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Fundamentals with Ron Washington · Rosters to Rings Podcast

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Rosters Rings. I'm your host, Thad Levine.
0:06
Speaker 1: I'm joined today by two exceptional friends. John Daniels, recurring
0:10
Speaker 1: Rosters to Ring co host, served as the general manager
0:13
Speaker 1: of the Texas Rangers for incredible seventeen seasons and is
0:17
Speaker 1: now serving as a senior advisor for the Tampa Bay Rays.
0:20
Speaker 1: But today our truly special guest is Ron Washington. Wash
0:25
Speaker 1: hails from New Orleans, Louisiana. In nineteen seventy, Wash was
0:29
Speaker 1: invited to be part of the inaugural class of the
0:31
Speaker 1: Kansas City Royals Youth Academy. The Royal Signedwash on July seventeenth,
0:35
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy, to a professional contract. In the next amazing
0:39
Speaker 1: fifty six years, WASH's amassed ten year playing career as
0:43
Speaker 1: a major league player, coached in the minor leagues for
0:46
Speaker 1: five seasons for the Mets, had an amazing run as
0:49
Speaker 1: a third based and infield coach for the Oakland A's,
0:51
Speaker 1: spent eight remarkable seasons as the manager of the Texas Rangers.
0:55
Speaker 1: Wash returned to the third base coaching box and helped
0:57
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Braves return to dominance for seven seasons before
1:01
Speaker 1: being named the manager of the Anaheim Angels and now
1:04
Speaker 1: washers as the infield coach for the San Francisco Giants.
1:08
Speaker 1: Wash is the embodiment of a baseball lifer. He spent
1:11
Speaker 1: his entire adult life pouring his wisdom, enthusiasm, and love
1:15
Speaker 1: of the game to everyone that he touches. He is
1:18
Speaker 1: a national baseball treasure who is universally beloved. Wash, Welcome
1:22
Speaker 1: to roster's to rings.
1:24
Speaker 2: Thank you that that was some kind of introduction. I
1:28
Speaker 2: didn't know I had that much on my resume. Thank
1:32
Speaker 2: you for reminding me. I go through every day for
1:34
Speaker 2: the day that it is, and sometimes when I hit
1:37
Speaker 2: things like you just quoted and say it, it makes
1:40
Speaker 2: you feel good about where you are in life, and
1:42
Speaker 2: I feel good about it.
1:44
Speaker 1: You should, Wash, You've touched so many lives, ours for sure,
1:48
Speaker 1: and we're going to talk about a lot of the
1:49
Speaker 1: other people whose lives you've touched along the way here
1:51
Speaker 1: in our conversation Wash, our tradition on this shows we
1:55
Speaker 1: ask everyone who comes on to tell us how they
1:57
Speaker 1: fell in love with sports as a kid. What was
1:59
Speaker 1: your for origin passion story?
2:02
Speaker 2: Well, I come from a family of ten, eight of
2:05
Speaker 2: them was boys, So we lived in a project. We
2:09
Speaker 2: had to find ways to get outside, and that's how
2:13
Speaker 2: I fell in love with sports, just going from court
2:17
Speaker 2: to court in the project, performing and that's how you
2:22
Speaker 2: learn how to compete, how you learned how to really
2:25
Speaker 2: take care of yourself when you living in the project.
2:28
Speaker 2: So that's where it all begin right there. And every
2:32
Speaker 2: day I wanted to be the best that I could
2:34
Speaker 2: be when I hit the floor in the morning. And
2:37
Speaker 2: I always believe that when I wake up, there's nothing
2:40
Speaker 2: that can go on during that day that I can't handle,
2:42
Speaker 2: even if it's good, if it's bad, I will handle it.
2:46
Speaker 1: Wash. Where did you rank athletically amongst all your brothers?
2:49
Speaker 2: I was number one. I was the sol athlete. I
2:54
Speaker 2: did it in the morning when the sun came up,
2:56
Speaker 2: and I didn't stop till the sun went down. I
2:59
Speaker 2: took up so much clothes, so many tennis shoes. I
3:03
Speaker 2: tore up a lot of stuff. I had my dad
3:06
Speaker 2: and mom constantly buying clothes. But I was a top
3:09
Speaker 2: athlete in the family. My older brother played football and
3:14
Speaker 2: he only lasted one year and that was it. But
3:17
Speaker 2: other than that, I was every day every day.
3:20
Speaker 1: Wash, hey, Wash, Just to kick this off, tell us
3:23
Speaker 1: a little bit about the Kansas City Royals Youth Academy.
3:26
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy, Royals owner Ewing Kaufman opened the Royals
3:30
Speaker 1: Youth Academy. You remember that first class. To the best
3:34
Speaker 1: of our knowledge, over the years, fourteen players came out
3:38
Speaker 1: of that to play in the major leagues, and some
3:39
Speaker 1: of them are household names. Willie Wilson, Uo Washington, Frank White,
3:43
Speaker 1: Willie Mays. Aikins yourself, how did it come that you
3:47
Speaker 1: got invited to this, to the best of my knowledge,
3:50
Speaker 1: was in Florida? And what did you teach? What did
3:53
Speaker 1: they teach you while you were there?
3:54
Speaker 2: Well, I was finishing high school in nineteen seventy and
4:00
Speaker 2: always had a trial camp in New Orleans, and I
4:03
Speaker 2: was invited because I was one of the pretty good
4:06
Speaker 2: players in the city. So I was invited, and there
4:09
Speaker 2: was quite a few players in that city invited. There
4:12
Speaker 2: was one hundred and fifty six kids that was there.
4:15
Speaker 2: And the first time I ran, I threw down the
4:19
Speaker 2: second base, I swung the bat. They pulled me out
4:22
Speaker 2: of the crowd and sent me home. And this is
4:24
Speaker 2: not a pat on my back, This is exactly the
4:27
Speaker 2: way it happened. They pulled me out the crowd and
4:29
Speaker 2: sent me home. I saw no more of that trial camp.
4:33
Speaker 2: A week later, they called me back to come and
4:35
Speaker 2: have a second try with one guy that they brought
4:38
Speaker 2: out of that camp again. I ran the sixty yard dash,
4:41
Speaker 2: I swung the bat and I threw the ball down
4:43
Speaker 2: the second base. I was a catcher as a beginner,
4:47
Speaker 2: and of us two, I was the only guy out
4:50
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty six guys that Kansas City invited
4:53
Speaker 2: down to the academy. I arrived in Sarasota, Florida, and
4:59
Speaker 2: it was about fourteen or fifteen guys that was on
5:02
Speaker 2: that plane that I didn't know that was on that
5:04
Speaker 2: plane because the plane stopped in Atlanta before we went
5:07
Speaker 2: down to Florida. And there was one guy from Detroit
5:10
Speaker 2: standing next to me when we got off the plane
5:13
Speaker 2: and they lined us up out on a tarmac, and
5:16
Speaker 2: he was and Buzzy Keller was gonna be the manager,
5:19
Speaker 2: and he said that you guys got one foot on
5:21
Speaker 2: the ground and one foot on the plane. And the
5:24
Speaker 2: guy next to me was from Detroit and said, what
5:27
Speaker 2: is he talking about? I said, he said that if
5:29
Speaker 2: your ass can't play, you're gonna get sent home. So
5:32
Speaker 2: the guys Buzzy Keller saw me talking to him and
5:35
Speaker 2: asked me what am I talking about? And I told
5:38
Speaker 2: him what the conversation was about, and he called me
5:40
Speaker 2: a smart ass. I said, no, I'm not a smart ass.
5:42
Speaker 2: I can play. So what you're talking about one foot
5:45
Speaker 2: on the ground and one foot on the plane. That
5:46
Speaker 2: ain't for me. That must be for these other guys
5:48
Speaker 2: to stand in here. I thought everyone else would chime in,
5:51
Speaker 2: but I was the only one. He said, oh, you're smart.
5:54
Speaker 2: He called me a smart ass. But that's just the
5:56
Speaker 2: way I grew up. And that academy was classroom in
6:00
Speaker 2: the morning. We go to school in the morning with
6:02
Speaker 2: the Manatee Junior College, and then we come back. We
6:07
Speaker 2: get back about twelve thirty one o'clock in the day.
6:10
Speaker 2: We spent half an hour in the classroom on the
6:12
Speaker 2: chalkboard going through all the fundamentals that we will be
6:16
Speaker 2: doing on the field. And then we take it from
6:18
Speaker 2: the chalkboard to the field and run every single fundamental
6:22
Speaker 2: that we had just chalked up on the chalkboard. So
6:24
Speaker 2: I went to more or less a baseball school. They
6:27
Speaker 2: called it a baseball academy, but it was a baseball school,
6:30
Speaker 2: and I was a catcher, and I was responsible for
6:33
Speaker 2: everything that went on when the ball was put in
6:35
Speaker 2: between those white lines. And I used to say, why
6:38
Speaker 2: is this pressure on me? And the guys said, because
6:40
Speaker 2: you're a catcher. Now you can either learn how to
6:43
Speaker 2: do it, or we could send you back to New Orleans. Well,
6:45
Speaker 2: I wasn't going back to New Orleans. So I learned
6:48
Speaker 2: how to do it. I took the pressure of everything
6:51
Speaker 2: that went on out there. When it went wrong, the
6:53
Speaker 2: first person they came to was Ron Washington because I
6:56
Speaker 2: was the catcher, and told me what went wrong, what
6:58
Speaker 2: should have been right, and then we fixed it and
7:01
Speaker 2: we went through it. So that's how I learned my
7:03
Speaker 2: baseball and it's been instilled in me all my life
7:06
Speaker 2: like that. I'm a very fundamental guy and that's the
7:09
Speaker 2: way I go about my business. And I do not
7:11
Speaker 2: treat fundamentals easy. It's the epitome of what I do,
7:16
Speaker 2: and it's the epitome of what I try to give
7:19
Speaker 2: every day to a player. So that's what the academy
7:22
Speaker 2: taught every single day. And I understood then that it's
7:28
Speaker 2: not the work, because the work becomes what you do
7:32
Speaker 2: and if you don't do it, then it feels like work.
