Latest / Foul Territory / Greg Maddux on “the Maddux”, 90’s Braves, Tony Gwynn, Prank humor
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: We have Hall of Fame or Greg Maddox with us
- 0:04Speaker 1: right now. We haven't had you on. We've been looking
- 0:06Speaker 1: forward to talking to you. Well, happy to be here. Yeah,
- 0:08Speaker 1: I don't know what you've heard about us, but we've
- 0:10Speaker 1: been looking forward to talking to you. We've talked to
- 0:12Speaker 1: Glad and we've talked to Smoltz. How he smelted at
- 0:15Speaker 1: golf event. By the way, versus Smoltz when you played with.
- 0:18Speaker 2: Him, it's just like he's pitching. It's like he's starting today.
- 0:22Speaker 2: He's kind of the same person. So yeah, you know,
- 0:25Speaker 2: you always have you know, you always on a little
- 0:27Speaker 2: different level on game day, and that's that's where he's.
- 0:30Speaker 3: At right now. Are you like that too.
- 0:34Speaker 2: I think I'm a little more mellow than Smoltzy, you know.
- 0:36Speaker 2: I think I realize I'm here to have fun and
- 0:40Speaker 2: enjoy the guys in the golf trip and.
- 0:42Speaker 3: Smoltzy's trying to win.
- 0:43Speaker 2: It's kind of a different you know, it's a different
- 0:45Speaker 2: beast for the both of us. And I think I'm
- 0:48Speaker 2: having more fun than him, that's for sure.
- 0:51Speaker 3: Yeah, you think.
- 0:53Speaker 4: Yeah, So we had Pavelski on and he played with
- 0:55Speaker 4: Smolts yesterday. Uh huh, And I said, what's Smoltz trash
- 0:59Speaker 4: talk like? So you ever heard Smoltz trash talk?
- 1:02Speaker 2: Uh, I've heard him talk a little trash for over
- 1:04Speaker 2: the years. Uh you know it's pretty clean. You know,
- 1:08Speaker 2: he's he keeps it clean, and uh uh he's fun
- 1:12Speaker 2: to play with.
- 1:13Speaker 5: Obviously, were like, what was he like on star bas
- 1:18Speaker 5: what was what was Smoltzy like on stardas You just
- 1:20Speaker 5: you mentioned that he was kind of locked in? What
- 1:23Speaker 5: did that look like?
- 1:24Speaker 2: Well, you know, you're just a little bit more serious,
- 1:26Speaker 2: you know, with your attitude and you look the way
- 1:27Speaker 2: you walk around the clubhouse and all that as opposed
- 1:30Speaker 2: to the four days off and and uh you can
- 1:32Speaker 2: kind of see it on just about every starting pitcher.
- 1:35Speaker 2: Uh there's a couple that, you know, you don't notice
- 1:38Speaker 2: much of a difference, but uh, you know there in
- 1:40Speaker 2: Atlanta when it was Moltzi's turn to pitch, he was
- 1:43Speaker 2: definitely moving a little bit quicker and uh uh not
- 1:46Speaker 2: quite as talkative as.
- 1:48Speaker 3: He normally is. And what about you.
- 1:52Speaker 2: I like to just kind of chill out and get
- 1:54Speaker 2: in a card game and and uh, you know, get
- 1:56Speaker 2: the lineup card, look at the lineup card and kind
- 1:58Speaker 2: of go over my notes and uh, you know, play
- 2:00Speaker 2: a game of Hearts or pluck with the boys.
- 2:02Speaker 3: Did you walk around in your white underwear? You didn't?
- 2:07Speaker 3: You know you're in a tidy whitey guy. You were? Uh,
- 2:09Speaker 3: you were the long underwear, the old man white you know.
- 2:12Speaker 3: Uh I had the.
- 2:13Speaker 2: Half size on maybe. Uh yeah, I guess Hell, the
- 2:17Speaker 2: whole team did I know?
- 2:19Speaker 3: That's true? That's true. That's what we.
- 2:21Speaker 4: Said, Chipper, Because did Schipper wear like nine pairs of
- 2:23Speaker 4: sliding shorts?
- 2:25Speaker 3: Yeah?
