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Talking baseball with former Major Leaguer Greg Pryor · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

• 0:00
  Informed dissent, the intersection of health care and politics with Dr.
• 0:05
  Jeff Barke, board certified primary care physician.
• 0:09
  And Dr.
• 0:10
  Mark McDonald, board certified child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist.
• 0:15
  All right.
• 0:15
  Hey Mark, welcome back to another great episode of Informed Descent.
• 0:19
  Hello again.
• 0:21
  One of our last of 2025.
• 0:23
  You know, our subtitle is The Intersection of Healthcare and Politics.
• 0:27
  And we've got neither health care nor politics to talk about this evening.
• 0:31
  Anathema.
• 0:32
  Yeah, incredible.
• 0:33
  You know, it's football season right now, and I'm watching the NFL and various teams play.
• 0:39
  And NCAA playoffs is going on right now as well as we enter into the new year.
• 0:46
  But everybody that knows anything about sports knows that America's pastime is not football, it's baseball.
• 0:54
  And we have a great guest with us tonight who uh had a long career in baseball, major league baseball, and even won a world series with the Kansas City Royals.
• 1:05
  Uh so Greg Pryor, welcome to Informed Descent.
• 1:09
  Dr.
• 1:09
  Barkey, it's uh wonderful to be here in Corona Del Mar.
• 1:12
  And I'm looking forward to uh maybe talking to some baseball fans tonight.
• 1:16
  Yes, sir.
• 1:17
  So you were telling me the other day how many days, hours, and minutes it is until teams report to spring training.
• 1:24
  What's what's that up?
• 1:25
  What's your update?
• 1:26
  Well, at 76 years old now, I can look back on my career uh in in the distantly past and and learn know that I wasted so much time having fun in the four to five months that baseball players have every winter.
• 1:39
  So when I knew that I would have to work 12 uh months of the year to to be a great baseball player, uh I started doing it.
• 1:46
  And these guys that are sitting around right now waiting to play baseball on uh spring training in March, they should be working out instead of eating whatever they're eating.
• 1:56
  So the single most important question I'm gonna ask you tonight.
• 2:01
  Which baseball stadium has the best food?
• 2:04
  Well, um, now that I'm a season ticket holder of the Royals almost, um, and the menu has improved there.
• 2:11
  I'm gonna go Kansas City because I haven't eaten food in a lot of stadiums except post-game meals, you know.
• 2:18
  I uh we we when he finished a game, we'd come in and they'd have a spread uh uh in inside the clubhouse after uh eight games, and it was wonderful.
• 2:27
  And that's the kind of food that I uh remember eating.
• 2:31
  Well, I think they should pass a rule where the baseball players have to eat the food that they sell in the concession stand.
• 2:37
  You'd have to go to uh the the third party, uh what's the name of the company that supplies Airmark?
• 2:43
  Yeah, they own the rights for food for you'd have to negotiate uh two levels, and that would be too much.
• 2:49
  But no, the food was great.
• 2:50
  In fact, uh one time we're playing in Texas, and our manager got so upset with how we played, he busted through the clubhouse screaming and knocked over the uh both the tables with all the food on it and said, You guys don't deserve to eat.
• 3:04
  Uh and he looked at the clubhouse guy who had got the spread ready for us, and he said, I'm paying for for all of it tonight, but they're not eating.
• 3:13
  Well, let's talk a little bit about your career.
• 3:15
  You've got a very interesting story, and you wrote and you wrote a book, and the title, I love the title.
• 3:20
  The day the Yankees Made Me Shave, uh, which is a great uh great title.
• 3:26
  You you spent a lot of your career with the Kansas City Royals, but what's your relationship with the Yankees?
• 3:32
  And why did they make why did they want you to shave?
• 3:35
  Well, I'm so glad we have three men on this show right now with facial hair growing noticeable facial hair.
• 3:39
  We're not gonna make you guys shave.
• 3:41
  But uh when I got traded to the New York Yankees in spring of uh 77, February of 77, I was going to be going to a team that had just lost the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds.
• 3:52
  Reggie Jackson had just signed the largest contract in baseball history, and I get a phone call saying, we're gonna bring you to spring training prior.
• 3:59
  We just traded for you.
• 4:01
  My my general manager, Gabe Paul there in New York.
• 4:03
  So I show up to spring training, and I was there the whole month trying to uh make that team that went on to win the world series the next year, uh, when they beat the Dodgers four games to none.
• 4:13
  So I was in spring training in Fort Lauderdale with Reggie and Thurman and Catfish and all these guys, and I'm I'm feeling like I'm worthy uh because I was in the same room with them, same shower with them, you know.
• 4:23
  And uh at the end of spring training, they sent me to triple A Syracuse, and uh they said, Greg, you have to shave your mustache before you report to the triple A team.
• 4:31
  I said, Why?