7:36
Speaker 2: Nothing I do feels like work. Nobody I'm around. I
7:39
Speaker 2: try to get them to understand it's not work. If
7:42
Speaker 2: we can do this on a repetition, which baseball is repetition,
7:46
Speaker 2: if we can continue to do this every single day,
7:49
Speaker 2: you'll find out that this is what you do. It's
7:52
Speaker 2: not work. It's work when you don't do it with consistency,
7:56
Speaker 2: When you don't do it with habit, you know, it's
7:59
Speaker 2: easy to movate you to do something, but habit is
8:02
Speaker 2: what keeps it going. And that's what I learned that
8:05
Speaker 2: academy habits, and I just passed it on and it's
8:09
Speaker 2: still in me.
8:11
Speaker 3: Why should you shared a story with me once about
8:14
Speaker 3: when you when you got that first contract, when they
8:16
Speaker 3: signed you and uh, and you tried to if I recall,
8:19
Speaker 3: you tried to negotiate a little bit till your mom
8:22
Speaker 3: stepped in. You mind sharing that.
8:25
Speaker 2: Certainly, we was in the hotel across the street from
8:28
Speaker 2: it was the Moisane Airport, his own Strong airport in
8:30
Speaker 2: New Orleans now, and my high school coach had told
8:34
Speaker 2: me to ask for a bonus. Well, I know nothing
8:36
Speaker 2: about a little bonus. So he told me to ask
8:38
Speaker 2: for a bonus. So we got ready to sign the
8:40
Speaker 2: contract and I said, I want thirty thousand dollars, and
8:43
Speaker 2: my mom grabbed me. All of a sudden, I felt
8:45
Speaker 2: something in my chest and she grabbed me and she
8:47
Speaker 2: pulled me outside. She said, what are you doing begging
8:50
Speaker 2: those people for money? I said, well, my high school
8:52
Speaker 2: coach told me to asks for a bonus. These are
8:54
Speaker 2: gonna say yes or they gonna say no. And she said,
8:57
Speaker 2: I tell you what, you got an opportunity here. You
8:59
Speaker 2: better take your butt back in there and sign that contract.
9:02
Speaker 2: So I went back in and I signed the contract
9:05
Speaker 2: and I told my dad when we got ready to
9:07
Speaker 2: get to the car, I said, you didn't even help
9:08
Speaker 2: me out. He said, man, I don't mess with your
9:10
Speaker 2: mama when she gets like that. I could have got
9:12
Speaker 2: some money out of Kansas City. I know I could have.
9:15
Speaker 2: But that's the naivete. That's the naivete coming from where
9:18
Speaker 2: I came from.
9:19
Speaker 1: But Wash, it's it's also the purity. You always played
9:23
Speaker 1: for the love of the game. You've always worked for
9:26
Speaker 1: the love of the game. You exude the love of
9:27
Speaker 1: the game.
9:29
Speaker 2: Well, I wish my Mama would have left me alone.
9:30
Speaker 2: I would have been a little rich as a young man.
9:34
Speaker 2: And then the time I spend in the minor leagues,
9:36
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have to live in other people's basements. I
9:39
Speaker 2: wouldn't have had to catch the city transit to get
9:42
Speaker 2: to the ballpark. I'd had me an automobile. Was you.
9:48
Speaker 3: Signed the nineteen seventy There we just touched on. You
9:51
Speaker 3: grind your way through the minor leagues, you learn different positions.
9:54
Speaker 3: You know you're leaving New Orleans for the first time.
9:57
Speaker 3: You make the big leagues in September of nineteen seventy seven.
10:00
Speaker 3: September tenth, nineteen seventy seven, you talk about that a
10:03
Speaker 3: little bit. Making your debut with the Dodgers.
10:05
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I was in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It
10:08
Speaker 2: all started in spring training. Really, I should have made
10:12
Speaker 2: that Triple A club from the beginning. But that's when
10:15
Speaker 2: I really found out how impressive or how important number
10:18
Speaker 2: one draft choices are. They had this number one draft choice.
10:22
Speaker 2: His name was Randy Rogers, and the boy couldn't He
10:26
Speaker 2: couldn't even wear my shoes. He couldn't do nothing I
10:28
Speaker 2: could do. But he was a number one draft choice
10:31
Speaker 2: and I was busting my button. I made that team
10:33
Speaker 2: in spring training and they called me in the office. No,
10:35
Speaker 2: this is how I went. They asked, if you don't
10:38
Speaker 2: like where you're going to play, I'm gonna be in
10:40
Speaker 2: office in about five minutes coming there. I ran off
10:43
Speaker 2: the field and when he got to the office, I
10:44
Speaker 2: was already sitting there and I said, I don't like
10:48
Speaker 2: where I'm going. I shouldn't be going to no Double A.
10:50
Speaker 2: I played good enough to go to Triple A. And
10:52
Speaker 2: then they told me why they did what they did,
10:55
Speaker 2: which I still didn't agree. But mister Sweppe was a
11:00
Speaker 2: guy that was in charge of our minor league system
11:02
Speaker 2: and the Dodgers organization at the time, and he told me,
11:05
Speaker 2: if that don't go right with Randy and Triple A
11:07
Speaker 2: and you're doing good in Double A, we're gonna switch it.
11:09
Speaker 2: I say, so, you just put the pressure on me
11:12
Speaker 2: because I got to go to double A and make
11:13
Speaker 2: sure I do well to wait for him to do
11:16
Speaker 2: bad to get the Triple A. Well, I always was
11:18
Speaker 2: like that. I wasn't being smart, but I was always
11:21
Speaker 2: like that. And he said, no, wash, you just go
11:23
Speaker 2: to Double A and if it don't work out with
11:26
Speaker 2: Randy and Triple A. We'll switch it. So they switched it,
11:30
Speaker 2: and everything from that point on went uphill. Next thing
11:35
Speaker 2: you know, I went to Triple A. I had a
11:36
Speaker 2: great year. And then in September I wasn't at the
11:40
Speaker 2: apartment when they called me up in September. I had
11:43
Speaker 2: just come back. They had a note on my daughter
11:45
Speaker 2: that said, you've been called to the big leagues. Get
11:47
Speaker 2: in touch with so and so and so. So I did,
11:50
Speaker 2: and I arrived in the big leagues and I can't
11:53
Speaker 2: remember the name of the hotel, but we was playing
11:55
Speaker 2: the Pittsburgh Piers at the time. I had played in
11:57
Speaker 2: the minor leagues against Dave Parker and stuff like that,
12:00
Speaker 2: and that's the first guy I ran into in the
12:02
Speaker 2: hotel in la And then when I got to my room,
12:07
Speaker 2: I had gotten a call to come because we had
12:09
Speaker 2: extra early work. The early work was Regismid Davy Loops
12:13
Speaker 2: and Ron saying him taking DP and Jeff Leonard and
12:17
Speaker 2: I was shagging. And once they finished taking VP, they
12:20
Speaker 2: picked up the balls and left. So I said, what's
12:23
Speaker 2: going on here? So I ran into the clubhouse, being
12:26
Speaker 2: the person that I am, What's going on? I thought
12:29
Speaker 2: y'all said he was coming here to hit, and Regismith,
12:32
Speaker 2: you said, you have to earn that opportunity to hit here.
12:35
Speaker 2: We brought you hit a shag for us. So that
12:39
Speaker 2: was my debut, and it was against the San Diego Padres,
12:42
Speaker 2: the same guy I got my first hit against in
12:45
Speaker 2: Triple A. With the same guy I faced when I
12:48
Speaker 2: got my first game against the San Diego Padres. I
12:51
Speaker 2: know his last name is Fry's Levins, I don't remember
12:54
Speaker 2: the first name. And he wore a sized thirteen shoot
12:58
Speaker 2: and as soon as he cocked his arm and let
13:00
Speaker 2: a ball go, I almost decapitated him up the middle
13:03
Speaker 2: for my first hit. I remember that. Well. Yep, I
13:07
Speaker 2: got on first. Regismith was hitting next, and I just
13:10
Speaker 2: come from Triple A full of vinegar. I'm getting shaken
13:13
Speaker 2: around like I'm gonna steal. Regismith stepped out the box
13:16
Speaker 2: and pointed at me and said, you keep your young
13:19
Speaker 2: butt steal. Sawder is not running you while I'm up
13:22
Speaker 2: here swinging the bat. That was an experience in the
13:25
Speaker 2: big leagues too. Those big boys ran the stuff up
13:28
Speaker 2: there during those days. And he called timerless soda.
