Latest / Rosters to Rings Podcast / Best Interviews of 2025

Transcript

Best Interviews of 2025 · Rosters to Rings Podcast

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Welcome to a very special edition of Rosters to Rings,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: where we pay thanks to the exceptional guests who have
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: made Season one of Roster Storrings so very special for
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: all of us. First up, we're going to see how
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: managers and players see trades differently. Aj Hinch is going
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: to give us the manager's perspective and Greg Anthony is
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: going to offer some great insight from the players side,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: you know, Greg. One of the themes, as Ryan mentioned
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: on Rosters to Rings is we love these origin stories
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: because it is the tide that binds us all together.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Whether you're an excellent player such as yourself or your
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: fun off executive, or your coach or your referee, whatever
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: you're doing, you're giving your life to a game, and
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: it's because you have this amazing bond to it. So
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: and also the gratitude you just expressed towards the coaches
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: around you and the teachers and how those things they
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: make a difference, right, And those are the forks in
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: our road. And we could have gone many different ways,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: all of us, but we all landed in the place
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: we did, and it's because so many people guided us
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: along the way. I got to just ask you one
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: last question before we let you go, which is, you know,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: from a front office perspective, when you're building a championship team,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: you think about adding that finishing piece to a roster.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: And I look at these final four teams, I just
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: want to get your player's perspective when you add a Cat,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: when you add a Julius Randall or Devincenzo or Caruso
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: and Hartenstein, what's the player's perspective when you know, I
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: was told by John Hart longtime in Borderline, a Hall
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: of Fame general manager, when the players do their part,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: the front office that step up and help them. When you,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: as a player see a guy like Cat walk into
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: the clubhouse or you know, whether it's Hartenstein, Kruso walking
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: into your locker room or Julius Randall Devincenzo, what's the
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: player's response when you feel like you're really close to
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: winning that championship and the front office is invested in
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: that extra piece to help you take you over the top.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: I think one of the things you have to have
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: is a great relationship in essence with your star player
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: and an understanding of who they are. And I think
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: you've worked from there, and I think if you look
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: at all four of these teams, they've kind of done
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: things that you know, they were in different places too,
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: because I remember when you look at Indiana, they made
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: the trade to get remember they got Halliburn in the
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: trade they got seat them. And you know, when you
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: look at the individual moves, you don't necessarily think, man,
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: this is going to get us to back to back
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: conference finals, but in essence it's it did. And I
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: think what I would look at from the perspective of
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: the front office is you really want to understand who
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: your best players. You know, think about sports, whether it
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: be baseball, football, like, you can win a lot of
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: different ways. You really can't like basketball. You can play fast,
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: you can play slow, you can play a lot of guys,
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: you can play a few guys. You know, you can
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: have whatever kind of system you want and you can
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: win with that. But it really all starts with building
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: a system around the identity of your best player.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: And I think it really has to start there.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Now there are times where you don't necessarily have a
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: best player, and then you want to develop a culture.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: But this goes across all sports. All the best teams
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: tend to have great defensive principles, right so we know
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: we're going to have that. And then when you figure
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: out and identify that best player, then you've got to
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: find guys that compliment him, not just talent wise, but
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: also in terms of.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: Who they are.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: You know, you can't necessarily go get another alpha if
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: your guy is an alpha, but if your guy isn't
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: an alpha, even though he could be your best player,
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: because that's also the case.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: And I say this with all due respect, like.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't say that Kevin Durant is an alpha even
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: though he might be my best player. So I would
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: have to then make sure I have guys that can
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: fulfill a role that allows him to be the best
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: player version of himself.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: One thing about coaching or building a team. One thing
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: I learned from coach Chark. He said, you know, you
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: never ask players to do things that are uncomfortable doing,
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: because they'll never achieve what they're capable of, you know,
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: And that's the case. I think in a lot of
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: ways for any now, you can make them uncomfortable and
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: you can push them to heights that maybe they don't
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: know they have. But I go back to my puzzle analogy.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: I need to identify who my best player is and
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: where he strived, where he really has great strengths, and
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: then also identify the areas that he needs help. And
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: I think all four of these teams have done a
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: great job of that. Right, if you look at the
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: makeup of their teams, you know, Sga he's not a
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: tough guy, right, Steph Curry is not necessarily a tough guy.
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: So you get guys that fill that void.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Right, you have a lou Dort who brings that kind
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: of a mindset and fills that boy. And you have
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: a Draymond Green that brings that kind of a mindset
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: and fills that boy. Because the formula for success is
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: always the same. May not be the style, but the
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: formula for success is the same in terms of you've
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: got to have great mental toughness, right, you have to
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: have supreme talent.
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: But then there's also there has to be credibility, accountability
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: in chemistry, and so all those things have to work.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: They and the teams that recognize that. That's why teams
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: miss a lot because they may have one of the
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: three or two of the three, but the best teams
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: have them all. There's a connection and it doesn't always
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: look like it works. Like you wouldn't think that Draymond
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: and Steph are that close based on the way they
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: play and conduct themselves. But there's no duo with better
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: chemistry maybe that we've ever had in this game and
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: so being able to identify it early. Joki and Jamal
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: Murray another example of that, right, Like completely different places, culturally,
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: different interests, you know, but it works and it's not
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: always easy to identify, but that's what you really look for, Like,
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: you know, you want your guys to be in a
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: position of comfort, and I feel like that's the biggest
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: thing you don't want to If I got to ask
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: you to do stuff you're not good at, how the
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: hell am I going to ever expect us to be
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: really good?
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: You know, if you're spending time doing stuff you don't
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: do well, I want you to be the best version
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: of yourself. And it's my job as a front office
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: and a coach to find the guys to fill the.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: Voids in the areas that maybe you don't have.
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: Aja.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: At the beginning of our conversation, you talked about how
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: humanly you approached the situation with hobby bias. I'd like
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: to take into a room that was a little bit
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: less comfortable. Ken Tamaieta is a player who's a long
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: time veteran, veteran in Japan, veteran in the United States,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: very successful career. Time has come that you guys need
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: to let him go. The stats say it, everyone knows
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: it's the right thing to do. How do you approach
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: that conversation? What is that like? Take take the listeners
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: into your office when you have to inform kentami Ata
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: that not only is he his career with the Troy
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Tiger's over, but potentially his career in the Major League
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Baseball is over.
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I as a farm director. When I
• 7:29
  Speaker 5: first came off the field, I had never you know,
• 7:33
  Speaker 5: released somebody, or I had never ended anybody's employment, or
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: I had never really had those interactions.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: And I was very uncomfortable, and.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: I always am.
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: And anytime that it gets easy, you probably need to
• 7:44
  Speaker 5: get out of these these responsibilities or these leadership jobs.
• 7:49
  Speaker 5: But I think the one thing that is that has
• 7:53
  Speaker 5: really set me up in to be effective in those
• 7:57
  Speaker 5: in those conversations is the truth. Like players need to
• 8:01
  Speaker 5: know the truth, and it they may not agree with it,
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: they may not necessarily see it the same way you do,
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: or they may not interpret it the same way. But
• 8:10
  Speaker 5: you know, I've always prided myself and given the players
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: the truth, and you do it in dignified way. I mean,
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: obviously a veteran player or a veteran coach and you're
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: delivering bad news, you know it. It's You're not going
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: to be cold and callous, but you are going to
• 8:26
  Speaker 5: be direct. And so one of the things that that
• 8:28
  Speaker 5: I that I do is I don't bury the lead,
• 8:31
  Speaker 5: like I'm going to tell them right away why we
• 8:33
  Speaker 5: are in the meeting. At that point, I think I
• 8:36
  Speaker 5: have to allow the player to give any reaction that
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: he wants. It's his career, it's his job, it's his
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: he's the he's the one that that is that is
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: the that is receiving the tough news. It's not me
• 8:51
  Speaker 5: giving the you know what I'm saying, it's not don't feel.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Sorry for me.
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: Be be super kind to the person that you're delivering
• 9:00
  Speaker 5: the news to, but be kind by giving them the truth.
• 9:03
  Speaker 5: And when when it's a player who's underperforming, or it's
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: a player who you know that you're choosing to take
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: opportunity away from being compassionate matters and being thorough matters.
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: They all deserve a reason. You know, it's not a
• 9:17
  Speaker 5: numbers game. You are choosing to give the opportunity to
• 9:20
  Speaker 5: somebody else. And I think that has set up for
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: at the very least an understanding that that you know
• 9:28
  Speaker 5: that you get it, that you understand that it's a
• 9:31
  Speaker 5: difficult conversation. The last thing that I would say is like,
• 9:35
  Speaker 5: allow the player to be however he wants to be
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: when he's pissed. It's not personal to you. It's personal
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: to the decision or it's personal to the to the
• 9:46
  Speaker 5: to the gravity of the of the situation.
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: But you got to let them be.
• 9:49
  Speaker 5: Then they may be mad, they may hug you, they
• 9:52
  Speaker 5: may bolt out of the room and not even acknowledge you,
• 9:55
  Speaker 5: And that's not about you. It's about what's going on
• 9:58
  Speaker 5: with the player. And that that that to me, has
• 10:00
  Speaker 5: allowed me to have a dignified approach to a very
• 10:05
  Speaker 5: uncomfortable conversation. Because there are only thirty teams in the
• 10:10
  Speaker 5: big leagues and there are only so many spots, and
• 10:12
  Speaker 5: when somebody loses that opportunity, you never know if they're
• 10:16
  Speaker 5: going to get another one. And I think it's it's
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: important for the for the manager of the coach the
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: executive to appreciate the situation.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Next up, we are thrilled to bring on former agent
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: and San Francisco Giants advisor Jeff Barry. He's going to
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: share how he's handled negotiations very uniquely throughout his career
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: and it's extremely a special relationship with Buster Posey.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: Jeff.
• 10:51
  Speaker 6: One of the things we're jealous of from an NBA
• 10:53
  Speaker 6: perspective is your ability to negotiate different things into player
• 10:58
  Speaker 6: contracts and the NBA, I think they're on eleven or
• 11:00
  Speaker 6: twelve things to negotiate, and a few of them are
• 11:03
  Speaker 6: the data signed, how many years the player is getting,
• 11:05
  Speaker 6: the salary, the payment schedule, So it's pretty cut and paste.