• 4:32
  I said, Thurman's grown one, Reggie's got one.
• 4:35
  Uh well, minor leaguers can't grow them.
• 4:37
  Didn't Cat Fish Hunter wasn't he known for a big mustache?
• 4:40
  That's basically he looked like a catfish.
• 4:43
  I think that's what his nickname is.
• 4:44
  No, but no, he'd had a mustache too.
• 4:46
  A number of guys had mustaches.
• 4:47
  So here I go to triple A with my triple A manager, and I told Pete Ward, my manager, I said, Look, I'm gonna be your worst nightmare going to Syracuse because there was my third year triple A, and I thought I belonged in the big leagues, and Billy Martin didn't give me a chance.
• 4:59
  So here I go to Syracuse and I organized the mustache revolt just to get traded or released.
• 5:04
  I didn't want to uh I just trying to get out of the New York system.
• 5:07
  So I started this crazy mustache revolt, and I made all the guys vote raise their hands.
• 5:12
  Who's man enough to grow a mustache?
• 5:13
  And I had 25 signatures.
• 5:15
  I took it to the manager's office.
• 5:17
  He called me names.
• 5:18
  He says, I've got to report this to Steinbrenner.
• 5:20
  You're making me look really bad.
• 5:21
  I said, tell them to release me or trade me.
• 5:23
  I'm growing this mustache, I'm not gonna shave it.
• 5:26
  Wow.
• 5:26
  Three weeks later, the Yankees uh changed the rule.
• 5:31
  And I was growing my real thin mustache legally, but I was still broke and I was still 28 years old.
• 5:39
  You know, I was thinking it wasn't really worth it.
• 5:42
  So you you got traded ultimately.
• 5:45
  Uh no, I was a free agent.
• 5:47
  Uh it's kind of funny.
• 5:48
  Uh, we're talking baseball, and the history of baseball uh was that players could never be uh leave their team.
• 5:54
  They they were bound to their team until 76 when the basic agreement was uh ratified by a great arbitrator who ruled in favor of Dave McDalley and uh uh Andy Meshersmith because they sat out the 70 uh 75 season, and so we became free agents, and I was swept up in this free agency thing, and I got to Syracuse growing a must trying to grow mustache and didn't know I could be a free agent.
• 6:19
  So they told me uh in Syracuse I was gonna be free agent.
• 6:21
  I went free agent and got signed by the Chicago White Sox.
• 6:24
  I ended up playing four years there in Kamiske Park, who what was named the baseball palace of the world in 2000 or 1910 when it was built.
• 6:35
  So I got to go play where Babe Ruth and Tycom batted.
• 6:38
  Wow at Kamiski Park.
• 6:40
  And um, I played four years there, and I got traded to Kansas City in uh '82.
• 6:44
  Uh and I played to five years in Kansas City.
• 6:47
  So I got uh I was in the big leagues for 10 seasons in uh nine full ones.
• 6:52
  Well, that's a long time.
• 6:52
  Did you play in every single stadium in Major League Baseball?
• 6:56
  No, most of the uh stadiums I played in uh were just American League.
• 7:00
  I I never played in a National League Stadium.
• 7:02
  I never played in the National League.
• 7:03
  So I played in all the American League Stadiums, and many of them aren't even there.
• 7:07
  Kamiski Park is not there.
• 7:08
  Yankee Stadium has been remodeled.
• 7:10
  Uh Baltimore's got a new stadium, Detroit's got a new stadium, and now uh Oakland A's uh are leaving the Coliseum, they're going to Vos Vegas.
• 7:18
  So back then, the only time the American League and the National League played together was in the World Series or the All-Star Game.
• 7:25
  Now, of course, they intermix and they they will play interleague uh games.
• 7:30
  Yeah, when I played uh was this National League American League.
• 7:33
  In fact, uh it was I'm happy that I was uh there was a National League because I'm one of my first teammates was Ralph Garr, uh who had the net who led the National League in the hitting in um winning in Atlanta in a National League City, and then he got uh traded to Kansas City, or not Kansas City, but Chicago, and I got to play with the great uh his name, his nickname was Roadrunner, uh Gator Ralph Gator Garr, and he was a wonderful teammate.
• 7:56
  Now, there are a lot of uh kid athletes, high school and beyond and college that have dreams of playing for uh professional sports teams.
• 8:07
  Obviously, the vast majority of them never actually make it, and uh yet they spend a lot of time and a lot of energy and sometimes a lot of money trying to get to the big leagues.
• 8:19
  What made you think as a kid uh playing you you didn't even play division one in high school, you played division two college in college?
• 8:29
  What made you think division two college that you could make it to the major leagues?
• 8:33
  Well, number one, uh, I was a kid that was raised by a uh mom and dad that were both sports addicts.
• 8:39
  My mom and dad had a we had ball ball in our hand every uh day when I was from age when I was when I was born right on through.