- 2:25Speaker 2: Chip, Yeah, Chipper was Yeah, he goes, I don't want
- 2:28Speaker 2: to slide and get scabbed up for two months, so
- 2:31Speaker 2: he uh yeah, he was very protected in case he
- 2:34Speaker 2: had to slide.
- 2:35Speaker 1: Hey, I've been watching Oh go ahead, crats.
- 2:39Speaker 5: You said you said you would. You would get the
- 2:41Speaker 5: lineup card and you'd take a look at that. It's
- 2:44Speaker 5: way more extensive.
- 2:45Speaker 3: Now.
- 2:46Speaker 5: Would you have done the more extensive stuff now or
- 2:50Speaker 5: would that have gotten in the way of what you were?
- 2:53Speaker 5: What you know, what made you better?
- 2:57Speaker 3: Uh?
- 2:59Speaker 2: Well, I mean I I did most of my own scouting.
- 3:02Speaker 2: I think the stuff now today is great. I think
- 3:04Speaker 2: I would pull bits and pieces up. But for sure,
- 3:06Speaker 2: you know, I'd love to know if aj hits, you
- 3:09Speaker 2: know one twenty on two to one count changeups as
- 3:11Speaker 2: opposed to you know for twenty You know you get
- 3:13Speaker 2: you get stuff like that.
- 3:14Speaker 3: It's pretty valuable.
- 3:15Speaker 2: So uh, I think you would pull out the stuff
- 3:18Speaker 2: that you think you can actually execute and uh use it.
- 3:22Speaker 4: Your advantage wouldn't have helped them. Crouds wouldn't help them
- 3:25Speaker 4: against me at nine for seventeen.
- 3:28Speaker 3: That's sorry about nine seventeen. That's why for this I
- 3:34Speaker 3: I was like, but no walks. You didn't walk at
- 3:36Speaker 3: some point, I figured you would intentionally walked me. Well,
- 3:38Speaker 3: you were hitting eight.
- 3:41Speaker 1: There it is.
- 3:43Speaker 3: There, it is, Yeah, but the picture was behind me
- 3:45Speaker 3: at some point. That's true. But then again, you probably
- 3:47Speaker 3: couldn't have walked because they were throwing it up.
- 3:49Speaker 2: Here and then I have to face the lead off hitter,
- 3:53Speaker 2: know you.
- 3:54Speaker 4: That's why I said he couldn't That's why he didn't
- 3:57Speaker 4: want me, because he couldn't have physically thrown it far
- 3:59Speaker 4: enough outside for me to swing.
- 4:01Speaker 3: That's good.
- 4:02Speaker 1: Are you watching the Braves or any other Do you
- 4:04Speaker 1: watch a lot of ball?
- 4:05Speaker 2: I watched a little bit of the Rangers. You know,
- 4:06Speaker 2: my brother's over there in Texas, and uh, what do
- 4:09Speaker 2: I got.
- 4:10Speaker 1: Wait, he's doing this.
- 4:11Speaker 3: For a reason out here, for to check your heart
- 4:13Speaker 3: rebate and I'm getting the warm fuzzy Yeah, your brother
- 4:17Speaker 3: and everything he comes to money.
- 4:19Speaker 1: Yeah, he asks a lot of the guys about it.
- 4:21Speaker 2: Yeah, we uh, we have fun with that at Thanksgiving holidays.
- 4:25Speaker 2: Well we'll do the like the run, you know, he's
- 4:28Speaker 2: got that run, and we'll do the run and we
- 4:31Speaker 2: try to give him running practice I think one holiday
- 4:33Speaker 2: and just so he wouldn't embarrass a family as much.
- 4:35Speaker 2: But uh, yeah, he's good and uh, he's good at
- 4:39Speaker 2: what he does. And you know, I know he's uh
- 4:42Speaker 2: taught me an awful lot about baseball growing up, being
- 4:45Speaker 2: the older brother. And uh, it's always nice to have
- 4:48Speaker 2: that resource, you know, in your back pocket when you
- 4:50Speaker 2: need a little help. Sometimes your brother's a little bit
- 4:53Speaker 2: better than the coaches you got.
