Latest / Rosters to Rings Podcast / Mind Over Muscle with "The Professor" Greg Maddux

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Mind Over Muscle with "The Professor" Greg Maddux · Rosters to Rings Podcast

0:05
Speaker 1: Welcome to Rosterster Rains alongside Ryan McDonough, I'm fad Levine.
0:10
Speaker 1: We've got an incredible show this week.
0:11
Speaker 2: Ran.
0:12
Speaker 1: We've got Hall of Famer Greg Maddox joining us in
0:14
Speaker 1: the second segment, but before we get to him, we
0:17
Speaker 1: got to have some follow up discussion here about the
0:20
Speaker 1: La Clippers. Ran. Who is Dennis Wong and how has
0:23
Speaker 1: he become such a household name in the NBA.
0:26
Speaker 3: This week, this La Clippers Kawhi Leonard Steve Balmer saga
0:31
Speaker 3: has legs and there are a lot of different layers
0:33
Speaker 3: to it. When we recorded the show last week, our
0:36
Speaker 3: first segment was about Kawhi Ballmer and the Clippers. Pablo
0:40
Speaker 3: Torre on his podcast reported some news with payments made
0:44
Speaker 3: by Steve Ballmer to a company called Aspiration, a green
0:49
Speaker 3: carbon neutral company that was all the rage in the
0:51
Speaker 3: pandemic and coming out of the pandemic that I apparently
0:54
Speaker 3: defrauded a lot of people and they had some big,
0:56
Speaker 3: big time actors in their group, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Downey,
1:00
Speaker 3: Junior Drake where pays spokespeople, and so the story it
1:04
Speaker 3: looked like it may die down a little bit other
1:06
Speaker 3: than last Wednesday, Adam Silver at his Board of Governor's
1:09
Speaker 3: press conference in the league is going to investigate the Clippers.
1:12
Speaker 3: And then the very next day, the next morning, it
1:15
Speaker 3: came out that Dennis Wong, who is the LA clippers
1:18
Speaker 3: number two owner, Steve Balmer owns ninety nine percent of
1:21
Speaker 3: the team, which, as you note that in pro sports
1:24
Speaker 3: it's very unusual to have that much equity in the team.
1:27
Speaker 3: Balmer could have obviously bought the whole thing himself, but
1:29
Speaker 3: he wanted his buddy Dennis Wong, who was his roommate
1:31
Speaker 3: at Harvard, to own the other one percent. So Balmer
1:34
Speaker 3: owns ninety nine Wong owns one percent. And on Pablo
1:38
Speaker 3: Tore his podcast, they found out that not only had
1:41
Speaker 3: Balmer made payments to Aspiration, this you know, nefarious green
1:47
Speaker 3: energy company that is now bankrupt, Dennis Wong, Balmer's college
1:51
Speaker 3: roommate and number one percent owner of the Clippers, that
1:54
Speaker 3: also made payments and the timing that is very unusual
1:57
Speaker 3: and suspicious. Here this is a second data point where
2:00
Speaker 3: a member of the LA Clippers ownership group made a
2:03
Speaker 3: payment to Aspiration, and then shortly thereafter Aspiration turned around
2:08
Speaker 3: and paid Kawhi Leonard. The payments were in late twenty
2:11
Speaker 3: twenty two Wongs LLC DEA Investments and one point nine
2:16
Speaker 3: to nine million. Nine days later Aspiration paid Kawhi Leonard.
2:20
Speaker 3: Aspiration was behind on their payments to Kawhi Leonard that
2:23
Speaker 3: they then paid them the same day reportedly that they
2:25
Speaker 3: laid off twenty percent of the company's employees. So here's
2:29
Speaker 3: a question getting asked that around the league. What is
2:32
Speaker 3: the burden approof on the NBA and the Clippers? Right right?
2:35
Speaker 3: What are the NBA going to make the Clippers prove?
2:37
Speaker 3: Because people are saying this evidence is circumstantial, and technically
2:42
Speaker 3: it is, but now with another data point, it seems
2:45
Speaker 3: overwhelmingly suspicious, and folks with the other twenty nine teams
2:48
Speaker 3: are wondering is the league going to come down hard
2:51
Speaker 3: on the LA Clippers?
2:52
Speaker 4: Right?
2:52
Speaker 1: I think you bring up a great point here, which
2:54
Speaker 1: is even when the fact seem overwhelming, the league has
2:57
Speaker 1: to go through their process. Right they have an investigative unit,
3:00
Speaker 1: They're going through their process. What do you think is
3:02
Speaker 1: happening right now? League headquarters? What are they you know,
3:06
Speaker 1: Adam Silver and the folks at the NBA League office,
3:09
Speaker 1: how are they reacting to all these accusations in this
3:11
Speaker 1: overwhelming evidence.
3:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wish the press conference Adam Silver had last
3:16
Speaker 3: week was a day later because it was on Wednesday afternoon,
3:18
Speaker 3: and then on Thursday morning, this second layer dropped. So
3:21
Speaker 3: in the press conference last Wednesday that Silver said what
3:24
Speaker 3: he said, and he's one of the what he had
3:26
Speaker 3: to say, and he's one of the most brilliant guys
3:28
Speaker 3: I've been around. Keep in mind he went to Duke.
3:30
Speaker 3: He's a lawyer, He's very smart and very well spoken.
3:34
Speaker 3: So he basically said, I think which is the right approach.
3:37
Speaker 3: We need to see I know what it looks like,
3:39
Speaker 3: but we need to see what the facts are and
3:41
Speaker 3: we need to do our own investigation. And they hired
3:44
Speaker 3: walk Tail Lipton, a prestigious law firm out of New
3:46
Speaker 3: York who's done multiple NBA investigations so far. They did
3:50
Speaker 3: the one ironically involving the La Clippers and Donald Sterling
3:53
Speaker 3: back in twenty fourteen. They did the one with Robert
3:56
Speaker 3: Sarvert and the Phoenix Suns in twenty twenty two into
3:58
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three. I think that was the timeframe there.
4:01
Speaker 3: Both of those led to removal of the owners or
4:05
Speaker 3: the owners eventually selling their team. I guess technically the
4:07
Speaker 3: NBA didn't remove those guys, but I think they did
4:10
Speaker 3: to some extent encourage them to sell their teams. So
4:13
Speaker 3: we'll see what happens with Steve Malmer. I personally, I
4:15
Speaker 3: don't think that's how this one ends up that. But
4:19
Speaker 3: what the other twenty nine teams are saying, or at least
4:20
Speaker 3: a vast majority of them are, if this is not
4:23
Speaker 3: enforced severely, this is going to be the Wild West
4:26
Speaker 3: going forward. What is to deter teams if teams are
4:28
Speaker 3: allowed to circumvent the salary cap basically pay players in
4:32
Speaker 3: different ways to gain competitive advantages and financial advantages. Especially
4:37
Speaker 3: when you're talking about an individual and Steve Bamber is
4:39
Speaker 3: one of the ten richest people in the entire world.
4:43
Speaker 3: We're not going to be able to compete with that
4:44
Speaker 3: unless we cheat ourselves. So that's the overhang with the NBA.
4:48
Speaker 3: When asked about it last week at the press conference,
4:50
Speaker 3: Adam Silver said his powers are very broad, and that's
4:54
Speaker 3: again where there's a little bit a gray area that
4:57
Speaker 3: you and I talked about this yesterday offline before the show.
5:00
Speaker 3: But the collective Bargaining Agreement, which rules all these sports says,
5:03
Speaker 3: here are the certain things you can and can't do.
5:06
Speaker 3: But obviously there's no possible way for the CBA to
5:09
Speaker 3: cover every possible scenario. So there are some things that
5:12
Speaker 3: are we can call them gray area, we can call
5:14
Speaker 3: them undefined, we can call whatever you want, but it's
5:17
Speaker 3: just not specified for a situation like this, What exactly
5:21
Speaker 3: is Adam Silver allowed to do and what is he
5:23
Speaker 3: not allowed to do? And that's what the other teams
5:25
Speaker 3: are asking that. You know, how hard will the NBA
5:27
Speaker 3: look and try to pin evidence that appears to be
5:30
Speaker 3: at least maybe legally technically circumstantially even though if it
5:33
Speaker 3: was you and I think and others think, it's probably
5:35
Speaker 3: pretty damning for the LA Clippers. How hard will they
5:38
Speaker 3: press that? And then how how far if they do
5:41
Speaker 3: find that to be the case that the Clippers circumvented
5:43
Speaker 3: the salary cap? You know, how far will Adam Silver
5:46
Speaker 3: and the league office go to really punish the Clippers,
5:49
Speaker 3: Because as you know that it's not just about one
5:51
Speaker 3: team and one situation. The leagues always look at the
5:53
Speaker 3: precedent and the example of the sets. They do not
5:56
Speaker 3: want other teams to do this going forward, if the
5:58
Speaker 3: Clippers and that in fact did what it appears to
6:01
Speaker 3: many that they have done.
6:03
Speaker 1: Er Ryan, quick question for you from your basketball expert opinion.
6:08
Speaker 1: We just talked about how the league office has responded.
6:10
Speaker 1: Is how big a story is this really in the NBA?
6:13
Speaker 1: How big a story is this even in the Los
6:15
Speaker 1: Angeles market? Or are they still talking about what they
6:18
Speaker 1: need to do to build around Lebron and Doncic over
6:20
Speaker 1: with the Lakers.
6:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's great question that and some franchises seem to
6:25
Speaker 3: be cursed is maybe the wrong term. I personally don't
6:28
Speaker 3: believe in that, although I did grow up as a
6:29
Speaker 3: Red Sox fan, so maybe I should. But I think
6:33
Speaker 3: the the pecking order, the hierarchy these franchises have in LA.
6:38
Speaker 3: If you're a basketball fan, clearly, historically it's always been
6:41
Speaker 3: Lakers by a mile at one, and then a gap
6:44
Speaker 3: and then the Clippers in the public consciousness. The tough
6:48
Speaker 3: part if you're a Clippers fan is when Donald Sterling
6:51
Speaker 3: went out and of all the owners to come into
6:53
Speaker 3: your franchise, Steve Balmer was probably one of the most
6:56
Speaker 3: attractive and most exciting on paper that right, former Microsoft CEO,
7:00
Speaker 3: you know, worth one hundred and fifty billion dollars or
7:03
Speaker 3: more according to Forbes, you know, in a breadth of
7:06
Speaker 3: fresh air, Donald Sterling was you know, reportedly not a very.
7:10
Speaker 1: Good human being.
7:11
Speaker 3: I was also very frugal and cheap in terms of
7:13
Speaker 3: the way he ran the team, So this was kind
7:14
Speaker 3: of the opposite of that. And Balmer has spent a
7:18
Speaker 3: ton of money on staff, on infrastructure, on all the
7:21
Speaker 3: things that you can spend on and have it not
7:23
Speaker 3: count against a salary cap or there are no restrictions
7:26
Speaker 3: as you know that in sports as far as what
7:28
Speaker 3: you pay your GM, what you pay your head coach,
7:30
Speaker 3: what you pay their staff, what you pay your trainers,
7:33
Speaker 3: the locker rooms, the plane, the hotels, all of that,
7:37
Speaker 3: you're able to spend as much as you want to spend,
7:39
Speaker 3: and to some extent, Steve Balmer has done that. And
7:42
Speaker 3: so according to staff, it's a great place to work
7:44
Speaker 3: and they've really enjoyed that and gotten well compensated for it.
7:47
Speaker 3: But then then this, you know, seemingly crosses the line
7:51
Speaker 3: into that. So yeah, I think the NBA you know,
7:54
Speaker 3: will continue to look into it. But yeah, in LA
7:57
Speaker 3: that's a great question. You have to ask somebody who
7:59
Speaker 3: lives there and has made their finger on the pulse
8:01
Speaker 3: of the market better than I do. But I do
8:02
Speaker 3: know this that and you know this. In sports, it
8:04
Speaker 3: doesn't matter if it's the biggest market or a small market.