• 8:46
  I was playing football, I was playing basketball, I was playing baseball.
• 8:49
  I was playing soccer, I was playing golf, I was doing everything with the ball, I would play it.
• 8:52
  Well, I'd never had an inclination that I would someday go into Cleveland Stadium uh as a major leaguer in 78.
• 8:59
  And I was in I was in Akron, Ohio when I was growing up in the late 50s, 60s.
• 9:04
  I went into that stadium uh there with 85,000 seats as a young kid in Little League in Akron, Ohio.
• 9:09
  Uh, and I saw what was going on, and I said, I thought it was uh with the Wizard of Oz.
• 9:14
  I'm telling you what, it was the most impressive thing in my life when I saw that 85,000 uh seed stadium.
• 9:20
  So why would I ever have an idea that I ever be down in that field among those actors down there that are performing?
• 9:26
  I I it was beyond belief that I could ever get to that point, that that position.
• 9:30
  So uh the the reason I got there uh was because I had a dad and that that uh would uh tell me to do something when I didn't think I could do it.
• 9:40
  Uh he told me to uh he see he bribed a college coach when I was a decent high school player to give me a scholarship.
• 9:46
  I went down 250 scholarship out of 2500 tuition back in uh 67.
• 9:52
  And um I went down there thinking they wanted me, and my dad had bribed the coach uh because my brother was eight and oh as a freshman pitcher in his school.
• 10:00
  And he said, give Gregor scholarship, or I'm taking Jeff out of your school.
• 10:03
  And I got I go to I go to college thinking, they want me.
• 10:07
  They want me.
• 10:07
  Well, you were wait, you were a pitcher.
• 10:09
  No, I was an infielder.
• 10:11
  Infielder.
• 10:11
  Yeah, second base.
• 10:12
  I went down there, and I was the worst hitter my first two years at Florida Southern.
• 10:15
  You can look it up.
• 10:16
  And uh, and then uh so what was I thinking about pro ball, pro ball, major leagues?
• 10:21
  What?
• 10:22
  No way.
• 10:22
  It wasn't even a blip on my screen.
• 10:24
  You know what's on my screen?
• 10:25
  Getting out of Vietnam and staying in college.
• 10:28
  Oh, that was Vietnam.
• 10:29
  Oh, yeah.
• 10:29
  Oh, yeah.
• 10:30
  They were drafting guys left and right.
• 10:32
  And uh I'll I could tell a longer story about how I got drafted out of college and almost went to Vietnam.
• 10:37
  But but uh your question about uh how did I think I was gonna get there?
• 10:41
  It it was a growth process.
• 10:43
  Uh uh for some reason uh I came alive in the summer of 69.
• 10:47
  I was in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
• 10:49
  Uh they told me not to report, uh, and they they sent me a telegram and I started crying uh because I was uh hurt me deeply inside because they didn't want me to play on their team in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
• 11:00
  I was just a college player, and my dad goes, act like you didn't get the telegram.
• 11:05
  I said, Dad, I have no money.
• 11:07
  I said, I got a dime to call them on a payphone.
• 11:09
  I get I get up to Harrisonburg with my buddies and they drop me off, and I called the general manager and I said, Mr.
• 11:14
  Lineweaver, I'm here in town.
• 11:16
  He goes, You're where?
• 11:17
  I said, I'm at Harrisonburg.
• 11:19
  You heard a report.
• 11:20
  He says, Didn't you get anything from us?
• 11:22
  I said, No, I didn't, sir.
• 11:23
  I probably it was first live ever told.
• 11:26
  Anyway, I I became the MVP of the league that year, and I went back to college and I told my college coach, hey, I won the MVP up in Harrisonburg.
• 11:33
  He goes, Well, I guess we'll find out how good you are, Prior.
• 11:36
  And I'm thinking, wait a minute, I gotta do this every day.
• 11:40
  It's hard, it's hard to be good every day.
• 11:43
  And uh, when I when I made made an all-american uh in uh 19 uh six and 1970, my first time.
• 11:50
  Uh it was because I had uh confidence and I had the ability to hit uh basically not field.
• 11:57
  I could hit, and I hit uh I hit 436, my my junior year, I made all American.
• 12:03
  All of a sudden, my guys on my team are telling me, prior, the pros are gonna draft you.
• 12:07
  I'm thinking, what draft me?
• 12:10
  What I could, you know, because I came from uh uh uh a history of lack of not being that good to all of a sudden I'm I'm I'm hitting it it's it it hit it it just clicked.
• 12:20
  So you had no backup plan.
• 12:22
  No backup.
• 12:24
  Her name was Suzanne uh Susie.
• 12:26
  I don't know what her name was.
• 12:27
  No, that wasn't my backup plan.
• 12:28
  I because you know it was when you're when you're coming through the uh the trails of of baseball, uh, you definitely um get to meet interesting people along the way, especially uh you know, women.