- 4:55Speaker 1: So how often do you have conversations about work? Obviously
- 4:59Speaker 1: in the thing, but yeah, what's going on? What's wrong
- 5:02Speaker 1: right now?
- 5:02Speaker 3: You know?
- 5:03Speaker 2: We you know, we used to talk a lot when
- 5:06Speaker 2: we were playing together. You know, that was before all
- 5:09Speaker 2: the scouting. And you know, if if his team played,
- 5:13Speaker 2: say the Brewers, and our team was playing the Cubs.
- 5:15Speaker 2: We'd cross and I'd give him the Cub Report and
- 5:18Speaker 2: he'd give me the Brewer Report, and we shared a
- 5:21Speaker 2: lot of information and I think we helped on one
- 5:25Speaker 2: another out tremendously during our careers.
- 5:28Speaker 3: When you look at baseball now, when you see guys
- 5:31Speaker 3: like Schoob go through the Mattocks, is it cool that
- 5:33Speaker 3: there's something called the Matti Yeah, that's kind of cool. Cool.
- 5:37Speaker 2: I mean you like, you know, you're out of the
- 5:38Speaker 2: game for twenty years now, and it gets brought up
- 5:40Speaker 2: because somebody did something good.
- 5:41Speaker 3: It's pretty cool. It's pretty cool.
- 5:43Speaker 2: And you know, I like watching that guy pitch, like
- 5:46Speaker 2: I can just prep sure that guy actually pitches.
- 5:49Speaker 4: He has fun too, Yeah, he talks a little trash, Yeah, yeah,
- 5:53Speaker 4: I see that.
- 5:55Speaker 1: Okay, KP, this is your first arena club experience. We're
- 5:57Speaker 1: going to open this lab pack together. So first off,
- 6:00Speaker 1: if we're gonna buy one of those twenty five dollars
- 6:01Speaker 1: slab packs and we get to see what is in
- 6:04Speaker 1: the pack. There, it is the Grail, which is the
- 6:07Speaker 1: best card in the pack and worth the most. There
- 6:10Speaker 1: are some other cards that we're chasing, and you can
- 6:12Speaker 1: see the entire lineup, so that you know what you're
- 6:14Speaker 1: in the running for. There's the Yamamoto signed card. Now
- 6:18Speaker 1: let's open up our pack and see how we do.
- 6:22Speaker 1: We have ourselves a really cool graphic and then a
- 6:27Speaker 1: show Heyo Tani fifty to fifty card from last year.
- 6:32Speaker 1: What do you want to do? Should we sell it
- 6:33Speaker 1: right back to them for sixteen or should.
- 6:35Speaker 3: We keep it? You should give it to me, I'll keep.
- 6:39Speaker 1: Good answer, Fine, I will give it to you. Since
- 6:41Speaker 1: the Blue Jays didn't getto Tani, you can get this
- 6:44Speaker 1: fifty to fifty card instead and use the code foul
- 6:47Speaker 1: foul to get yourself twenty percent off your first slab
- 6:49Speaker 1: pack or card purchase. Yes, you get to keep that
- 6:52Speaker 1: card if you want it. They send it to you
- 6:54Speaker 1: foul at Arena club dot com slash foul.
- 6:58Speaker 3: I've always wanted to know this, is it true? Well?
- 7:00Speaker 3: I saw all the documentaris Eddie Peretz.
- 7:02Speaker 4: The reason you had to call the pitches for Eddie
- 7:04Speaker 4: perets because he didn't remember what fingers he put down.
- 7:06Speaker 4: So that's why I know, because Eddie's Eddie. But this
- 7:10Speaker 4: is how I could hit youse. Every time he went
- 7:11Speaker 4: like this, he threw me a change up. So I
- 7:14Speaker 4: was like, oh, change ups.
- 7:16Speaker 3: Coming, probably a fastball.
- 7:17Speaker 2: He probably.
- 7:21Speaker 3: You probably just thought it was a gan. But how
- 7:26Speaker 3: did you get the ball to move so much?
- 7:28Speaker 4: Because you were the originator really of the front of
- 7:30Speaker 4: the front hip sinker.
