All right, there you go. I was going to
Speaker 1: ask you the most difficult hitter that you had to face.
Speaker 3: Great question, and it's the contact, the big, big power
Speaker 3: guy swinging for the fences. I just got to keep
Speaker 3: it out of their little honey hole, the little contact guys.
Speaker 3: I don't want to get in the twelve pitch at
Speaker 3: bat with you, or then I'm not making it to
Speaker 3: the eighth inning.
Speaker 1: All right, we'll use Melanie, who was another teammate of ours.
Speaker 1: She said, this is an easy one as a DJ.
Speaker 1: Most annoying walk up music that you ever heard.
Speaker 3: Well after the seven hundredth and eightieth time at Fenway,
Speaker 3: listened to Sweet Caro lot No, that was a tough one.
Speaker 3: I will tell you this, I will DJ. I closed
Speaker 3: with three songs. I closed with one of the great
Speaker 3: singing song Dancing Queen. Yet, believe it or not, show
Speaker 3: myself side. I played dancing, but I always announced while
Speaker 3: I get ready to play it, guys, it's a couple
Speaker 3: skate only. Please clear the ring. Couple skate only. And
Speaker 3: my second one to give everybody a hint to get
Speaker 3: out of my music room and go home. I play
Speaker 3: closing time. You ain't got to go home, but you
Speaker 3: got to get the you know what out of here.
Speaker 3: So that's kind of a hint to some people. And
Speaker 3: then I always end with the King. I am in
Speaker 3: with Suspicious Minds by Elvis Presley. You always in the King.
Speaker 3: I start my evenings. I start my evenings off with
Speaker 3: one of my favorite friends had been a pal of
Speaker 3: mine for and I'm missing dearly, the great Toby Keith,
Speaker 3: Big dog Dad.
Speaker 1: There you go. Question the last kitchen sing question. Who
Speaker 1: gave you the nickname Rocket? Where did that come from?
Speaker 3: Got it the night of the twenty stre streckout game.
Speaker 3: After the game was over and I was sitting with
Speaker 3: my pitching coach, Bill Fisher, he said, I love that
Speaker 3: you struck out twenty, but I'm more impressed that you
Speaker 3: didn't walk a single batter. And the same and on
Speaker 3: the way out the door, my teammate bruce Hurst, left
Speaker 3: handed pitcher. Bruce Hurst looked at me and said, I
Speaker 3: don't think that you understand that your life just changed tonight.
Speaker 3: And Hursty's the one that gave me the nickname the Rocket,
Speaker 3: And I answered to the Rocket more than I do
Speaker 3: my name.
Speaker 1: That's the Celtics. By the way, you mentioned the Celtics
Speaker 1: on that night that you struck out twenty. And of
Speaker 1: course Danny Ainge and bruce Hurst, as you know, very
Speaker 1: good friends. So that's sort of that tie in. Go ahead, justin.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, we ask everybody this question. MVP.
Speaker 2: We often think most Valuable Player, but we like to
Speaker 2: ask people a most valuable person, Who is the most
Speaker 2: valuable person in your life?
Speaker 3: Growing up, my mother and my grandmother, no contest, valuable people,
Speaker 3: no contest, no contest. They gave me my work at
Speaker 3: and they taught me how to treat people and on
Speaker 3: the waay up. And so it was, you know, it
Speaker 3: was thrill in my lifetime that I was able to
Speaker 3: change the dynamics of my family. I had two brothers,
Speaker 3: three sisters, and I was able to pay my mom's
Speaker 3: town home off and get her a new vehicle so
Speaker 3: she get to work, so she didn't have to worry
Speaker 3: on that. So all the moms out there, we love
Speaker 3: you and thank you for what you've done for all
Speaker 3: of us. Is young ballplayers are on our way up.
Speaker 3: And if you don't make it professionally or to college,
Speaker 3: you've still learned some great life lessons to take with
Speaker 3: you to your workplace.
Speaker 1: Well, you've taught us a lot of great life lessons.
Speaker 1: Tonight we had Roger Clement's MLB Legend. This was a
Speaker 1: legendary class for those that were part of it. We
Speaker 1: really appreciate it. Rocket. We could talk to you for weeks,
Speaker 1: but I look forward to seeing you down the road.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for being here, man, you were outstanding.
Speaker 3: Really thanks, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Appreciate good Roger, Thank care, buddy, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: That's Roger Clemens on Dirt from the Dugout. My god, justin.
Speaker 1: I mean, we literally could break that down for weeks
Speaker 1: and he kind of kept dropping little sieeds of things
Speaker 1: that he experienced. But I know if we go back
Speaker 1: and listen to this, and we will do that, there
Speaker 1: are so many important, insightful things that Roger Clement has
Speaker 1: just shared with us on Dirt from the Dugout, and.
Speaker 4: It was just so good.
Speaker 2: I think as you kind of come off of that,
Speaker 2: there's so many, so many avenues we can go down
Speaker 2: right just to discussion points. But I think your goal,
Speaker 2: you know, when you're watching and listening this is just
Speaker 2: to take away some of the things that relate to you.
Speaker 2: How can you use those in your life to be better?
Speaker 2: Or if you're a player, how can you use those
Speaker 2: things to be better? But man, just so many good
Speaker 2: things and I just love his mindset, man, I mean
Speaker 2: it's just such an elite level mindset. The twenty st
Speaker 2: game forty years ago, I mean so good man, just
Speaker 2: all he wanted was the ball, Like that's it was
Speaker 2: very simple for him. He felt so confident and that's
Speaker 2: not his RAVI The crazy part is that's not his
Speaker 2: fifteenth year in the league.