8:08
Speaker 3: With the other teams in the league, if there is
8:10
Speaker 3: cheating involved that gives them potentially a significant advantage. The
8:14
Speaker 3: other teams went justice because you and I have been
8:16
Speaker 3: hired and fired for some of these jobs. Others have
8:19
Speaker 3: been fired who have tried to do things generally the
8:21
Speaker 3: right way. Maybe not one hundred percent by the letter
8:23
Speaker 3: of the law, but others look at this. I talked
8:26
Speaker 3: to a president of the team the other day, said,
8:27
Speaker 3: if they don't come down hard on this, you know
8:30
Speaker 3: this is going to get way worse going forward. Everybody's
8:32
Speaker 3: going to be doing something like this because if the
8:33
Speaker 3: penalty is not severe, what is the disincentive? Because clearly
8:38
Speaker 3: there are ways that this has benefited the LA Clippers
8:40
Speaker 3: and will continue to benefit the LA Clippers if the
8:43
Speaker 3: league doesn't drop the hammer on the franchise.
8:45
Speaker 1: Well, right, I know you probably had to cross this
8:48
Speaker 1: path at some point in your career as well, but
8:50
Speaker 1: I felt like every sports executive has to answer the
8:52
Speaker 1: personal question how far are you prepared to go to win?
8:56
Speaker 1: And so for some of the answers, theyn't go and
8:58
Speaker 1: do whatever it takes to win. But to do that
9:02
Speaker 1: you have to not only dabble in the gray, but
9:04
Speaker 1: sometimes go into the black. You referenced it earlier, but
9:08
Speaker 1: each sport is governed by a CBA, and you know,
9:11
Speaker 1: I think most franchises look at those cbas and they
9:14
Speaker 1: view those as the rules. But there is a distinction
9:16
Speaker 1: between the letter of the law sometimes in the spirit
9:18
Speaker 1: of the law. And there are people inside these front
9:21
Speaker 1: offices that are hunting those gaps. Those are the loopholes
9:24
Speaker 1: that they know that we'll be filled at some point,
9:27
Speaker 1: and rather than let another franchise run through that loophole
9:29
Speaker 1: and gain a short term benefit from them, they want
9:32
Speaker 1: to be the team that runs through it, knowing full
9:34
Speaker 1: well that that's a rule that will be changed in
9:36
Speaker 1: the future, hasn't been changed yet, and so you want
9:40
Speaker 1: to take advantage of it. And so those are I
9:41
Speaker 1: think really difficult discussions to be had. Secondarily, I just
9:45
Speaker 1: want to like share the same thing in baseball. You know,
9:49
Speaker 1: when you are the Chicago White Sox, you're kind of
9:51
Speaker 1: forever living in the shadow of the Chicago Cubs. The
9:53
Speaker 1: New York Mets are living in the shadow of the
9:55
Speaker 1: New York Yankees. It's remarkable some of these franchises, no
9:59
Speaker 1: matter they're dominance, those teams have done very well at
10:02
Speaker 1: different times in their trajectory. They always seem to play
10:05
Speaker 1: second fiddle to some of those bigger teams within the
10:08
Speaker 1: same market. But also systemically we see in sports, we
10:11
Speaker 1: see some franchises that tend to struggle with some of
10:15
Speaker 1: these you know, image issues and different owners with the Clippers.
10:19
Speaker 1: But now we have another transgression. You know, the Mets
10:22
Speaker 1: over a period of time had a couple of their
10:25
Speaker 1: executives and a manager who had some challenges and were
10:28
Speaker 1: suspended by Major League Baseball. There's some systemic issues in
10:32
Speaker 1: some of these markets that seem to keep haunting some
10:34
Speaker 1: of those teams. It's it's really interesting to see.
10:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then the question becomes is being the secondary
10:41
Speaker 3: team in a market and having that pressure, especially in
10:44
Speaker 3: the biggest markets, does that lead teams to bend the
10:46
Speaker 3: rules more than the marquee franchises as you mentioned, the Lakers,
10:51
Speaker 3: the Chicago Cubs, you know, the franchises the Yankees that
10:54
Speaker 3: dominate the market. It's kind of a Chicken or the
10:56
Speaker 3: Egg quest, and I don't know if we have a
10:58
Speaker 3: great example for it, but that is as you reflect
11:01
Speaker 3: back on your career, and I'm not looking for things
11:03
Speaker 3: that you were certainly directly involved in, but what are
11:05
Speaker 3: some of the bigger examples that you can remember that
11:07
Speaker 3: stand out as far as teams at least bending, if
11:10
Speaker 3: not outright breaking the rules, and how are those adjudicated
11:14
Speaker 3: by the Major League Baseball League Office.
11:17
Speaker 1: Well, I'm going to give you one example that did
11:19
Speaker 1: actually impact us, and this is an area that I
11:22
Speaker 1: truly believe was in the gray. Some fans may feel
11:24
Speaker 1: like it was a little bit murky, but it was
11:27
Speaker 1: technically not against the rules. So when we signed Carlos
11:30
Speaker 1: Korea for the first time, he effectively walked into our
11:34
Speaker 1: building and said, okay, so what's the advanced scouting you
11:36
Speaker 1: guys are using and basically told us all the championship
11:41
Speaker 1: caliber teams were using more information and where that showed
11:44
Speaker 1: up was interesting. So keep in mind, we're coming off
11:47
Speaker 1: of the twenty nineteen season, the twin set of record
11:50
Speaker 1: three hundred and seven home runs. They were called the
11:52
Speaker 1: Bomba Squad, the most home runs ever, and he basically
11:56
Speaker 1: just asked Rockobaldellhi, like, so you guys knew what pitches
11:58
Speaker 1: were coming, and we said no, he didn't know a
12:00
Speaker 1: single pitch that was coming. He's like, you guys hit
12:02
Speaker 1: three hundred seven home runs and you didn't know a
12:04
Speaker 1: single pitch was coming. Roc was like, yeah, that's exactly
12:06
Speaker 1: what happened. And so what Carlos would tell us was
12:09
Speaker 1: that some of the more sophisticated teams also envelope pushers.
12:14
Speaker 1: Once they got a man to second base, the man
12:17
Speaker 1: on second base was relaying not only the pitch, but
12:19
Speaker 1: the pitch location to the hitter. And so when at
12:22
Speaker 1: this time, this was before PitchCom so the catchers were
12:25
Speaker 1: still giving signals. It was remarkable. So then you would
12:28
Speaker 1: watch some of those teams and you'd watch their hitters
12:30
Speaker 1: come up to the plate when there was a man
12:32
Speaker 1: on second They weren't looking at the third base coach
12:34
Speaker 1: to see what the signs are. They were making constant
12:36
Speaker 1: eye contact with the guy at second base until the
12:39
Speaker 1: pitcher got to his motion. It was incredible. And so
12:43
Speaker 1: he would tell us like, based upon where their handing
12:45
Speaker 1: placement was, whether they were walking too or away from
12:48
Speaker 1: the hitter at the time that the guy came to
12:50
Speaker 1: the set position was dictating location and it was dictating
12:54
Speaker 1: the pitch. So what Carlos started doing was you would
12:56
Speaker 1: see him have very active conversations with the I at
13:00
Speaker 1: second base. When the guy was at second base, he
13:02
Speaker 1: would stand in between the guy at second base and
13:04
Speaker 1: home plate to try to divert his attention. It was
13:07
Speaker 1: remarkable to see him do this, and he really educated
13:10
Speaker 1: our team that we needed to clean up our signals
13:12
Speaker 1: and we had to make them a little bit more complicated.
13:15
Speaker 1: So I think that's an area that is not illegal,
13:17
Speaker 1: but it clearly gains a significant competitive advantage for teams
13:21
Speaker 1: that they were utilizing to try to best teams that
13:24
Speaker 1: did not have sophisticated signals that they were calling. Now,
13:27
Speaker 1: we talked about it before, but the Houston Astros went
13:30
Speaker 1: too far right.
13:31
Speaker 2: They used video to relay.
13:33
Speaker 1: Signs to their hitters, and they used a trash can
13:36
Speaker 1: that is clearly in the black. They were trying to
13:39
Speaker 1: achieve the same thing. One went way too far. So
13:42
Speaker 1: one was technically a loophole in the rules. Maybe against
13:46
Speaker 1: the spirit of the rules a little bit, but not
13:48
Speaker 1: against the letter of the law. The other one was
13:49
Speaker 1: very much against the spirit and the letter of the law.
13:53
Speaker 3: A quick follow up question for us non baseball experts,
13:56
Speaker 3: what is PitchCom so?
13:58
Speaker 1: PitchCom now is something we're the catchers no longer give signals.
14:02
Speaker 1: The catcher and the pitcher both have an ear piece
14:04
Speaker 1: in and they both have a remote control that is
14:08
Speaker 1: attached to their shin guard or their glove, depending on
14:11
Speaker 1: which position they're playing, based upon their input into that,
14:14
Speaker 1: it will communicate to the pitcher and catcher exactly what
14:17
Speaker 1: pitch is coming. And something that's really fascinating about this is,
14:20
Speaker 1: let's say your catcher is from the Dominican Republic and
14:22
Speaker 1: your pitchers from Japan and your shortstop is from the
14:26
Speaker 1: United States. Each of those guys will have a PitchCom
14:28
Speaker 1: one will be hearing English, one will be hearing Japanese,
14:31
Speaker 1: the other guy will be hearing Spanish, and it's all
14:33
Speaker 1: the same thing. And the pitcher can call his pitches.
14:36
Speaker 1: We'll talk to Greg Mannix about that, you know, he
14:38
Speaker 1: was famous for doing that. Or the catcher can call pitches,
14:42
Speaker 1: but now no longer will the guys in the base
14:44
Speaker 1: pass see the fingers being placed down by the catchers.
14:48
Speaker 3: What a fascinating use of technology in fact, in the NBA.
14:51
Speaker 3: One final example that I'll bring up as far as
14:54
Speaker 3: living in the gray or what's allowed what's not allowed,
14:58
Speaker 3: is the startup free agency. I was GM of the
15:00
Speaker 3: Suns twenty thirteen to twenty eighteen. The very next year,
15:03
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen, I was working for Sirius XM and free Agency,
15:07
Speaker 3: which used to start at midnight Eastern, was moved up
15:10
Speaker 3: to six pm on June thirty. If he used to
15:12
Speaker 3: be midnight Eastern on July one, they moved it up
15:14
Speaker 3: six hours, which we all appreciated so we didn't have
15:16
Speaker 3: to stay up until the middle of the night calling
15:18
Speaker 3: free agents and expressing interest and waking the guy up
15:21
Speaker 3: when he's trying to sleep at one am. But I
15:24
Speaker 3: bring it up because think back to twenty nineteen Pree Agency,
15:27
Speaker 3: ironically involving Kawhi Leonard, who was the top free agent
15:31
Speaker 3: in that class. He just won a championship in his
15:33
Speaker 3: one year with the Toronto Raptors, ended up in LA
15:36
Speaker 3: and that was the start of this controversy that I
15:38
Speaker 3: will continue to discuss here on rosters to rings. But
15:40
Speaker 3: the other free agents in that class Stad were Hall
15:42
Speaker 3: of Fame players as well. Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant
15:46
Speaker 3: both ended up with the Brooklyn Nets. Jimmy Butler, who
15:49
Speaker 3: was a Philadelphia seventy six er, ended up in a
15:52
Speaker 3: Miami Heat uniform and assign in trade. He obviously ended
15:55
Speaker 3: up leading that franchise to the NBA Finals twice. So
15:58
Speaker 3: those guys are great players. But I bring it up
16:00
Speaker 3: because free agency was supposed to start at six pm
16:03
Speaker 3: Eastern on June thirtieth, and I was doing a show
16:07
Speaker 3: on Sirius XM right around that time, and the whole show,
16:09
Speaker 3: Thad was just listing who is signed with who It
16:12
Speaker 3: was already over. And keep in mind, this was only
16:15
Speaker 3: one of the top five free agents signed with his
16:17
Speaker 3: current franchise, Klay Thompson, which was supposed to be even
16:20
Speaker 3: that was supposed to be illegal under the old rules.
16:22
Speaker 3: You weren't even supposed to talk to your own player
16:23
Speaker 3: about resigning till free agency started. But the other top
16:26
Speaker 3: four guys Kawhi Leonard, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, and Jimmy
16:31
Speaker 3: Butler all signed elsewhere, and some of these leaked out
16:33
Speaker 3: even before six o'clock Eastern that So how in the
16:35
Speaker 3: world if teams are following the rules, would they have
16:39
Speaker 3: a conversation, negotiate a contract, agree on the length, the payments,
16:44
Speaker 3: the bonuses, all of that stuff, and then haven't announced
16:46
Speaker 3: before free agency starts. Well, obviously they were way ahead
16:49
Speaker 3: of this and we're tampering. So the NBA has gotten
16:52
Speaker 3: more strict about that. But talk about living in the gray,
16:56
Speaker 3: that was something that just about every team was doing.