• 12:39
  I married my wife when I met her uh on a flight from uh Texas to Chicago.
• 12:44
  So I can tell you you can meet women as a ball player.
• 12:47
  She was a flight attendant, yeah.
• 12:49
  She was seriously, yeah.
• 12:52
  She was a flight attendant on a chartered flight, and uh I looked at her and I said, She'll never talk to me, you know.
• 12:57
  And um the third trip, she kept bringing me a bank Budweiser, if I remember, and uh after the third Budweiser, I'm thinking I'm gonna ask her to I'm gonna talk to this girl, yeah.
• 13:08
  And I've been talking to her for the last 46 years.
• 13:11
  Now, at the time when you first met her, she was dating somebody else, uh well known.
• 13:17
  Well, you never told me we're gonna get into this on the show.
• 13:21
  We don't have to.
• 13:22
  No, you have to buy my book.
• 13:24
  I don't want to spread new rumors.
• 13:25
  You have to buy my book to find the answers.
• 13:27
  So by the way, your your book is Greg Pryor, The Day the Yankees Made Me Shave.
• 13:32
  How does somebody buy this book if they actually want it?
• 13:34
  Well, they can go to the website, the day the Yankees Made Me Shave.com and a place in order, and I'll be glad to autograph it and send it back to you.
• 13:41
  Is it on Amazon?
• 13:42
  Uh, you know what?
• 13:43
  I'm not I'm not an Amazon fan, right?
• 13:45
  This second, and uh you know, I wouldn't I don't want to direct all my uh fans if I have any out there to go to Amazon for anything, sure.
• 13:52
  Uh but uh you know, uh maybe maybe my second book will put up Amazon.
• 13:57
  Now you played infield and you played with uh a very famous person who later became a Hall of Famer, and that's George Brett.
• 14:05
  How did you meet how did you meet that man?
• 14:07
  Well, when uh I played uh the White Sox and I we played the Royals, George Brett was always uh kicking our butts, and I never did like George Brett.
• 14:14
  In fact, uh when I got traded to Kansas City from Chicago, he walks up to me and he goes, Hey Pryor, he says, whenever I got on base in Kamaisky Park and uh rural stadium, how come you never said hi to me?
• 14:26
  I said, Because I hated you and all the rest of your teammates.
• 14:29
  I hated the Royals because you used to really rub it in and uh make fun of us.
• 14:33
  He goes, Do you like me now?
• 14:34
  I said, I love you now, George.
• 14:36
  So yeah, I got to meet George uh and then uh then it was like uh when George went down, which he did quite a bit when I got traded.
• 14:43
  They got me because they needed a backup infielder, but my job was to replace George Brett.
• 14:48
  Uh arguably uh one of the top third baseman history of the game.
• 14:52
  I had my job was to replace him for a living, and it was uh it was a tough task because you know, people would say, I didn't pay to see George uh Greg Pryor, I paid to see George Brett.
• 15:03
  They'd yell at me from the stands, and I'm thinking, Whoa, these people are rough.
• 15:07
  So, anyway, so you go out there and you uh do do good and uh and in in 84.
• 15:12
  I played 121 games, and George only played in 70.
• 15:16
  Well, he was he was injured, and we won the division, right?
• 15:18
  Yeah, but guess more importantly, that was my free agency year, and uh I I ended up signing a three-year contract because uh George Brett got hurt in 84.
• 15:28
  Wow, yeah.
• 15:30
  So, you know, one of the things that's always interesting, uh looking at professional athletes, and in particular baseball, baseball's different than other sports in that you guys have more games that you play than any other sport, 162 games, and the only reason why I remember 162 is because uh the rep, the drug rep that sells Andro gel, that's a topical testosterone cream, got me to remember this because the dosing of this product is 1.62.
• 16:06
  And she said, Do you know how many games there are in major league baseball?
• 16:08
  I go, I don't freaking know, 100, whatever.
• 16:11
  No, 162.
• 16:13
  Now you remember the dosing for this product, 1.62.
• 16:17
  So that's the only reason why I know.
• 16:19
  But anyways, you guys play a lot of games.
• 16:21
  How come I how come I didn't have that when I played?
• 16:24
  You know, no, you guys had other things.
• 16:26
  Well, you said we weren't gonna talk about no, I won't talk about that.
• 16:30
  So 162 games, you're traveling all over the country.
• 16:34
  What what's that?
• 16:36
  What's that like being away from family, being away from kids, uh, and having to travel.
• 16:41
  I imagine the accommodations weren't always good.
• 16:44
  Running from one stadium to the next, packing up at the end of the game and hopping on a plane and going across country.
• 16:50
  What's that experience like?
• 16:51
  And how do you survive that?
• 16:53
  Hey, you're bringing up some great topics for my next book.