Speaker 4: Man, Like this is that? I mean, you know, this.
Speaker 2: Is a young kid that goes out and does that.
Speaker 2: That like, that's a special sort of mindset. Man, that
Speaker 2: was one of my big that And as.
Speaker 1: You know, he did it twice. He struck out twenty
Speaker 1: two different times, not just one time. So there's there's
Speaker 1: a very short list. He did it twice. Look, I
Speaker 1: think I think for parents that are part of our
Speaker 1: parent dugout, part of dirt from the dugout, you know,
Speaker 1: the important part of it. And having been around Major
Speaker 1: league parks for thirty years, one thing that stands out
Speaker 1: about guys like Clemens, guys like Randy Johnson, guys like
Speaker 1: Greg Maddox, guys like Kurt Chilling, all of the greats,
Speaker 1: they they will generally outwork anybody. They will never be
Speaker 1: outworked by anybody. So you may not, you know, your
Speaker 1: kid may not end up being six foot four and
Speaker 1: two hundred and thirty pounds, and you know that's a
Speaker 1: physical gift. But he worked for it. You watch their
Speaker 1: preparation pregame. You watch. I thought the most important thing
Speaker 1: he said was when he gets out of the police
Speaker 1: escort and shows up at the park. It's not as
Speaker 1: if I need to begin to prepare with my catcher
Speaker 1: on a scouting report. I have the answers to the test.
Speaker 1: So let me go take the test, because I've prepared
Speaker 1: for this days in advance. I mean, that was amazing.
Speaker 1: His musical choices were unique, which was great. I thought
Speaker 1: we learned a lot about the rocket and the music.
Speaker 1: What an opportunity to have him on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and for.
Speaker 1: The Cody's and the Kobe's and the Corey's and the
Speaker 1: cases who grew up with him. Can you imagine when
Speaker 1: he got on a rant, how many times they they
Speaker 1: were given these these pearls of wisdom, and how many
Speaker 1: times they said, we're good, I'm leaving now, I'm walking
Speaker 1: out of the room. I got it.
Speaker 2: Oh, man, I mean, when you have so much information
Speaker 2: to share, though, have you? I mean I probably feel
Speaker 2: the same way, man, I mean, he's just got so
Speaker 2: much experience. Twenty four Season seven, Cy Young's like, I mean,
Speaker 2: when you come at a conversation with all that and
Speaker 2: you're really passionate about, you know, sharing that knowledge, which
Speaker 2: is what we're all about, right as we kind of
Speaker 2: look at some of those seasons, like, I mean, it's incredible, man.
Speaker 1: I mean, don't strain your eyes on his baseball Baseball
Speaker 1: history page, but a highlighted one is nineteen eighty six,
Speaker 1: which was of course his MVP year. Let alone the
Speaker 1: saw Young the MVP year, how good he was, that
Speaker 1: was the twenty strikeout year. It's crazy, crazy, pretty.
Speaker 4: Wild, man, pretty wild. I mean, awesome conversation, So much
Speaker 4: to take away.
Speaker 2: And obviously when you think about the parent dugout right,
Speaker 2: when you know, you think about getting information from guys
Speaker 2: that have have had such success at such a high level, Rabbi,
Speaker 2: And that's the fun part about these conversations for me,
Speaker 2: is just there's so much, so much information you can
Speaker 2: take away from that stuff.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, man. So we've had Durosa, Mark Deroso, We've
Speaker 1: had Roger Clemens. Can't wait for next week when we're
Speaker 1: gonna have a surefire Hall of Famer and theo Epstein
Speaker 1: who put together and broke two curses, like the Roger
Speaker 1: had two twenty game twenty strackout games, theo Epstein broke
Speaker 1: the Cubs and the Red Sox curse. He knows all
Speaker 1: about your game, scouting, he knows all about recruiting. He's
Speaker 1: a dad. He's going to be such a great guest.
Speaker 1: We look forward to having theo Epstein on next week.
Speaker 1: But boy, I feel like we're two for two to
Speaker 1: start this bad boy off with DeRosa and the Rocket.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what, that's pretty.
Speaker 4: Special, man, Awesome stuff for Rabby.
Speaker 2: I mean, that was great conversation, buddy, and I'm looking
Speaker 2: forward to theo and and so many things we can
Speaker 2: talk about there. Right, just coming in and busting up
Speaker 2: those curses like it, you know, it didn't even matter.
Speaker 4: You know, it's awesome. It's gonna be fun to talk
Speaker 4: to him.
Speaker 1: All right, buddy, We'll see you next week. Thanks again
Speaker 1: to all of our teammates. Please join our growing community
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Speaker 1: You can ask the best baseball folks out there the
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Speaker 1: all about the recruiting process, and it is such a
Speaker 1: critical part of the process. If college is where you
Speaker 1: want your son to end up, you can always ask
Speaker 1: me and justin anything. Direct access to both of us
Speaker 1: with your questions. We'll answer them. And I think one
Speaker 1: of the more valuable parts of the parent dugout is
Speaker 1: clubhouse conversations. Engage with other baseball parents. Talk to them
Speaker 1: about their journeys, ask them the questions, find out what
Speaker 1: you're dealing with and how they dealt with it, and
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Speaker 1: to help get your son to where you want them
Speaker 1: to be. Thanks so much everybody for checking us out
Speaker 1: on dirt from the dugout. We'll see you next week.