• 11:08
  Speaker 6: It's pretty boring, to be honest with you. That pulled
• 11:12
  Speaker 6: a great example for this show. I think Troy Gloss
• 11:15
  Speaker 6: succorded that at an annual equestrian expense. Are there any
• 11:19
  Speaker 6: things like that that you remember either you negotiated or
• 11:22
  Speaker 6: you asked for and rejected, or you've heard your other
• 11:24
  Speaker 6: colleagues in the agent industry asking for. Because I think
• 11:27
  Speaker 6: that's fascinating for somebody who you know, basically just fills
• 11:30
  Speaker 6: in a few numbers and then signs it and it's interesting.
• 11:33
  Speaker 7: But but you know the thing of it is, Ron
• 11:34
  Speaker 7: I don't have anything specific that pops up that you know,
• 11:39
  Speaker 7: obviously the no trade clauses and the you know, the
• 11:42
  Speaker 7: housing allowance tickets, you know, like transportation for family members,
• 11:47
  Speaker 7: different things like that for say a guy that's out
• 11:50
  Speaker 7: of the country or you know that sort of thing.
• 11:53
  Speaker 7: But more to me to your point, and I think
• 11:56
  Speaker 7: some of this is being lost. Dad knows this. That
• 12:00
  Speaker 7: draft used to be a lot more fun in baseball
• 12:02
  Speaker 7: than it is now. They boxed it into what you
• 12:05
  Speaker 7: said of like you know, agents high five when we
• 12:08
  Speaker 7: get slot or when we get like the creative and
• 12:11
  Speaker 7: I remember it even goes back. You remember when I
• 12:14
  Speaker 7: think THEO is probably responsible for initiating a lot of
• 12:18
  Speaker 7: the other teams. You remember when they were going on
• 12:20
  Speaker 7: that kind of journey of spending whatever they wanted on
• 12:24
  Speaker 7: the draft that because it was the cheapest way. And
• 12:27
  Speaker 7: you know, he would have paid if I could have
• 12:29
  Speaker 7: somehow gotten you know, And I'm thrilled Buster ended up
• 12:32
  Speaker 7: with the Giants. It was a match made in heaven
• 12:34
  Speaker 7: from day one. Is I think THEO would have paid
• 12:38
  Speaker 7: whatever he would have paid you know, people would ask me, well,
• 12:41
  Speaker 7: what is what's Buster looking for in the draft? And
• 12:44
  Speaker 7: I said, I don't know it. You know, Molina just
• 12:47
  Speaker 7: signed a sixty million dollar deal, and I think Buster's
• 12:49
  Speaker 7: talents ahead of his, and you know, knowing the response
• 12:54
  Speaker 7: I would get. But THEO was going down that path
• 12:57
  Speaker 7: a lot, meaning like spending whatever. It took a lot
• 13:01
  Speaker 7: of the I don't know. The gamesmanship of the draft
• 13:05
  Speaker 7: has now disappeared with this kind of boxing in system
• 13:10
  Speaker 7: what for better or for worse, it just wasn't as
• 13:12
  Speaker 7: fun for me.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Well I think I think that new system, yeah, Jeff.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: And it's it's it's a it's a link that's tying
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: this whole conversation together, which is the game has gotten
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: a little bit more formulaic right where it's there is
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: less freedom to negotiate, kind of unencumbered. It's tougher to
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: squeak in the equestrian account for Troy Glauss's wife into
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: these contracts anymore. You just don't see that see that
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: as frequently.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: Jeff.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: I I want to give you some airtime here. You're
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: more than just an agent. You know, we touched on
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: it in the intro. You've been very involved with the
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: V Foundation. I know your wife is very involved with
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: the VV Foundation, but also a racehorse owner. I'd love
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: to give you a chance to give give the fans
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: a little slice into here we go, the hat's coming on,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: like what is is like as you've now transitioned from
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: being an agent where you're spending some of your free time.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: And then also i'd love to hear the story of
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: why you left the agency because I think it's very
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: informative to the listeners.
• 14:12
  Speaker 7: Well, and a lot of it was I was. I
• 14:15
  Speaker 7: don't know, it felt like it had run as course
• 14:17
  Speaker 7: for me. I talked one of the things where I
• 14:21
  Speaker 7: didn't feel like it was able to make the difference
• 14:23
  Speaker 7: that I wanted. And that's why I did a lot
• 14:25
  Speaker 7: of the media stuff with only just to kind of
• 14:28
  Speaker 7: tell all those stories, so to speak. And it felt
• 14:32
  Speaker 7: like it was just the right time for a change.
• 14:35
  Speaker 7: I had had wonderful clients, wonderful employees and colleagues and
• 14:40
  Speaker 7: co workers and all that, and I love being an agent.
• 14:43
  Speaker 7: I just didn't love being an agent.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 14:45
  Speaker 7: I go back to the Hater deal. I lost that
• 14:48
  Speaker 7: arbitration case that and I probably lost more arbitration cases
• 14:51
  Speaker 7: than anyone over the last twenty years. And we were
• 14:56
  Speaker 7: a hunt. What we were seeking was a one hundred
• 15:00
  Speaker 7: thousand dollars more than what papal Bond had gotten eleven
• 15:03
  Speaker 7: years earlier.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: And can I just say to Jeff, may have lost
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: arbitration cases, but you never lost the principal battle. And
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: that's why I said that about you earlier. You went
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: to bad for your clients when you felt the principles
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: were on your side, regardless of whether you were handicapped
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: to win or lose these cases. So I just want
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: to put that in a little bit of context.
• 15:21
  Speaker 7: It was I appreciate that, but the fact like I
• 15:25
  Speaker 7: made the decision. I remember sitting there at the table
• 15:28
  Speaker 7: and I was, you know, watching people running out of
• 15:30
  Speaker 7: the rooms. That saves the value by which our saves
• 15:34
  Speaker 7: of the currency by which relievers are value bad. You know,
• 15:36
  Speaker 7: in this academic, smart guy world, there couldn't be anything
• 15:40
  Speaker 7: further from the truth. And I was sitting there and
• 15:43
  Speaker 7: I'm like leaning back and I'm watching this and I'm like,
• 15:45
  Speaker 7: I'm gonna you know, I've snatched defeat from the jaws
• 15:49
  Speaker 7: of victory here, and I'm going to lose this case.
• 15:52
  Speaker 7: And it's insane that I'm losing this case. And that
• 15:56
  Speaker 7: was to me. I was like, we're going to see
• 15:58
  Speaker 7: this through. And you know, I'd rather mowlowns in Florida
• 16:03
  Speaker 7: then just cave into it because it's not worth it
• 16:06
  Speaker 7: to me not to try to do what's right there.
• 16:10
  Speaker 7: And so, you know, leaving was no. It just felt
• 16:14
  Speaker 7: like the right time. But since I have been out
• 16:17
  Speaker 7: obviously working with Buster trying to you know, we were
• 16:21
  Speaker 7: very aggressive Buster and Zach Manassian, who is a dude
• 16:27
  Speaker 7: of a general manager. I think he's been unbelievable. The
• 16:29
  Speaker 7: kid that started out, you know, as a club, he
• 16:32
  Speaker 7: grew up in the sport. I call it like that,
• 16:35
  Speaker 7: you know, you have your corn Faery Hires. I look
• 16:37
  Speaker 7: at it like a Chick fil A, meaning you can't
• 16:41
  Speaker 7: that Ryan can't go and buy a Chick fil A,
• 16:44
  Speaker 7: even with all his NBA money. You know why because
• 16:47
  Speaker 7: he doesn't have any history or background with Chick fil
• 16:50
  Speaker 7: A and they have like the culture of that. You see,
• 16:53
  Speaker 7: it it resonates every time. I was just in Albany,
• 16:58
  Speaker 7: in not a great area of Albany, coming back from
• 17:01
  Speaker 7: Saratoga where my horse was scratched with an emergency surgery.
• 17:04
  Speaker 7: So not in the best of moods. I go into
• 17:07
  Speaker 7: a Chick fil A and the place is beautiful. They
• 17:09
  Speaker 7: got an older gentleman sweeping things up, refilling my soda.
• 17:13
  Speaker 7: The point of it is, you have to have experience
• 17:16
  Speaker 7: working for Chick fil A and have grown up in
• 17:20
  Speaker 7: the industry, learned it from the ground up. And I
• 17:22
  Speaker 7: think that's a huge benefit. I think when we got
• 17:25
  Speaker 7: into the outsider world, you remember that it was a
• 17:28
  Speaker 7: it was almost a check mark against you if you
• 17:32
  Speaker 7: had a lot of experience in scouting, or if you
• 17:35
  Speaker 7: had a lot of experience in playing, which is so
• 17:39
  Speaker 7: bonkers to me. That all right, but you can do
• 17:42
  Speaker 7: really good math, or you can program this or that.
• 17:45
  Speaker 7: But this guy's been in the trenches for twenty years.
• 17:49
  Speaker 7: I take the guy in the trenches for the last
• 17:51
  Speaker 7: twenty years. I don't think this is baseball. Teams are
• 17:55
  Speaker 7: like global hedge funds that you know, the complexity and
• 17:58
  Speaker 7: all that, and so I look at you know, like
• 18:04
  Speaker 7: what Zach has done, what Buster has done, and to me,
• 18:08
  Speaker 7: I think it'll be the new wave of what general
• 18:10
  Speaker 7: managers will be. I think the pendulum will swing back.
• 18:14
  Speaker 7: And I remember thinking this because oh the Giants. This
• 18:18
  Speaker 7: is such a dramatic move, and I'm like, dramatic move.