• 16:56
  You know, the life in the minor leagues, I was seven years in the minor leagues, and I'm telling you, when you're making six to uh a hundred to a thousand a month in the minor leagues for five months, and you have to get your own apartment, you have to get your own car, you have to fight you have to buy your own food on you know, wherever you know, you have to find your own grocery stores or buffets, whatever you want.
• 17:16
  Uh, and then we'll pay you uh, you know, uh 800 bucks a month, uh and we'll take some taxes out.
• 17:21
  You get that money and it's gone.
• 17:23
  There's no way that I would advise uh anybody to play my league baseball.
• 17:28
  I maybe maybe they're gonna pay in more now, but I had no money.
• 17:31
  It was so I would look for the big the greatest buffet in in whatever minor league town I was in because I would eat it.
• 17:38
  I wanted to eat good.
• 17:39
  It had fruit, had vegetables, had meat.
• 17:41
  I had I was at that buffet in that myor league town because it was cheap, also, and you could eat anything you wanted and all you wanted.
• 17:47
  So anyway, I uh I was able to uh survive uh that that that duration that that rough life because uh a lot of times you don't have buffets after games.
• 17:58
  If we were in the Meyer Leagues and we had to uh go fly, we would eat on the run.
• 18:02
  Uh and they they would give us beer and chicken on the buses in the mire league.
• 18:06
  So it was not the conducive to a healthy lifestyle.
• 18:09
  Uh and and uh the great uh part of your uh question and the answer is this there's a um uh uh a layer of skin that you start laying on yourself uh with experiences that make you uh so diff you make you so uh mentally tough to get ready for it because if you want to go to the big leagues, you gotta go A, double A, triple A, and then major leagues, maybe.
• 18:32
  Um, and you do build a layer.
• 18:34
  So every year my career, I built this layer of oh my gosh, I got through it, you know.
• 18:39
  It's like I want to do that again.
• 18:41
  Uh because you experience the pain and suffering through Meyer Leagues, and then all of a sudden you're looking at uh the lights of the big leagues, and you're close.
• 18:49
  So minor league, you suffer, you make almost no money, no money, you scramble to eat, and then off season, what'd you do?
• 18:55
  You move home.
• 18:56
  What did you do?
• 18:57
  Well, let me add one more thing that helped the Meyer Leagues out.
• 18:59
  We stayed in a lot of holiday ins across the country.
• 19:02
  And you know who also works at night uh in holiday ends across the country, uh aspiring rock bands.
• 19:08
  Oh, so we were listening to some live music in most of the hotels we stayed at in Myer Leagues, which cut the monotony, and that's why I'm a classical rock fan, affectionado.
• 19:18
  Uh, and that's uh another value of of uh what we did in my league.
• 19:22
  We met the band, and after the band was done playing, we would party with them.
• 19:25
  Who's the favorite band you met?
• 19:27
  Uh I think the uh the night crawlers.
• 19:29
  Uh, you know, they they wrote Little Black Egg.
• 19:32
  Just kidding, I just made that up.
• 19:36
  So, what do you do offseason in the minor leagues?
• 19:38
  Now you have no money because you're you're not getting paid.
• 19:41
  What do you do?
• 19:42
  Oh, more stories for second book.
• 19:44
  Um, one winter, I'm just gonna tell you about a job I had in the winter because when I got home, I had a mom and dad that let me sleep downstairs in the basement.
• 19:52
  And without me uh being able to do that, I don't think there's any way I would have made a major leagues because I had no money left and I didn't.
• 20:00
  Have any place to sleep.
• 20:01
  So I would went back to Orlando where it was warm and I was going to get ready for the next season, but I decided to get a job.
• 20:06
  Well, the one that I got this job as a welding apprentice.
• 20:09
  And I went in there at eight o'clock in the morning and at noon, I went to him.
• 20:13
  I said, Sir, I'm sorry, I cannot work here anymore.
• 20:17
  I need to go get ready to play baseball.
• 20:19
  So I'm I'm not, I'm I'm apologizing to a lot of people out there that don't believe in this.
• 20:24
  But I took unemployment and I got meal money.
• 20:27
  And I would uh I would work out three to four hours a day, and I would eat and uh uh I would uh have money to eat on and I would do it every day working out.
• 20:35
  And uh the the exercise that I did to get stronger is what propelled me to be ready for the next season because world series is our are one from the end of the season to the start of spring training.
• 20:46
  That's where the guys are cranking iron, getting strong to get ready for next season.
• 20:50
  They're working very some of them are working extremely hard right now to get ready for next season.
• 20:53
  And a lot of the fans don't know that.
• 20:55
  But for me, I had to work very hard uh to get to where I got because it's a it's a stamina sport.
• 21:01
  It's it's mental, but it's also physical.
• 21:04
  Uh it's it stimulates this uh the uh your strength system to recover quicker uh between games.