13:33
Speaker 1: It's amazing things have changed a little bit washed from
13:35
Speaker 1: those days to this, probably mostly for the better, not
13:38
Speaker 1: not all for the better. Wash out after seventy seven,
13:42
Speaker 1: you go back down to the minor leagues for a
13:44
Speaker 1: couple of years. Those bastards didn't appreciate you, and you
13:48
Speaker 1: ultimately get traded over to the Minnesota Twins, where you
13:51
Speaker 1: get a very unique responsibility bestowed upon you. I remember
13:55
Speaker 1: you sharing the story about how they asked you to
13:58
Speaker 1: be a mentor for Kirby Pucket, and I'd be curious,
14:01
Speaker 1: can you share with the listeners how did that come
14:03
Speaker 1: to pass and what was your relationship like with Kirby.
14:06
Speaker 2: My relationship with Kirby was tight. He and I was
14:09
Speaker 2: like one. And that happened when they called Kirby to
14:14
Speaker 2: the big leagues. We was in Anaheim, California, and Kirby
14:17
Speaker 2: flew into Los Angeles and didn't have a dime on
14:22
Speaker 2: him and he had to get a cab to the ballpark.
14:26
Speaker 2: And we went from Anaheim to Texas. And when we
14:30
Speaker 2: got to Texas, Tom Kelly called me in his office
14:33
Speaker 2: and said, this kid that we bringing up, Kirby Pucket,
14:36
Speaker 2: he's going to room with you. I said, whoa, whoa,
14:38
Speaker 2: whoa Tom Again, Here I go again, I said, whoa Tom.
14:43
Speaker 2: I've been been doing this for a while, and this
14:45
Speaker 2: is the first time I got a single room, and
14:48
Speaker 2: now you're gonna put somebody in my room. Tom Kelly
14:50
Speaker 2: just repeated what he said. I tell you, we brought
14:54
Speaker 2: up this young kid and we're gonna put him in
14:56
Speaker 2: a run with you. Well, I knew what Tom meant
14:58
Speaker 2: by that at the time he did it. The second time,
15:00
Speaker 2: I knew I couldn't fight that. So the guy was
15:04
Speaker 2: Kirby Pucket. And I used to have to get Kirby
15:06
Speaker 2: up in the morning because he liked to sleep all day.
15:09
Speaker 2: I said, no, no, no, we're getting up. We go
15:11
Speaker 2: and have breakfast. Then if you want to come back
15:14
Speaker 2: and go to bed, you come back and go to bed.
15:15
Speaker 2: But we gonna get up and get breakfast. And the
15:19
Speaker 2: rest is history. He became a Hall of Famer. Too
15:22
Speaker 2: bad he had to die the way he died, you know,
15:25
Speaker 2: with that aneurysm he had in the brains. But he
15:30
Speaker 2: was one heck of a player, and he was a
15:32
Speaker 2: Minnesota Twins number one draft choice only because they went
15:36
Speaker 2: to see someone else and he was performing. And he
15:38
Speaker 2: became a number one draft choice and he was a
15:41
Speaker 2: special kid. First year he got one hundred and twenty
15:43
Speaker 2: eight hits and one hundred of them was singles. The
15:47
Speaker 2: next year, Tom Cone o'leivera put thirty six inches I
15:51
Speaker 2: mean thirty six ounces in his hand and taught him
15:53
Speaker 2: how to kick his leg up and put it down
15:56
Speaker 2: and he hit thirty home runs that year and it's
15:58
Speaker 2: been history ever since. So that was quite an experience
16:02
Speaker 2: to get to know Kirby Pucket and to be his
16:04
Speaker 2: friend and to be his mentor.
16:07
Speaker 3: Really so, I mean, you're Tom Kelly, who's a you know,
16:12
Speaker 3: legendary manager and is an right asked you to do that.
16:14
Speaker 3: Obviously he saw something and you you finished playing, You
16:18
Speaker 3: go five years with the Meths system coaching, then up
16:21
Speaker 3: to Oakland and storied career there. Some of the lives
16:24
Speaker 3: you've impacted there. At what point did you know, obviously
16:27
Speaker 3: Tom Kelly had an idea that you could, you know,
16:29
Speaker 3: help these kids or but when did you realize that
16:32
Speaker 3: that coaching was in your future?
16:34
Speaker 2: I realized, John, it was in my future from my
16:38
Speaker 2: first day in the game, because I was a leader.
16:41
Speaker 2: I was born to be a leader, and I was
16:43
Speaker 2: leading at eighteen years old. I was leading at nineteen
16:46
Speaker 2: years old, and people were coming to me for advice
16:49
Speaker 2: about baseball, and most of my advice that I was
16:53
Speaker 2: able to give him was what I learned from that
16:55
Speaker 2: baseball academy. So at a young age, I was I
17:00
Speaker 2: knew there was something special about the care and the
17:04
Speaker 2: love that I had for the game. Now that I
17:07
Speaker 2: knew I was going to be a coach, I knew
17:08
Speaker 2: I wanted to, and the Mets saw it in me
17:11
Speaker 2: because I was still playing when they called me and
17:14
Speaker 2: asked me to become a coach in their organization. When
17:17
Speaker 2: I retired, I was still playing. And when they called me,
17:20
Speaker 2: I said, I'm still playing. He said, well, we want
17:22
Speaker 2: to be the first to get the grabs on you.
17:25
Speaker 2: So when I retired, I called it. And I only
17:28
Speaker 2: retired because I wasn't going back to the minor leagues
17:31
Speaker 2: to play anymore. You know, I still had some game
17:34
Speaker 2: in me, but I couldn't put that game that I
17:36
Speaker 2: had in me in the minor leagues. I just couldn't
17:39
Speaker 2: drive get it out of me. But I could get
17:41
Speaker 2: it out of me if I went to the big leagues.
17:43
Speaker 2: And since I wasn't going to the big leagues. I retired.
17:47
Speaker 2: I just gave it up and said I'll get on
17:49
Speaker 2: the other side and see what happened. So I called
17:51
Speaker 2: the Mets and they hired me. No interview, just because
17:56
Speaker 2: I was Ron Washington. They hired me. That was class
18:01
Speaker 2: right there for me. I felt so privileged that everybody
18:06
Speaker 2: has to go to an interview. I just called and said,
18:09
Speaker 2: I'm through playing. I called you about a job, and
18:11
Speaker 2: they gave me a job, and he put me in
18:14
Speaker 2: Triple A right away, and I went to the third
18:16
Speaker 2: base coaching box right away, and I learned my craft
18:19
Speaker 2: in that third base coaching box right away. I learned
18:23
Speaker 2: to give my knowledge right away right away. They didn't.
18:28
Speaker 2: They didn't I didn't have to go through all of
18:30
Speaker 2: this training need. They had that much what I'm gonna say,
18:35
Speaker 2: they had a lot of confidence, Yeah, a lot of faith,
18:39
Speaker 2: confidence in what I could do till they sent me
18:42
Speaker 2: right to Triple A. And I had just been explained.
18:44
Speaker 3: Day one in that third base box that you were
18:46
Speaker 3: comfortable or was it people talk about it's quick, you know,
18:49
Speaker 3: the game's quick over there, or was it easy for
18:51
Speaker 3: you to pick up?
18:52
Speaker 2: It really was easy because I was that type of guy.
18:56
Speaker 2: And I had scouts that I that I had come
18:59
Speaker 2: through through when I was a player, that was in
19:02
Speaker 2: the stands and every day they would critique me on
19:06
Speaker 2: how I should do it, what I did that night before.
19:09
Speaker 2: They just did it on their own. So they just
19:13
Speaker 2: saw it in me, and I was a natural. The
19:16
Speaker 2: first time I got in the mirror and started doing signs,
19:18
Speaker 2: I was able to flow to them signs real good
19:21
Speaker 2: and I said, oh wow wow. And then they would
19:24
Speaker 2: tell me certain guys up at the plate, how you
19:27
Speaker 2: stand what you do with two strikes, how you give
19:30
Speaker 2: signs when you let the guys on the base know
19:33
Speaker 2: what's going on on the field. I didn't ask for that.
19:37
Speaker 2: They just gave it to me. And I showed up
19:39
Speaker 2: every day to meet them in the stands and what
19:42
Speaker 2: they had to say. And that's how it developed. AU
19:45
Speaker 2: the third base coach quickly.
19:52
Speaker 1: Well, Washington, it doesn't take you long to get back
19:54
Speaker 1: to the big leagues. The Oakland Athletics hire you, and
19:57
Speaker 1: you almost immediately become competitive advantage as a third base
20:01
Speaker 1: coach in an nfield coach, if they had a coach
20:04
Speaker 1: go to the All Star Game, you would have been
20:05
Speaker 1: going every single year for those two roles. But I
20:08
Speaker 1: want to talk to you. Hear a little bit about
20:10
Speaker 1: one of the men's lives you impacted. Eric Chavez. He
20:14
Speaker 1: wins six consecutive gold gloves under your watch. He famously
20:18
Speaker 1: shares one of those gold gloves with you. Could you
20:21
Speaker 1: just talk a little bit about what that meant to
20:22
Speaker 1: you and your relationship with Eric Well.
20:25
Speaker 2: I remember when Billy Bean first brought Eric to the
20:28
Speaker 2: big leagues. He called me in Arth Hale's office and
20:33
Speaker 2: he gave me this list of all the things. I
20:36
Speaker 2: got this kid that's pretty good player, but he got
20:39
Speaker 2: these deficiencies, and the list was big and loan. And
20:43
Speaker 2: I said, he's all that and he got all these deficiencies,
20:47
Speaker 2: and he said sweet. He used to call me sweet.