• 18:23
  Speaker 7: It's he graduated at the top of his class, you know,
• 18:27
  Speaker 7: academically high school, was a college Academic All American in
• 18:31
  Speaker 7: addition to winning every single award, and then he caught
• 18:37
  Speaker 7: for twelve years, three World Series champions, calling every pitch,
• 18:42
  Speaker 7: managing the EQ of a pitching staff. Dad, you know
• 18:45
  Speaker 7: how hard that is, the EQ to manage a team
• 18:49
  Speaker 7: hit four hole and squat. Yet he's unqualified to run
• 18:53
  Speaker 7: a baseball team. That was to me like a real
• 18:57
  Speaker 7: tipping point in my mind. Now it's like running a
• 19:01
  Speaker 7: I don't know. I'll take the academic All American that
• 19:04
  Speaker 7: has been a catcher for twelve years and going into
• 19:06
  Speaker 7: the Hall of Fame.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Every player is such a unique path to reaching the
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: pinnacle in their profession. NBA great PJ. Tucker took a
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: circuitous route playing in Europe before getting a chance to
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: play in the NBA, whereas MLB Legendry Hunter sures his
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: perspective from being a first round draft pick to his
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: path to playing in the major leagues.
• 19:24
  Speaker 6: One of the reasons I have so much respect for you,
• 19:26
  Speaker 6: other than the great times we had together with the
• 19:29
  Speaker 6: Phoenix Suns is your path and I think you have
• 19:32
  Speaker 6: a really interesting story to tell, especially as we record
• 19:35
  Speaker 6: the show the week of the NBA Draft to young players,
• 19:38
  Speaker 6: because when we've talked about this before, by your own admission,
• 19:41
  Speaker 6: you were a little immature going to Toronto. You didn't
• 19:44
  Speaker 6: necessarily get what it took to not only make the
• 19:47
  Speaker 6: NBA but stick in the NBA, and then you had
• 19:48
  Speaker 6: to go overseas for five years and claw your way back.
• 19:52
  Speaker 6: If you could take our listeners inside that journey in
• 19:55
  Speaker 6: what you learned after initially washing out of the NBA,
• 19:58
  Speaker 6: having to go to Europe and earn your way back, I.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: Always want to tell it.
• 20:03
  Speaker 8: I always say I'd never imagine being back, like I
• 20:08
  Speaker 8: to sell myself and my mind because to be successful
• 20:12
  Speaker 8: over there, you have to be focused on there, right.
• 20:14
  Speaker 8: You can't be over there thinking that you're going to
• 20:17
  Speaker 8: come back like. It just doesn't work that way. And
• 20:19
  Speaker 8: I don't think you're gonna give what you gotta give
• 20:21
  Speaker 8: to be successful over there if you're doing that.
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: So going over.
• 20:25
  Speaker 8: There every year, it was fully maxing out right, getting better,
• 20:29
  Speaker 8: trying to win championships and do the individual thing and
• 20:33
  Speaker 8: trying to make more money right and over there. If
• 20:35
  Speaker 8: you win, you get paid, And so every year just
• 20:38
  Speaker 8: trying to win as much as possible, but even leaving
• 20:41
  Speaker 8: leave it before even before you know, I'll go back,
• 20:43
  Speaker 8: even before going over there, because my rookie year, I
• 20:47
  Speaker 8: think is really essential in the whole story of only
• 20:51
  Speaker 8: playing in seventeen games, being very very immature when it
• 20:56
  Speaker 8: comes to being a professional, when it comes to understanding
• 21:01
  Speaker 8: what it's all about. When you have so much success
• 21:03
  Speaker 8: in college as I did, Uh, and you're thinking you're
• 21:06
  Speaker 8: going to an NBA and that you'll get opportunities, uh where,
• 21:10
  Speaker 8: I'll tell it you. I couldn't even get in a
• 21:12
  Speaker 8: repping practice right like. It was like it was literally
• 21:15
  Speaker 8: I had so many vets on that team wings that
• 21:18
  Speaker 8: that had been in the league for years, So in practice,
• 21:21
  Speaker 8: guys were fighting for reps and I couldn't even get
• 21:23
  Speaker 8: a rep in practice a lot of times. So that
• 21:26
  Speaker 8: frustrated me. It wasn't anybody there to kind of like
• 21:29
  Speaker 8: coach me through it and you know, rub my back
• 21:31
  Speaker 8: and be like it's okay, you know, this is how
• 21:33
  Speaker 8: it goes. Blah blah blah. It just wasn't like that,
• 21:36
  Speaker 8: you know, and it was something I had to fight
• 21:38
  Speaker 8: through uh throughout that season. So once I got released
• 21:41
  Speaker 8: from the Raptors before the playoffs.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: It hurt.
• 21:44
  Speaker 8: It was, it really hurt, and I I just want
• 21:47
  Speaker 8: an opportunity to play right And that was I told Andre,
• 21:51
  Speaker 8: and Andre tells everybody that when I came out of
• 21:53
  Speaker 8: that season, I was like, I don't care where I go.
• 21:56
  Speaker 8: I just want to go sw everywhere I get a
• 21:58
  Speaker 8: chance to play. I was like, I don't care where
• 21:59
  Speaker 8: it is in world. And he didn't believe me. He
• 22:02
  Speaker 8: thought I would, like, still want to kind of fight
• 22:04
  Speaker 8: it here. And as soon as we got the first
• 22:06
  Speaker 8: opportunity I sign the contract. I still don't think he
• 22:09
  Speaker 8: believed I was going to do it, and I did.
• 22:11
  Speaker 8: Like I said, I think that was another big decision
• 22:15
  Speaker 8: I made to really help me be it right now.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: You know, Tori, one of the things that I think
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: our listeners probably don't fully appreciate is when you come
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: out of Pine Bluff, you are the best player in
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: that league, in that city, potentially in that state. You
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: come into Fort Myers and now everybody's the best player
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: from their city and their state. You know, everybody hit
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: third everybody hit first, second, third, fourth in their lineup.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Everybody could pitch and probably play center field or catch
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: or play short stop. So it is challenging making that
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: adjustment from being the guy who's the best player on
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: the field to being one of the guys on the field.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: I wonder if you could fast forward to a night
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: in Double A when you had to call Katrina, your wife,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: and tell her, maybe maybe this game isn't for me,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: maybe I'm not going to be able to What was
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: that conversation like, and what was that adjustment like for you,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: going from being the best player you had ever been around,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: who'd ever been in any league you've been in, to
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: being a guy who's just one of the guys.
• 23:11
  Speaker 9: Now, Yeah, I mean, man, you you do have a
• 23:15
  Speaker 9: lot of pressure. As a seventeen year old kid and
• 23:18
  Speaker 9: drafted in the first round. You know you're gonna hear
• 23:20
  Speaker 9: it from all the players you know, and you know
• 23:24
  Speaker 9: they said you know, subtly, and and you're gonna feel
• 23:28
  Speaker 9: the pressure. You're gonna read about it. You're not trying
• 23:32
  Speaker 9: to read about it, but you're gonna read about it.
• 23:34
  Speaker 9: You're gonna hear about it. But getting to Double A,
• 23:36
  Speaker 9: when I got there, man, I was sleeping in my
• 23:39
  Speaker 9: car in nineteen ninety seven.
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: It's just we couldn't afford the first month. Rent.
• 23:47
  Speaker 9: We knew we were going on the road for me
• 23:49
  Speaker 9: and a guy named Arma Brown. We knew we were
• 23:51
  Speaker 9: going on the road that after the first series, and
• 23:57
  Speaker 9: so we just say we got to save some money
• 23:59
  Speaker 9: and and we go on the road.
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: We're gonna get paid on the road.
• 24:02
  Speaker 9: And so we slept in the parking lot of New
• 24:04
  Speaker 9: Britain Broadcast Stadium and in the in the car. And
• 24:08
  Speaker 9: so we got up in the morning the rich the
• 24:10
  Speaker 9: guy clubhouse got rich. Let us come into the clubhouse,
• 24:13
  Speaker 9: take a shower, right, clean ourselves up, chill out for
• 24:16
  Speaker 9: a minute before the manager gets there. We were, which
• 24:19
  Speaker 9: was al Newman. We actually drove to the mall and
• 24:22
  Speaker 9: just hung out at the mall until we have to report,
• 24:25
  Speaker 9: and then we came back as if nothing was happening,
• 24:29
  Speaker 9: you know. And we did that for four games, and
• 24:32
  Speaker 9: then we went on the road and the team provide
• 24:34
  Speaker 9: the hotel for you. So uh, and I was just frustrated, like,
• 24:39
  Speaker 9: you don't we don't know what's going on. It might
• 24:41
  Speaker 9: have been you might think, oh, he's struggling. But I
• 24:44
  Speaker 9: was struggling internally before I became uh, before I struggle externally, right,
• 24:50
  Speaker 9: And so I just had a lot on my plate
• 24:54
  Speaker 9: on my mind. I just got married the year before
• 24:56
  Speaker 9: and now sleeping in a car. Uh and and you know,
• 25:00
  Speaker 9: me and my buddy was just like, all right, let's
• 25:02
  Speaker 9: just try to save some money. And then we end
• 25:03
  Speaker 9: up standing at the Hawthorne Inn Hotel, which is thirty
• 25:06
  Speaker 9: nine dollars a week, and so that's the only thing
• 25:08
  Speaker 9: we can afford. And it was rat infested, my roaches
• 25:13
  Speaker 9: and everything. You just do what you have to do.
• 25:15
  Speaker 9: And so I was I think when I know, when
• 25:19
  Speaker 9: I look back, I was frustrated with all the things
• 25:22
  Speaker 9: that was going on.
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: And I felt like it was my fourth year.
• 25:25
  Speaker 9: I'm like, this is too long, and I can go
• 25:28
  Speaker 9: home and work at McDonald's and make the amount of
• 25:30
  Speaker 9: money that I'm bringing after taxes.
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: And so it wasn't so much on the field.
• 25:36
  Speaker 9: It was so much off the field issues that actually
• 25:39
  Speaker 9: clogged my judgment.
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: And I called my wife and I said, hey, I
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: think I'm coming home. I'm gonna go back to school
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: and get my degree and so I can support my family.
• 25:50
  Speaker 9: This is not doing it. And man if I were to,
• 25:54
  Speaker 9: she said, hey, don't quit. We don't quit. Just wait
• 25:58
  Speaker 9: till the season's over, and if you feel the same
• 26:00
  Speaker 9: way after the season, then we'll get it done. I
• 26:02
  Speaker 9: told my call my brother to get his advice. He said, well,
• 26:05
  Speaker 9: if you come home, I'm gonna kick your.
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: Butt every day. I don't want that to happen.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: So so I'm master motivator.