• 21:11
  Do the teams provide resources in the off season to help you train and get strong and stay in shape?
• 21:16
  At that time in my career, no.
• 21:18
  They they just said, hey, uh do some lift lifting, try to get stronger and come on back.
• 21:23
  You know, that's that's but now they have full-time massage people that travel with them.
• 21:27
  They have a full-time cook in the clubhouse.
• 21:29
  Done now, uh that's not even to mention all the uh the help they have in strength and training and nutrition and things like that.
• 21:36
  Baseball has gone from me, uh, you know, uh Harley peeing in a cup when I played to now these guys are uh little uh uh specimens, and and because baseball has a lot of money invested in them.
• 21:48
  Now, obviously, when you played, and and it's very different now.
• 21:51
  There's drug testing and there's rules about what you can use and what you can't use, and steroids, and there's there's famous examples of baseball players that were caught using when they weren't supposed to be using.
• 22:02
  What was the drug use and uh performance enhancing drug uh situation?
• 22:08
  I'm not asking you if you use, but just in general amongst the players and some of the elite players when you were when you were there.
• 22:15
  Well, the only drug of choice that um I had in college or the Meyer Leagues was alcohol.
• 22:22
  You know, we obviously uh a lot of guys, uh very few guys did not drink um, you know, after games.
• 22:30
  And uh, I'm not saying we got drunk, but beer was always in the clubhouse in the Meyer Leagues.
• 22:36
  Uh so then when I got closer to the big leagues, I started hearing uh information about I'm not saying the alcohol was helping my performance, so let me get it put put away, but that's the one drug that was used.
• 22:50
  I didn't know anything about amphetamines in the minors.
• 22:53
  I didn't know anything about any uh steroids in the minor leagues.
• 22:57
  I didn't know how to spell steroids in the minor leagues.
• 22:59
  I never was offered steroids.
• 23:01
  Uh wasn't offered any amphetamines in the minor leagues.
• 23:04
  Uh, but when you play 162, as you said, when we play 162 games, you can add on 30 for spring training, which makes it 192.
• 23:12
  Wow.
• 23:12
  So it's even worse.
• 23:15
  And then you're working out all winter.
• 23:17
  So the the uh the importance of being mentally prepared and physically prepared to perform every night.
• 23:24
  Uh uh we didn't have any weekends off.
• 23:26
  Every Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
• 23:28
  We performed for seven months, you know.
• 23:30
  Yes, you people that uh enjoy your weekends off.
• 23:33
  We were working.
• 23:34
  Uh we were worked on working on holidays, July 4th.
• 23:37
  We worked.
• 23:38
  So did the would you say the majority of major league baseball players in your day use something to help them get through the season?
• 23:45
  Uh I don't know.
• 23:46
  I tell you what, it was a it was uh the clubhouse when I played was a kind of a good old boy uh system where I didn't nib and what and ask them what they took or what they didn't take.
• 23:56
  Uh, you know, so I can't really say that.
• 23:59
  I was influenced by that that much in my career because I didn't uh succeed by uh using um medications or or uh uh illegal or legal drugs.
• 24:10
  Now chewing tobacco though was pretty universal.
• 24:13
  Well, yeah.
• 24:14
  Yeah, even doctors were paid uh for commercials to do uh smoking cigarettes and and so were ball players, you know.
• 24:21
  That was some of the first baseball cards ever uh invented were stuck in cigarette packs back in back in the night early 1900s, and you could buy cigarettes and get baseball cards anyway.
• 24:31
  Right.
• 24:31
  Um the skull and the and the chewing tobacco, I didn't do that until I got uh I got to be uh uh professional.
• 24:39
  I didn't do any of that in in college.
• 24:41
  But when I got to uh my first chew in the professional ranks was in Geneva, New York and the New York Penn League in 1971.
• 24:48
  Uh uh signed by the Western Centers.
• 24:50
  I got there, and the manager didn't like me.
• 24:52
  And uh I made an error on a play in between games of the double header.
• 24:56
  He he looks at me, he goes, uh I was among all my teammates, and he goes, 'Prior, you can take your uniform off, and I don't care what you do.' And I was a young kid, I just signed a professional contract.
• 25:05
  I was like, I'm not as good as these guys.
• 25:07
  I'm gonna I'm gonna go join a commune.
• 25:09
  Uh, but um but the guy the guys were coming up saying, Hey, prior, don't let it bother you.
• 25:14
  I said, Bother you.
• 25:15
  He just undressed me in front of the whole team, right?
• 25:18
  So I go to the I I dressed out and went out to the dugout and I saw uh pelt meal pouch uh uh chewing tobacco, and I took my first shoe in my life, and um, and I had a big uh tobacco thing.
• 25:30
  Uh I don't maybe I was showing him up, I don't know.
• 25:33
  But uh if he had want to put me in the game, I couldn't have gone in, you know.