16:58
Speaker 3: And I feel bad for Mitch Kupchak, a friend of
17:00
Speaker 3: mine who is a fellow atar heel, because you know,
17:03
Speaker 3: said Mitch was the only honest man in the NBA.
17:05
Speaker 3: He would wait until free agency started, and I think
17:07
Speaker 3: what happened a lot that In fact, they know what
17:08
Speaker 3: happened is he called agents say hey, we're interested in
17:11
Speaker 3: this guy at one minute after free agency started, and
17:13
Speaker 3: the agent would say, sorry, he's gone. He's already he's
17:15
Speaker 3: already committed. So that's where it's it's tough. You know,
17:18
Speaker 3: you know, if you're honest and ethical sometimes in pro sports,
17:21
Speaker 3: but everybody else is bending, if not outright breaking the rules,
17:24
Speaker 3: you can get penalized for that.
17:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then where that manifests itself in baseball is
17:30
Speaker 1: there's a trading deadline with a hard cap to that deadline,
17:34
Speaker 1: but somehow after the deadline, there's always two to three
17:37
Speaker 1: deals that leak out post deadline and you're like, well,
17:39
Speaker 1: wait a minute, how did that come to pass? And
17:41
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, they were just working through the final details.
17:43
Speaker 1: It's like, well, the details are supposed to be done
17:45
Speaker 1: by the deadline. Oh, we just forgot to report it
17:47
Speaker 1: on time. It's like, sometimes it seems a little bit fishy,
17:50
Speaker 1: but right. I wanted just to ask you one more
17:52
Speaker 1: thing about the dabbling in the grayso to speak, is
17:56
Speaker 1: talent acquisition. I think this is another area where executives
17:59
Speaker 1: really have to ask themselves a soul searching question, which is,
18:02
Speaker 1: to what extent are we willing to sacrifice character in
18:05
Speaker 1: the name of pursuing talent? And I think some teams
18:08
Speaker 1: will just say they don't care about makeup whatsoever. You know,
18:11
Speaker 1: a guy could be a known criminal and they would
18:13
Speaker 1: bring them into the clubhouse if they were talented enough.
18:15
Speaker 1: One thing that we did throughout my career is we
18:18
Speaker 1: always asked a few questions, which was is the person
18:21
Speaker 1: accountable and contrite for the transgression they committed there? And
18:25
Speaker 1: then there is there a redemption story, and I just
18:27
Speaker 1: want to bring up two examples to the listener. We
18:30
Speaker 1: acquired Josh Hamilton in two thousand and eight when I
18:32
Speaker 1: was with the Texas Rangers. Josh had a unfortunately a
18:36
Speaker 1: very checkered past. He was out of the game for
18:38
Speaker 1: three years in the throes of drug addiction, and we
18:41
Speaker 1: felt as if he was genuinely contrite and accountable for
18:44
Speaker 1: his actions. We also thought he could stand up in
18:46
Speaker 1: front of a eight or tenth grade class of students
18:49
Speaker 1: and say, hey, listen, please don't do drugs, that I'm
18:52
Speaker 1: an example of why you should not do that, and
18:54
Speaker 1: he was willing to do it. And so that was
18:56
Speaker 1: something where we said, okay, yes, a pretty significant transit
18:59
Speaker 1: pression in the past, but we're willing to pursue this
19:02
Speaker 1: type of player. And the second guy Matt Bush, who
19:05
Speaker 1: unfortunately had some real issues with alcohol addiction and he
19:10
Speaker 1: had a DUI orry almost cost a man his life.
19:13
Speaker 1: He ended up going to prison for three years, served
19:16
Speaker 1: a sentence. Coming out of prison, we actually signed him.
19:19
Speaker 1: He was on a work release detail, I think working
19:21
Speaker 1: for a Loobi's or something, and we did a workout
19:24
Speaker 1: in the driveway there when he was actually wearing an
19:27
Speaker 1: ankle bracelet, and I'm actually not joking about any of that. Ultimately,
19:31
Speaker 1: we signed him as well because he was very contrite
19:35
Speaker 1: and very accountable to his actions, and we also thought
19:37
Speaker 1: there was a redemption story. But there are countless stories
19:40
Speaker 1: in baseball of guys who maybe got really physical with
19:43
Speaker 1: their spouse and created some real harm or did some
19:46
Speaker 1: harm to a child. We never touched those guys because
19:49
Speaker 1: we felt, regardless of the talent, there wasn't a redemption
19:53
Speaker 1: story to be told there. You should never do those
19:55
Speaker 1: types of things. There's no real excuse for that, and
19:57
Speaker 1: that's where we drew the line. I don't know if
19:59
Speaker 1: you have any exam in your opinion in your career
20:03
Speaker 1: where you had character assessments that you had to really
20:05
Speaker 1: take an account even when you knew it was sacrificing
20:08
Speaker 1: your ability to acquire talent.
20:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think a number of times. One that stands
20:13
Speaker 3: out is when I first started my career with the
20:14
Speaker 3: Boston Celtics. The franchise had three MAX players, Paul Pierce,
20:18
Speaker 3: Antwine Walker, and Vin Baker. And I can talk about
20:21
Speaker 3: this publicly now because Vin's been public about it, but
20:23
Speaker 3: he was battling alcoholism as well, and that was that
20:26
Speaker 3: was a big fight for the new owners, Wick Rousbeck
20:28
Speaker 3: and Steve Paluk after they just bought the team. You know,
20:31
Speaker 3: what do we pay this guy? Do we continue to
20:33
Speaker 3: honor the contract? Eventually they worked out some kind of settlement.
20:36
Speaker 3: I think Vin went to rehab and to his credit,
20:39
Speaker 3: he seems, you know, clean and sober and doing great.
20:41
Speaker 3: He's an assistant coach with Milwaukee Bucks. He was there
20:43
Speaker 3: when they won the championship in twenty twenty one. So
20:46
Speaker 3: that's a redemption story more over decades, long term as
20:49
Speaker 3: far as getting his life on track and all that.
20:51
Speaker 3: But yeah, for me, it really depends on the infrastructure
20:55
Speaker 3: in the locker room or the clubhouse. How strong are
20:58
Speaker 3: your leaders and also importantly, I think how strong is
21:02
Speaker 3: your manager or head coach. When we were in Boston,
21:05
Speaker 3: Doc Rivers said, look, if these guys can play, they
21:08
Speaker 3: have some flaws, some warts. Bring them in. I'll handle them.
21:11
Speaker 3: I'll manage that. He did that exceptionally.
21:13
Speaker 2: Well.
21:13
Speaker 3: There are other coaches managers I've been around who maybe
21:16
Speaker 3: weren't as forceful as far as the personality and said, look,
21:19
Speaker 3: I don't want to deal with that we're having a
21:21
Speaker 3: hard enough time winning ballgames. I take a lesser talented guy,
21:25
Speaker 3: especially if I can sleep well at night knowing he's
21:27
Speaker 3: going to show up and work hard and not get
21:29
Speaker 3: in trouble away from the facility. So that's always the
21:32
Speaker 3: balance in the blend, And I think it comes down
21:34
Speaker 3: to your leadership, especially veteran leaders. From my experience in
21:37
Speaker 3: the NBA, teams are more willing to push the envelope
21:39
Speaker 3: when they're a championship contender close to championship contending. I
21:43
Speaker 3: think teams that are a long way away from that
21:45
Speaker 3: that don't want to push the envelope, especially if it's
21:47
Speaker 3: bringing in a veteran player with some issues who may
21:49
Speaker 3: have a negative impact on their young core.
21:51
Speaker 1: Well r you know, we've talked about it so many
21:53
Speaker 1: times on rosters to rings, but this is just another example.
21:56
Speaker 1: These guys are massively successful at one thing in their lives,
22:00
Speaker 1: multiple things, but definitely one thing. But the rest of
22:02
Speaker 1: them it's a cross section of humanity and they struggle
22:05
Speaker 1: with the same challenges, insecurities and addictions that the rest
22:08
Speaker 1: of us do. If they ask for help, if they
22:11
Speaker 1: show their contrite, we're here to help the community. Is
22:14
Speaker 1: here to help, the fan base is here to help,
22:16
Speaker 1: and I think there's their second chances for people and
22:18
Speaker 1: as they should be in the sports world, no different
22:21
Speaker 1: than in real life.
22:23
Speaker 3: Absolutely in fact, somebody who needed no help and was
22:26
Speaker 3: literally one of the best of all time at what
22:28
Speaker 3: he did was Greg Maddox. He'll be joining us right
22:30
Speaker 3: after this. Stay with us on Rosters to rings.
22:41
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Rosters to Rings. We are ecstatic to
22:44
Speaker 1: be joined by Greg Maddox. The man needs no introduction,
22:47
Speaker 1: but I'm going to give them one anyway. All the
22:49
Speaker 1: following facts are true about Greg. Greg was drafted by
22:53
Speaker 1: the Chicago Cubs in nineteen eighty four with a third
22:56
Speaker 1: pick of the second round, thirty first overall, which means
22:59
Speaker 1: all all thirty clubs are big dummies, including the Chicago
23:03
Speaker 1: Cubs who did not take him in the first round.
23:05
Speaker 1: Greg played twenty three seasons for the Cubs, Braves, Dodgers,
23:08
Speaker 1: and Padres. Greg holds the record in Major League Baseball
23:12
Speaker 1: at any position with eighteen goal gloves. Greg was the
23:16
Speaker 1: first pitcher in Major League Baseball history to win four
23:19
Speaker 1: consecutive Cy Young Awards. Greg played in eight All Star Games.
23:24
Speaker 1: Greg once hit Benito Santiago in retaliation for Andre Dawson
23:28
Speaker 1: getting beamed, knowing that he would be sent down to
23:31
Speaker 1: the minor leagues for doing so. Over a career one
23:34
Speaker 1: hundred and ninety eight postseason innings, Greg posted a three
23:38
Speaker 1: to two seven ERA, with an incredible two to nine
23:41
Speaker 1: ERA and thirty eight to two thirds innings pitched. In
23:44
Speaker 1: the World Series. Greg once done a fake beard, a
23:47
Speaker 1: wig dressed up as a sound guy and a TV
23:49
Speaker 1: production crew and pranked Chris Bryant. Greg led the league
23:54
Speaker 1: two times in War, four times in the RA five
23:57
Speaker 1: consecutive years, and innings pitched three times and wins and
24:01
Speaker 1: three times in complete games. According to Greg's brother Mike,
24:05
Speaker 1: Greg was once hit in the head by a golf ball.
24:08
Speaker 1: Mike described the event as first scary and then quite funny.
24:11
Speaker 1: Greg ranked eighth all time in War accumulated by pitchers.
24:15
Speaker 1: Greg's three hundred and fifty five wins ranked second among
24:18
Speaker 1: pictures in the live ball area. Greg has a type
24:21
Speaker 1: of game named after him. The Mattis is a complete
24:24
Speaker 1: game shutout with fewer than one hundred pitches thrown. Greg
24:28
Speaker 1: achieved this feat thirteen times in his career. Greg's brother
24:31
Speaker 1: Mike is four years older than Greg. When I asked
24:35
Speaker 1: Mike to summach Greg as a baseball player, he said,
24:37
Speaker 1: when we were kids, we would have pickup baseball games.
24:40
Speaker 1: I was always the captain and I would take him
24:42
Speaker 1: first with the first pick. My friends would say, why
24:45
Speaker 1: are you taking this ten year old kid? My answer
24:48
Speaker 1: was always he's the best player out here and that
24:51
Speaker 1: never changed. Greg, Welcome to Rosters to Rinks.
24:55
Speaker 4: Thank you, thanks for the nice introduction. Yeah, it was nice.
25:00
Speaker 1: I definitely an assist assist to your brother Mike, who
25:03
Speaker 1: will come up a few times in this conversation.
25:05
Speaker 2: Greg.
25:05
Speaker 1: One of our traditions here on Rosters to Rings as
25:08
Speaker 1: we ask all of our guests what made you fall
25:10
Speaker 1: in love with sports? What was your origin story as
25:13
Speaker 1: to why you're passionate about sports and specifically baseball.