- 7:32Speaker 2: Yeah, I was very fortunate in high school. I had
- 7:36Speaker 2: a pitching coach that taught me that movement was more
- 7:39Speaker 2: important than velocity, and he kind of changed my arm
- 7:43Speaker 2: mangaled when I was, you know, fifteen, sixteen years old
- 7:45Speaker 2: to create movement, and that was how I learned. I
- 7:50Speaker 2: learned movement was more important than velocity. I learned location
- 7:53Speaker 2: was more important than velocity. And I learned changing speeds
- 7:56Speaker 2: it was more important than velocity. So you know, for me,
- 7:58Speaker 2: it was obviously you want to throw hard, harder the better,
- 8:01Speaker 2: but you know there's things more important than that in
- 8:04Speaker 2: order to get hitters out. And uh, that's the way
- 8:07Speaker 2: I was raised and brought up.
- 8:09Speaker 1: Now, some guys won't get noticed if I understand throw
- 8:13Speaker 1: hard enough. They feel that kids kids will be like,
- 8:16Speaker 1: I don't think I'm going to get a look because
- 8:18Speaker 1: there's just a barometer where they're like, we don't think
- 8:21Speaker 1: he's going to be able to throw hard enough. Even
- 8:22Speaker 1: though you can do a lot of other things.
- 8:24Speaker 2: I understand. I understand that part of it. But uh,
- 8:27Speaker 2: you know, in the day I threw hard. I mean
- 8:29Speaker 2: I I came up, I threw hard. I threw hard
- 8:31Speaker 2: enough to get drafted, and uh you know I was.
- 8:35Speaker 2: I was taught your fastball is going to get you drafted,
- 8:39Speaker 2: and if you learn how to pitch, that's how you
- 8:41Speaker 2: make your money.
- 8:42Speaker 4: You could throw ninety five though, right, No, you don't
- 8:45Speaker 4: think how about with today's radar guns, today's radar guns,
- 8:49Speaker 4: I might be a tick or two higher, obviously, but uh.
- 8:52Speaker 2: You know, I think you know, when I was throwing hard,
- 8:55Speaker 2: I was you know, ninety one to ninety three when
- 8:57Speaker 2: I was thrown hard, and uh yeah, but when like this, yeah,
- 9:02Speaker 2: you get older, you start losing stuff, and then.
- 9:04Speaker 3: The strike zone was we a bit wlighter?
- 9:06Speaker 2: Well I would like to got the high strike they're
- 9:08Speaker 2: getting today, but that would have been nice. You know,
- 9:10Speaker 2: we might have got you know, a couple of inches
- 9:12Speaker 2: off the plate, and you know, I'd like to have
- 9:14Speaker 2: the foot and a half up too, But you know,
- 9:17Speaker 2: it is what it is. You always adapt to whatever
- 9:19Speaker 2: the strikes one is that day, you know how it is.
- 9:21Speaker 3: I mean you. I mean it changes day.
- 9:23Speaker 5: To day, different era, different errors. Always hate on other eras,
- 9:27Speaker 5: whether it's the older guys or the newer guys. Some
- 9:30Speaker 5: people were like, well, Crang Maddox, he wouldn't have survived
- 9:32Speaker 5: with the ABS system that's coming in next year. How
- 9:36Speaker 5: do you think you would have been able to had
- 9:38Speaker 5: success with that or even like you just mentioned, with
- 9:42Speaker 5: the with the zone that's consistent that's called right now.
- 9:46Speaker 2: I mean, I think I'd like to think I could
- 9:48Speaker 2: have adapted to it. I mean, I think if you
- 9:51Speaker 2: look at every generation, all the top players were top
- 9:54Speaker 2: players for a reason. They during their time, they were
- 9:58Speaker 2: able to have a little more success. And uh, you know,
- 10:02Speaker 2: it's just like the pitchers today. I mean, they could
- 10:04Speaker 2: have pitched in our air and then and you know,
- 10:06Speaker 2: twenty years from now, they'll probably saying the same thing
- 10:08Speaker 2: about them.
- 10:10Speaker 3: You would have been fine.
- 10:11Speaker 4: He would have been fine because he just would have
- 10:13Speaker 4: brought the ball back a little bit more. I mean,
- 10:15Speaker 4: he started the sinker off the plate like this bar
- 10:18Speaker 4: and it would just and Charlie O'Brien's back there like this,
- 10:21Speaker 4: and he just never moves his globe.
