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Jake Burger: Reconnecting w/Skip Schumaker, Rangers offense recovery · Foul Territory

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Ranger slug or Jake Berger back on FT get to
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: see a Todd father reuniting with my guy.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Man, it's been a while.
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: It's been a while, for sure.
• 0:14
  Speaker 4: I remember when I first got drafted, like me and
• 0:18
  Speaker 4: like dude, I was so jacked up.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: That was that was a good time. Hopefully I give you.
• 0:26
  Speaker 5: Was that? Did you hit any dingers when you hit
• 0:28
  Speaker 5: with Todd?
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: I felt I felt like I did a pretty good job.
• 0:32
  Speaker 4: I knew catch and stuff like. It was more about
• 0:35
  Speaker 4: playing catch before we even started VP.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: That was sick.
• 0:40
  Speaker 5: You both played catch together. Todd didn't remember that? Todd remember?
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Did I? If I didn't bring it up, that doesn't
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: mean I don't remember. I remember I was hitting in
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: the batting cage and he just got drafted, and you
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: were nervous, but you were real nervous, and I said
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: I could have. I said, listen, but you're gonna be
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: just fine. Just take it day by day and you know,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: go out there and be you, and hopefully my wisdom
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: helped a little bit. Man, just like one percent.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: It did, for sure, it did.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: For sure, good stuff, Jake, do you remember anything else
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: from that encounter, like, did Todd give you any wise word.
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: No, I remember, I remember Derek holland, uh, give me
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: some crap saying I'm just another bonus baby here and
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: all that.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: So that was that was fun. No, it was it
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: was really cool.
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: Like I got to talk to t A for a
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: while on the field too, and so you know, like
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: chatting with them and then playing with them, and it
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: was just really cool to kind of have that that
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: full circle moment. And then obviously Frage like looked up
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: to him for countless years and so it was like
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: sick to meet him for the first time.
• 1:48
  Speaker 5: Wait, I know we're hitting this a little bit too
• 1:50
  Speaker 5: long here, probably, but do you did you get to
• 1:52
  Speaker 5: hit on the field? Did you get to hit in
• 1:54
  Speaker 5: the turtle on the field?
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 1:56
  Speaker 5: Did you step in? Did you step in and worry
• 1:59
  Speaker 5: about out swinging and missing?
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: Oh one hundred?
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: And then then I had to do the first pitch
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: that night, and I'm like, I cannot blow this, and
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: it's like first time on a big league.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: Field, like on the mound.
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: I'm like, oh my god, like these fans are gonna
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: hate me if I don't throw a bullet here.
• 2:18
  Speaker 5: So which was tougher, which was more nervous hitting the
• 2:23
  Speaker 5: first time because I saw a prospect, I saw a
• 2:25
  Speaker 5: number one draft pick come in and swing at the
• 2:28
  Speaker 5: first pitch and completely with it. And I'm not sure
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: if you get it on purpose or not, but I
• 2:34
  Speaker 5: think like they were both like I was nervous in
• 2:38
  Speaker 5: both moments, like harder because the VP, like nobody was there.
• 2:42
  Speaker 5: It was just like the team, uh like Rick Hahn,
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: some of like the G like GM, the front office
• 2:49
  Speaker 5: stuff was there. So it was like that was nerve
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: wrecking because it was like all eyes on you and
• 2:55
  Speaker 5: then all eyes on you from a fan perspective at
• 2:57
  Speaker 5: the first pitch.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: So I think they both like terrifying.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no doubt about it. I want to I want
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: to kind of jump in here a little bit. We
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: know the injuries have happened to you. You know, I've
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: had a couple down late in my career. How does
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: that play a toll a little bit? Man? I know
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: you're sitting there back, You're watching your team play, but
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: when one happens another, it's like, oh man, here we
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: go again kind of deal, like what what is your mindset?
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: And how do you get yourself back in the right
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: right place?
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, this year was really weird. You know, I had oblique.
