Latest / Foul Territory / Torii Hunter surprises A’s OF’er Denzel Clarke after ICONIC catch

Transcript

Torii Hunter surprises A’s OF’er Denzel Clarke after ICONIC catch · Foul Territory

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Players would text me and I'll be up all night
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: trying to answer those calls.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, that's exactly how it would. I had to cut
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: myself off and get myself from the time in the
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: morning to breathe. So it was crazy.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: A centerfielder Denzel Clark joining us right now. Denzel, great
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: to have you on the show. Thanks for the time.
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: I'm going to get right right to biz here. Denzel.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: Take me through the catch the other night that goes
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: hyper viral, and I'll add because I always want to
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: recruit more baseball fans, that's the kind of catch that
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: can bring in a fan who doesn't give a crap
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: about baseball and they look at that and they're like, oh,
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: that's going on in baseball. I'll watch the A's tonight.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it is something I practiced, like I'll
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: take a round a VP by the wall and just like,
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: you know, just work on my distance by the wall scale. Yeah,
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: just trying to like work on my timing and stuff.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: So I'm just putting all together and again, yeah, first
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: step route, everything came together, went up and grab the ball.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: It was Yeah, it was honestly one more special catches
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: I've made. I have scaled the wall before I did Toronto.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: I've done it in college a couple of times. That
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: was probably one of the better ones I've made.
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: At me, all right, tell me what's your best catch
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: you've ever made? If that ain't it, is it the
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: one that made the other day where you almost killed
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: yourself it broke your shoulder like a million places. I mean,
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: if that ain't it, then which one's your best one?
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: No? That that is? That is for sure the best one.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: But I did. I did have one in college to
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: cal State Northridge. It was It's the funniest story because
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: it's honestly a myth at this point. But it's a
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: second game of a doubleheader. It wasn't a stream or getting
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: blown up by twenty games. All the fans have left,
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: all the scouts have left. Is like late in the game,
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: brooks Lee for the Twins hit one and I went
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: kind of similar, went a full extension over the points
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: and droped that one too. But there's no there's nothing
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: about that one, no.
• 1:50
  Speaker 5: Campus or anything.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: So that's the only one that would would have been close.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: But this one takes the cake for sure.
• 1:56
  Speaker 6: Denzel uh So, was that one more like a ninety
• 1:58
  Speaker 6: three catch. I don't know if you saw it, but
• 2:01
  Speaker 6: the one you went over the wall to catch is
• 2:03
  Speaker 6: one in Anaheim that we're talking about. It said on
• 2:06
  Speaker 6: stat cast it was a ninety three percent percent catch probability.
• 2:12
  Speaker 5: What do you I mean, what did you see that?
• 2:14
  Speaker 5: Did you know? I'm sorry?
• 2:16
  Speaker 6: Ninety five percent catch probability. Essentially it was a guaranteed catch,
• 2:20
  Speaker 6: is what stat cast said.
• 2:22
  Speaker 5: Did you see that? And what are your comments on that? Yeah?
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: I heard about that. I mean, like that's a pretty
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: easy play. I don't know, I don't I'm pretty sure
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: they're right. I mean ninety five percent. I think everyone's
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: making that catch, So yeah, I think they're right.
• 2:41
  Speaker 7: That's great.
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: That's crazy, that whole thing, ninety five percent. I couldn't
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: have made that catch in my prime of prime, I
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: don't think.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: I mean, how many center fielders can make a catch
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: like that right now? There ain't a lot, No, not many,
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: not a lot. We could Actually we could come up
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: with one guy in his prime who did make There's
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: a guy who.
• 2:59
  Speaker 7: Played with that probably could have made that catch.
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: I saw it make some pretty good catchers, and I
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: think one time Denzel did guy.
• 3:07
  Speaker 5: Tweeted at you the other day.
• 3:08
  Speaker 7: You know who this guy is.
• 3:13
  Speaker 5: What's up, Benzell?
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: How we doing?
• 3:16
  Speaker 7: Now? We're doing good?
• 3:18
  Speaker 5: Man.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: I saw that catch. Man, I'm very impressed. Man, that
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: was very impressive catch. I like how you had a
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: beat on it, you got a great jump off of it,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: and you look like you had all the confidence in
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: the world.
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: I might have seen one.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: More like that. It was Gary Matthews and Mike Trout,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: they made something like that.
• 3:35
  Speaker 7: But man, you rolling your back on the wall was
• 3:38
  Speaker 7: very athletic, very impressive.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Thank you. I've seen
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: both those catches. Those are really cool.
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: Did you did you sleep that night?
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: I did a little later than I usually would, but
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: I did get some sleep. That's cool.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: I know you probably got text messages from everybody in
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: baseball family members when I make those catches.
• 4:02
  Speaker 7: Man, my family would text.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Me, my my players would text me, and I'll be
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: up all night trying to answer those calls.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, that's exactly how it would. I had to cut
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: myself off and get myself in time in the morning
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: to breathe. So it was crazy.