- 10:23Speaker 3: Oh, ball's alf far off this plate. Stright the old time.
- 10:28Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, hey, the other pitcher got it too. That's
- 10:33Speaker 2: one of the things. You know, I like everyone says Atlanta.
- 10:35Speaker 2: You know, we got more pitches than anybody. And you know,
- 10:39Speaker 2: when you sit there and you watch our games, if
- 10:41Speaker 2: we're getting a little bit off the plate, well the
- 10:43Speaker 2: other guy was getting it too.
- 10:44Speaker 3: We just threw more there.
- 10:45Speaker 2: So I think, you know, we were able to adapt
- 10:48Speaker 2: to the strike zone a little bit better than most
- 10:50Speaker 2: of the guys we faced. Uh, you know, it wasn't
- 10:53Speaker 2: like the other guy didn't get it too.
- 10:55Speaker 3: That's true. Uh.
- 10:57Speaker 1: We have spoken to hundreds and hundreds of current and
- 11:00Speaker 1: former players on this show, and I think you still
- 11:02Speaker 1: stand tall as the best prankster you know baseball history.
- 11:07Speaker 3: So I'm not sure where I got that rep at. Really,
- 11:11Speaker 3: you've heard it many times.
- 11:13Speaker 1: I mean, you just you must have had at least
- 11:14Speaker 1: you just had a few good ones that that were like,
- 11:17Speaker 1: there's all timers and people just kept talking about it.
- 11:19Speaker 2: I think over the years, guys like do embellish to
- 11:21Speaker 2: be honest with you, you know how that goes. You know,
- 11:24Speaker 2: the older I get, the funnier it was or whatever.
- 11:27Speaker 2: And yeah, you you.
- 11:29Speaker 4: Are a jokester though, Like, I know you're playing it
- 11:32Speaker 4: down right now, but you are because you put the
- 11:34Speaker 4: glasses on. You know, if someone saw you walking down
- 11:36Speaker 4: the street, have no idea that you were a Hall
- 11:39Speaker 4: of Fame picture with three hundred and fifty wins. Yeah,
- 11:42Speaker 4: but you're a joke You're a jokester. But uh, I
- 11:45Speaker 4: like to have fun the jokester too, So you must
- 11:48Speaker 4: run in the fans.
- 11:48Speaker 3: He's sick.
- 11:49Speaker 2: He's the sick one of the fans, the sick one one.
- 11:52Speaker 2: I mean, everything I learned, he taught me right, and
- 11:57Speaker 2: you still got to going in the game today.
- 11:59Speaker 3: That's true, all.
- 12:00Speaker 4: Right, So we got to ask Tony Gwynn, toughest guy
- 12:02Speaker 4: for you to get out. Four point fifteen, one hundred
- 12:05Speaker 4: and seven plate appearances, zero strikeouts.
- 12:07Speaker 2: Yeah, I struck him out once and the Yump didn't
- 12:10Speaker 2: call it. I thought I got him, and I think
- 12:14Speaker 2: the yump kind of didn't give it to me. But uh,
- 12:17Speaker 2: the best pure hitter obviously. I mean, if if a
- 12:21Speaker 2: single is going to beat you, that's the guy you
- 12:23Speaker 2: didn't want to. But I think obviously Barry was hands
- 12:26Speaker 2: down the best. You know during the time. You know,
- 12:30Speaker 2: Chef had Barry, okay, because I walked him all the time.
- 12:34Speaker 2: But uh yeah, I mean you pretty much had to
- 12:40Speaker 2: pitch to Tony because he hit second. And you know,
- 12:43Speaker 2: Tony Gwinn was cool because he's a guy that you
- 12:46Speaker 2: know how you beat lineups and not hitters. That was
- 12:49Speaker 2: like the first time that you have to learn that
- 12:52Speaker 2: when you face the padres, because uh you know, you
- 12:55Speaker 2: got to find your twenty seven outs and you know
- 12:57Speaker 2: they're not going to be with Tony, so you know,
- 12:59Speaker 2: you better make sure you get the guys out in
- 13:01Speaker 2: front of him and after him, and then you got
- 13:03Speaker 2: a pretty good chance to win.