25:17
Speaker 4: Well, I think most of it had to do with
25:20
Speaker 4: we grew up in Spain as young kids and we
25:22
Speaker 4: didn't have TV. You know, I think the kids today
25:25
Speaker 4: have laptops, computers and video games, and we had TV
25:29
Speaker 4: growing up, and we didn't have TV in Spain. Well,
25:33
Speaker 4: we had TV, but it was in Spanish and you know,
25:35
Speaker 4: we didn't understand it. So we spent all of our
25:38
Speaker 4: time outside, and you know, all the neighborhood kids grew
25:41
Speaker 4: up on the Air Force base, there were everybody was.
25:44
Speaker 2: Kind of in the same.
25:46
Speaker 4: Boat growing up, and all the kids got together and
25:49
Speaker 4: played sports. You know, we played a lot of baseball,
25:51
Speaker 4: We played a lot of basketball, football, you know, just
25:56
Speaker 4: just things you do outside and enjoyed it.
26:00
Speaker 2: You know, I was. It was our way of entertaining ourselves.
26:05
Speaker 3: Greg. When I talked to professional athletes, they say, it's
26:07
Speaker 3: a lot harder to watch a child, a sibling, somebody else,
26:11
Speaker 3: other than something themselves play a sport at the highest level.
26:14
Speaker 3: What was your experience like watching Mike You guys pitched
26:17
Speaker 3: in the major leagues at the same time. He's gone
26:19
Speaker 3: on to have a very successful career as a pitching coach.
26:22
Speaker 3: What was it like watching him? And how how would
26:23
Speaker 3: you rate the difficulty you or ease of that relative
26:26
Speaker 3: to when you were pitching yourself.
26:28
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I was nervous for him, you know,
26:32
Speaker 4: I think I was. Obviously I wasn't as nervous as
26:36
Speaker 4: when I was out there pitching, but I had nerves
26:38
Speaker 4: for him. And it was somebody I grew up with.
26:41
Speaker 4: It was somebody I was always calling for. So any
26:45
Speaker 4: anytime there's that added incentive to see someone do well,
26:50
Speaker 4: you know, the nerves kind of kick in a little bit,
26:52
Speaker 4: and uh, you know, you try to pitch with him,
26:55
Speaker 4: You try to you know, what would my brother do
26:59
Speaker 4: in situation? This is what I think he should do now,
27:02
Speaker 4: And just you know, he was a big mentor in
27:08
Speaker 4: my life and to see him have success on the
27:10
Speaker 4: field was pretty special.
27:12
Speaker 1: That's awesome. And you know, for the listeners, I got
27:14
Speaker 1: a chance to work with Mike for a number of
27:16
Speaker 1: years in Texas. He's one of the most accomplished pitching
27:19
Speaker 1: coaches in the game. Check out his record. Everywhere he's gone.
27:23
Speaker 1: The teams have gotten better, they've won, they've played in
27:26
Speaker 1: the playoffs. Probably one of the longest tenured pitching coaches
27:29
Speaker 1: in the game right now, but unequivocally one of the
27:31
Speaker 1: most successful pitching coaches in the modern era. So Greg,
27:36
Speaker 1: just take us back to those those games on the
27:39
Speaker 1: Air Force base when you and Mike show up as
27:41
Speaker 1: then one and two starters for your team. How did
27:43
Speaker 1: the other team respond?
27:45
Speaker 4: Well, the thing was, we only had five or six kids,
27:48
Speaker 4: so we had to make do with what we had
27:50
Speaker 4: and a lot of times we had to close off
27:53
Speaker 4: right field, so everybody was a pole hitter. So we
27:57
Speaker 4: usually had a pitcher, a hitter, you know, pitcher, two hitters,
28:01
Speaker 4: and two or three guys on defense, and we would
28:03
Speaker 4: just rotate and you know, everybody would get a chance
28:08
Speaker 4: to swing the bat and pitch a little bit and
28:09
Speaker 4: play some defense.
28:10
Speaker 2: So you know, it was a good it was a
28:13
Speaker 2: good way to kill time.
28:14
Speaker 4: And as soon as you know, the baseball game was over,
28:16
Speaker 4: we walked over to the basketball court and started playing basketball.
28:20
Speaker 3: Incredible, Greg, for our younger listeners who may not have
28:23
Speaker 3: seen you play, you moved the ball as well as
28:26
Speaker 3: I've ever seen anybody move the ball. How did you
28:28
Speaker 3: develop that? Was that something naturally in eight as a
28:31
Speaker 3: youngster and with your command and control and the ability
28:34
Speaker 3: to move the ball basically wherever you wanted to go?
28:37
Speaker 3: How did that skill develop over the course of your career.
28:41
Speaker 4: I was very fortunate when I was about fifteen, you know,
28:45
Speaker 4: my brother was you know, eighteen nineteen at the time,
28:48
Speaker 4: and we would have Sunday workouts here in Las Vegas,
28:51
Speaker 4: and one of the pitching coaches there, his name was
28:54
Speaker 4: Ralph Meeter, believed that movement was more important than velocity,
29:00
Speaker 4: and he helped us kind of change my arm angle,
29:04
Speaker 4: change my delivery at a young age where I was
29:08
Speaker 4: always trying to create movement on the baseball as opposed
29:11
Speaker 4: to velocity. You know, I was told, hey, you're you know,
29:13
Speaker 4: you're gonna throw hard enough to get drafted, but in
29:16
Speaker 4: order to have success, you need to learn movement.
29:19
Speaker 2: And you know I bought in.
29:22
Speaker 4: I bought in at that age, and you know, it
29:25
Speaker 4: was just, you know, sometimes you get great advice and
29:29
Speaker 4: I was very fortunate to have that advice as a
29:32
Speaker 4: young player.
29:32
Speaker 2: And and you know, the.
29:35
Speaker 4: Game wasn't necessarily about velocity like it is now. Back then,
29:40
Speaker 4: it was about winning baseball games, getting outs, trying to
29:45
Speaker 4: go nine innings. And you know, the movement I think
29:49
Speaker 4: allowed me to worry about weak contact instead of the
29:54
Speaker 4: swing and miss, which is kind of what you're seeing
29:56
Speaker 4: guys Chase today. Great.
29:58
Speaker 1: I mean building off that I you talked about, you know,
30:01
Speaker 1: the most important tool you have as a picture is
30:04
Speaker 1: between your ears. I think you had a quote referencing
30:06
Speaker 1: that as well, and you always preach movement and command
30:10
Speaker 1: and how those and were so much more important than velocity.
30:14
Speaker 1: Changes speeds. Today's game has changed, right, But how if
30:18
Speaker 1: you were coaching pitching right now, how would you mesh
30:21
Speaker 1: those parts of your philosophy into this newfound desire just
30:26
Speaker 1: to hunt velocity at.
30:28
Speaker 4: All turned Well, I mean, obviously velocity is great, it's
30:32
Speaker 4: a big plus. I mean, the harder you throw, the
30:34
Speaker 4: harder it is to hit. I mean, I think everybody
30:37
Speaker 4: can agree on that. But I think, you know, it's
30:40
Speaker 4: very important to be the better pitcher that day. I
30:43
Speaker 4: think you have to outpitch the guy you're pitching against.
30:47
Speaker 4: And that's when it comes down to command, execution, movement, location,
30:53
Speaker 4: the ability to change speeds. You know, if I'm facing
30:57
Speaker 4: Randy Johnson, I'm at a huge advantage velocity wise, but
31:03
Speaker 4: you know I have to be able to outpitch him.
31:05
Speaker 4: You know, I have to make fewer mistakes in him.
31:07
Speaker 4: I have to, you know, I have to go out
31:11
Speaker 4: there and pitch a good game and keep the ball
31:13
Speaker 4: in front of the outfield. I think, you know, we
31:17
Speaker 4: can watch the games tonight. We can watch all fifteen
31:19
Speaker 4: games that are going on tonight, and the team that
31:21
Speaker 4: keeps the ball in front of the outfield the best
31:23
Speaker 4: is going to win. They're going to win every time,
31:25
Speaker 4: And I think that's what it boils down to, is,
31:29
Speaker 4: you know, let's keep the ball in front of the
31:31
Speaker 4: outfield better than the other guy, and I'm pretty sure
31:33
Speaker 4: I'm going to win that day.
31:35
Speaker 3: Greg, another area where you're exceptional, maybe the most underrated
31:38
Speaker 3: part of your game was defensively. You won eighteen gold gloves,
31:41
Speaker 3: a major League Baseball record. What do you see when
31:44
Speaker 3: you watch pitchers today and when you were playing. Is
31:47
Speaker 3: that something you consciously focused on in terms of shortening
31:50
Speaker 3: your wind up, your follow through, whatever it is to
31:52
Speaker 3: be in position to field when the ball was hidden.
31:55
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I would never change a guy's delivery
31:58
Speaker 4: to get in a good field position. I think, you know,
32:01
Speaker 4: the important thing is is how the wall crosses the plate,
32:04
Speaker 4: and I don't think you want to do anything to
32:06
Speaker 4: put that guy at a disadvantage in order to fill
32:10
Speaker 4: the ball. I was just very fortunate that, you know,
32:13
Speaker 4: I was facing the hitter pretty squarely with my delivery
32:17
Speaker 4: and I was able to maybe I think I saw
32:20
Speaker 4: the ball better off the bat than most pitchers because
32:23
Speaker 4: of that. I think my head was always in a
32:25
Speaker 4: pretty good position to see the ball, and that allowed
32:28
Speaker 4: me to react a little bit better, just because you know,
32:32
Speaker 4: I could see the ball off the bat pretty good
32:34
Speaker 4: and kind of anticipate or maybe lean one way, dependent
32:37
Speaker 4: on the pitch I was throwing. So, you know, to me,
32:41
Speaker 4: I thought that was a huge advantage. You know, I
32:43
Speaker 4: always I felt like, you know, if if if I
32:47
Speaker 4: can have one hundred total chances a year, that's thirty
32:50
Speaker 4: three scoreless innings right there, you know. And you know
32:54
Speaker 4: you add thirty three scoreless indings to a pitcher's er
32:58
Speaker 4: at the end of the year.
32:59
Speaker 2: I think it makes a huge difference.
33:02
Speaker 1: It's just an insight for the listeners how you just
33:05
Speaker 1: thought about the game so differently than most pitchers did,
33:08
Speaker 1: and how much it led to your success. Greg, I
33:10
Speaker 1: want to take you back to September third, nineteen eighty six.
33:13
Speaker 1: You make your debut, but not only do you make
33:16
Speaker 1: your debut, but when you did. I don't know if
33:17
Speaker 1: you knew this, but you were the youngest pit player
33:19
Speaker 1: in the major leagues at the time when you did that.
33:22
Speaker 1: How was the transition for you at that age? And
33:24
Speaker 1: then also maybe the first year or so didn't go
33:27
Speaker 1: quite as well as you had hoped.
33:28
Speaker 2: How did you deal with that.
33:30
Speaker 1: And overcome it to become the pitcher you were today.
33:34
Speaker 2: Well, I think.
33:37
Speaker 4: You evaluate your performance when the season's over, and you know,
33:41
Speaker 4: you have help with your coaches, and you also do
33:43
Speaker 4: it yourself as well. And I realized that I wasn't
33:47
Speaker 4: pitching slow well enough. You know, I threw hard enough,
33:49
Speaker 4: I felt good, I wasn't changing speeds properly. There was
33:55
Speaker 4: nothing wrong with my fastball, there was a lot of
33:57
Speaker 4: things wrong with my chain yet, and I needed to
34:01
Speaker 4: work on pitching slower and went to winter ball with
34:06
Speaker 4: the help with Dick pol you know, big, big, huge
34:09
Speaker 4: advantage I had having him as my pitching coach, especially
34:12
Speaker 4: at a young age, and I learned how to change
34:15
Speaker 4: speeds better, and then I was able to actually apply it,
34:18
Speaker 4: you know, the following year once the season started.
34:21
Speaker 3: Greg, what advice would you give young baseball players, young
34:24
Speaker 3: pitchers in particular, who struggle out of the gigs. I
34:27
Speaker 3: think people remember you your success in Chicago toward the
34:30
Speaker 3: latter part of your time there and especially in Atlanta,
34:32
Speaker 3: But your first couple of years in Major League baseball
34:34
Speaker 3: it did not go well. Maybe it wasn't, you know,
34:36
Speaker 3: the level you hoped, and not everybody can be ja
34:39
Speaker 3: Jacob Mazarowski where they come out and dominate right away.