20:50
Speaker 2: Then Billy Bean. He says, sweet. He can hit it,
20:54
Speaker 2: and Eric Tavis could hit So I said, okay. I
20:57
Speaker 2: took his list and I went got Eric Chah and
21:00
Speaker 2: he and I went downstairs in the coliseum and I said, Eric,
21:03
Speaker 2: they gave me this list, and his list say all
21:05
Speaker 2: the things you can't do. Before I could finish talking
21:08
Speaker 2: about the list, Eric said, wash, I can catch the ball.
21:12
Speaker 2: My problem is throwing well. Me being on top of
21:16
Speaker 2: my game the way I was on top of my
21:19
Speaker 2: game as a coach. When he said he had problem throwing,
21:22
Speaker 2: I took the list and I balled it up in
21:23
Speaker 2: front of him. The problem is you'll stride. If we
21:27
Speaker 2: can fix your stride, your arm will be more consistent.
21:31
Speaker 2: And he looked at me. So all we did. Oh
21:34
Speaker 2: I ever did with Eric as a coach is worked
21:36
Speaker 2: with him on his stride so he can get consistent throws.
21:39
Speaker 2: The gold gloves he won, that's Eric Chavis And I'm
21:43
Speaker 2: telling you what. He won six and he could have
21:45
Speaker 2: won ten, eleven, twelve or thirteen if he didn't hurt
21:48
Speaker 2: his back. He posted every day. He played one hundred
21:51
Speaker 2: and at least one hundred and fifty eight games every
21:53
Speaker 2: year until his back went out. It was a special kid,
21:57
Speaker 2: it really was. He hit with He was smart on
22:02
Speaker 2: the base pads, He had intelligence about the game. He
22:06
Speaker 2: just needed some guidance and he just needed some instructions.
22:10
Speaker 2: And Billy bean tho I was the man to do it,
22:12
Speaker 2: so he put him on me. But I think Billy
22:15
Speaker 2: made that list up just to get my dapper rised up.
22:18
Speaker 1: What wash pretty classy too? Rite that he gives you
22:21
Speaker 1: one of his gold gloves, and then furthermore, during Hurricane Katrina,
22:26
Speaker 1: it gets lost and he replaces it. That's pretty special.
22:31
Speaker 2: That's very special because I came off the field one
22:34
Speaker 2: day and I went to the coaches room and I
22:36
Speaker 2: sat at my locker and I saw this glove in
22:40
Speaker 2: there that was encased in plastic, and I said, who's
22:43
Speaker 2: playing jokes? So I picked it up and said, not
22:47
Speaker 2: without you wash, and I realized it was from Eric Chavis.
22:50
Speaker 2: So I walked out there and I say, if there
22:53
Speaker 2: was no crying in baseball, I'll be crying right now.
22:57
Speaker 2: You know. That's how special that was to me, that
22:59
Speaker 2: he gave me his third gold glove that he got
23:02
Speaker 2: and he had given it to me, so I got
23:05
Speaker 2: it in my memory, Bill your room, and I got
23:07
Speaker 2: a gold glove. I didn't win it on the field,
23:09
Speaker 2: but I got a gold glove that was very special.
23:12
Speaker 2: And then Hurricane Katrina came and destroyed everything. The next
23:16
Speaker 2: year in Texas, when Oakland came to town, h Rawlings and
23:21
Speaker 2: Eric Travis had made plans to surprised me, and they
23:24
Speaker 2: brought out another gold glove and Eric and engraved it again,
23:28
Speaker 2: not without you and then cased it in the plastic
23:32
Speaker 2: box for me and replaced it and I got it
23:35
Speaker 2: in my house as of today. That's how that worked.
23:38
Speaker 3: That's awesome, all right. Now, now we're getting into the
23:42
Speaker 3: media stuff here a touch on headed into Texas times.
23:45
Speaker 3: So we make a change after the five season manager
23:50
Speaker 3: fectually after the sixth season manager, and we the Rangers
23:55
Speaker 3: call and UH asked permission to interview you, uh for
24:00
Speaker 3: that process and touched a little bit. I think you
24:05
Speaker 3: might have interviewed with Oakland before that, maybe somebody else
24:08
Speaker 3: I forget, but you talk a little bit about that
24:11
Speaker 3: process and getting that call and just what you remember
24:14
Speaker 3: from coming into Texas and meeting our group.
24:16
Speaker 2: We had just got destroyed by the Detroit Tigers, and
24:22
Speaker 2: that's the year Detroit should have won the World seriesly
24:25
Speaker 2: and went to Saint Louis and they had a snaff
24:27
Speaker 2: foo on a PF P play, a PfP play where
24:32
Speaker 2: the pitcher threw the ball down the line. Other than that,
24:35
Speaker 2: no one was supposed to beat the Tigers. Anyway. We
24:37
Speaker 2: got on the bus and Billy Bean said, hey, Wash,
24:40
Speaker 2: the Texas Rangers is interested in interviewing you for the
24:44
Speaker 2: managing job. And he wants you there tomorrow. So that happened.
24:49
Speaker 2: I came in and I remembered when I came out
24:53
Speaker 2: and Dallas for wereth airport. Johnny, was you that picked
24:56
Speaker 2: me up. And I felt at that time that was
24:59
Speaker 2: very special. The general manager come and pick up an
25:01
Speaker 2: interview for a job that doesn't happen. They usually let
25:05
Speaker 2: a limousine pick up the patron and bring him a
25:09
Speaker 2: way he has to go, but you can pick me up,
25:11
Speaker 2: and you and I got a chance to talk along
25:14
Speaker 2: the way. And then when I got there, I met Dad,
25:16
Speaker 2: I met aj Priller, I met Josh Boyd, I met
25:22
Speaker 2: I met all of those guys that was there, and
25:25
Speaker 2: it was the greatest time that I ever had. And
25:27
Speaker 2: the thing was, we talked a lot of baseball. Y'all
25:31
Speaker 2: was prepared. Y'all had a book of questions you wanted
25:34
Speaker 2: to ask, and I think I rattled off on every
25:36
Speaker 2: question you asked that that you wanted to hear. And
25:41
Speaker 2: the good part about all of that was how relaxed
25:45
Speaker 2: the situation was. It really was. But the most impressive part,
25:49
Speaker 2: John was that you picked me up. That was very impressive.
25:54
Speaker 2: And then the next most impressive part when that day
25:57
Speaker 2: was over and I went back to to to Oakland.
26:01
Speaker 2: Jerry picked me up and we went out to dinner.
26:03
Speaker 2: I got a call from Thad. He wanted to know
26:06
Speaker 2: how was my trip, And when I got off the
26:08
Speaker 2: phone with Jared with that, I told Jerry that's class.
26:12
Speaker 2: So he just called him to find out how how
26:14
Speaker 2: I felt. How did things go getting back to Oakland.
26:17
Speaker 2: You see what I'm saying. And I've been to a
26:21
Speaker 2: few interviews, but that interview that you guys gave me
26:25
Speaker 2: was the best in the world. I've never been an
26:28
Speaker 2: interview like that that you guys cared until you made
26:31
Speaker 2: a decision. I had interviews with the Miami Marlins, I
26:35
Speaker 2: did interview with Oakland. But I did interview with Oakland.
26:39
Speaker 2: It was over the phone. I interviewed with the Miami Marlins.
26:42
Speaker 2: It was in Florida, but the only time I heard
26:45
Speaker 2: anything else from them was when they told me it
26:47
Speaker 2: was going to a different direction. But you guys stayed
26:51
Speaker 2: in touch. I never knew what was going on until John.
26:55
Speaker 2: We met again with Tom Hicks. We met with Tom Hickson.
27:01
Speaker 2: Y'all ended up giving me the job, which was a
27:03
Speaker 2: big surprise. I knew I was coming back for I
27:05
Speaker 2: had come back for a second interview, but you had
27:08
Speaker 2: told me that there was quite a few other people
27:10
Speaker 2: y'all had to talk to, and then you gave me
27:12
Speaker 2: the job right there on the spot. That was exhilarating.
27:17
Speaker 2: That was exciting. That was the best time of my
27:20
Speaker 2: life and the best time of my baseball career was
27:23
Speaker 2: with the Texas Rangers.
27:25
Speaker 3: That's mutual, man, and I remember we were kritin what restaurant,
27:32
Speaker 3: I think it was some steakhouse in Arlington, and we
27:35
Speaker 3: asked you a question about, you know, how you're going
27:37
Speaker 3: to handle X, Y and Z situation, and you know,
27:41
Speaker 3: the conversation was great. It was for Don Wealke was
27:43
Speaker 3: there and yeah, Don, well we were all there, and
27:47
Speaker 3: I remember just the way it was, the way you
27:49
Speaker 3: answered it. You kind of looked up, looked over your
27:51
Speaker 3: glasses and you're like, hire me and you'll find out,
27:54
Speaker 3: you know, And it was just just like this.
27:56
Speaker 2: It was fun.
27:57
Speaker 3: It was his confidence and man, and we did we
28:01
Speaker 3: found out that you were the perfect person at the
28:04
Speaker 3: perfect time for that club.