• 25:36
  Ah that that tobacco uh has it has an effect and now it's illegal.
• 25:43
  You never see a guy with chewing tobacco in baseball.
• 25:46
  No, you know.
• 25:47
  So we're gonna take a quick break here, and and when we come back, uh Mark, I want you to give us some insight as well.
• 25:54
  Um it's rough being a professional athlete in any sport.
• 25:57
  I think baseball is one of the hardest just because of the length of the season.
• 26:01
  And Greg, I want to hear about when did you get married along your major league career?
• 26:06
  What was that like having to travel?
• 26:09
  Uh did she travel with you?
• 26:11
  And then you started having kids, and what was it like being away from your family and your kids for seven months out of the year?
• 26:18
  Also, there's a story I want you to tell.
• 26:20
  Uh, a major league baseball pitcher actually tried to kill you, and I want to hear about that too.
• 26:26
  So we're gonna take a break, and then we will be right back.
• 26:30
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• 31:07
  We are back with Greg Pryor, uh World Series champion for the Kansas City Royals.
• 31:14
  He's telling us a little bit about his career.
• 31:16
  When we left, I asked, um, it's tough being a professional sports athlete in any sport.
• 31:23
  I don't know if this is accurate, but I think baseball is one of the hardest, not necessarily hardest because it's physically demanding.
• 31:30
  I football players beat themselves up, certainly hockey players and so forth, but demanding because you play 162 games.
• 31:37
  You're traveling for basically seven months out of the year.
• 31:41
  Uh, if you have a family, you're away from your family, your kids are growing up, they're going to school, they're doing their thing, there's holidays back to school, all the things that go on in a normal life, and dad is absent.
• 31:53
  So, Greg, when did you get married along your career?
• 31:56
  Where were you?
• 31:58
  Uh got married uh right when I got with the Chicago White Sox in uh 19 uh 78.
• 32:04
  Uh, I got married in January of 79, but I was single all my mire leg career.
• 32:10
  And and the reason I was single was because I had no money, and I don't think you should start anything without any money, you know.
• 32:17
  I can you take care of yourself?
• 32:19
  So I couldn't even take care of myself.
• 32:22
  So what why would I ever take a woman along on this trip I was on?
• 32:26
  So I when I got into the money with the White Sox, and I signed a two-year contract with them.
• 32:31
  I started saying, Well, who am I gonna share this with?
• 32:33
  First first contract you made.
• 32:35
  What would what were you paid?
• 32:36
  It was uh 60,000.
• 32:38
  Wow.
• 32:38
  That was in 67.
• 32:40
  That was in 70 uh 78.
• 32:42
  Yeah, I can't do the math what that would be.
• 32:44
  I went out and bought leather pants, man.
• 32:46
  I was styling, I'm telling you.
• 32:48
  So 1970 one, you could buy a decent three-bedroom two-bath home near Los Angeles International Airport for 40,000.
• 33:03
  Yeah, there you go.
• 33:04
  So that's actually pretty good money.
• 33:06
  Yeah.
• 33:06
  Well, I thought I was doing good, and then I got a phone call.
• 33:09
  Uh, hey, Greg, we want you to come down to Venezuela and play uh in the winter uh for us, uh November, December, January.
• 33:16
  I got a call from uh the Venezuelan league after right after I signed with the White Sox for 60.
• 33:21
  This this these people in Maracaibo uh Venezuela are offered me 5,000 a month just to go play baseball in Venezuela.
• 33:27
  Wow.
• 33:28
  I'm thinking, next plane out, I'm gone.
• 33:30
  Uh-huh.
• 33:30
  Went down there and I played, and I was stuck, I was uh stuffed in cash everywhere, you know, boulevards, everything.
• 33:37
  It was it was amazing how you went from having nothing to being able to buy a house near the airport in LA, you know.
• 33:43
  Anyway, uh I wanted to look uh forward to sharing it with somebody, and all of a sudden I met my wife uh on a on a chartered plane uh from uh Dallas to Chicago.
• 33:54
  She was a flight attendant, and I I talked to her on the flight, and I wouldn't get off until she told me your name.
• 33:59
  I wrote her letters and she wrote me back, and all of a sudden we got married.
• 34:06
  1979, January 31st.
• 34:08
  And when you when you played when you were playing and you were married, especially early on, did she go with you to your games?
• 34:14
  Not only did she go to my games, she was so much in love with me.
• 34:18
  Whenever she had to leave me to go back to work, she started crying.
• 34:21
  Oh, and it's like, oh God, this girl loves me so much.
• 34:25
  So she continued to be a flight attendant.
• 34:27
  Flight attendant, and then uh we had uh two uh two daughters, uh 82 and 83.
• 34:32
  Uh, and then uh she went off on a three uh day trip, and I was getting ready for spring training, and she left me with a uh two three-year-old, a two-year-old or was it one year?