34:42
Speaker 3: What advice would you give young players, young pitchers in particular,
34:45
Speaker 3: who have some ups and downs early on in their career.
34:48
Speaker 4: Well, I think it's very important to understand what you
34:51
Speaker 4: do best on the mound, things you can and can't do.
34:54
Speaker 4: I think you have to evaluate why you're not having
34:58
Speaker 4: success and what do I have to do to achieve success.
35:03
Speaker 4: You know what are my weaknesses, you know what are
35:06
Speaker 4: my strengths, and try to just address them the best
35:09
Speaker 4: you can. And a lot of times you need another
35:13
Speaker 4: set of eyes behind you, and you need some help
35:17
Speaker 4: from from some coaches. And you know, you can figure
35:22
Speaker 4: a lot of stuff out on your own, but you're
35:23
Speaker 4: going to need you know, some head starts with and
35:26
Speaker 4: it comes down to coaching.
35:27
Speaker 2: I think mostly Greg.
35:30
Speaker 1: We're going to fast forward to nineteen ninety three, You
35:32
Speaker 1: become a free agent, you ultimately sign with the Braves.
35:36
Speaker 1: If memory serves, there was a lot of rumors out
35:39
Speaker 1: there that you could have landed somewhere else and that
35:41
Speaker 1: maybe you were going to become a New York Yankee,
35:44
Speaker 1: or at least some people in the Bronx thought you
35:46
Speaker 1: had a chance of being Yankee. What was it like
35:47
Speaker 1: being a free agent? How'd you ultimately make the decision
35:50
Speaker 1: to go to the Braves And what else was going
35:52
Speaker 1: on behind the scenes of that time.
35:55
Speaker 2: Well, there was a lot going on. Really.
35:57
Speaker 4: I think I never really anticipated leaving Jaica, you know,
36:00
Speaker 4: I I you know, the Cubs drafted me, It's.
36:02
Speaker 2: All I knew. I was there for nine years.
36:04
Speaker 4: And and uh, you know, I was a little shocked
36:08
Speaker 4: when I wasn't offered a contract by them. Uh you know,
36:11
Speaker 4: we we had gone through some negotiations, uh after my
36:15
Speaker 4: fifth year and then my free agent year at the
36:18
Speaker 4: All Star break, and uh, you know, just never felt
36:23
Speaker 4: right signing that contract for for me personally, and uh
36:27
Speaker 4: uh I expected it to get done after the after
36:31
Speaker 4: the season, and you know, the right before free agency started,
36:37
Speaker 4: I was offered a deal and I was a day
36:39
Speaker 4: away from free agency, so you know, I felt like I, uh,
36:43
Speaker 4: I felt like I earned the right to go out
36:45
Speaker 4: and see what was out there and to see what
36:47
Speaker 4: my true value was at the time. And and uh
36:51
Speaker 4: I did go to New York and there were very
36:54
Speaker 4: few offers for me, and I think, uh I had
36:58
Speaker 4: I had a low ball offer. I felt from a
37:01
Speaker 4: couple organizations. I went to New York. I expected to
37:06
Speaker 4: sign a contract when I went there, but I guess
37:08
Speaker 4: there were some complications in the front office. Gene Michaels
37:14
Speaker 4: was a general manager at the time, and he came
37:18
Speaker 4: out to Vegas even before I went to New York
37:20
Speaker 4: and made a couple offers, and he convinced me to
37:23
Speaker 4: go to New York. And I assumed I was going
37:25
Speaker 4: there to sign a contract. And you know, I heard
37:29
Speaker 4: years later that one of the higher ups was having
37:32
Speaker 4: heart problems and they weren't able to make an offer
37:36
Speaker 4: that night when I was there, so I had flown
37:38
Speaker 4: back to Vegas, and during that time on that flight,
37:43
Speaker 4: the Braves came into the picture, and it was important
37:47
Speaker 4: for me to stay in the National League. This was
37:50
Speaker 4: before interleague play had started. I knew the league, I
37:54
Speaker 4: knew the hitters. I felt it was an advantage not
37:59
Speaker 4: facing the D eight. I felt like I had a
38:01
Speaker 4: slight advantage, you know, probably four out of five times offensively.
38:07
Speaker 4: I wasn't a great hitter, but I felt like I
38:09
Speaker 4: hit better than most pitchers.
38:11
Speaker 2: I was able to get buns down and stuff like that, and.
38:16
Speaker 4: I just thought it was a better spot for me
38:18
Speaker 4: to stay in the National League, and also I wanted
38:21
Speaker 4: to win a World Series.
38:22
Speaker 2: And if we go.
38:24
Speaker 4: Back to the early nineties, the Braves were the team.
38:28
Speaker 4: I mean, they had been to the two previous World Series.
38:31
Speaker 4: I watched on my couch in Vegas. I watched them
38:33
Speaker 4: play those those two postseasons, and you know, the Yankees
38:37
Speaker 4: were kind of rebuilding at the time, and you know,
38:40
Speaker 4: you it was a pretty easy decision based on that,
38:44
Speaker 4: you know, National League, better chance to win the World Series.
38:48
Speaker 4: You know, money is an issue, but it wasn't that
38:50
Speaker 4: much of an issue. And you know, looking back, I
38:55
Speaker 4: could not have made a better decision.
38:58
Speaker 1: You know, Greg, One thing that I think you should
39:00
Speaker 1: let on there, which is real, is, you know, front
39:03
Speaker 1: office executives we make a lot of mistakes, and one
39:06
Speaker 1: that you just really talked about here was they waited
39:10
Speaker 1: too long with the Cubs to come with a very
39:13
Speaker 1: sincere offer. And I've seen this before where we think
39:16
Speaker 1: we are the leader in the clubhouse in retaining a player.
39:19
Speaker 1: We even tell the player, hey, go see what's out
39:21
Speaker 1: there and come back to us, and at that time
39:24
Speaker 1: we will step up and make you an offer. But
39:26
Speaker 1: what happens for a player is that you then get
39:28
Speaker 1: courted by another team. They show extreme interest in you,
39:31
Speaker 1: You become a priority for the other club, and then
39:34
Speaker 1: the executive from your previous team just assumes you're going
39:37
Speaker 1: to come back and give them the same ability to
39:39
Speaker 1: resign you based upon the history. But once you're out
39:42
Speaker 1: the door, you are a little bit out the door, right,
39:44
Speaker 1: And it's I've seen it in my career where we
39:47
Speaker 1: had the best intentions of resigning a player, the best
39:50
Speaker 1: intentions of expressing to them that we genuinely wanted them
39:53
Speaker 1: to return, but then our actions don't really support that.
39:56
Speaker 1: We encourage them to go see what else is on
39:59
Speaker 1: the market. Risk you run there is then their heart
40:02
Speaker 1: starts leaving the building, and once the heart's left the building,
40:04
Speaker 1: their head follows because we're not always giving them the
40:07
Speaker 1: most money, but we're trying to, you know, tug a
40:09
Speaker 1: little bit on the emotional heartstrings. If you spent your
40:11
Speaker 1: whole career in a place, but that leaves once you
40:14
Speaker 1: leave the building. And so I just wanted to echo
40:17
Speaker 1: what you said, like I do think that's a lesson
40:19
Speaker 1: for executives out there. This is the real response that
40:22
Speaker 1: a player has you when your best lad plans fall
40:26
Speaker 1: a little bit short of your intentions.
40:28
Speaker 2: I would say, yeah, I hear you.
40:31
Speaker 4: The one thing you said there was go and see
40:34
Speaker 4: what's out there and we'll come back with an offer.
40:38
Speaker 2: And my situation was a little bit different.
40:42
Speaker 4: I was told exactly that go see what out there,
40:45
Speaker 4: go find what your true value is. And I had
40:50
Speaker 4: every intention of coming back to the Cubs, and I
40:54
Speaker 4: actually I was actually lied to.
40:58
Speaker 2: That was said to me.
41:00
Speaker 4: And the day before free agency started, I was made
41:04
Speaker 4: the exact same offer that I was made after my
41:09
Speaker 4: fifth year. So I had played my sixth year, I'd
41:13
Speaker 4: won twenty games, i'd want to say young, and I
41:18
Speaker 4: was offered the same money they offered me a year ago,
41:21
Speaker 4: and it just didn't feel right, you know. And at
41:25
Speaker 4: the All Star break that year of my sixth year,
41:28
Speaker 4: my free agency year, I was offered the exact same
41:30
Speaker 4: offer that I was back in December before that year started.
41:35
Speaker 2: And then.
41:38
Speaker 4: A week or two left in the season, I had
41:39
Speaker 4: a conversation with my general manager and that's exactly what
41:43
Speaker 4: he said, go out there and see what's out there.
41:46
Speaker 2: And we'll come back to you.
41:48
Speaker 4: And first day of free agency, they signed two or
41:52
Speaker 4: three guys. I went out there, I talked to some
41:55
Speaker 4: other clubs. I went to New York, I came back,
41:58
Speaker 4: called the Cubs and I was told, no, we had
42:01
Speaker 4: you had your offer, we gave you the timeline to
42:03
Speaker 4: sign it. You didn't sign it. And you know, now
42:06
Speaker 4: I'm definitely a free agency.
42:08
Speaker 2: Now I'm leaving. Now I'm scrambling where am I.
42:10
Speaker 4: Going to go? What am I going to do? And yeh,
42:13
Speaker 4: I would have loved to have had a GM that
42:15
Speaker 4: was honest with me. And you know, I think if
42:17
Speaker 4: that was the case, I probably never would have left
42:19
Speaker 4: Chicago because I had no intentions of leaving. And and
42:22
Speaker 4: you're right, you know that was my team, that was
42:25
Speaker 4: my organization. Yes, I would give them a better deal
42:28
Speaker 4: than what was out there, one hundred percent, And the
42:33
Speaker 4: offer was never made. You know, I never had that
42:35
Speaker 4: opportunity to sign on the dotted line with them back then.
42:37
Speaker 2: So you know, I ended up in Atlanta.
42:39
Speaker 3: Great lessons for executives and owners there that this doesn't
42:43
Speaker 3: become emotional at times too. You know, if a player's
42:45
Speaker 3: an unrestricted free agent, you say, go see what's out there,
42:48
Speaker 3: you better be prepared to deal with the consequences of that.
42:51
Speaker 3: It's not you know, restricted free agency, at least in
42:53
Speaker 3: the NBA is a little different. You have matching rights,
42:55
Speaker 3: but unrestricted free agency. You better be careful with that strategy.
42:58
Speaker 3: For any owners or executive is listening, Greg, I want
43:02
Speaker 3: to go back to what you just said about hitting
43:04
Speaker 3: and you enjoying, you know, being in the National League
43:06
Speaker 3: because you got to pitch to opposing pitchers and you
43:08
Speaker 3: got to hit yourself. In twenty twenty two, the National
43:12
Speaker 3: League got rid of the designated hitter. What are your
43:14
Speaker 3: thoughts on that? And then when you were preparing as
43:17
Speaker 3: a player, what percentage of time did you spend in
43:19
Speaker 3: the batting cage working on hitting yourself?
43:25
Speaker 4: Atlanta, we hit as much as we wanted. We had
43:29
Speaker 4: the ability to take batting practice every day if we
43:32
Speaker 4: wanted to, and you know, depending on you know, there
43:34
Speaker 4: were certain days where you know, hey, your elbows a
43:37
Speaker 4: little a little barking right now, I better not be
43:39
Speaker 4: swinging the bat. But if I was healthy enough, I
43:43
Speaker 4: took VP every day and it was fun. I enjoyed it.
43:47
Speaker 4: I think, you know, pitchers hit early every day, starters
43:51
Speaker 4: got to hit every day, and we got to hit
43:55
Speaker 4: on the field within a group the day before we
43:59
Speaker 4: pitched as well as the day we pitched, so we
44:01
Speaker 4: had two days on the field. We were in the
44:03
Speaker 4: first group with the extra hitters, and and home games,
44:08
Speaker 4: we hit every day before the first group hit, and
44:11
Speaker 4: you know, we would hit and go out and get
44:14
Speaker 4: our running ends, shagg and fly balls, and it was
44:18
Speaker 4: you know, it was part of the routine. And you know,
44:22
Speaker 4: Jimmy Williams was my hitting coach in Atlanta. He would
44:25
Speaker 4: take us into the cage and you know, tell us
44:29
Speaker 4: what we thought, and you know, we we.
44:31
Speaker 2: We worked on it. Definitely. All the pitchers did Greg, Greg.