• 26:14
  Speaker 9: Yeah, master motivator. But he's a he was a tough guy.
• 26:18
  Speaker 9: He was a tough guy. Uh, my older brother. So
• 26:20
  Speaker 9: I didn't I didn't want to deal with him every day.
• 26:22
  Speaker 9: If I know him, he was serious about it. And
• 26:25
  Speaker 9: so the season went on. This is this is after April,
• 26:30
  Speaker 9: and it went on in August and twenty second, nineteen
• 26:33
  Speaker 9: ninety seven, I got a call Odi Snickson got kicked
• 26:36
  Speaker 9: in the face and they said, hey, we need you
• 26:38
  Speaker 9: to come up. And I went up and uh and
• 26:42
  Speaker 9: got a cup of coffee for a week and uh,
• 26:45
  Speaker 9: and I saw the vision. I saw what I was
• 26:48
  Speaker 9: fighting for, and I was able to get a taste
• 26:51
  Speaker 9: of that coffee and uh, and it was sweet.
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: So when I went they sent me back down to
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: mynor leagues.
• 26:58
  Speaker 9: The rest was history, and I I've found out what
• 27:01
  Speaker 9: the vision was, and I found out what the purpose
• 27:03
  Speaker 9: and the dream. I tasted it and now I got
• 27:08
  Speaker 9: to have it. So nineteen ninety seven it was that
• 27:10
  Speaker 9: almost quit and that almost give up situation, which I
• 27:14
  Speaker 9: think everybody got has to have.
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: I think all of you and everyone that go out and.
• 27:19
  Speaker 9: Do great things and successful things, they almost have that
• 27:23
  Speaker 9: almost give up moment. And then before you know it,
• 27:26
  Speaker 9: something happens and then it makes you appreciate it more.
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: And that's when it turned around for me. Tori.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: Do you remember what your weekly salary was when you
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: were playing in New Britain?
• 27:37
  Speaker 9: My week is salary after taxes was two hundred and
• 27:40
  Speaker 9: nineteen dollars.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Michael Young and Rick Han shared extremely unique experiences in
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: which they definitively put a team ahead of themselves, as
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: they both made major shifts in their careers to benefit
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: the club, but weren't necessarily in their own personal interests.
• 28:08
  Speaker 10: Along with your humility, one of the things that stands
• 28:10
  Speaker 10: out even and that's talking about that one team and
• 28:14
  Speaker 10: you kind of made a joke about the two team,
• 28:16
  Speaker 10: but your ability to like pull remember the positives and
• 28:20
  Speaker 10: pull the positives of even a challenging situation. Those were
• 28:24
  Speaker 10: not very competitive team, very talented in some ways, not competitive,
• 28:27
  Speaker 10: And I guess fast forward to you know, when you're
• 28:31
  Speaker 10: the veteran on the team and I'm curious, how did
• 28:34
  Speaker 10: you go about trying to pay some of those things forward.
• 28:38
  Speaker 11: Yeah, again, a lot of it is just learned, learned
• 28:42
  Speaker 11: kind of things, and a lot of it being a
• 28:45
  Speaker 11: young player with that group. It's the example of Randy
• 28:47
  Speaker 11: all Right, learning by the good things that have happened
• 28:49
  Speaker 11: to me, and then also keeping my eyes and ears
• 28:51
  Speaker 11: open enough to learn what not to do. And there
• 28:54
  Speaker 11: were plenty of those examples too. So by the time
• 28:57
  Speaker 11: that two thousand and kind of four rolled around, Alice
• 28:59
  Speaker 11: got traded to create a bit of a vacuum. I
• 29:01
  Speaker 11: don't think I was necessarily a long in my career
• 29:04
  Speaker 11: to being a you know, you know, leader would have
• 29:08
  Speaker 11: been the obvious thing. I was only my fourth year.
• 29:10
  Speaker 11: I think I was actually pre arb at that point.
• 29:12
  Speaker 11: So but you sometimes you just feel eyes on you
• 29:15
  Speaker 11: a little bit and it's like, okay, like this is
• 29:17
  Speaker 11: the way it's going to be this year. And the
• 29:19
  Speaker 11: older guys we had in that group and four with
• 29:21
  Speaker 11: the Brian Jordan e Y, Kenny, Jeff Nelson. They really
• 29:25
  Speaker 11: pushed me into that role.
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: In a good way.
• 29:28
  Speaker 11: So that was great. I started realizing the things that
• 29:30
  Speaker 11: kind of were given to me, and I said, Okay,
• 29:32
  Speaker 11: I'm going to be the same way one. I'm going
• 29:33
  Speaker 11: to be me. I'm going to be myself. I'm not
• 29:35
  Speaker 11: going to push this thing into a different different direction. Again,
• 29:38
  Speaker 11: that was from a lot of these older guys that
• 29:39
  Speaker 11: I mentioned who really encouraged me just to be myself.
• 29:42
  Speaker 11: And then always kind of it just kind of happened
• 29:44
  Speaker 11: a bit organically at that point where I would walk
• 29:46
  Speaker 11: into the clubhouse every day with an idea of what
• 29:49
  Speaker 11: I needed to do, have a plan where in spring
• 29:51
  Speaker 11: training a regular season, this is what I have to
• 29:52
  Speaker 11: do today. If I'm struggling, there are certain things I really.
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: Want to attack.
• 29:55
  Speaker 11: And then my other eye is on somebody I gotta
• 29:58
  Speaker 11: get with who be having just a bit of a
• 30:01
  Speaker 11: teammate awareness and someone who might be going through a
• 30:05
  Speaker 11: tough time. Maybe I should get with him a little bit,
• 30:07
  Speaker 11: or someone who's on fire and I'm not, and I
• 30:09
  Speaker 11: need to ask a question about how to get myself
• 30:11
  Speaker 11: going whatever the case may be. And I was kind
• 30:13
  Speaker 11: of my bit of my mantra, kind of one eye
• 30:14
  Speaker 11: on myself and one eye on everybody else.
• 30:17
  Speaker 10: And you you you brushed past it there, but I
• 30:20
  Speaker 10: feel like you need to to color in that opening man.
• 30:25
  Speaker 10: And when Alex Rodriguezz traded prior to the fourth season,
• 30:29
  Speaker 10: John Hart was a GM. I was the assistant GM,
• 30:32
  Speaker 10: and we literally trade. The trade was a week before
• 30:35
  Speaker 10: spring training if that or it might have been in
• 30:37
  Speaker 10: days before spring training. And he was the only clear
• 30:41
  Speaker 10: cut major league caliber starting shortstop on the club, right,
• 30:44
  Speaker 10: and so we Alfonso Sorano comes back in the team.
• 30:47
  Speaker 10: We have two all stars second basement, and and you
• 30:49
  Speaker 10: and Soriano many Alexander's on the club more of a
• 30:53
  Speaker 10: utility player at that point in his career. And I
• 30:56
  Speaker 10: mean literally, you know, you have a decent team, go
• 31:00
  Speaker 10: and spring training without at a starting shortstop, and uh
• 31:04
  Speaker 10: and sorry, wanted no part in it.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 31:06
  Speaker 10: It was going to be a free agent a year
• 31:07
  Speaker 10: or so later, and understandably so, and you know, I
• 31:11
  Speaker 10: know you went into Buck's office and you know, volunteered
• 31:14
  Speaker 10: to move and you were an outstanding second base ended
• 31:17
  Speaker 10: up wuinning a goal glove and shortstop as well. But
• 31:20
  Speaker 10: curious just looking back on it now, Your thoughts on
• 31:23
  Speaker 10: that decision and how it came about.
• 31:27
  Speaker 11: It was, it was really long. That was my first
• 31:29
  Speaker 11: experience with the switching positions thing, and not to take
• 31:33
  Speaker 11: too long. But Alex's was going to get traded and
• 31:36
  Speaker 11: possible right. That was basically a kind of a done
• 31:38
  Speaker 11: deal and the Player Association got involved. But Buck called
• 31:41
  Speaker 11: me before that deal went down, because all I knew
• 31:43
  Speaker 11: at that point was new Alex hadn't contacted me. I
• 31:45
  Speaker 11: didn't really know what was going on. And he said, Hey,
• 31:48
  Speaker 11: how you doing. And I kind of knew where he
• 31:50
  Speaker 11: was going to go with this, and he said, hey,
• 31:52
  Speaker 11: I've been talking to John john Hart and we want
• 31:54
  Speaker 11: to know how you feel about playing shortstop. I said,
• 31:57
  Speaker 11: I don't want to play shortstop. It was I was
• 31:59
  Speaker 11: very clear, we're gonna we're gonna sign rich Aurelia. I
• 32:04
  Speaker 11: believe to play short at the time with with Alex.
• 32:08
  Speaker 11: We're gonna sign Richirealia and you'll play second or you're
• 32:11
  Speaker 11: gonna play short I prefer you for you to play
• 32:13
  Speaker 11: short I said, I love the Richarlia idea. I don't
• 32:15
  Speaker 11: want to play shortstop. I said, I recognize how cool
• 32:18
  Speaker 11: short stop is, I said.
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: But I've played about it.
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: I don't.
• 32:22
  Speaker 11: You can look it up. I told John told Buck,
• 32:24
  Speaker 11: I said, I haven't played much short stop, and I
• 32:26
  Speaker 11: really feel like I am getting ready to take off
• 32:28
  Speaker 11: as a two way guide. Second, I don't want to
• 32:30
  Speaker 11: be messed with. I feel like I've really scratched and
• 32:33
  Speaker 11: claude in my way to earn this job. I feel
• 32:35
  Speaker 11: like last year I finally did and I just want
• 32:37
  Speaker 11: to be left alone to do it. So Buck says, Okay,
• 32:41
  Speaker 11: I understand. It's a short conversation, and he's like, I'll
• 32:43
  Speaker 11: go back. I'll tell John that you're interested in doing
• 32:44
  Speaker 11: whatever's best for the team. I said, no, no, no, nope,
• 32:47
  Speaker 11: not what I said. I want to play. Second. Now,
• 32:51
  Speaker 11: having said that, I recognized that Alex's deal is much
• 32:53
  Speaker 11: bigger than what my preference was at that point. I
• 32:56
  Speaker 11: got that when I got the phone. But then, you know,
• 32:58
  Speaker 11: JD to your point, I'm driving spring training Christina, I
• 33:00
  Speaker 11: are on the way there and we find out I's
• 33:02
  Speaker 11: got traded to the Yankees, and I hadn't heard back
• 33:04
  Speaker 11: from anybody at that point. Again, if that deal comes
• 33:06
  Speaker 11: along quick, they don't need to take my opinion, and consideration.