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: I've kind of had oblique the last three years, just
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: kind of a minor one. That's frustrating because I mean
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: our sports rotational, and then a quad after that, and
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: then a hand thing after that, so it's just like
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: one after another. This year, it's just like it's just
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: one of those years. Kind of write it off, get
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: right for next year. The major one, like with the
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: Achilles and twenty eighteen spring training and doing it again
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: like two and a half months in that was that
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: was probably the hardest because I'm missing full seasons of
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: time and you're seeing your boys, like Gavin Sheets kind
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: of like run up through the ranks, and you know,
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: it's like, damn, I ever gonna get back to who
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: I know I can be. And you're like you're really
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: happy for your boys, but also jealous that they're playing
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: baseball every day.
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: All right, Baseball players they're weird. Like you get a haircut,
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: You're like, ooh, I'm gonna go get like I'm gonna
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: get two hits. You get two hits, You're like, oh man,
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: I feel good. So little things like the new month
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: passes over. How about this, how about the fact that
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: I look at your Marlin's numbers and you had some
• 4:38
  Speaker 5: decent numbers over there, Skip was your manager? Did he
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: get you right? And does that make you feel like
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: when I'm in the cage in the offseason, Skip's gonna
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: be watching me. I love his high fives and he's
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: got some really nice looking caves. Like I heard he's
• 4:53
  Speaker 5: got a coot button, so that's I got them.
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: But not no, no comment, but no, he's Uh, he's awesome, man.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: I love playing for him in Miami, and you know,
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: he went.
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: Over to the Rangers front office, and I think that
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: was part of the reason why I came over to Texas.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: And him at the Helm is gonna be awesome.
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: I know everybody in Miami loved playing for him as well,
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: and I don't think that'll change in Texas. I love
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: playing for Boach too. I mean it's uh, it's interesting,
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: like i have like three hundred one hundred days plus
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: or three years one hundred days plus of service time,
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: and I've had four different managers, two of which Tony
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: LaRussa and Bruce Bochi hall of famers, So that's been
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: cool to kind of see their perspective and then, uh,
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: you know, Skip obviously played for Tony and has his
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: wisdom as well, and so it's just been it's been
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: fascinating to see each manager and how how they interact
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: with players and whatnot. But I'm I'm pumped for uh
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: Skip this year and I think it's it's a really
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: good high.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: No doubt about it. Great dude, Great dude. So we
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: a fan question real quick from referee five eight three, Jake,
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: which picture do you love facing and which one makes
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: you say not today?
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: I don't think any of them say not today.
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: You know, I think you're going into it like this
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: is uh, it's gonna be a grindy type day, but
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: favorite picture to face. I feel like I have some
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: good numbers against Severino. I think I have some good
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: numbers against Kershaw. Those are probably the two I don't
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: want to say, like yeah, just really enjoy seeing them.
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: It's just I see the ball really well against I mean,
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: Blake Snell's tough. I have like an infield single against them.
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: I think that's really all I have. And then Rangers
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: swore As. I think I'm old for eighteen against them
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: with one strikeout, and it's just it's not even like
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: loud contact outs it's like jam job, pop up to
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: the shortstop, weak round ball to third bait, and it's just.
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: Like so frustrating.
• 7:03
  Speaker 5: So automatically, if the Rangers signed Ranger Suarez this offseason,
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: your batting automatically goes.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: Up, takes takes it out of the equation.
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: I mean the early camp days where we're doing some
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: intersquad stuff I'm not gonna enjoy. But other than that,
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: you know what it matters. It's uh, you take it
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: out of the equation.
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: You don't want to face Ranger on field three when
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: you're trying to get yourself right for the season. One
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: of the things, one of the things we heard was
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: Rangers in twenty four really struggled with the four seam fastball.
• 7:34
  Speaker 5: So they went out and got John Peterson absolutely waffles them,
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: got Jake Berger absolutely waffles them. We didn't see that trend.
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: Was there something that you feel like maybe it's the stadium?
• 7:45
  Speaker 5: Did four seamers carry more in Texas? Did the ball
• 7:49
  Speaker 5: not travel as far? So you didn't get because it
• 7:52
  Speaker 5: was the toughest stadium to hit in in all of
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: baseball this year? Like, was there is there something there
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: that maybe needs to be second guests are questioned in
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: the sense that, Okay, yes, it's tougher to hit four
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: seam fastballs for us as a team.