28:06
Speaker 2: Well, John, y'all made it easy for me to be
28:08
Speaker 2: like that. I'm not a tense guy, and I really
28:12
Speaker 2: wouldn't have ten stuck. But when I came and met
28:16
Speaker 2: you at the airport and got to the office and
28:18
Speaker 2: met that nim, I mean, everything was so relaxed till
28:22
Speaker 2: it was easy for me to let myself be who
28:25
Speaker 2: I was and show you guys.
28:27
Speaker 1: Watched three things that I remember from the interview that
28:30
Speaker 1: really stood out, and at that point in my career,
28:32
Speaker 1: I had not interviewed many people, but at this point
28:34
Speaker 1: in my career I've have and I would tell you
28:36
Speaker 1: they still stand out. One was at the end of
28:39
Speaker 1: the first day. I don't know if you remember. You know,
28:41
Speaker 1: it was a long day. We were taking you back
28:43
Speaker 1: to the airport, but before we did, you got up
28:45
Speaker 1: and you gave everybody in the room a hug. And
28:47
Speaker 1: I was like, well, that's not normal to hug a
28:50
Speaker 1: guy that you're interviewing, but you know what, it felt right,
28:52
Speaker 1: and it was the first of about a thousand hugs
28:54
Speaker 1: we've had with you over the years, and it was
28:56
Speaker 1: absolutely representative of who you were. The other thing I
28:59
Speaker 1: remember is that this probably dates us a little bit,
29:02
Speaker 1: but we asked the question of all the candidates, do
29:04
Speaker 1: you consider yourself of buy the book or by the
29:07
Speaker 1: gut manager, and I don't know if you remember your response.
29:09
Speaker 1: Your response was, what the f's the book? And we
29:12
Speaker 1: were like, this may be our guy, this may be
29:15
Speaker 1: our guy. Coming off of where we had been. It
29:18
Speaker 1: was just so it was so remarkably special wash spending
29:22
Speaker 1: time with you. Oh and then the last thing was
29:25
Speaker 1: we asked each guy, hey, take take five ten minutes.
29:28
Speaker 1: We're going to give you a chance to deliver your
29:31
Speaker 1: opening speech for when you just got hired. This is
29:34
Speaker 1: your opening press conference. Every other candidate took like ten
29:37
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes, and then they would ask us, hey, what
29:39
Speaker 1: do you want me to say? And like what should
29:41
Speaker 1: I say about the organization? You took exactly four seconds.
29:44
Speaker 1: You vaulted to your feet, and you gave a absolutely stirring
29:47
Speaker 1: five minute opening address to the media with no hesitation.
29:51
Speaker 1: And I was like, this guy is some kind of
29:53
Speaker 1: special And your enthusiasm that day you had was the
29:56
Speaker 1: enthusiasm you still have to this day. It's just never
29:59
Speaker 1: ever fail.
30:01
Speaker 2: I remember when that interview was over standing up saying,
30:04
Speaker 2: whatever decision you guys make, y'all gonna make the right decision,
30:07
Speaker 2: whether it's me or whether it's somebody else. I felt good.
30:11
Speaker 2: I felt good leaving out of there. I wasn't cocky
30:15
Speaker 2: or anything. I thought I had the job, because I
30:18
Speaker 2: left a lot of interviews thinking I had the job
30:21
Speaker 2: and it didn't work out that way. So I wasn't
30:23
Speaker 2: gonna be overconfident there. But I really felt like you
30:31
Speaker 2: guys was gonna make the right decision, but it's gonna
30:34
Speaker 2: be me. I didn't feel that, but I felt whatever
30:37
Speaker 2: decision you guys make was gonna be a right decision,
30:39
Speaker 2: and I was in the decision. I was gonna be
30:42
Speaker 2: in the decision. And so it's the best thing that
30:45
Speaker 2: happened to me. And I never came into that job
30:49
Speaker 2: believing that I knew everything. I know. I know a
30:53
Speaker 2: lot of baseball, but I'd never managed at a major
30:55
Speaker 2: league level before. But people have told me that I'm good.
30:59
Speaker 2: I would be good at it. Before I arrived in Texas,
31:02
Speaker 2: people told me I would be good at it, and
31:04
Speaker 2: I was willing to go through the process and accept
31:08
Speaker 2: the failures and accept the good times. Also, well, watch you.
31:13
Speaker 1: You knew our team so well having played against us
31:17
Speaker 1: so much, and so I'm sure you had a lot
31:19
Speaker 1: of insights as to the players on our team. But
31:21
Speaker 1: you inherit a clubhouse that's kind of run by guys
31:24
Speaker 1: like Hank Blaylock and Mark Tieshera and Michael Young and
31:27
Speaker 1: Kevin Minch. When you walked into that clubhouse for the
31:30
Speaker 1: first time, what were your thoughts of how do you
31:33
Speaker 1: needed to implement a new kind of championship culture with
31:37
Speaker 1: the franchise.
31:38
Speaker 2: When I walked in that clubhouse, I knew it was
31:40
Speaker 2: Michael Young that I could tell my ideals to and
31:45
Speaker 2: let him know what type of organization I was trying
31:48
Speaker 2: to create, and I needed his help. And if it
31:53
Speaker 2: wasn't for Michael Young, I don't know what things would
31:56
Speaker 2: have went. Because King Kinsler was a fighter. He fights
31:59
Speaker 2: you stuff, you know. I remember when I first took
32:03
Speaker 2: over the first year, we was having problems trying to
32:05
Speaker 2: win ball games, and I would call early workouts for everybody.
32:09
Speaker 2: Kinsler was the one out there half ass doing it.
32:12
Speaker 2: So I called Michael on the side. I said, Mike,
32:15
Speaker 2: I need your help to get this guy to become
32:18
Speaker 2: a part of the team because we getting our ass whip.
32:21
Speaker 2: I said, you see them the windows up there talking
32:24
Speaker 2: about your offices. I said, there's people up in those
32:27
Speaker 2: windows looking at how we going about our business. We're
32:29
Speaker 2: getting our ass whipped down here on the field. The
32:32
Speaker 2: only way we can keep them off our ass is
32:34
Speaker 2: if we get out here and show them that we're
32:35
Speaker 2: trying to improve. And Kinseler is making it hard. I
32:39
Speaker 2: need help, and Michael say I got him. After that,
32:43
Speaker 2: I never had a problem with Kinsler. We became best friends.
32:46
Speaker 2: And that's what you That's what was going on, trying
32:49
Speaker 2: to get them to buy into the process. And this
32:52
Speaker 2: the process take times, is not going to work overnight.
32:55
Speaker 2: But we got a good process going. And I told
32:58
Speaker 2: Mike what I want to be as a fundamentally sound team.
33:01
Speaker 2: I want us to be able to do everything. I
33:04
Speaker 2: want us to be able to run, steal, bunt, hit
33:06
Speaker 2: and run run. I want us to play defense. I
33:08
Speaker 2: want us to do every fundamental that is called in
33:12
Speaker 2: the game of baseball. I want us to try to
33:14
Speaker 2: do it. And Mike bought in, and then when we
33:17
Speaker 2: got Beltray, he helped on the other side with the
33:19
Speaker 2: Latin players. So we just had a perfect group of
33:22
Speaker 2: guys that wanted to win and care about each other.
33:26
Speaker 2: And the fans made things exceptionally good because they couldn't
33:31
Speaker 2: wait to get to the ballpark to see what those
33:33
Speaker 2: guys was gonna do on a nightly basis. One night
33:37
Speaker 2: deal winded on a drag bunt. One night deal winning
33:41
Speaker 2: on a hit and run. One night deal winded on
33:43
Speaker 2: a great base running play. One night, we'll win it
33:46
Speaker 2: when we have a great pitching performance. One night we'll
33:49
Speaker 2: win it when Beltray and Elvis and Kinsler and all
33:51
Speaker 2: those guys, Mitch Boland played great defense. I mean, we
33:55
Speaker 2: just had it all and those guys loved to come
33:59
Speaker 2: to the ball park and perform.
34:02
Speaker 3: That was a very talented, very fun team that you led. Uh,
34:07
Speaker 3: but we definitely didn't make all the right decisions and
34:09
Speaker 3: one of the ones that we we got bailed out.
34:12
Speaker 3: The baseball gods gave us a redo on this one.
34:15
Speaker 3: But at the end of spring training in uh was
34:18
Speaker 3: it eight?
34:20
Speaker 2: Was seven? Oh? Wait yeah?
34:21
Speaker 3: And spring training eight? Uh, we didn't We didn't keep
34:25
Speaker 3: Nelson Cruz. He was out of options and we ended
34:27
Speaker 3: up putting him on outright waivers at the end of
34:30
Speaker 3: spring training. Obviously we got lucky. He cleared waivers, goes down,
34:34
Speaker 3: you know, Justice Swan comes back up and he's you know,
34:36
Speaker 3: at an unbelievable career but before we put him on waivers,
34:41
Speaker 3: some of us in the front office, and I'm gonna
34:43
Speaker 3: throw aj right under the bus because AJJ was AJ
34:48
Speaker 3: was pushing this thing, you know, and Nelly had I
34:50
Speaker 3: mean it was, you know, physically gifted player. Yes, absolute
34:54
Speaker 3: cannon from the outfield. And so we're like, listen, but
34:57
Speaker 3: I hate to find out he goes somewhere else and
34:59
Speaker 3: they put him on the mound and we didn't even
35:01
Speaker 3: take a look ourselves. So we're in the roster meeting
35:03
Speaker 3: and the agency you gotta find it. You gotta ask
35:05
Speaker 3: him at least at least get off the mound for
35:07
Speaker 3: us before we put him on waivers. All right, So
35:10
Speaker 3: we go in the meeting and it's you, me and
35:12
Speaker 3: Gary Pettis and uh and uh. And I say to
35:16
Speaker 3: you and GP like, hey, you guys want to ask
35:18
Speaker 3: him if he wants to piss. And You're like, I'm
35:19
Speaker 3: not asking him. GPS like I'm not asking him, You're crazy.