• 33:09
  Speaker 11: I got it, but we got there still didn't talk
• 33:12
  Speaker 11: to anybody. And then I go out for the first
• 33:13
  Speaker 11: day of early working, Soorry and I both go to
• 33:15
  Speaker 11: second base and Manny Alexander is playing shortstop, and I
• 33:18
  Speaker 11: was like, this is not going to fly, you know.
• 33:20
  Speaker 11: So I went in the Bucks office that day and
• 33:24
  Speaker 11: I said what's going on? And he said, well, you
• 33:27
  Speaker 11: and sorry, you are both going to play short and
• 33:28
  Speaker 11: whoever plays better it was going to be a shortstop.
• 33:30
  Speaker 11: And I was just like it was frustrating at that
• 33:33
  Speaker 11: point because I knew where it was going to go,
• 33:36
  Speaker 11: and I really felt like this was going to be
• 33:40
  Speaker 11: a bit of the downslope in terms of me just
• 33:43
  Speaker 11: losing a grip on my own career. So at that
• 33:48
  Speaker 11: point I gave it a day to think about it,
• 33:50
  Speaker 11: and I said, well, listen, if I beat out Soory,
• 33:52
  Speaker 11: which I thought I would, to play shortstop, I'd rather
• 33:55
  Speaker 11: play every game at spring training so I don't make
• 33:58
  Speaker 11: a fool of myself in April out there. So the
• 34:00
  Speaker 11: next day I went into Bucks office said all right,
• 34:01
  Speaker 11: this is the way it's going to be, then I
• 34:03
  Speaker 11: need to get at it now. So that's how that
• 34:06
  Speaker 11: thing all round it up. I feel like I've gotten
• 34:08
  Speaker 11: a bit too much credit for just being, you know,
• 34:12
  Speaker 11: very very selfless and everything. It was very much like, hey, listen,
• 34:15
  Speaker 11: I need If I'm going to do this, I need
• 34:16
  Speaker 11: to do it now. My preference one hundred percent was
• 34:18
  Speaker 11: to play second base, but I also knew that if
• 34:21
  Speaker 11: I was going to play short I need all the
• 34:23
  Speaker 11: practice I can get.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Michael, I would like to tell some funny stuff, but
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: I actually want to just build off of this theme.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: You know, I was with JD when we were kind
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: of workshopping a conversation he ultimately then had with you
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: about changing positions again pre season two thousand and nine
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: to make room for Elvis Anders, who he thought had
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: a chance to be a gifted shortstop. And I will
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: say I think both both our careers have changed dramatically
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: based upon how that conversation went. And one thing I
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: reflect on is as much as our intentions are sounds,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: sometimes our executions don't align perfectly with our intentions. And
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: so knowing what we were trying to accomplish in that
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: conversation with JD genuinely wanted to achieve and then hearing
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: how it impacted you, we understand that those two things
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: didn't align very well, But how did that conversation go
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: from your perspective, and as you look back on it,
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: how much did the conversation you just referenced factor in
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: for you? And you know what could have been done
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: better in that situation to have conveyed that message without
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: really inflaming the relationship with what was clearly one of
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: the star players on the team. And I love JD's
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: perspective on that too.
• 35:37
  Speaker 11: Sure, I think, to be totally honest, and I think
• 35:40
  Speaker 11: I knew it at the time, JD did absolutely nothing
• 35:42
  Speaker 11: wrong in that conversation.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: It went well.
• 35:46
  Speaker 11: We went to breakfast to meet JD and WATSH and
• 35:47
  Speaker 11: we had a great, good relationships with all three. But
• 35:50
  Speaker 11: you hit it that PTSD, Man, it hit me right away.
• 35:54
  Speaker 11: I'm like, I know where this is going. I know
• 35:56
  Speaker 11: where this is going. It went from I didn't want
• 35:58
  Speaker 11: to leave second, now I'm going to go to short
• 36:00
  Speaker 11: and now just getting pushed farther and farther away from
• 36:03
  Speaker 11: my natural position. And there was part of me when
• 36:05
  Speaker 11: I played short that thought, Okay, if I leave Short,
• 36:09
  Speaker 11: I can go back to second. Right, I also knew,
• 36:12
  Speaker 11: and you leave the middle infield. You never go back.
• 36:15
  Speaker 11: It's done. So JJ didn't do anything wrong. Communication was
• 36:18
  Speaker 11: rock solid, it was fine, and I understood where the
• 36:21
  Speaker 11: organization was. My thought was, and the organization does, you know,
• 36:25
  Speaker 11: do what's in the best interest of the organization. My
• 36:28
  Speaker 11: thought was, this is going to kill me. This is
• 36:31
  Speaker 11: going to kill me. I know where this is going
• 36:32
  Speaker 11: to go A couple of years after this, By the way,
• 36:34
  Speaker 11: I think I'd played an inning it third my entire life,
• 36:37
  Speaker 11: and I know enough about it to know that it's
• 36:38
  Speaker 11: going to be really, really different. So you know, I was.
• 36:43
  Speaker 11: I walked away again, like to your point, the PTSD
• 36:45
  Speaker 11: from moving second hit me, and I said, this is
• 36:47
  Speaker 11: going to go a bad way, really really soon. And
• 36:49
  Speaker 11: I just wasn't in favor of that. From that perspective,
• 36:51
  Speaker 11: I wanted to stay it short, not because I thought
• 36:53
  Speaker 11: I was a soret stop again. If if someone would
• 36:55
  Speaker 11: have moved me at any point when I was playing
• 36:57
  Speaker 11: short stop back to second, I would have said thank you.
• 37:00
  Speaker 11: But having said that, the teammate and he kicks in.
• 37:02
  Speaker 11: I Ian Kinslan, my best friends in the world's playing
• 37:04
  Speaker 11: second mates. He earned his job. I'm not going to
• 37:06
  Speaker 11: elbow my way over there, So it created a really
• 37:09
  Speaker 11: really I wrestled with it, man, you know, like I
• 37:12
  Speaker 11: never went any point. Really thinks that moved me to
• 37:15
  Speaker 11: second That's where Ken was at. So it just I
• 37:18
  Speaker 11: just said I want to stay short, even though honestly,
• 37:21
  Speaker 11: like sure, it wasn't really this thing in my mind
• 37:23
  Speaker 11: where I really wanted to be short stuff. I wanted
• 37:25
  Speaker 11: to be a second baseman. And with that thing, I
• 37:28
  Speaker 11: got farther and farther away from it. And I think
• 37:30
  Speaker 11: I was upset because I knew that if I went
• 37:31
  Speaker 11: to third, seconds now gone j D.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: How do you reflect on that that exchange?
• 37:37
  Speaker 10: Yeah, and I think there's some important concept. And Michael
• 37:39
  Speaker 10: was several years in a row running an All Star
• 37:42
  Speaker 10: at that time, just won the Gold Glove at shortstop.
• 37:44
  Speaker 10: So we're here, we are, you know, messaging to him
• 37:46
  Speaker 10: washing and I go, we meet Michael for breakfast, and
• 37:49
  Speaker 10: the messages you know, this is best for the team
• 37:51
  Speaker 10: because you know, we team was in bankruptcy, we were
• 37:54
  Speaker 10: up for sale. We didn't have any money to spend
• 37:56
  Speaker 10: on you know, free agents, and so we thought one
• 37:58
  Speaker 10: of the ways we can get better was we had
• 37:59
  Speaker 10: this young shortstop that could come up and basically, you know,
• 38:03
  Speaker 10: maybe make us better at two positions. But it was
• 38:05
  Speaker 10: a tough message. Michael had literally just won the gold glove,
• 38:08
  Speaker 10: you know, it worked his ass off to make himself
• 38:12
  Speaker 10: a star at a second position. With that, If you
• 38:15
  Speaker 10: recall when I come back from the meeting, the way
• 38:18
  Speaker 10: Michael just phrased it made it sound like it was like,
• 38:21
  Speaker 10: you know, perfect. I definitely don't think of my execution
• 38:24
  Speaker 10: was was anywhere close to that. But we come back
• 38:28
  Speaker 10: and I think it was you, me and A. J. Prewler,
• 38:31
  Speaker 10: and you guys are like, well, had the meeting go?
• 38:32
  Speaker 10: And I was like, shure, I think it went great.
• 38:36
  Speaker 10: And at that I lost all credibility with that and
• 38:40
  Speaker 10: AJ and the rest of the front office for describing
• 38:43
  Speaker 10: how meetings went in the future because it was a
• 38:45
  Speaker 10: little bumpy. But we got through it no small part
• 38:49
  Speaker 10: because you know, Michael ultimately, you know, as you say,
• 38:51
  Speaker 10: put the team first. But it was I think a
• 38:54
  Speaker 10: lot more challenging for him, certainly than I recognized at
• 38:58
  Speaker 10: the time and not even now. And you look at
• 39:00
  Speaker 10: like players moving positions or you know, the you know
• 39:05
  Speaker 10: situate Boston had earlier this year, like there's always more
• 39:08
  Speaker 10: of than than meets the eye, And I think these
• 39:11
  Speaker 10: are real challenges. People assume it's just an easy move,
• 39:14
  Speaker 10: but there's a lot of work and a lot of challenge,
• 39:16
  Speaker 10: and both physically and mentally. I think that goes into
• 39:19
  Speaker 10: these things.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: So Rick, just circling back to your to your origin story,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: when when you you're dreaming of working for the White Sox,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: did you make any forays of joining their organization before
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: you ultimately got hired and how did that go?
• 39:33
  Speaker 12: I did? It went so well that it took another
• 39:38
  Speaker 12: four years before they actually hired me. I was very bullheaded,
• 39:44
  Speaker 12: which I'm sure is going to come to a great
• 39:46
  Speaker 12: shock to those who know me like you do. I
• 39:49
  Speaker 12: didn't want to use any help. I didn't want to
• 39:53
  Speaker 12: use any family connections or so and so know so
• 39:56
  Speaker 12: and so who can get you in front of someone.