- 13:05Speaker 3: Is the story about, was it bag? Well?
- 13:08Speaker 4: That that story is? That story is correct about you
- 13:12Speaker 4: gave up a homer to get him later.
- 13:14Speaker 2: It's not that you're trying to give up a homer.
- 13:16Speaker 2: You're trying to throw a pitch that he might be
- 13:18Speaker 2: looking forward to try to keep him there. You know,
- 13:20Speaker 2: I always thought hitters remember success, you know, and if
- 13:26Speaker 2: they have success off you, that's what they're gonna remember,
- 13:29Speaker 2: and that's probably where their eyes are going to be
- 13:31Speaker 2: looking during the game.
- 13:32Speaker 4: That's smart because when I first came up, I had
- 13:34Speaker 4: a backup catcher was a guy named Tom Prince, and
- 13:38Speaker 4: he used to tell me, hey, every once in a while,
- 13:40Speaker 4: if there's two outs, nobody on, you have a really
- 13:43Speaker 4: good hitter. You're right to the stuff to get him out.
- 13:45Speaker 4: You kind of give him a little something m early series,
- 13:49Speaker 4: early in a game, like you said, to get them excited, like, oh,
- 13:51Speaker 4: they are gonna throw me a sinker in where I
- 13:54Speaker 4: crush it.
- 13:54Speaker 3: Every once in a while.
- 13:55Speaker 4: He's like, yeah, do with two outs and nobody on,
- 13:57Speaker 4: you have a lead, just so when you need to
- 13:59Speaker 4: go the slider, you haven't used it yet.
- 14:01Speaker 3: And then when I heard that story, I was like, oh,
- 14:02Speaker 3: that's where that came from.
- 14:03Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, uh, you remember success. I mean
- 14:07Speaker 2: I remember my first home run that was thirty years ago.
- 14:09Speaker 2: I mean it was a hitter middle right. You know,
- 14:13Speaker 2: you don't forget stuff like that. You know, it's like
- 14:15Speaker 2: making a hole in one.
- 14:17Speaker 5: Greg, you were and I'll say this with all due respect,
- 14:20Speaker 5: you were only an All Star eight times. I had
- 14:23Speaker 5: no idea.
- 14:24Speaker 3: That is a.
- 14:25Speaker 5: Crazy number to me. How during those times do you
- 14:30Speaker 5: feel like you were slighted a couple of times? I
- 14:32Speaker 5: mean we're talking. This is a four time cy Young
- 14:35Speaker 5: Award winner and only an eight time All Star.
- 14:40Speaker 2: Uh not really, I mean, uh, pictures had to earn it.
- 14:46Speaker 2: We weren't voted in by the fans. We got picked
- 14:48Speaker 2: and uh, you know, the best you know, six or
- 14:51Speaker 2: seven starting pitchers that had the first half were the
- 14:54Speaker 2: ones going in. Uh you know, I think, uh, you know,
- 14:59Speaker 2: I don't think I ever really felt slighted, you know,
- 15:02Speaker 2: by by not being selected.
- 15:04Speaker 3: Uh. You know, all Star games are fun. They're exciting
- 15:06Speaker 3: to go to.
- 15:07Speaker 2: But it's also kind of cool to have the three
- 15:08Speaker 2: days off as well, and and uh, you know, it
- 15:13Speaker 2: is what it is.
- 15:13Speaker 3: No, I don't feel slight at all. Yeah, you're in
- 15:15Speaker 3: the Hall of Fame. You did, okay, Yeah, yeah, we're
- 15:17Speaker 3: all spallid Hall of Famer. Three hundred and fifty five
- 15:19Speaker 3: wins were.
- 15:20Speaker 1: To pitch your All Stars back then because they pitched. Yeah,
- 15:23Speaker 1: I know now they don't pitch most of them.
- 15:26Speaker 3: Another one. Here's another one, here's another one. Yeah.
- 15:29Speaker 1: Well, Greg, thank you so much for time, Thank you,
- 15:32Speaker 1: good luck out there. I thank you, appreciate it.