35:25
Speaker 3: So I'm like, all right, I'll do it. And so
35:27
Speaker 3: I asked Nelly, you know, hey, would you mind getting
35:30
Speaker 3: off the mound take a look. And he looked at
35:32
Speaker 3: me like I had, you know, twelve eyes man, Like
35:34
Speaker 3: it was the crazy and it was the craziest stupidest
35:36
Speaker 3: suggestion of all time. Talk a little bit about you
35:41
Speaker 3: know about Nelly, just like once he gets going, just
35:44
Speaker 3: what he meant to that club.
35:46
Speaker 2: Well, when Nelson, when we were in that position where
35:49
Speaker 2: you all was sending him back down the triple eight,
35:52
Speaker 2: he wasn't performing. He really wasn't performing. So he was
35:56
Speaker 2: in the situation that he had his own self and
36:01
Speaker 2: you guys was only doing what you're supposed to do.
36:05
Speaker 2: We're not giving anything away here in Texas. You want it,
36:08
Speaker 2: you got to earn it. We did take a chance
36:11
Speaker 2: on sending him down the triple in and someone else
36:14
Speaker 2: grabbing him, but they saw the same thing that you
36:17
Speaker 2: guys saw when y'all sent them the Triple A. So
36:19
Speaker 2: we got lucky when they passed. So Nelson kept going
36:23
Speaker 2: to Triple A winning MVPs. For some reason. When he
36:27
Speaker 2: went to Triple A, he was relaxing. All that performance
36:29
Speaker 2: we wanted to get out of him up here at
36:31
Speaker 2: the major league level. We just couldn't get it out
36:33
Speaker 2: of him. But he came out of him down in
36:35
Speaker 2: the minor leagues, and he needed that because what happened
36:39
Speaker 2: he finally came back and gave us what we knew
36:42
Speaker 2: he was capable of giving us. And it was all
36:45
Speaker 2: because you guys didn't didn't didn't try to back off
36:51
Speaker 2: what you knew what was right and what was right
36:54
Speaker 2: for Nelly is he had to go to Triple A
36:56
Speaker 2: and we took that chance that he had to go
36:58
Speaker 2: to Triple A and he passed and then he came
37:01
Speaker 2: back and he gave us a great career. But that
37:04
Speaker 2: was always in Nelson, and what you guys did was
37:08
Speaker 2: a part of his career. If he wouldn't have went
37:10
Speaker 2: through that, no talking what Nelson would be right now.
37:14
Speaker 2: If we'd have kept him in the big leagues, he'd
37:16
Speaker 2: got destroyed, his mind might have never come back. But
37:20
Speaker 2: we found out what Nelson has made of when you
37:23
Speaker 2: guys sent him down and he went down there and
37:25
Speaker 2: did what he did and then came back and kept
37:27
Speaker 2: his job. He came back and kept his job. That's
37:31
Speaker 2: one guy, John that we had that I think won
37:34
Speaker 2: his opportunity to be in the big leagues and play
37:36
Speaker 2: every day. He won that, and he won that because
37:42
Speaker 2: we allowed him to go through the trials and tribulations
37:44
Speaker 2: that he had to go through. To get where he
37:46
Speaker 2: was that made him win that job. So if you
37:49
Speaker 2: don't do and JJ and Dad and all you guys
37:53
Speaker 2: don't make that decision, we don't know what might have
37:56
Speaker 2: happened to Nelson.
37:57
Speaker 3: Well, I Sad gets the you know, I only we
38:00
Speaker 3: were talked about it publicly. But another team, when he
38:03
Speaker 3: was Nelly's on waivers, like opening day, another team, a
38:07
Speaker 3: really good team in the American League, calls that and says, hey,
38:10
Speaker 3: just as a courtesy heads up, I think we're going
38:12
Speaker 3: to claim Nelly, but we might run him back through waivers,
38:14
Speaker 3: and you know, just we don't want to, you know,
38:17
Speaker 3: piss anybody off whatever. And I think Thad's responsible is hey,
38:20
Speaker 3: you guys gotta do what you gotta do. Just be
38:22
Speaker 3: you know, we'll probably claim him right back. And this
38:26
Speaker 3: other team is like, all right, it's not worth it,
38:27
Speaker 3: and so they let him go, you know, for the
38:30
Speaker 3: waiver fee at that time might have been twenty grand
38:32
Speaker 3: or twenty five grand, I don't remember, and there might
38:35
Speaker 3: have been fifty on our recall. But uh yeah, we
38:37
Speaker 3: we I think that kind of diplomatically bailed us out
38:41
Speaker 3: on now.
38:42
Speaker 2: And that's what you guys did a lot of y'all
38:44
Speaker 2: made a lot of decisions on people that right now today,
38:48
Speaker 2: if those people would look back on it, it was
38:50
Speaker 2: the right decision. It was the right decision. You guys
38:54
Speaker 2: didn't do anything off the top of your eight watch.
38:57
Speaker 1: We should have challenged him to pitch about three years
38:58
Speaker 1: before that. He could have had three more years in
39:00
Speaker 1: the big leagues. He'd probably be a Hall of Famer.
39:02
Speaker 1: Because one of the things about Nelly which is so
39:04
Speaker 1: remarkable is when he establishes himself as a big leaguer,
39:07
Speaker 1: he's actually quite old at the time. He still gets
39:11
Speaker 1: close to five hundred home runs in the big leagues,
39:13
Speaker 1: but he started much later. And that we had him
39:16
Speaker 1: in Minnesota at the end of his career. Towards the
39:19
Speaker 1: end of his career, and I'll just say everything you
39:21
Speaker 1: talked about Wash he became that sort of leader. He
39:24
Speaker 1: took nothing for granted. He had a tremendous routine. He
39:27
Speaker 1: led by example, and he got everything out of his
39:30
Speaker 1: ability in the big leagues. Once he was sent back down,
39:33
Speaker 1: he was never going to go back down. He was
39:34
Speaker 1: never going to leave the game unless on his own terms.
39:37
Speaker 1: And he became a tremendous leader in the second half
39:40
Speaker 1: of his career, and I think that had a lot
39:42
Speaker 1: to do with what it was like playing in Texas
39:44
Speaker 1: with some of those leaders around him, including yourself, but
39:47
Speaker 1: also having the game taken away from him for a
39:49
Speaker 1: brief moment gave him such a heightened appreciation that he
39:52
Speaker 1: was going to double down and do whatever it took
39:54
Speaker 1: to never have that happen again.
39:56
Speaker 2: Well, one thing I remember the most about Nielsen is
39:59
Speaker 2: when he finally came back and found his niche at
40:02
Speaker 2: the major league level. He was one of those guys
40:05
Speaker 2: that I wish they had more off today in the game,
40:07
Speaker 2: that he'll take the whole team and put on his
40:09
Speaker 2: back and he can carry him for a month. I mean,
40:12
Speaker 2: he could actually carry you for a month. When we
40:14
Speaker 2: whooped Detroit in the playoffs, Nelson hit nine home runs
40:19
Speaker 2: or eight home runs against Detroit, well, not against Detroit,
40:22
Speaker 2: but in the playoffs series and every time we needed
40:25
Speaker 2: a big one against Detroit because you know, when you
40:28
Speaker 2: really look back on it, we wasn't supposed to take
40:30
Speaker 2: Detroit out. The mighty Detroit Tigers with Cabrera and Jim
40:34
Speaker 2: Leland and all them guys there, we weren't supposed to
40:36
Speaker 2: take them out, and they had Valverde, who's supposed to
40:39
Speaker 2: be unhittable, and Nelson took him well.
40:42
Speaker 1: He took out Verlander, he took out.
40:44
Speaker 2: Suzer, Erlander, Schuser, and what's the other one that was
40:47
Speaker 2: supposed to been so great? He Cy Young with Boston.
40:53
Speaker 2: Nelson took him all out. He took them all out.
40:57
Speaker 2: And I remember the day we face uh Verlander. He
41:03
Speaker 2: switched from throwing fastball, so he threw a whole game
41:06
Speaker 2: with changeups because he knew he would kill his fastball.
41:11
Speaker 3: That that team, man, I mean, you talk about Leland's
41:13
Speaker 3: in the Hall of Fame, Verlander, Scherzer, Cabrera will be,
41:17
Speaker 3: Dave Dombrowski probably will be. I mean, you're talking about
41:21
Speaker 3: just what I mean.
41:23
Speaker 2: And don't forget Victor Martinez. Loaded man, yeah, loaded yeah.
41:28
Speaker 2: I remember always walking Cabrera to get the Victor and
41:31
Speaker 2: he used to say, what are you doing? Pick your pause?
41:34
Speaker 2: My Pauson is not Cabrera. We tried to throw balls
41:38
Speaker 2: four or five inches off the plate, and he go
41:41
Speaker 2: out there and get him and hit him for a double.