• 39:58
  Speaker 12: I thought, No, I'm going to do this on my own,
• 40:01
  Speaker 12: completely oblivious or arrogant to the fact that it's extraordinarily competitive.
• 40:07
  Speaker 12: And just because someone makes an introduction to someone doesn't
• 40:10
  Speaker 12: mean you're getting hired, Like you're gonna there might be
• 40:13
  Speaker 12: nice to you for a little bit, but they're not
• 40:15
  Speaker 12: going to hire you unless you fit the role. But Finally,
• 40:18
  Speaker 12: after about three years of banging my head against the wall,
• 40:21
  Speaker 12: and like I said, being excited when I got a
• 40:23
  Speaker 12: form letter back from HR rejecting me. I did acquiesce,
• 40:29
  Speaker 12: and my dad has a friend who knew Jerry Rhyinstorff,
• 40:34
  Speaker 12: and a friend passed all on my resume, and Jerry
• 40:37
  Speaker 12: was kind enough to invite me in. And this is
• 40:40
  Speaker 12: the winner of ninety six. I walk into his office.
• 40:45
  Speaker 12: He's facing the other way. I still remember it distinctly,
• 40:48
  Speaker 12: and before he turns around, keep in mind, Jerry denies
• 40:52
  Speaker 12: this story, so it's his word against mine. Before he
• 40:55
  Speaker 12: turns around, he starts letting off a barrage of I
• 40:59
  Speaker 12: don't know what you're doing in here. You're wasting my
• 41:01
  Speaker 12: f in time. You're wasting your f in time. You
• 41:05
  Speaker 12: need to go get a real job, not work in baseball.
• 41:08
  Speaker 12: And you know, having grown up in Chicago Bulls fan,
• 41:11
  Speaker 12: and you know, just having had the labor stoppage in
• 41:15
  Speaker 12: ninety four, I'm like, took me a second, be like, wow,
• 41:18
  Speaker 12: Jerry Reinsorf is sitting here cursing me out. I was
• 41:22
  Speaker 12: able to maintain composure and we wound up talking for
• 41:24
  Speaker 12: about an hour and a half that day, and I
• 41:27
  Speaker 12: felt like I made progress, explaining that I thought the
• 41:30
  Speaker 12: game was changing and that the profile of those who
• 41:33
  Speaker 12: were going to populate front offices is already starting to
• 41:35
  Speaker 12: move a little bit, and only more will more so
• 41:38
  Speaker 12: in the coming years. Walked out of there feeling pretty good.
• 41:42
  Speaker 12: About two weeks later, I get a handwritten letter on
• 41:45
  Speaker 12: Jerry's stationary sent to my apartment. My real name is Frederick.
• 41:50
  Speaker 12: I go by Rick. My real name is Frederick, So
• 41:52
  Speaker 12: my top of my resume that he has says Frederick,
• 41:55
  Speaker 12: and the letter starts off dear fred So, showing that
• 41:58
  Speaker 12: he has already forgotten my name. Goes on to say
• 42:02
  Speaker 12: I've thought long and hard about our meeting, and I
• 42:05
  Speaker 12: continue to believe I will not help you ruin your life.
• 42:08
  Speaker 12: Please lie down until you come.
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: To your senses.
• 42:11
  Speaker 12: But then at the end he said, however, if you
• 42:15
  Speaker 12: would like to learn about scouting while holding down a
• 42:19
  Speaker 12: real job, feel free to contact me and I'll put
• 42:22
  Speaker 12: you in touch with some of our scouts so you
• 42:24
  Speaker 12: can shadow. So I did do that, got to know
• 42:27
  Speaker 12: some scouts, many whom are actually still with the White Sox,
• 42:30
  Speaker 12: who were very gracious with their time while I was
• 42:32
  Speaker 12: sitting there in business school, and I spent a good
• 42:35
  Speaker 12: portion of my springing summer getting exposed to that. So
• 42:40
  Speaker 12: it's a long story already, so I can't say long
• 42:42
  Speaker 12: story short. But at the time I was at Kellogg
• 42:45
  Speaker 12: Business School, they had a contest for best rejection letter
• 42:49
  Speaker 12: from the job application process, and I want twenty five
• 42:53
  Speaker 12: dollars to Barnes and Noble. So that was the first
• 42:55
  Speaker 12: money ever made in baseball thanks to Jerry again, and
• 42:58
  Speaker 12: he denies writing that letter, which is framed upstairs in
• 43:00
  Speaker 12: my office.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: That is an awesome story. I also I realized, like
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: when you say that, like you have to accept rejection
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: if you want to work in professional sports. And I'm
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: sure that there's no greater time than now to say that,
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: like the amount of times I got rejected and just
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: really categorically I applied to all thirty teams coming out
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: of college. I got formally rejected by four twenty six,
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: didn't even respond right, and I was ecstatic. I was
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: like this, I'm like on the precipice. When I ultimately
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: got the job, my first job in baseball with the
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: Colorado Rockies, I got rejected for a marketing position, which
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: I was grossly overqualified for and then got hired for
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: a baseball position. I was grossly underqualified later, So you
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: just never know how it's going to go. Rick, I
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: want to continue delving into your relationship with Jerry, because
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: at least outwardly, it seemed as if it was such
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: a special relationship. You guys had forged over twenty three
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: seasons together. So it starts in a kind of like a funny,
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: avuncular way, and then it matures over time. You guys
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: get to celebrate the two thousand and five old series together,
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: you guys get to go to the playoffs in twenty
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: twenty and twenty twenty one together. Ultimately, though, as all
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: these jobs do, it winds down at the end. What
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: were your conversations like with him leading up to that,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: and can you kind of share with the listener, like
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: how does that go down? Because I think, you know,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: we see those things in movies, it doesn't play out
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: the same way in real life. But my sense is
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: you had a little bit more of a hand in
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: that than people would realize.
• 44:33
  Speaker 12: Yeah, and look, Jerry Reinsdorf and Kenny Williams took a
• 44:38
  Speaker 12: chance on me in two thousand when they first hired me,
• 44:42
  Speaker 12: and again it sounds silly getting the current state of
• 44:46
  Speaker 12: the game, but as we talked about earlier, back then,
• 44:48
  Speaker 12: there weren't a lot of people like us getting these opportunities.
• 44:53
  Speaker 12: And not only did they give me that first opportunity,
• 44:55
  Speaker 12: but they continue to give me more and more areas
• 44:59
  Speaker 12: for both to put me in a position where I
• 45:01
  Speaker 12: could become a general manager. So I was forever grateful
• 45:05
  Speaker 12: for that as well as over the years, you know,
• 45:10
  Speaker 12: the friendship, the counsel, the advice, the the antagonism when
• 45:17
  Speaker 12: I needed it to push me to get better. All
• 45:20
  Speaker 12: helped form you know, who I was as an executive,
• 45:25
  Speaker 12: but also like who I was as a man and
• 45:27
  Speaker 12: a father and a husband.
• 45:29
  Speaker 11: Like it.
• 45:30
  Speaker 12: I'm forever indebted to them both. But part of that,
• 45:35
  Speaker 12: I feel comes with a responsibility to be honest. And
• 45:41
  Speaker 12: you know, as I mentioned, the twenty twenty two season,
• 45:44
  Speaker 12: we sputtered around, We didn't fulfill our promise. In the
• 45:46
  Speaker 12: twenty twenty three season got off to a horrible start,
• 45:48
  Speaker 12: just a disaster, and Jerry and I think had our
• 45:52
  Speaker 12: first conversation in early May of that year where I
• 45:56
  Speaker 12: said to him, you know, the focus of the conversation
• 45:59
  Speaker 12: was what are we going to do to get out
• 46:00
  Speaker 12: of this? What can we do? What are their options?
• 46:03
  Speaker 12: But I ended that meeting by saying, look, you do
• 46:05
  Speaker 12: realize if we can't pull out of this, you're going
• 46:10
  Speaker 12: to have to fire me. And he's like, no, no,
• 46:13
  Speaker 12: that's silly, that's not the case. I have faith in you,
• 46:15
  Speaker 12: And I said, now, I appreciate that. I said, however,
• 46:19
  Speaker 12: you've given me and our department the opportunity to rebuild
• 46:23
  Speaker 12: this organization and we had some success, certainly not nearly
• 46:27
  Speaker 12: enough in our opinion, or as much as we strove for.
• 46:31
  Speaker 12: But if this doesn't work in twenty three, you're gonna
• 46:34
  Speaker 12: have to reset it again. And that's just the nature
• 46:37
  Speaker 12: of where this organization is and where our resources is
• 46:39
  Speaker 12: and where our balance sheets are. And I'm not entitled
• 46:42
  Speaker 12: to get to do that a second time. Like you
• 46:45
  Speaker 12: have to understand that.
• 46:46
  Speaker 11: I get it.
• 46:47
  Speaker 12: I can. You know it's not going to be ugly,
• 46:50
  Speaker 12: It's going to be clean if you ever get to
• 46:52
  Speaker 12: that point. We had similar conversations in June, July, and August.
• 46:58
  Speaker 12: You know, he really was reluctant to make a change.
• 47:04
  Speaker 12: You know, I felt it was part of my job
• 47:08
  Speaker 12: as one of the leaders in the organization to protect others.
• 47:12
  Speaker 12: I didn't want the coaching staff to feel the eire Kenny,
• 47:18
  Speaker 12: you know, as someone who had been wonderful to me
• 47:21
  Speaker 12: for over two decades and is the GM when we
• 47:24
  Speaker 12: won the World Series and played a key role in
• 47:27
  Speaker 12: many of our success of our successes together. You know,
• 47:33
  Speaker 12: he had a deeper relationship with Jerry, going back an
• 47:36
  Speaker 12: extra decade plus longer than my twenty three years, and
• 47:40
  Speaker 12: I felt, as the GM, he could remove me and
• 47:44
  Speaker 12: just me and things would be back on track. There
• 47:48
  Speaker 12: at least would be more consumer and fan confidence and
• 47:51
  Speaker 12: perhaps a different approach that could exceed even the level
• 47:55
  Speaker 12: of success we were able to rebuild the thing into
• 47:58
  Speaker 12: over the course the last few years. When it came
• 48:02
  Speaker 12: to the end, the actual final conversation where he you know,
• 48:07
  Speaker 12: let me go, you know, it was it was more
• 48:13
  Speaker 12: it was more me consoling him. Frankly like it was
• 48:16
  Speaker 12: especially him making the move with Kenny like that. He's,
• 48:20
  Speaker 12: as he has said publicly, like Kenny was like an
• 48:23
  Speaker 12: additional son to him, and that really really hit him hard.