• 4:18
  Speaker 7: Man. I wanted to jump on and tell you what's
• 4:21
  Speaker 7: up before I let you go. You're gonna get in
• 4:24
  Speaker 7: a crash driving down the street. Bro ho over.
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: I don't want to.
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: I don't want to be responsible for Tory Hunter getting
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: in a crash all right while he's driving.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Definitely, this is this is probably illegal.
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: Everything you do.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Every time I get with you, man, you have me
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: do something illegal.
• 4:39
  Speaker 7: Man, I shouldn't hang with you too much.
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: That's right.
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: But here here's my question. Now, your nickname became spider Man,
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: right for all the catches you made? Do we got
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: a nickname for Denzel for the couple of catches that
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: he's Man, we gotta come up with it with a
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: nickname for him.
• 4:54
  Speaker 7: Elastic Man.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: That the way the way he climbed up wash stretched
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: and caught that ball. Man, you gotta ask me some
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: rubber in yous.
• 5:04
  Speaker 5: Wow, that sounds bad, elasticity.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: What do you think that's funny? That's funny, Hey, Tory,
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: last last one before before you jump and get back
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: to the road. When you see a catch like that, now,
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: I mean, what do you think you know? Like when
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: you see the difficulty, there's not many humans on the
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: planet that can catch baseball's like that, so you know
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: you're one of the few that can really comment on
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: how ridiculous and difficult and how much time it takes
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: to like get reps in the league. Right, you need
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: the automatic athleticism that you have. But then on top
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: of that, I mean, it's not like you just woke
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: up and were able to catch Baseball's like that. You
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: played the game for a long time to get there.
• 5:54
  Speaker 7: I just don't think you can teach it.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: You know, you're talking about Gary Matthews, Mike Trout, and
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Denzel When they they make these catches, Man, it's hard
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: to replicate. Uh, these guys are such great athletes that
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: they can make something happen like that, And that's why
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: you rarely see it because it's not too many people
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: that can make those catches and be consistent with it. Man,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: just what he did, just break the break on the ball,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: the confidence, the close out to close that ball out.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Most people give up on that ball. But because his
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: stubbornness and my stubbornness, and Trout and Gary Matthews, when
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: they make those plays, you're just stubborn.
• 6:33
  Speaker 7: You want to keep going.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: That's why I end up flipping over a wall in
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Boston because I just can't let that thing go. It's
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: like someone's on the chalkboard and they're scraping the chalkboard
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: with the chalk and putting pressure on It makes that noise.
• 6:46
  Speaker 7: It makes your teeth grinch.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: So I definitely think that, you know, with Denzel watching
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: him play, That's why I said it was so impressive
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: because the close out he had of stubbornness of not
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: letting you have a hit, that's how That's what makes
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: you great, a great center fielder.
• 7:05
  Speaker 7: That's good, Tory Tor. First of all, you only wanted
• 7:08
  Speaker 7: to rob Ortiz.
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: That's why you jumped over the wall because you don't
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: want our former a ball double a teammate to get
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: it hit.
• 7:13
  Speaker 5: But go drive.
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: Thank you for joining us. I really appreciate it. But
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: please don't get in the crash at least until after
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: you hang up.
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: Man.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: You know what Aja Every time I'm with you, Man,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: I'm telling you, Man, my family don't want me to
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: hang with you no more.
• 7:27
  Speaker 7: So once a month.
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: Hey, I'll be in Dallas.
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: I'll be in Dallas in the second half, So I
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: expect some tender smokehouse delivered to the ballpark.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Tender smoke smokehouse will be at your door and maybe
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: some golf, So I'll.
• 7:41
  Speaker 5: Talk to you.
• 7:43
  Speaker 7: Thanks, Tory.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: Appreciate you all right, Denzel, I'll hope you enjoyed that
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: man figure.
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: So that was a special treat for you, especially after
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: he tweeted up. After he feeded at you. He was listen.
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: He was one of He was the.
• 7:55
  Speaker 7: Best center fielder that I saw play.
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: The way he did. He did things like that you did.
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: It was it was an every night occurrence. You're watching
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: the game, I'm like, Oh, that ball sit deep to loft.
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: Center Toys got it right, Center Toys got Oh, there's
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: a thirty football torial jump over that wall.
• 8:09
  Speaker 7: So that that was the thing.
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: And then when we saw he tweeted at you, I
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: had to reach out to him and he wanted to
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: come on and give you props.
• 8:15
  Speaker 7: So I thought that was pretty cool.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, he's the legend, man. I really appreciate that. It's
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: really cool.
• 8:22
  Speaker 5: Who's your guy? Who's the guy? Who's the guy that
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: you watched growing up?
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: Jack and Bradley Jr. My favorite dependsive outfield that I
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: got to watch the growing up. He's one of the kinds.
• 8:33
  Speaker 5: Because of his arm or because I played with it.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Every everything, man, everything he may see to make a
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: play Baltimore like that. I think one of my favorite
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: play from though. I always remember this because it's the
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: first time. I just thought he got around the ball
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: in right center throwing a third Usually like you take
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: her route and go like you know, like turn your
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: body and run around. He started like batpedaling mid game
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: to get behind this baseball to shooting the third. That
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: was only the coolest thing that seeing. So we tried
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: to emulate that to my game. But he's fun to watch,
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: for sure.