41:43
Speaker 2: We try to throw balls four or five inches inside.
41:46
Speaker 2: He hit him for a double, and I'm screaming and
41:47
Speaker 2: hollering at Mike Maddicks. I thought we wasn't supposed to do.
41:49
Speaker 2: He said, what the ball was four or five inches
41:52
Speaker 2: off the plate? What you want my pictures to do?
41:54
Speaker 2: I know what I want him to do. We're gonna
41:56
Speaker 2: put up four. So every time he came up, I
41:59
Speaker 2: put up four.
42:00
Speaker 3: You mentioned Mike Maddox right there, you know that. So
42:04
Speaker 3: that off season between uh eight and nine, we make
42:10
Speaker 3: the decision to to We didn't have money to spend
42:13
Speaker 3: as an organization, right, I think the team might have
42:16
Speaker 3: been headed towards bankruptcy court and all that whole deal.
42:19
Speaker 3: But we had we were we were a good club.
42:20
Speaker 3: We had to get better. We had to improve the
42:22
Speaker 3: pitching staff. And one of the things we thought we
42:23
Speaker 3: could do Michael younga just want a gold glove, uh
42:27
Speaker 3: you know, moving Michael to to third, bringing up Elvis
42:30
Speaker 3: at a double A at twenty years old, hiring Mike
42:32
Speaker 3: Maddox to help the whole pitching staff, and it really
42:35
Speaker 3: kind of focused on on just what we could do
42:37
Speaker 3: run prevention wise there. But that decision to ask Michael
42:41
Speaker 3: to move, you know, even though we had Elvis, and
42:45
Speaker 3: it was but he just won the gold Glove. That
42:47
Speaker 3: was That was a tough call and at a at
42:48
Speaker 3: a bumpy you know, path, I wish, I wish I
42:52
Speaker 3: had handled some of those things a little differently. But
42:54
Speaker 3: to talk about that, how was that to manage? You
42:57
Speaker 3: were there day in.
42:57
Speaker 2: Back and I thank you. I think you handled those
42:59
Speaker 2: situation as good as they could be handled under the
43:02
Speaker 2: circumstances that we were in. We had made a decision
43:06
Speaker 2: that we had to do this, and I was one
43:08
Speaker 2: of those persons that we didn't made the decision let's
43:11
Speaker 2: move forward with it. And once Mike realized who Elvis
43:17
Speaker 2: was and what Elvis was about, it eased the pain
43:20
Speaker 2: inside of him a little bit. I'm not going to
43:22
Speaker 2: say he's the pain totally, but he used the pain
43:25
Speaker 2: a little bit because he recognized that you guys was
43:27
Speaker 2: putting some kid there that can play, and Elvis can play.
43:32
Speaker 2: Elvis was above his age and the ability that he
43:35
Speaker 2: showed on the field, the intelligence he showed in the
43:39
Speaker 2: game of baseball. Y'all picked him perfectly. It was a
43:43
Speaker 2: perfect pick. At the time, it hurt Mike that he
43:47
Speaker 2: just want to go glove and he had to move
43:50
Speaker 2: because we had had him to move a couple times already,
43:54
Speaker 2: and then once he got to third base, he had
43:56
Speaker 2: to move again. When we went and got Beltray. It
43:58
Speaker 2: wasn't anything on Mike. It was at the time we
44:01
Speaker 2: was trying to get the best defense that we could
44:04
Speaker 2: possibly get and put out there to help our pision staff,
44:08
Speaker 2: and I think along the line Mike recognized that and
44:11
Speaker 2: he came along with it. All of a sudden he
44:13
Speaker 2: became a team player, which he was always a team player,
44:16
Speaker 2: but he got feelings just like everyone else, you know.
44:19
Speaker 2: But Mike was always a team player. So I think
44:23
Speaker 2: you did what you had to do when you had
44:25
Speaker 2: to do it at the time. You had to do it,
44:27
Speaker 2: and it was no easy way to do it. We
44:29
Speaker 2: could sit back and think about it, John all we want,
44:32
Speaker 2: There was no easy way to do it. The only
44:34
Speaker 2: easy way to do that was to go straight to
44:36
Speaker 2: the point of what you was doing, and that's exactly
44:39
Speaker 2: what you did.
44:51
Speaker 1: Wash. I'm curious how much of yourself did you see
44:54
Speaker 1: in Elvis. It's a young kid. He was super confident,
44:57
Speaker 1: he had tremendous ability much and he was really enthusiastic
45:01
Speaker 1: about the game. He played with a huge smile on
45:03
Speaker 1: his face. You poured a lot into him. You put
45:06
Speaker 1: a lot on his shoulders because you knew he could
45:08
Speaker 1: handle it. But how much of you did you see
45:10
Speaker 1: in Elvis when he came up.
45:11
Speaker 2: I seen a lot in him. The only thing I
45:15
Speaker 2: didn't see about him that was in me was he
45:19
Speaker 2: was starting to get this attitude that he knew when
45:23
Speaker 2: enough was enough. No, you don't know what's enough. I
45:27
Speaker 2: remember one time I was hitting him a ground ball.
45:29
Speaker 2: He called it off. He did this stuff under his
45:32
Speaker 2: neck to me. I called him over to be I said,
45:35
Speaker 2: what the hell you think you doing that too? We
45:38
Speaker 2: work in a program here. You know this is a program,
45:42
Speaker 2: and we're going to work this program. Tell I say
45:45
Speaker 2: it's done. So I said, get your ass back out there.
45:48
Speaker 2: I'm not through. So he went out there and I
45:50
Speaker 2: hit him a ground ball, and then when he caught it,
45:51
Speaker 2: I went, nah, you don't do that shit to me.
45:54
Speaker 2: I do that shit to you. And I remember John saying,
45:57
Speaker 2: you pretty tough on Elvis. I said, no, I'm not
45:59
Speaker 2: going to let him go to sleep on my watch.
46:01
Speaker 2: I'm just not gonna do it because he's so good.
46:04
Speaker 2: But he's so young, and if we let him get
46:06
Speaker 2: away with what he wanted to get away with. He's
46:08
Speaker 2: not going to reach his potential. He's not going to
46:11
Speaker 2: reach it. So I'm gonna stay in his butt because
46:14
Speaker 2: he can bunt, he can hit and run, he can
46:16
Speaker 2: do things. He thanked the game, and every day I'm
46:19
Speaker 2: gonna make sure he do those things right there, whatever
46:22
Speaker 2: it takes, whatever it takes. Now, when he get old
46:24
Speaker 2: enough that I don't have to get on him no more,
46:26
Speaker 2: I'll get off him. But right now, I'm gonna stay
46:29
Speaker 2: in his butt. And I did.
46:31
Speaker 3: I always admire that you you you know, you delegate
46:35
Speaker 3: it to your staff. Your coaches ran most of the stuff,
46:38
Speaker 3: but there were a couple of things that you were
46:39
Speaker 3: gonna do personally, and one of them was you hit
46:42
Speaker 3: ground balls elbow. You didn't nobody else hit, you know,
46:45
Speaker 3: hit he didn't like the way that other guys maybe
46:47
Speaker 3: hit the fungo or whatever. You were gonna hit it
46:48
Speaker 3: to him.
46:49
Speaker 1: You were gonna do his.
46:49
Speaker 3: Routine, uh, you know, handling Josh Hamilton when he needed
46:53
Speaker 3: a day or sometime. There were certain things that you
46:56
Speaker 3: handled personally, and I always loved that.
46:59
Speaker 2: Well, the thing about that is, I'm an expert at
47:03
Speaker 2: infield play and I would be doing my team and
47:07
Speaker 2: an organization of disservice if I didn't use my expert.
47:11
Speaker 2: I watch guys do things and they don't do it
47:13
Speaker 2: the right way, and I don't think you're gonna be
47:15
Speaker 2: ever be able to do it the right way, So
47:17
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do it. That's why I took over Elvis.
47:20
Speaker 2: I watch him hit balls to Elvis, and I say,
47:22
Speaker 2: you're not doing this right. No, I got him every
47:25
Speaker 2: single day. I got him. I'a make sure he do
47:26
Speaker 2: it he's supposed to do every single day. And that's
47:29
Speaker 2: why I took it over, because you gotta be able
47:32
Speaker 2: to do things. They call it work and they call
47:36
Speaker 2: it maintenance. The work is the ground balls that they
47:39
Speaker 2: get every day. The maintenance is the work that they
47:41
Speaker 2: do on side. And you got to do that every day,
47:44
Speaker 2: just like you go to the cage every day and
47:46
Speaker 2: hit You gotta do work, and you got to do maintenance.
47:49
Speaker 2: And I was gonna make sure Alvis was working and
47:51
Speaker 2: doing maintenance. And somebody say, you're gonna tie that boy out.
47:54
Speaker 2: That boy's twenty years old, how can he get tired.
47:57
Speaker 2: I'm sixty nine years old, just as hard as this.
48:01
Speaker 2: But if I'm sixty nine and can do it. He
48:03
Speaker 2: gonna be twenty and do it. And if he can't,
48:06
Speaker 2: guess what, I'm gonna talk to John and tell John
48:08
Speaker 2: send his ass back to the minor leagues. That was
48:11
Speaker 2: the attitude, and Elvis knew it. And I didn't cut
48:14
Speaker 2: no cons when Elvis. When Elvis made a play out
48:16
Speaker 2: there that he made it because he was lazy and
48:19
Speaker 2: wasn't doing what he was supposed to do, I let
48:21
Speaker 2: it be known. And people say, oh, you blew Elvis up.