44:35
Speaker 1: Just out of curiosity, how much did did you think
44:38
Speaker 1: it changed when pitchers were no longer hitting also known
44:42
Speaker 1: as like they couldn't be held accountable when you hit
44:45
Speaker 1: a guy when you were pitching, the reason was that
44:47
Speaker 1: they were going to come and hit you. Like, how
44:50
Speaker 1: does that change now that now that you have the
44:52
Speaker 1: DH in both leagues? And like, did that impact you
44:55
Speaker 1: at all when you were contemplating pitching inside sometimes I
44:59
Speaker 1: would assume a ball get away from you. From time
45:01
Speaker 1: to time, you may even hit a guy by accident.
45:03
Speaker 1: I assume it was by accident. Well, like, how much
45:06
Speaker 1: did that factor in when you were sizing up who
45:07
Speaker 1: was on the mound on the other side. And sure
45:09
Speaker 1: they may go after your three hole hitter, but they
45:11
Speaker 1: also may come after you.
45:14
Speaker 4: Uh, a real picture would come after me, not not
45:18
Speaker 4: the three hole hitter. I think that that was that
45:20
Speaker 4: was the beauty of it was. I think, uh, most
45:25
Speaker 4: of the pictures understood that. You know, if you hit
45:31
Speaker 4: Andre Dawson, I'm not gonna wait and hit you. Know
45:35
Speaker 4: you're you're you're your top hitter. I'm gonna wait and
45:38
Speaker 4: get you as a pitcher. And I think, uh, the
45:41
Speaker 4: first time it happened was, uh, Andre Dawson got hit
45:45
Speaker 4: by Danny Cox. He was a pitcher for the Cardinals
45:48
Speaker 4: at the time. And here comes Jack Clark. He was there,
45:53
Speaker 4: Andre Dawson on their team, and uh, I didn't hit him,
45:57
Speaker 4: and and aning or two later I Hitanny Cox.
46:02
Speaker 2: Then I had to face Danny Cox.
46:04
Speaker 4: I'm thinking, oh, he's going to hit me back, but
46:06
Speaker 4: you know, you got to do what you got to do,
46:09
Speaker 4: and he didn't hit me, and I wound up getting
46:12
Speaker 4: on first base and Jack Clark was the first baseman
46:16
Speaker 4: and he kind of gave me a little pat on
46:17
Speaker 4: the butt and said that's the way you do it.
46:19
Speaker 4: And you know, I learned kind of as a twenty
46:22
Speaker 4: one or twenty two year old that, okay, I just
46:25
Speaker 4: gained their respect to the other team as well, and
46:28
Speaker 4: a very valuable lesson for me. And you know, I
46:33
Speaker 4: think I hit one guy out of anger because he
46:36
Speaker 4: hit a home run off me. And it was Sid
46:39
Speaker 4: Breen in Pittsburgh when he was there, and you know,
46:44
Speaker 4: I was young and dumb and still, you know, trying
46:47
Speaker 4: to mature as a picture and all that. And you know,
46:50
Speaker 4: I've seen pictures in the past give up home run
46:53
Speaker 4: so they hit the guy to you know, prove their
46:55
Speaker 4: manhood and all that stuff. And you know, I came
46:59
Speaker 4: to realize that it wasn't right. You know, I messed up,
47:03
Speaker 4: threw a hitable pitch. The guy hit it out. He's
47:05
Speaker 4: doing his job. That's what he's supposed to try to
47:07
Speaker 4: do and it's not personal. And I think ever since
47:12
Speaker 4: that day, I realized that, you know, I'm not going
47:15
Speaker 4: to ever throw it a hitter unless.
47:19
Speaker 2: They absolutely deserve it.
47:21
Speaker 4: And one of my teammates asked me, if the teammate
47:23
Speaker 4: asked you to get a guy then you got to
47:25
Speaker 4: get it, but very rarely did you throw it guys.
47:28
Speaker 4: I know there's a difference between pitching inside and throwing
47:32
Speaker 4: it guys. I think I was trying to pitch inside
47:34
Speaker 4: a lot and did hit some guys because of that.
47:39
Speaker 4: But they were probably looking out over the plate and
47:41
Speaker 4: weren't ready to get bringing and thinking about a ball inside.
47:44
Speaker 4: So you know, you got to pitch inside. I was
47:48
Speaker 4: never worried about being thrown at. I got thrown at twice.
47:51
Speaker 2: I did.
47:52
Speaker 4: I did hit a couple guys in the head where
47:54
Speaker 4: I was trying to pitch inside. I was trying to protect,
47:57
Speaker 4: you know, my side of the plate. I thought they
47:59
Speaker 4: were leaning out out there too much, so you know,
48:02
Speaker 4: you throw that white line fastball in and they're you know,
48:04
Speaker 4: they're kind of diving into it and they're not really
48:07
Speaker 4: expecting it in there, so they're not able to get
48:09
Speaker 4: out of the way.
48:10
Speaker 2: And you know.
48:12
Speaker 4: It happened twice, And it happened both times in the
48:14
Speaker 4: playoffs and the following year. I got hit, and I understood,
48:18
Speaker 4: like I deserved to be hit. I mean, I did
48:19
Speaker 4: I hit the guy in the head, and did I
48:22
Speaker 4: want to hit him in the head? Absolutely, not especially
48:24
Speaker 4: in a playoff game. But uh yeah, I mean I
48:29
Speaker 4: got hit and I was actually kind of expecting it
48:31
Speaker 4: both times, and both times it happened, and luckily it
48:34
Speaker 4: didn't hurt too bad.
48:35
Speaker 1: Greg, do you mind sharing the story of the when
48:37
Speaker 1: when you were rookie and unfortunately Andre Dawson got hit
48:42
Speaker 1: in the face. As you reference, those are the scariest
48:45
Speaker 1: moments in the game. Yeah, and then the decision you had,
48:48
Speaker 1: and then maybe the exchange you had with Rick Sutcliffe
48:50
Speaker 1: and some of the guidance you were given.
48:53
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, I mean it was a horrible situation to
48:57
Speaker 4: see Hawk get hit in the face like that. I
48:59
Speaker 4: mean he I mean it just he was knocked out
49:02
Speaker 4: at home plate. I mean he'd laid there kind of dazed.
49:05
Speaker 4: I mean he needed a standing eid obviously. And when
49:09
Speaker 4: he came to we started getting the picture and the
49:11
Speaker 4: benches emptied, we had the brawl, we had everything, and
49:15
Speaker 4: I was sitting on the bench and Don Zimmer walked
49:17
Speaker 4: over and he said, don't you hit anybody. I will
49:21
Speaker 4: tell you when to hit somebody. And you know, we
49:25
Speaker 4: had to sign and it took a few hitters, and
49:28
Speaker 4: when it was Benito Santiago came up and I got
49:31
Speaker 4: the sign from the catcher to hit him, and you know,
49:36
Speaker 4: manager says, hit somebody. You got to hit somebody, and
49:39
Speaker 4: I was just glad I didn't miss him. I mean,
49:41
Speaker 4: it's really sometimes everybody thinks it's pretty easy to hit somebody.
49:46
Speaker 4: And luckily we had how to hit somebody practice one
49:49
Speaker 4: day in the minor leagues, and one of the college
49:55
Speaker 4: pitchers says, don't aim at him. You have to aim
49:58
Speaker 4: about a foot behind him. And then you're going to
50:00
Speaker 4: hit somebody. If you ain't at them, they're always going
50:02
Speaker 4: to get out of the way. So you got to
50:03
Speaker 4: throw it behind them. And it's weird because it happened
50:08
Speaker 4: about two years two or three years ago, and I
50:10
Speaker 4: kind of remembered that conversation that.
50:12
Speaker 2: Day, and I said, oh, yeah, you better aim a
50:13
Speaker 2: little bit behind him, and you know, don't throw it
50:18
Speaker 2: at their head.
50:19
Speaker 4: That was the one thing Don Zimmer was, you know,
50:20
Speaker 4: if you're going to hit somebody, don't throw it at
50:22
Speaker 4: their head.
50:22
Speaker 2: I've got steel plates in my head.
50:24
Speaker 4: I've been being like four or five times, and we
50:29
Speaker 4: were instructed to not throw them at their head, you know,
50:32
Speaker 4: And it's kind of funny too because I go to
50:33
Speaker 4: Atlanta years later now Bobby Cox is my manager, and
50:37
Speaker 4: Bobby's like, yeah, throw it at their head. Nobody's ever
50:39
Speaker 4: died playing this game. Send a message.
50:41
Speaker 2: If you send a message, send it so you know,
50:44
Speaker 2: it's kind of you.
50:45
Speaker 4: Know, just the different philosophies with my two managers back then.
50:50
Speaker 3: That's a great idea for a Major League Baseball fundraiser.
50:53
Speaker 3: Greg had the GM with Fad if he's back with
50:55
Speaker 3: the team or the manager can put on a bunch
50:57
Speaker 3: of pads and armor and then have fans were upset
50:59
Speaker 3: to throw tried to hit him in the head. I
51:01
Speaker 3: think we'd raise a lot of money for charity using that,
51:04
Speaker 3: Using that approach, my question for you is now about
51:08
Speaker 3: the steroid are good portion of your career was in
51:11
Speaker 3: the steroid era? How aware of you were that? Were
51:15
Speaker 3: How aware of that were you at the time? And
51:17
Speaker 3: now looking back on your career, what is your reaction
51:20
Speaker 3: to it? Now you have some time to process pitching
51:22
Speaker 3: against so many guys who were juicing at a pretty significant.
51:25
Speaker 4: I mean, you know what was going on. I mean
51:28
Speaker 4: you saw guys in the shower. I mean you saw
51:30
Speaker 4: him one year and you saw him the next year,
51:33
Speaker 4: and you know you saw the hat sizes change a
51:38
Speaker 4: little bit. Uh, you saw the acne on the back,
51:41
Speaker 4: you saw the muscles, you saw, uh, you saw the
51:46
Speaker 4: ball going further. I mean, you know, it was just
51:49
Speaker 4: it was there. You know, I inquired about it. Everybody
51:57
Speaker 4: has their guy, you know, where they live in the
51:59
Speaker 4: office season and and my guy said, absolutely not.
52:03
Speaker 2: He goes you.
52:03
Speaker 4: Don't need it. It's you know, it can do you
52:07
Speaker 4: more harm than good. You're having tons of success without
52:10
Speaker 4: using it. There's there's no reason to do it. And
52:14
Speaker 4: you know I valued his opinion. I trusted him, and
52:17
Speaker 4: it was done. It was I never worried about it
52:20
Speaker 4: after I was told that. And you know, you knew that.
52:26
Speaker 4: You know, guys were taking steroids. Guys were corking their bats.
52:30
Speaker 4: Did it make you want to scuff the ball? Absolutely,
52:32
Speaker 4: let's make it a fair fight. But uh, you know,
52:36
Speaker 4: never did it. You know I felt like I did
52:39
Speaker 4: it the right way. And and you know, the steroid guys,
52:43
Speaker 4: it did. It did bite you from time to time.
52:45
Speaker 4: You know, I remember facing I remember facing Mark Maguire
52:48
Speaker 4: and I threw him a fastball away and and you
52:51
Speaker 4: know I saw the ass out reach swing and it
52:54
Speaker 4: was a fly ball to right filled and I'm kind
52:56
Speaker 4: of walking off the mount and it went, you know,
52:57
Speaker 4: thirty feet in the bullpen out there, and it was like, ooh,
53:01
Speaker 4: I just got one right there, and you know, got
53:05
Speaker 4: to make a better pitch. That's all you can tell
53:07
Speaker 4: yourself is you know, it's either your pitch or your
53:10
Speaker 4: pitch selection. It's one of the two, which one was incorrect,
53:14
Speaker 4: and try to fix it for the next time you
53:16
Speaker 4: face it.