• 48:27
  Speaker 12: I think he didn't love firing me either, but that
• 48:30
  Speaker 12: one was like family and they remained extremely close to
• 48:33
  Speaker 12: this day because of that history and I, you know,
• 48:39
  Speaker 12: talking with Kenny later that day, like both of us
• 48:42
  Speaker 12: are I think had similar experiences where it was letting
• 48:47
  Speaker 12: this kind and generous man who had been good, but
• 48:51
  Speaker 12: both of us understand that we got it. This is
• 48:54
  Speaker 12: you know, is him Ros said, this is the business
• 48:56
  Speaker 12: we have chosen, like, this is part of what comes
• 48:59
  Speaker 12: with the territory and it objectively was time.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: Like front office executives, players and coaches, members of the
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: media have their own unique paths to covering professional sports.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: Jeff Passon joins us to share his origin story from
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: the University of Syracuse to Fresno to now covering Major
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: League Baseball. Is one of the foremost members of Major
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: League Baseball media. Jeff skin Wade of Ben and Skin
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: Fame joins us to share his electrifying voice as a
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: foremost sports media broadcaster in the Dallas Fort Worth area
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: and a huge fan as he shares his opinion of
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: the Micah Parsons trade. You know, this is a little
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: bit of a role reversal. Usually Jeff gets to Pepper
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: j D and I will the pepper grinders in the
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: other hands. For this interview, we get to really start
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: peppering you with some stuff.
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: Jeff.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: One of our traditions on rosters to rings is to
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: ask every guest kind of what their origin story is.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: How did you get into sports? In Why Baseball, I'll
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: start at the beginning.
• 50:09
  Speaker 13: I grew up in the Cleveland Plain Dealer newsroom and
• 50:14
  Speaker 13: in radio booths at WWWE and wkn R in Cleveland.
• 50:20
  Speaker 13: My father started working at the Plaine Dealer in nineteen
• 50:23
  Speaker 13: sixty three and continued through his retirement forty one years later.
• 50:30
  Speaker 13: And so I sort of come by this genetically in
• 50:35
  Speaker 13: both the fact that I had the ability, thankfully to
• 50:39
  Speaker 13: write a little bit, and that I topped out at
• 50:42
  Speaker 13: five foot nine, and so as much as I loved
• 50:45
  Speaker 13: sports and loved playing sports, I knew my future was
• 50:49
  Speaker 13: going to be much likelier on the written side, and
• 50:52
  Speaker 13: so went to school at Syracuse, worked at the Daily
• 50:55
  Speaker 13: Orange there and got the best education possible, not in
• 50:59
  Speaker 13: the class room, but in the field. My first job
• 51:02
  Speaker 13: was in Fresno, California, at the Fresno b where Adrian
• 51:06
  Speaker 13: Wrzanowski and Andy Katz and John Branch who I worked
• 51:11
  Speaker 13: with and who's want to pull itzerprize like it's a
• 51:14
  Speaker 13: great sports section with a lot of history. And I
• 51:17
  Speaker 13: don't know if you guys have spent any time in Fresno,
• 51:19
  Speaker 13: but weird shit happens there, and where weird shit happens,
• 51:23
  Speaker 13: it's great for news, and so spent two years there.
• 51:29
  Speaker 13: I got extremely lucky to get my first baseball writing job.
• 51:34
  Speaker 13: I was twenty three years old at the time. I
• 51:36
  Speaker 13: had all of like five or six games experience at
• 51:40
  Speaker 13: internships covering baseball. But the editor there, Mike Fannin, took
• 51:44
  Speaker 13: a took a risk on me, and he saw something
• 51:48
  Speaker 13: and I spent a couple of years at The Star,
• 51:51
  Speaker 13: went to Yahoo, and ESPN has been, you know, among
• 51:56
  Speaker 13: all of my really enjoyable stops, like, there's no point
• 52:00
  Speaker 13: in my career where I look back and I'm like, defin,
• 52:02
  Speaker 13: I suck now. I've been extraordinarily fortunate to work with
• 52:06
  Speaker 13: really good people at really good and supportive places. But
• 52:10
  Speaker 13: nothing's like ESPN.
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: Man.
• 52:12
  Speaker 13: I mean, say what you will about the current state
• 52:18
  Speaker 13: of sports journalism, I will put what we do in
• 52:22
  Speaker 13: both breadth and depth up against anyone. I still think
• 52:28
  Speaker 13: when it comes to serving the sports fan, nobody does
• 52:32
  Speaker 13: a better job than we do.
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: Jeff One thing I just wanted to have you shared
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: with the listeners. And this is actually a question from
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: one of our listeners, who interestingly is named twins Nowherry,
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: But he said he wanted to know how do you
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: actually cultivate sources and how do you go about like
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: testing whether or not they're worthwhile of you staying in
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: touch with them, and if you were to rank them
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: like agents, players, coaches, executives, like have you found some
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: more reliable than others? And then the last little twist
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: on this was like, how do you feel when you
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: kind of get the sense that whether it's an agent
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: or executive is kind of using you just to promote
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: their player, but there's not a whole lot of truth
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: to the rum or they're trying to promote. So like,
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: I just if you could take us through like how
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: do you cultivate sources? How long is that process before
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: you can truly trust trust them? And then like how
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: many of those contact points are you making per hour
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: you during that time frame leading up to actually then
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: feeling comfortable reporting something as being truthful.
• 53:33
  Speaker 13: I think that the point at which I'm willing to
• 53:36
  Speaker 13: report all depends on who I'm getting the information from,
• 53:39
  Speaker 13: how long have I known this person? Is there any
• 53:41
  Speaker 13: reason why the person would give me this information? And
• 53:45
  Speaker 13: part of what helps me fad is that I've kind
• 53:49
  Speaker 13: of cut out all of the incremental things that lead
• 53:54
  Speaker 13: to the eventual transaction. Other reporters will say, these people
• 53:58
  Speaker 13: are talking with this team is talking with this other
• 54:03
  Speaker 13: team about this guy, and I just I don't know
• 54:09
  Speaker 13: the extent of conversations. Talks can be hey, what do
• 54:14
  Speaker 13: you think of this guy? Or talks can be, hey,
• 54:18
  Speaker 13: here's who we would give up for this guy. It's
• 54:21
  Speaker 13: who you ask for. Let's get to medicals and see
• 54:24
  Speaker 13: how this goes like. And there's such a giant number
• 54:29
  Speaker 13: of different things in between those two ends of the
• 54:32
  Speaker 13: continuum that, to me, what matters is not who's talking
• 54:37
  Speaker 13: with whom.
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: What matters is.
• 54:40
  Speaker 13: When a deal gets done and what does that mean
• 54:44
  Speaker 13: for everybody involved. And so I've given myself a little
• 54:48
  Speaker 13: bit of leeway in that regard not to get used.
• 54:52
  Speaker 13: It happens still sometimes, and I've done this long enough
• 54:56
  Speaker 13: where I can usually sniff it out. But the people
• 55:00
  Speaker 13: people who I have good relationships with, they kind of
• 55:04
  Speaker 13: know not to do that because they know that number one,
• 55:08
  Speaker 13: I will call them out on bullshit, and number two
• 55:12
  Speaker 13: that when you do that, your credibility with me just
• 55:16
  Speaker 13: sinks immediately. Like, I want to have an honest enough
• 55:20
  Speaker 13: relationship with the people that I deal with, where they
• 55:24
  Speaker 13: can tell me what they need, what they are feeling,
• 55:29
  Speaker 13: where they are at the moment, how they're looking at
• 55:32
  Speaker 13: a particular transaction they might be doing, whether this could
• 55:35
  Speaker 13: be a good thing, whether this could be a bad thing.
• 55:37
  Speaker 13: I can play Devil's advocate for them, like I like
• 55:41
  Speaker 13: the thought process of it. And I'm not going to
• 55:45
  Speaker 13: be in a front office like that.
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: That's not my goal.
• 55:48
  Speaker 13: I'm not smart enough to be in the mix there.
• 55:52
  Speaker 13: But I do like play acting at sometimes, and in
• 55:56
  Speaker 13: doing so, what it allows me to do with my
• 55:59
  Speaker 13: writing later on is to potentially offer all the perspectives
• 56:04
  Speaker 13: on this, both the good and the bad, and and
• 56:07
  Speaker 13: why one makes more sense than the other. It allows
• 56:10
  Speaker 13: me insight into the decision making of people in front
• 56:14
  Speaker 13: offices that it is so hard to know without understanding
• 56:19
  Speaker 13: what the greater picture is. I think, how how do
• 56:23
  Speaker 13: I get sources? I don't discount that the level at
• 56:32
  Speaker 13: which my voice is respected and considered among fans absolutely
• 56:38
  Speaker 13: plays into that that that i'd i'd be naive to
• 56:43
  Speaker 13: suggest otherwise, but I didn't just start, you know, getting
• 56:47
  Speaker 13: sources when I got to ESPN. And and I think
• 56:50
  Speaker 13: it's because I'm honest and because I'm kind of sincere,
• 56:58
  Speaker 13: and I can and I can be you know, I
• 57:03
  Speaker 13: think I can be different things for different people, and
• 57:08
  Speaker 13: it's it's not it's not ever fake. But what I've
• 57:13
  Speaker 13: tried to do is when I'm meeting someone, I want
• 57:17
  Speaker 13: to understand where they are in their lives, Where are
• 57:21
  Speaker 13: you professionally, where are you personally, and where are the
• 57:25
  Speaker 13: experiences that I've had? How can I relate to you?
• 57:28
  Speaker 13: And how can I understand what's important to you and get.
• 57:33
  Speaker 11: To know you?