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: You know, I don't like making excuses.
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: I'm sure the ballpark had some factors to it, but
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: I think this year is just guys injured kind of
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: frustrated with their performance in the first month, and then
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: you start pressing a little bit and you start kind
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: of lunging forward and not staying in your correct positions,
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: you know. And so that's kind of how I viewed
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: it for myself. Have a bad first month, got sent
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: down for ten days for a little reset, came back up,
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: played well, and then kind of went on that injury
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: train there for a little bit, and you know, just
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: never fe felt like I could get into a full
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: groove where I'm doing what I do best, which is,
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: you know, battling at the top of his own, crushing
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: balls at the top of his own. So that that's
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: my personal experience with that. You know, I think the
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: ballpark played really weird sometimes, But you know, I don't
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: don't really like to make excuses for myself. I think
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: it's something to address over the off season and then
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: get it right for next year.
• 9:11
  Speaker 5: Tell us about the Lucky Classic, tell us about the well,
• 9:14
  Speaker 5: I'm sorry, I'm sorry about the Burger the Burger Family
• 9:17
  Speaker 5: Foundation what that because it was just on what day, Sunday?
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: Sunday?
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, So Burger Family Foundation is our foundation, my
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: wife and I's foundation, and our daughter was born with
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: Down syndrome October twenty fifth of last year, and we
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: wanted to use our platform for good. So we wanted
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: to get back to the Downson Droom community because they
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: embraced us when we got the diagnosis, and we thought
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: the best way to kind of kick off a major
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: event was have a celebrity softball game.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: We had a ton of big.
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: Leaguers out there, a ton of X big leaguers out there,
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: a ton of country stars, some social media presence stars,
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: and and then my favorite part was the honorary celebrities,
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: which were some adults with Down syndrome, some movie stars
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: mixed in there too. So getting to see that come together,
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: and my wife's a rockstar for basically planning the entire thing,
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: and we're just so grateful for everybody showing up and everybody,
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: all the sponsors kind of helping us out as well.
• 10:20
  Speaker 5: Well, I mean, your wife must be famous. How on
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: earth did you get that many? I mean, if we'd
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: look at I'm just gonna read the list that I
• 10:28
  Speaker 5: have here. Brent Rooker, Bryce Harper, jt Real Muto, Corey
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: Seeger or Kyle Seger because it matters. Corey Okay, good okay,
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: Bennie Pasquintino, Brandon Lal, Chris Bassett, Brian Reynolds. Like Deekman
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: was there, Jake Diekman was even there. Like you had
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: some you had How does she know all these people?
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: You get traded and she makes friends?
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she's got friends everywhere, you know.
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: I just talked to the guys on the field that
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: you know, she meets wife here and there and becomes
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: really good friends with them, and it was just it
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: was awesome, like absolutely floored by the presence there. Just
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: having that many big leaguers there is just incredible. And
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: a lot of them find in from out of town
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: to Nashville. Obviously it's a destination city, but it's no
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: easy feat to want to leave your couch at the
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: end of the season and come out and do something
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: like this, especially on a baseball field. So we're really
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: grateful for everybody.
• 11:29
  Speaker 5: Wait destination town Nashville. So are you Are you part
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: of the bring Baseball to Nashville a group that that's
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: getting together, because I think.
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: There's I mean no, I feel like they're gonna it
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: makes too much sense to bring a team here. I
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: have no idea what the particulars and the details are
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: of it, but you know, I think it's one of
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: those cities that is constantly growing. I mean, you drive downtown,
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: there's seventeen more cranes than they're worthy year before. So
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: it's just growing non stop here. And uh, a lot
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: of bauchelor bachelrette parties where people make a weekend out
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: of it down here, So it'd be cool.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: I like that. That's a good list, you see.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: That's that place was really nice. Yeah, well, Jake, thanks
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: for joining us, Man, of course, you know, it goes
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: without saying. I think there are a lot of people
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: out there, you know, touched by the foundation. So thanks
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: what you do there and for what you put together,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: and to everyone else that participated, and thanks for stopping by, Man,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: good to see it. We'll catch you in spring training.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah sounds good. Thanks for having me us