48:24
Speaker 2: I didn't blow Elvis up. I just told the truth.
48:27
Speaker 2: And Elvis's going to hit the truth for me all
48:29
Speaker 2: the time, because that's what it's gonna take for him
48:30
Speaker 2: to have a career at the major league level is
48:33
Speaker 2: hit the truth. And so the day'll come when he
48:35
Speaker 2: got to do it to somebody, he gonna tell him
48:37
Speaker 2: the truth. So that's the way that worked. That's the
48:41
Speaker 2: way that worked. I wasn't calling Alvis out, but Elvis
48:44
Speaker 2: needed to know that what he did was unacceptable, and
48:48
Speaker 2: I wanted everybody else in the world to know that
48:50
Speaker 2: what he did was unacceptable, and that way it would
48:53
Speaker 2: ring to Elvis that it was unacceptable because everybody in
48:57
Speaker 2: the world think what you did was unacceptable, not just one,
49:00
Speaker 2: not just two persons the world know what you did
49:03
Speaker 2: was unacceptable. And if you want to keep bringing the
49:05
Speaker 2: world in on this, that's on you. That ain't on me.
49:10
Speaker 1: Well, it's only unacceptable watch because you had such high
49:12
Speaker 1: standards for him, because you knew how capable he was
49:15
Speaker 1: of helping us win a championship. And we needed him,
49:18
Speaker 1: like we had a veteran group around him, but we
49:20
Speaker 1: needed his energy, We needed his ability on defense and
49:23
Speaker 1: what he could do with the bad manipulating the bat
49:25
Speaker 1: and you know, bunting and doing all the little things
49:29
Speaker 1: that we needed to win. We had a lot of
49:30
Speaker 1: thumpers on that team. He was the guy who kind
49:32
Speaker 1: of kept the line moving though from time to time.
49:34
Speaker 2: Oh, no doubt about it. One year I can't remember,
49:39
Speaker 2: but somebody told me, all you do is sag bun. No,
49:42
Speaker 2: all Elvis do is sack bun Because the situation for
49:46
Speaker 2: me was a situation where I need a bunk and
49:50
Speaker 2: Elvis is the guy to do it. And he did it.
49:54
Speaker 2: Every time I need a hit and run, Alvis is
49:57
Speaker 2: the guy to do it. He put the bat on
49:59
Speaker 2: the ball, I mean the guy. I needed stolen base,
50:04
Speaker 2: Elvis did it. You need somebody to go first to third,
50:08
Speaker 2: Elvis did it. For some reason, You needed a home run,
50:11
Speaker 2: which he didn't hit a bunch of them, but Elvis
50:15
Speaker 2: did it, and him and kNs fed off each other.
50:20
Speaker 2: He helped Kins be the best player he could be, too,
50:24
Speaker 2: because Kins wasn't gonna watch him over there doing what
50:26
Speaker 2: he was doing, and he didn't buckle down. Remember when
50:29
Speaker 2: he used to miss all those pop flies trying to
50:31
Speaker 2: catch him low and we found out it was his medicine.
50:35
Speaker 2: And then we started getting them to take his medicine
50:37
Speaker 2: on time, and his defense went to another level.
50:42
Speaker 1: Was one of the beauties of this team was the
50:45
Speaker 1: culture you created in the clubhouse, was that anybody could
50:48
Speaker 1: come and be the best versions of themselves. This was
50:51
Speaker 1: never more on display, I think, than when we acquired
50:53
Speaker 1: Josh Hamilton in the offseason in two thousand and eight.
50:56
Speaker 1: Can you just share with the listeners a little bit
50:57
Speaker 1: of just the sheer ability this man had, But also
51:00
Speaker 1: what was it like managing him on a day to
51:02
Speaker 1: day basis.
51:03
Speaker 2: It wasn't as tough as people think. The thing is is,
51:08
Speaker 2: Josh was humble. He had a lot of demons in
51:12
Speaker 2: his life, and he was very humble and he wanted
51:16
Speaker 2: to show the world that he was a different guy,
51:21
Speaker 2: even though he had all these demons in his life.
51:23
Speaker 2: And the thing about it, when he came to me
51:27
Speaker 2: with a problem, I helped him solve it. If I
51:30
Speaker 2: had to call John to get advice on how to
51:32
Speaker 2: do it, I called John. I never tried to do
51:36
Speaker 2: things on my own without John knowing about it if
51:39
Speaker 2: it was that important. So when Josh came to the
51:42
Speaker 2: ballpark and said he had a rough night, we had
51:45
Speaker 2: that dark room that was on the in the corner
51:47
Speaker 2: of the clubhouse. I told him to go to that
51:50
Speaker 2: dark room and I'll see you at quarters six and wash.
51:54
Speaker 1: You just said it about Josh Hamilton, I thought, aside
51:57
Speaker 1: from being literally one of the most incredible players I
52:00
Speaker 1: ever got a chance to watch play in my career,
52:03
Speaker 1: he also was a guy who was very demanding on
52:06
Speaker 1: his teammates. But also I thought he was a wonderful teammate.
52:09
Speaker 2: He was both those things. He was a great teammate.
52:13
Speaker 2: Matter of fact, he cared about the team more than
52:16
Speaker 2: he cared about hisself. In reality, he was just so talented.
52:21
Speaker 2: I've never seen anyone wanting the bat the way he does,
52:24
Speaker 2: and never seeing a guy that big running the way
52:26
Speaker 2: he runs. I remember John said one time we got
52:29
Speaker 2: to stop Josh from diving. I said, John, how can
52:32
Speaker 2: be stop him from playing like Josh play? Because he
52:35
Speaker 2: thought he was gonna get hurt he was hitting the
52:37
Speaker 2: ground too much. But that's the way Josh play. And
52:40
Speaker 2: I didn't want to have to stop that. I didn't
52:42
Speaker 2: think I could stop that.
52:45
Speaker 1: Well wash if you remember, he wore a flat jacket
52:48
Speaker 1: when he was playing the outfield because he was running
52:49
Speaker 1: into the wall so hard he was breaking his ribs.
52:52
Speaker 1: There just was nothing that was normal about him. He
52:55
Speaker 1: was just so spectacular to watch. And on top of
52:58
Speaker 1: it all, he was the player who always ask you
53:00
Speaker 1: how your kids were doing, and he knew them by name.
53:02
Speaker 1: I mean it just was a remarkable person in every
53:05
Speaker 1: facet of the meaning.
53:06
Speaker 2: He was that person. And when the devils was really
53:09
Speaker 2: inside of him, real bad, he would come in my
53:12
Speaker 2: office and with the Bible in his hand and start
53:14
Speaker 2: reading verses. And I would always run whomever was in
53:17
Speaker 2: my office out, y'all gotta go. Josh is coming in
53:21
Speaker 2: here right now. So I gave him I gave him
53:24
Speaker 2: his respect. I gave him his floor. Whenever he wanted
53:26
Speaker 2: the floor, he added, and the same with his teammates.
53:29
Speaker 2: Whenever he needed to floor with his teammates, they gave
53:32
Speaker 2: it to him. You know, everybody said, well, we gonna
53:35
Speaker 2: have everything the same for everybody, not when Josh is
53:38
Speaker 2: in that that that clubhouse. I mean, yeah, you gonna
53:41
Speaker 2: run it normal. But if Josh needs something special, you
53:44
Speaker 2: got to give it to him. All I cared about
53:46
Speaker 2: was that he'd go out there and play. Just just
53:48
Speaker 2: be in the lineup. That's all I want. Your performance.
53:51
Speaker 2: There's a thing called performance and put in presence. His
53:55
Speaker 2: presence was although he had great performance, his presence was immediate.
54:01
Speaker 2: When he was in that lineup. He made everybody better
54:04
Speaker 2: just by being in that lineup. Whether he went over
54:07
Speaker 2: or not, he made everybody better because every opposing team
54:11
Speaker 2: it was stuck on Josh and they forgot about this
54:14
Speaker 2: one and they forgot about that one. How Aden Beltrae
54:18
Speaker 2: put some great years together, he really did. Everybody around
54:23
Speaker 2: him did good well.
54:24
Speaker 1: Washes as we remember, Joe Madden, who may or may
54:27
Speaker 1: not go to the Hall of Fame someday famously walked
54:30
Speaker 1: Josh Hamilton with the bases loaded intentionally because that's the
54:33
Speaker 1: type of presence he had in our lineup. It was absolutely,
54:37
Speaker 1: absolutely incredible to watch. I hope that you enjoyed the
54:45
Speaker 1: first half of our conversation with Ron Washington. Please join
54:49
Speaker 1: us next Thursday for the second half.
54:51
Speaker 2: JD.
54:51
Speaker 1: Washti will dive into a momentous event that led up
54:54
Speaker 1: to the Rangers keep playoff Front, a breakdown of the
54:57
Speaker 1: twenty ten and twenty eleven World Series, and we'll have
54:59
Speaker 1: some on hearing washtell stories about Moneyball and colorful engagements
55:03
Speaker 1: with umpires. We hope that you join us every Thursday
55:07
Speaker 1: on Rosters to Rings