53:17
Speaker 1: You know, Greg, before you came on in our previous segment,
53:19
Speaker 1: we were talking about, you know how sports there's gray
53:22
Speaker 1: areas and then there's black and white. What the listener
53:24
Speaker 1: may not realize is at that time, really performance enhancing
53:27
Speaker 1: drugs weren't really regulated like they are now. You know,
53:31
Speaker 1: so as you mentioned, like some people, I mean, obviously
53:34
Speaker 1: we're pushing the envelope way too far, and they knew
53:36
Speaker 1: they were doing something that was going to be made
53:38
Speaker 1: illegal at some point, but fundamentally it wasn't actually as
53:42
Speaker 1: clearly against the rules of the game as it may
53:45
Speaker 1: have seemed. And so this went on for a lot
53:47
Speaker 1: longer than people would have expected. You mentioned it. I mean,
53:51
Speaker 1: we were all in clubhouses, and for those of us
53:54
Speaker 1: who didn't play the game, you just kind of dismissed
53:55
Speaker 1: it a little bit as like, oh, that's why I
53:57
Speaker 1: never played the game, because this guy's neck is three
54:00
Speaker 1: times the size is my neck. And then you like
54:03
Speaker 1: took a pause and you're like, wait a minute. Human
54:04
Speaker 1: beings don't normally have necks quite that large. But in
54:08
Speaker 1: the moment you kind of dismissed it because they were
54:10
Speaker 1: premium athletes and you wouldn't think somebody would be pushing
54:14
Speaker 1: the envelope as far as they were, but in practice
54:17
Speaker 1: they were. And it lasted for, you know, over a
54:19
Speaker 1: decade and really changed the game of baseball. You had
54:22
Speaker 1: to weather that almost the entirety of that storm, Greg,
54:25
Speaker 1: And you're like, we were talking before you came on,
54:27
Speaker 1: Guys like you and Pedro Martinez, who you know, just
54:31
Speaker 1: dominated during this era. It just makes your numbers that
54:34
Speaker 1: much more remarkable as we see it. I mean, it's
54:38
Speaker 1: just from a fans perspective, which fundamentally we all are.
54:43
Speaker 1: I want to shift your attention for a second. I
54:44
Speaker 1: want to get a scouting report or too, give us
54:47
Speaker 1: a scouting report on John Smoltz, Tom Glavin, Kent Merker.
54:52
Speaker 1: You know, Steve Avery that you got you got to
54:55
Speaker 1: pitch with some excellent pitchers, some of your contemporary, some
54:59
Speaker 1: younger guys that I'm sure you help mentor give the
55:01
Speaker 1: listeners a quick like, what was your breakdown of a
55:04
Speaker 1: few of those guys.
55:06
Speaker 2: Well, you know Smultzy.
55:09
Speaker 4: Obviously, the best scouting report on Smoltzy is obviously Hall
55:13
Speaker 4: of Fame pitcher, great pitcher. Okay, I think people need
55:16
Speaker 4: to realize what an outstanding golf coordinator he was. I
55:19
Speaker 4: mean he set up he had golf set up for
55:23
Speaker 4: us and every city. I mean, anytime we wanted to play.
55:28
Speaker 4: He had the rental car, he had directions to the
55:31
Speaker 4: golf course. This was going on too before cell phones,
55:34
Speaker 4: so you know you kind of needed he had the
55:36
Speaker 4: members name that we were playing with. But he was
55:41
Speaker 4: he was definitely a special teammate. He he he made
55:45
Speaker 4: baseball very enjoyable for the rest of that pitching staff,
55:48
Speaker 4: just just through golf. And he was a great teammate.
55:53
Speaker 4: He was a good friend still is as a matter
55:55
Speaker 4: of fact. And you know, if you want to scout
55:57
Speaker 4: and report commanded the fast small down the way as
56:01
Speaker 4: well as anybody had an outstanding slider that you couldn't see.
56:05
Speaker 4: One of the advantages we go back to hitting is
56:08
Speaker 4: spring training. You know, the first ten days the hitters
56:11
Speaker 4: aren't there. It's just the pitchers and we would throw.
56:16
Speaker 4: We would throw our five to ten minutes a live
56:19
Speaker 4: BP to the other pitchers. So I would go out
56:23
Speaker 4: there and throw for ten minutes and then I'd grab
56:25
Speaker 4: a bat, and now I have to go hit off Smoltzy. Okay,
56:29
Speaker 4: And I couldn't see a slider. If you threw a slider,
56:32
Speaker 4: I'd swung and miss it every time. I just couldn't
56:33
Speaker 4: see it. My eyes weren't good enough to see his slider.
56:37
Speaker 4: And very special pitch Murker, same way Merker had. Murker
56:46
Speaker 4: had a pretty good change up, good fastball.
56:50
Speaker 2: You had to get it.
56:51
Speaker 4: Going early against him. He threw hard, he was a
56:53
Speaker 4: little sneaky quick. His changeup did start a little higher
56:57
Speaker 4: than his fastball. And you know that was one thing
57:00
Speaker 4: as a hitter, if you saw the ball up, it
57:01
Speaker 4: was probably a change up. But then you have to
57:04
Speaker 4: be good enough not to swing at it still. But
57:06
Speaker 4: you know, the good hitters can do that. The you know,
57:09
Speaker 4: the pit the pitchers that hit you know one eighty
57:11
Speaker 4: for their life can't and uh, Avery was really good. Uh.
57:18
Speaker 4: You know how some guys can turn it up a notch.
57:23
Speaker 4: Some athletes, Oh it's a big game, I'll just turn
57:25
Speaker 4: it up a notch. Very few I saw, very few
57:29
Speaker 4: people were able to do that. Avery and Smoltzy could.
57:34
Speaker 4: When we got the postseason, they got better. Unfortunately, that
57:39
Speaker 4: was something I wish I could do it.
57:41
Speaker 2: I mean I wish I could have done it. I
57:43
Speaker 2: wasn't good enough to do it.
57:44
Speaker 4: They were, and uh, you know Glavin Glavin, he competed
57:50
Speaker 4: as well as anybody Glavin pitched. If Glavin had a lead,
57:54
Speaker 4: he was really good.
57:56
Speaker 2: Uh.
57:56
Speaker 4: And it didn't matter if he was leading one to
57:58
Speaker 4: nothing or six to five. You know, you know I
58:02
Speaker 4: heard a couple of comments, Oh yeah, glab got a
58:04
Speaker 4: lot of runs, and you know you won that six
58:07
Speaker 4: to five, and you know I got beat three to
58:09
Speaker 4: two last night. You know, you kind of hear a
58:11
Speaker 4: little bit of that going on, you know, throughout the years,
58:14
Speaker 4: and and you know if you sit there long enough
58:16
Speaker 4: and watch, you know, when Glad had a lead that
58:19
Speaker 4: that sixth, seventh eighth inning where he got zeros in
58:23
Speaker 4: those innings and regardless of the score, and I thought
58:26
Speaker 4: that was what he was. I thought that was what
58:29
Speaker 4: he was really good at. Was was was pitching with
58:32
Speaker 4: the lead.
58:35
Speaker 3: Gregor, And you're watching games today and hitters today, are
58:38
Speaker 3: you thinking about how you'd pitched to Aaron Judge or
58:41
Speaker 3: show Hey Otani and just zooming out across Major League Baseball?
58:45
Speaker 3: Who are some of your favorite players to watch in
58:47
Speaker 3: today's game?
58:49
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I'm kinda I kind of have the
58:52
Speaker 4: Ranger games on every day. You know, my brother's still
58:55
Speaker 4: over there. I watched him with the sound off. There's
58:59
Speaker 4: always We're always watching Netflix or a show or a
59:03
Speaker 4: documentary or whatever on TV. And and uh, you know,
59:06
Speaker 4: the Ranger games off to the side on the iPad,
59:09
Speaker 4: and and uh, you know, I I do enjoy watching
59:14
Speaker 4: the Dodgers a lot, you know, I think, you know,
59:19
Speaker 4: I just Otani's incredible. I mean to watch him, you know,
59:25
Speaker 4: sit there and and get three guys out in the
59:28
Speaker 4: first inning and then come up in the bottom of
59:30
Speaker 4: the first.
59:30
Speaker 2: And hit a home run. It's pretty cool. You know,
59:32
Speaker 2: It's just not something you see.
59:34
Speaker 4: And and uh, you know, I do think about rarely.
59:42
Speaker 4: I don't do it a lot, but you know, you
59:43
Speaker 4: see these hitters come up there, and you'd be like, man,
59:46
Speaker 4: this guy's set up down in a way right now,
59:48
Speaker 4: or this guy's set up in and you know, I
59:51
Speaker 4: would throw a change up here and you see, you know,
59:53
Speaker 4: the high fastball up there, and the guy swings and
59:55
Speaker 4: miss it, and you're like, oh, I don't have a
59:56
Speaker 4: very good scot report.
59:57
Speaker 2: I guess so, but I do do it at times.
1:00:01
Speaker 4: And uh, you know, I enjoy watching I enjoy watching
1:00:06
Speaker 4: my brother coach. I enjoy watching the Rangers and Bruce
1:00:08
Speaker 4: Bochi over there.
1:00:09
Speaker 2: Now do their thing. And and I'd like to see
1:00:13
Speaker 2: him get hot again.
1:00:13
Speaker 4: You know, they kind of cooled down the last couple
1:00:15
Speaker 4: of days, and be nice to see him go ahead
1:00:18
Speaker 4: and you know, sweep, sweep another series or something like
1:00:21
Speaker 4: that and try to get back in the playoff hunt.
1:00:24
Speaker 1: It'd be great to get healthy right now. Yeah, they
1:00:27
Speaker 1: need to get healthy. They got the cavalry could be coming.
1:00:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, Creig.
1:00:32
Speaker 1: In your career, like you face some of the best
1:00:35
Speaker 1: hitters in the era, obviously and did well against almost
1:00:38
Speaker 1: all of them, But did you consciously how differently would
1:00:42
Speaker 1: you pitch you know, the power hitters, the Barry Bonds
1:00:45
Speaker 1: in one extreme and then the contact hitters, the Tony
1:00:48
Speaker 1: Gwinn's and Wait Bogs the extents you faced him on
1:00:51
Speaker 1: the other extreme, Like, how different was your approach?
1:00:55
Speaker 2: Uh?
1:00:55
Speaker 4: The approach was you better get Jeff kenn out. You know,
1:00:59
Speaker 4: I think you know, when you have like Barry Bonds,
1:01:02
Speaker 4: Tony gwyn you beat lineups and not hitters.
1:01:07
Speaker 2: You know.
1:01:08
Speaker 4: I think that's what those guys teach you is. And
1:01:11
Speaker 4: I think Tony Gwynn was the first guy that you know,
1:01:15
Speaker 4: you always hear that, Hey, you beat lineups, not hitters.
1:01:18
Speaker 4: You know, you got to pick your own fights. You
1:01:20
Speaker 4: need twenty seven outs and and you know, trying to
1:01:23
Speaker 4: get Tony gwen out or Barry Bonds out three or
1:01:25
Speaker 4: four times a night's probably not the right way to
1:01:27
Speaker 4: go about it.
1:01:28
Speaker 2: So I made sure I shouldn't time.
1:01:34
Speaker 4: I made sure I was very aware of if you're
1:01:38
Speaker 4: facing the giants when Barry was coming up, and you know,
1:01:43
Speaker 4: if if he was hitting third, you knew that you
1:01:47
Speaker 4: had to get the leadoff hitter out, the number two
1:01:49
Speaker 4: hit her out, and then whoever was hitting behind him
1:01:52
Speaker 4: it was as well, and you try to keep him
1:01:55
Speaker 4: in the park.
1:01:56
Speaker 2: That's it.
1:01:56
Speaker 4: You know, if you keep Berry in the park. You
1:01:58
Speaker 4: did pretty good, you know, peace standout on first or second.
1:02:02
Speaker 4: That's that's kind of a win win for both of us.
1:02:04
Speaker 3: Greg. Before the analytics era kind of took over baseball.
1:02:08
Speaker 3: Accord to Thad and others who know you well, you
1:02:10
Speaker 3: were doing a lot of that stuff at the time,
1:02:12
Speaker 3: you know, in terms of moving your fielders around, taking
1:02:16
Speaker 3: our listeners inside your process, if you would, as far
1:02:19
Speaker 3: as defensive positioning with the eight behind you. And then
1:02:21
Speaker 3: also you know, you keep books on opposing hitters or
1:02:24
Speaker 3: even on umpires, you know, between starts or even as
1:02:27
Speaker 3: you were pitching as they started.
1:02:30
Speaker 4: Yeah, we had I was very fortunate because I played
1:02:33
Speaker 4: in Chicago and I played in Atlanta and all of
1:02:36
Speaker 4: our games are on TV, so you didn't have to
1:02:40
Speaker 4: keep books. You had videotape, so uh, you know, you
1:02:44
Speaker 4: had a videotape of every pitch you through, so you're
1:02:46
Speaker 4: able to go in and watch a lot of film. Uh.