• 9:06
  Speaker 7: I could have called him next time.
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: We know, we know next time, next time you make
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: another catch, you will have JBJ on you on with you, Okay,
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: because I played with him too, so we can call him.
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: He's a good dude too. I didn't play with as
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: long as pervatorially, he's a good guy. He could play
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: some outfield too.
• 9:21
  Speaker 7: Wow.
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, hey, Denz, I've got one for because obviously
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: the defense is giving you a national name in the
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: sport in five seconds. I mean, you haven't been up
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: for long yet. Are you appreciative of the way that
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: we have metrics for defense? It's funny I'm saying this
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: as we made fun of the catch probability but for me,
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: for a long time, you'd watch someone you'd be like, damn,
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: they're so good, and there was nothing for a long
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: period of time. And it is by no means perfect,
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: but for example, outs above average generally will match up
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: the eye test to players over the course of a season,
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: so you immediately come up to the show and that
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: number in the first few weeks here is huge. Right,
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: you're among the league leaders in five seconds. Are you
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: appreciative of that because it helps for front offices to
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: value players like you where in the past it's eye
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: test and frankly, I think you know it can produce
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: some better defensive players in the league when there's a
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: stat to.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: Back it up. Absolutely for sure. I think I got
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: my first taste of that this year, my first year
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: in first year and the big leads in it. Hey yeah,
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: first year in triple as, my first year having stack
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: casts and stuff. I feel like even since I got
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: the Triple A and then even to the big leagues now,
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: just like you said, having access to that data, I've
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: been able to make a lot of stage just seeing Okay,
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: my first jump for my first step, my jump could
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: have been better here, this could have been better there,
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: just having access to those things, seeing yeah, where my
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: improvements can be made. I think it's really really cool.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: And this I think is super gratifying, just being able
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: to see how you stack up against the rest of
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: the players in the league. So I think there is
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: a huge benefit to them. Yeah, to these numbers and everything,
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: and yeah, of course they're not always gonna be perfect,
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: but yeah, it's really cool seeing where uh I g
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: I said, again, we're a stack up against the rest
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: of the league.
• 11:24
  Speaker 6: So it's very fun to see You're gonna roam center
• 11:29
  Speaker 6: field for Team Canada and w b C and see
• 11:31
  Speaker 6: how you stack up against the world.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: That'd be that'd be really cool. I'll be I'll be
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: waiting on my phone public. I got to play in
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: the last one, so I loot the forwards to playing
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: the next one.
• 11:40
  Speaker 6: Okay, So Ernie, Ernie, WIT's gonna Ernie Whit's gonna give
• 11:43
  Speaker 6: you a call? Larry Walker, those guys, Stubby Clap, who else?
• 11:47
  Speaker 6: Tim Leaper?
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: We got we got our crew. We got our crew.
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: What does that mean? What does that mean to you?
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: To wear that uniform?
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've got to wear it for the junior national
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: team played the World Championships played in the WBC in
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty three. It's it's an honor man just playing
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: for your country. There's nothing like it. I remember twenty
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: seventeen U eighteen World Championships. We're the home country playing
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: at thunder Bay. Very cold, but it was it was
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: what was an experience.
• 12:18
  Speaker 7: Best member of your family in baseball, best member of
• 12:21
  Speaker 7: your family.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: At baseball, best member of the family in baseball.
• 12:27
  Speaker 7: Yeah, Naylors, the Naylor family or you because aren't you
• 12:32
  Speaker 7: the Nailors?
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: Yalsolutely?
• 12:35
  Speaker 7: So who's got the better who's the best one?
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: You?
• 12:38
  Speaker 7: Josh bo?
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: I mean I think we I think we got to
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: go right now with the one with the only All
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: Star appearance.
• 12:43
  Speaker 5: Josh.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: He's doing his thing, he's doing this thing. But I
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: know we're all super talented. We got a lot of
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: love for them. That's my family through and through. So yeah, you.
• 12:54
  Speaker 7: Guys, do you guys have a Do you guys have
• 12:56
  Speaker 7: a game?
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: I get a family reunion, Like, hey, like, let's let's
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: a pickup game here.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: You know. It's funny when I first got into baseball,
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: so we had like a family like Thanksgiving and we
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: just went in the backyard we just grabbed like a tinfoil,
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: a bunch of tin foil, roll it up into a
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: ball like a broomstick, and we're just playing baseball out
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: in the backyard. After I think after reader either burn
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: off burn off the food, or get us hung before
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: the food. But that's like one of my first memories
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: of getting in some sort of baseball REPSD So that's
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: pretty special. That's wild.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: Now you guys are all I mean Team Canada players
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: togeather too, which is pretty cool. Hey Denzel, this was awesome.
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for the time for joining us.
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: I know you got the game good luck today in
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: a couple of hours, and I hope you enjoyed it.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: Man, we'll catch you down the road. I appreciate it,
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: think as we're having me on this so