• 57:34
  Speaker 13: And I've you know, I've made a lot of great
• 57:38
  Speaker 13: relationships over the course of this job. And I think
• 57:42
  Speaker 13: because I'm honest with people about my life and the
• 57:45
  Speaker 13: things that I'm going through, good and bad, they understand
• 57:50
  Speaker 13: that I work really hard and I care and they
• 57:52
  Speaker 13: see those similarities between us and it's almost like, hey,
• 57:57
  Speaker 13: because you you do this the way that you do
• 58:01
  Speaker 13: and I respect you for that, I'm going to try
• 58:05
  Speaker 13: and help you out Like that to me is ultimately
• 58:09
  Speaker 13: where most of it comes from. And it's the tough
• 58:13
  Speaker 13: part of this job, man, because there are a lot
• 58:15
  Speaker 13: of people in the industry, and in giving people time
• 58:20
  Speaker 13: that they feel like is sufficient for them. They're only
• 58:23
  Speaker 13: twenty four hours in a day. You guys know what
• 58:25
  Speaker 13: bandwidth strain looks like.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: Just give us the level set, Like, what is the
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: millions of diehard Dallas Cowboy fans? How are they feeling today?
• 58:35
  Speaker 14: They feel triple gutted for a lot of reasons. One
• 58:40
  Speaker 14: as I think the fan base. You know, there's a difference.
• 58:43
  Speaker 14: The NFL is the biggest animal by far. But you know,
• 58:47
  Speaker 14: if you live in Dallas, you're a Mavericks fan and
• 58:49
  Speaker 14: a Rangers fan, and you're a Cowboys fan and a
• 58:52
  Speaker 14: Stars fan. And so this is a sports fan base
• 58:55
  Speaker 14: that is still reeling from the Luca trade. And so
• 58:59
  Speaker 14: you have the best player on your team for both
• 59:03
  Speaker 14: franchises changed before they enter their prime or as they
• 59:06
  Speaker 14: enter their prime.
• 59:08
  Speaker 15: And it seems to be for reasons that.
• 59:10
  Speaker 14: You you know, whatever you want to project on it.
• 59:13
  Speaker 15: A lot of people project ego.
• 59:15
  Speaker 14: Onto this this sort of thing, and I think, you know,
• 59:19
  Speaker 14: I'm not trying to be a cynical, grumpy guy, but
• 59:24
  Speaker 14: we're on thirty years of this behavior from the Dallas Cowboys,
• 59:29
  Speaker 14: So I'm emotionally speaking, I'm unfazed by it. I you know,
• 59:35
  Speaker 14: it's the problem is the logic with which the Cowboys
• 59:39
  Speaker 14: use to do things. They don't seem to have a philosophy.
• 59:41
  Speaker 14: They yank it all over the road. Let me ask you, guys,
• 59:44
  Speaker 14: and you know, name a superstar player the Cowboys drafted
• 59:49
  Speaker 14: since Jerry Jones has been there that they didn't keep.
• 59:52
  Speaker 15: I don't think there's one.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 59:54
  Speaker 14: I'm not going to sit here and say DeMarco Murray
• 59:57
  Speaker 14: was a superstar.
• 59:57
  Speaker 15: He was a good running back.
• 59:58
  Speaker 14: I remember not being he went within the division, and
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 14: it didn't bust me up that they if you are
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 14: a superstar, Jerry keeps you. He may do this, you know,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 14: little routine that he does and say the things and
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 14: love all the juice and all the talk about it,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 14: but they get the guy done. You could have made
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 14: an incredible argument, and we did on our sports talk show.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 14: I didn't want to resign Ezekiel Elliott, not because I
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 14: don't think he was a great player, but I personally
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 14: never give a running back excuse me that second contract.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 14: And I mean there's some guys like Saquon I get it,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 14: but they're so rare. And Ezekiel wasn't that guy. He
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 14: showed signs of, you know, starting to diminish a little bit.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 14: So you don't do that with that position. What you
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 14: do is you franchise him, and if it upsets the
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 14: apple cart, so be it. But that's not how the
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 14: Cowboys just don't have a good philosophy. And this if
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 14: you had told me right before the draft we're gonna
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 14: trade Micah Parsons, you I can understand and you can
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 14: make it make sense to me because you can't have
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 14: two of the top seven highest paid non quarterbacks in
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 14: the NFL and the highest paid quarterback in the NFL.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 14: That's stupid business. So if you had done it going
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 14: into the draft, when you can put a good deal together,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 14: I get it. That's not what happened here. This is ego,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 14: and we've seen it play out year after year after year.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 14: And I don't know if you guys watched it, but
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 14: we all, just as our community, just watched this Netflix special,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 14: which is eight episodes of Jerry Jones's flawed in his
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 14: ego has drug fan bases through the mud for thirty years,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 14: and it happened again. This trade happened because Jerry insulted
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 14: that agent. And guys, I know way more about the
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 14: NBA than the NFL, And Tom, I might be speaking
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 14: out of turn here, but what I see in the
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 14: NBA is when you upset the agent, he gets you
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 14: out of there and he gets you where he wants
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 14: you to be. And and Jerry took ridiculous shots at
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 14: that agent, disrespect him. And this isn't some third rate agent.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 14: This is a big time guy with big time clients.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 14: And you know who some of his biggest clients are.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 14: They're in Green Bay, like Jordan Love. And so you
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 14: don't make a deal like this a week before the
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 14: season starts because there's, like Tom said, there's so few
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 14: teams that can do it.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 15: This was an ego deal.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 14: And now the ego you've gone to the edge of
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 14: the cliff and Jerry's not going to back down as
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 14: he's insulting everybody. And you guys saw Tom, you say
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 14: you saw how Mike was acting. They they traded a
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 14: generational pass rusher a week before the season because ego
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 14: got in the way. This is the kind of thing
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 14: that drives Cowboys fans bonkers.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: I tell you what, when you're introduced is having tremendous
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: passion and knowledge. That's how you deliver. People in their
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: copy statement, that's how you deliver. It's been referenced a
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: few times on the show here, and I just want
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: to say, in Major League Baseball, if you negotiate directly
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: with a player, you're going to lose your job. Like so,
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: it's fascinating to me that one of the undercurrents of
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: this story is that Jerry not only was negotiating directly,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: but also seemingly was outraged and was not going to
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: allow the agent to participate. Shifting gears for a second
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: here back to Jerry, just really don't real quickly.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 16: So just with so we don't have or we the
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 16: NFL doesn't have that rule. I mean, the agent has
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 16: to be certified. He can't negotiate with a non certified agent.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 16: But there's no rule you can't negotiate directly with the player.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 16: I've never done it. Well, we did it once because
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 16: the player didn't have an agent. But yeah, they're not
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 16: circumventing the CBA by talking directly to the player. But
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 16: usually the player to say, look, you know, call my agent.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 16: And look the especially in this this contract, Mike is
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 16: paying his agent a lot of money for guidance consultation
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 16: on these contracts. His agent has on this hundreds thousands
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 16: of times before. He does it for a living. The
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 16: player doesn't do this for a living, so he should
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 16: want to use an agent, and he was. But but yeah,
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 16: there was Dallas in't do anything that was against the
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 16: CBA by talking directly.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: To the player. It's remarkable. I mean, in baseball, just fundamentally,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: for this very reason, you have to work with the
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: representative because it's assumed that they have more knowledge in
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: the space and will represent the player better than the
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: player at ken himself.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 11: Skin.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: Not to rub a little lemon juice in the old
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: wound here, but I'm going to read a few quotes
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: from Jerry Jones that I love your reaction and quoting here.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: This was a move to get us successful in the playoffs.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: This was a move to be better on defense. Obviously
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: we didn't think it was the best interest of our organization,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: not only the future, but right now this season as well.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: This gives us a chance to be a better team period.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: How do you how do you think the average fan
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: is responding to.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 15: That, I think I think the average fan.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 14: Jerry's one of those guys when you're around him, it's
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 14: fun to be around him. But I think even the
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 14: average fan is tired of his BS, right, and so
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 14: these sorts of things they just ring hollow. And theoretically
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 14: what he said is accurate, So then do it when
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 14: you can get a much better deal three months ago.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 14: Nothing's changed. They haven't been able to stop the run
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 14: the entire time. Micah Parsons was there racking up this
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 14: incredible you know pass rush rate and uh, you know,
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 14: getting these sacks and you know you have to double
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 14: sometimes triple team them. They've never been able to stop
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 14: to run this entire time. So they knew this. So
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 14: in theory, what Jerry's saying is accurate, it's just after
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 14: the fact.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 15: BS.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 14: They would have aggressively addressed it months ago, and so
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 14: it's like they got cornered into the deal and this
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 14: is how they spin it. And that's what I think
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 14: drives all the fans crazy because we have this long
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 14: track record of this sort of behavior. And again, man
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 14: in the press conference Yesture, Jerry Jones told a story
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 14: that he has told a hundred times about a contract
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 14: dealing with Michael Irvin in which he said something clever
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 14: about the city of El Paso, and Michael threw up
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 14: his hands. He's like, I can't deal with you, Jerry,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 14: You're the best, and then going over and signs the deal.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 14: So we're talking about something that happened in the mid nineties,
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 14: and that's what he's sitting up on the stage talking about.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 14: He's talking, he's referencing, Well, you know, I've done a
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 14: million deals, and it's and it's it's maddening that we're
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 14: still stuck in that time warp. And it's good to
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 14: know what Tom said. I didn't realize that you could
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 14: quote unquote negotiate with the player. But you know, it
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 14: doesn't really matter because if the deal is not done, okay,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 14: how do we how do we get it done? If
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 14: you want to be here and we want you to hear,
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 14: how do we get this done? And the answer is
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 14: to not pretend like you don't know the agent's name
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 14: and go insult him on a Michael Irvin podcast. That's
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 14: not the way to get the deal done.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: We are so appreciative of you the listener, for giving
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: us your time and support here at Roster Syrings. We
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: will be back every Thursday and excited to announce our
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: plans for season two of Roster Syrings on behalf of
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: Ryan McDonough, John Daniels, Tom Telesco, Wyatt Krueger and Jason
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: wykelt I am fad Levine, have a wonderful Thanksgiving