1:02:51
Speaker 4: We didn't have analytics, but we had scattering reports, which
1:02:55
Speaker 4: you know, kind of the same thing. Uh, it would
1:02:58
Speaker 4: have been nice to know that in a two count
1:03:00
Speaker 4: this guy hits you know, one forty one off sliders
1:03:04
Speaker 4: and he hits, you know, three twenty eight off fastballs.
1:03:07
Speaker 4: Those things would be nice to know. Towards the end
1:03:10
Speaker 4: of my career, we started getting some of those nuggets
1:03:13
Speaker 4: and they were very useful. But yeah, you did most
1:03:17
Speaker 4: of your own scouting. You had to help from Jimmy.
1:03:21
Speaker 4: Going back to Jimmy Williams, he kind of handled the
1:03:23
Speaker 4: defense and the Braves were pretty good about the hitting charts,
1:03:30
Speaker 4: where the hitters were most likely to hit the ball,
1:03:32
Speaker 4: and where we should put the fielders. And then he
1:03:35
Speaker 4: would actually say, you know, be careful pitching inside to
1:03:39
Speaker 4: this guy because we got nobody on the left side
1:03:41
Speaker 4: of the field. You know, We've got everybody over here.
1:03:44
Speaker 4: So you know, he's like, I'm not telling you not
1:03:47
Speaker 4: to pitch inside, but I'm telling you if he pulls
1:03:49
Speaker 4: the ball, it's going to be trouble for us to
1:03:51
Speaker 4: catch it. So you did have to pitch to your defense,
1:03:57
Speaker 4: and sometimes you would set you defense to how you
1:04:00
Speaker 4: were going to pitch a guy, so it kind of
1:04:02
Speaker 4: worked both ways. So you know, that was the beauty
1:04:08
Speaker 4: about the Braves is we set the defense on who
1:04:11
Speaker 4: was pitching, and other organizations we would set our defense
1:04:16
Speaker 4: to where the hitter hits the ball.
1:04:19
Speaker 2: So you know, it never made a lot of.
1:04:22
Speaker 4: Sense to me, Like, this guy hits the ball to
1:04:25
Speaker 4: the left center, Well, I don't want him to hit
1:04:27
Speaker 4: at the left center, so I have to pitch over
1:04:28
Speaker 4: on this side of the plate. But then we have
1:04:30
Speaker 4: our defense playing and he's going to hit at the
1:04:32
Speaker 4: left center. So it was very nice when I went
1:04:35
Speaker 4: to Atlanta that we kind of got rid of that
1:04:37
Speaker 4: philosophy and we actually set the defense. If the pitcher
1:04:41
Speaker 4: made the correct pitch, the defense had a pretty good
1:04:44
Speaker 4: chance of catching Greg.
1:04:46
Speaker 1: On that same note, Eddie Press famously tell stories about
1:04:50
Speaker 1: how you would call your own game before pitch come,
1:04:52
Speaker 1: before anything you couldn't like obviously hold up a one
1:04:55
Speaker 1: or two or three. Well, how were you calling your
1:04:57
Speaker 1: own game? What signals were you did you and Eddie have?
1:05:00
Speaker 1: How'd you figure that out where the hitters never seem
1:05:03
Speaker 1: to understand your pattern?
1:05:04
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I think it all started with a
1:05:06
Speaker 4: guy on second You know, I think when you have
1:05:09
Speaker 4: a guy on second base, now the catcher has to
1:05:11
Speaker 4: give multiple signs, and you know, if he's given three,
1:05:15
Speaker 4: four or five signs and you shake, you got to
1:05:17
Speaker 4: go through the process again. You shake it again. Now
1:05:19
Speaker 4: it's fifteen signs down there, and the hitter steps out
1:05:24
Speaker 4: or the pitcher steps off. That just slows the game down.
1:05:27
Speaker 4: The infielders don't like it, the outfielders don't like it.
1:05:30
Speaker 4: And you know, just came up with a way to
1:05:33
Speaker 4: call pitches to kind of speed up with a guy
1:05:35
Speaker 4: on second. And you know, just how you catch the
1:05:39
Speaker 4: ball back from the catcher very simple. You know, catch
1:05:43
Speaker 4: it out here it's away, catch it here it's in.
1:05:46
Speaker 4: You know, you know you can touch your chin, you
1:05:50
Speaker 4: could pick your nose, you could you know, you can
1:05:53
Speaker 4: do this with your hat.
1:05:54
Speaker 2: I mean, there's one.
1:05:55
Speaker 4: Hundred things you do to call a sign. And nobody
1:06:00
Speaker 4: really watches the pitcher catch or no one watches the
1:06:03
Speaker 4: pitcher catch the ball back from the catcher. Very rarely
1:06:06
Speaker 4: will they do that. And you know, and then you
1:06:10
Speaker 4: just give signs and you know it was you know,
1:06:12
Speaker 4: later on my career, Uh, throwing to Charlie O'Brien was
1:06:17
Speaker 4: good because he can call fastball. You can throw change
1:06:20
Speaker 4: up off your fastball. He'd catch it every time. Ah,
1:06:24
Speaker 4: So you can cross up your catcher and you know
1:06:27
Speaker 4: that speeds things up and that gets rid of any
1:06:30
Speaker 4: sign still and that's going on behind you. And yeah,
1:06:35
Speaker 4: you knew a lot of things to call your own game,
1:06:37
Speaker 4: and but the biggest, the biggest reason for it is
1:06:40
Speaker 4: to keep the game moving to you know, keep your fielders.
1:06:45
Speaker 4: You know, the quicker I can get, you know, those
1:06:49
Speaker 4: eight guys off the field, you know, the better chance
1:06:53
Speaker 4: we have will winning. It's it's it really comes down
1:06:56
Speaker 4: to that. And uh, you know, if I spend you know,
1:07:01
Speaker 4: if I spend an hour on the mound, and the
1:07:03
Speaker 4: guy on face and spends an hour and a half
1:07:05
Speaker 4: on the mound, we're probably gonna win.
1:07:08
Speaker 3: Greg We've asked you about hitters when you played, and
1:07:11
Speaker 3: today let me reverse the question, ask you about pictures
1:07:13
Speaker 3: when you played. There are other guys you watched that
1:07:16
Speaker 3: really impressed you with the way they work their's stuff,
1:07:18
Speaker 3: their approach. And in today's game, is there anyone who
1:07:20
Speaker 3: stands out that you enjoy watching more than others on
1:07:23
Speaker 3: the mountain?
1:07:24
Speaker 4: You know, Ebaldi is a legit pitcher. He you know,
1:07:30
Speaker 4: he pitched election. I watched him. You know, when you
1:07:36
Speaker 4: watch guys throw sides, when you see guys in the clubhouse,
1:07:39
Speaker 4: it's a little bit different than just watching them on TV.
1:07:42
Speaker 4: When you see the preparation that goes into it for
1:07:44
Speaker 4: when it's their fifth day to pitch. You know, de
1:07:48
Speaker 4: Gram's incredible. You know, it's easy to pick, you know,
1:07:52
Speaker 4: the best pitchers out there, but you could see that
1:07:58
Speaker 4: they're actually trying to pitch. They're not just out there
1:08:00
Speaker 4: brain dead chucking. You know, they're not just you know,
1:08:04
Speaker 4: throwing it somewhere in the cage and hoping the guy
1:08:06
Speaker 4: swings and misses it.
1:08:07
Speaker 2: They're actually trying to.
1:08:09
Speaker 4: Set pitches up, pitch off the last pitch, execute, rely
1:08:14
Speaker 4: on execution as opposed to stuff.
1:08:17
Speaker 2: Those are the guys I like to watch pitch.
1:08:19
Speaker 1: Greg. We're going to give you us our last question,
1:08:21
Speaker 1: a chance to reverse the roles here retribution for the
1:08:26
Speaker 1: GM of the Cubs in the nineteen ninety three for
1:08:28
Speaker 1: what he did to you, and ask you this question.
1:08:31
Speaker 1: You played in the playoffs a ton as a player,
1:08:35
Speaker 1: what was your expectation of what the GM or the
1:08:38
Speaker 1: front office should do to help support the team when
1:08:40
Speaker 1: you were winning, Like, did they ever consult you on
1:08:42
Speaker 1: trades they were contemplating? Well? As the players, what was
1:08:47
Speaker 1: your expectation should did they need to step up and
1:08:49
Speaker 1: really deliver something to the clubhouse or did you interact
1:08:52
Speaker 1: with him at all at that time?
1:08:55
Speaker 4: Well, you know, in Atlanta, there was some interaction. There
1:09:02
Speaker 4: was a little bit with the players. You know, Bobby
1:09:06
Speaker 4: would ask our opinion. Rarely, I mean occasionally. It happened
1:09:11
Speaker 4: a couple of times. I know, we were going to
1:09:16
Speaker 4: trade for Paul Bocco, who was a catcher and he
1:09:20
Speaker 4: was with Detroit at the time. And Bobby said, go
1:09:26
Speaker 4: up in the clubhouse and watch the Detroit Tiger guy,
1:09:29
Speaker 4: Paul Bocco.
1:09:30
Speaker 2: Catch, and we might trade for him.
1:09:33
Speaker 4: And you know, I went up and watched him catch,
1:09:36
Speaker 4: you know, two or three four innings, and and you know,
1:09:40
Speaker 4: he asked me to go, Hey, what do you think
1:09:41
Speaker 4: is that someone you could throw to? I said, yeah,
1:09:43
Speaker 4: absolutely nothing wrong with him. He looks like a good catcher.
1:09:46
Speaker 4: And I was consultant on that. There was there was
1:09:51
Speaker 4: a time where we had to pick the eleventh pitcher
1:09:56
Speaker 4: out of spring training and Bobby called all the stars
1:10:00
Speaker 4: and and said, you know, hey, which of these three
1:10:05
Speaker 4: guys We can take.
1:10:06
Speaker 2: All three of them. They're all equal.
1:10:10
Speaker 4: And you know, he said, hey, which one of these
1:10:12
Speaker 4: three guys do you want to spend your time on
1:10:14
Speaker 4: the bus with and in the clubhouse with, and we
1:10:18
Speaker 4: were able to, you know, have some influence on that.
1:10:21
Speaker 2: But you know, I.
1:10:24
Speaker 4: Think as a player, you you kind of kind of
1:10:29
Speaker 4: stay in your lane. You know, it's not my lane.
1:10:33
Speaker 4: We trusted what they were doing in Atlanta.
1:10:37
Speaker 2: Chicago. I was pretty young, you know.
1:10:41
Speaker 4: I think I don't know if Suckcliffe and Lee Smith
1:10:44
Speaker 4: and those guys had any.
1:10:45
Speaker 2: Say back then.
1:10:46
Speaker 4: If they did, I didn't hear about it. You know,
1:10:50
Speaker 4: I think there's it's uh makes you feel pretty good.
1:10:56
Speaker 4: You know, when your GM or your manager comes and says, hey,
1:10:59
Speaker 4: what do you think about that guy? You know, I
1:11:01
Speaker 4: think that it shows they value your opinion a little bit. It's, uh,
1:11:05
Speaker 4: you just hope you're not wrong, you know, puts a
1:11:08
Speaker 4: little added pressure on you to be right. And yes,
1:11:13
Speaker 4: pretty special when he called us in in spring training
1:11:15
Speaker 4: that one day and we were able to.
1:11:18
Speaker 2: Give our two cents.
1:11:21
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think from an executive standpoint, the biggest challenge
1:11:24
Speaker 1: I've often asked players their opinion is then when you
1:11:28
Speaker 1: don't go with their recommendation, you have to circle back
1:11:30
Speaker 1: and tell them what We were also asking ten other
1:11:32
Speaker 1: people what they thought about this situation. It wasn't just
1:11:36
Speaker 1: you so you want you wanted. Your tensions are to
1:11:38
Speaker 1: do the right thing, but sometimes the execution falls at
1:11:41
Speaker 1: bit short but great. I just want to say thank
1:11:43
Speaker 1: you so much for coming on exceptionally insightful conversation with you.
1:11:47
Speaker 1: We truly appreciate it. Here for everyone, please join us
1:11:51
Speaker 1: next week on Rosters to rings. Please join mest bad Levine,
1:12:01
Speaker 1: Ryan McDonough and other general managers every week for Roster
1:12:04
Speaker 1: Syringes on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.