• 34:41
  It was two young children.
• 34:42
  I was watching them trying to work out for baseball, and I made her quit.
• 34:46
  Quit being a flight attendant.
• 34:47
  Yes, I need to I need to correct both of you on one point.
• 34:50
  Yeah, there were no flight attendants in the 70s.
• 34:53
  There were stewardesses.
• 34:54
  You're right.
• 34:55
  Fair enough.
• 34:56
  Stewardesses, and I still call them stewardesses, and they were dressed very different than they dress today.
• 35:02
  You you're gonna get sued, dude.
• 35:04
  I don't, you know.
• 35:05
  And now, and now they're flight attendants, and they're either gay or they're morbidly obese.
• 35:09
  Oh my gosh.
• 35:10
  Is this going nationwide?
• 35:12
  It does.
• 35:13
  I certainly hope so.
• 35:14
  Yeah.
• 35:15
  Well, in this case, send hate mail directly to Greg Pryor.
• 35:18
  And they fired them by the time they hit 35.
• 35:20
  I didn't know I was gonna be back in a major league clubhouse when I got to this show.
• 35:23
  That's right.
• 35:24
  It's just the three of us talking.
• 35:25
  Okay, fine.
• 35:26
  Yeah.
• 35:26
  They I sent my agent.
• 35:28
  You're supposed to send me a check too for this.
• 35:30
  Yeah, exactly.
• 35:31
  Because I'm cheaper in the winter, you know, I'm cheaper in the winter.
• 35:34
  So she she traveled with you.
• 35:36
  Uh, you had to take care of a couple kids, and at that moment, you said, honey, you are quitting your job because I can't do this.
• 35:43
  And then what happened with the kids?
• 35:45
  Did they did she travel with the kids to watch you play?
• 35:48
  She came anywhere she wanted, number one.
• 35:51
  Yeah, and I didn't never kept her anywhere.
• 35:53
  She, I don't think she brought our kids on any trips, but she brought them out.
• 35:57
  Uh she brought them uh to a lot of our home games.
• 36:00
  Sure.
• 36:01
  But no, they was that they were part of my life 82.
• 36:04
  Uh I get a we get a phone call.
• 36:05
  Michelle's uh nine months pregnant, and Tony LaRusse told me I wasn't gonna make the White Sox.
• 36:10
  Uh uh.
• 36:10
  I was I was going in my fifth season, and I was on a condo in Longboat Key, uh, you know, living living at large, really.
• 36:17
  And I said, Well, release me, Tony, just release me.
• 36:21
  Let me go uh play with somebody else.
• 36:22
  He's no come to spring training.
• 36:24
  So here I am leaving uh beach place on Longboat Key to go spring training in 79.
• 36:30
  So no, uh in uh well, right before uh the 82 season, sorry, it got my dates confused.
• 36:38
  82.
• 36:39
  Um, I went to spring training every day uh thinking I was on a plan in a world series.
• 36:44
  I was uh gonna be my overhead was 5,000 a month, which was you know, I needed to make money to pay that overhead.
• 36:50
  So uh because he was getting ready to release me.
• 36:53
  So when I go to spring training, little did I know it, that I got traded to the Royals at the end of that spring training with the White Sox, and I ended up playing five more seasons in Kansas City.
• 37:01
  Now, Tony LaRissa wrote the forward to your book, and you had some uh pretty uh uh critical uh words to say about him.
• 37:12
  And uh, how did you convince him to write your forward?
• 37:15
  Well, I had uh been the shortstop in his first major league win in uh Toronto.
• 37:20
  I was George Stop, and then he went on to win the the third most managed games in the history of baseball, Tony LaRuzzi's in the Hall of Fame, my manager.
• 37:27
  But I figured he would remember me from his first major league win.
• 37:31
  So I and I played with him for 300 and some games.
• 37:34
  I we we had our differences, and uh I said, well, what a better guy than Tony LaRussa to do it.
• 37:40
  So I called him up.
• 37:40
  I texted him, and he said, send me the manuscript, uh, not a book.
• 37:44
  He's I want to read it on, I don't want to read on a computer.
• 37:46
  So I had to mail this manuscript to him.
• 37:49
  Um, and he wanted to turn pages as he was reading my book.
• 37:52
  And uh when he called me back, he goes, 'Pryor, you cut me down quite a bit in your book.' And I and he was quiet, and I was thinking, how do I get out of this one?
• 38:01
  Because I knew I'd said things, some things in the book that weren't good about him.
• 38:04
  Um, and I'm happy he read them before he said okay.
• 38:07
  And I said, Look, Tony, you're the major league manager that went to the Hall of Fame.
• 38:11
  I'm a Scrabini backup infielder.
• 38:14
  I said, You write anything you want in your forward about what I said.
• 38:18
  The forward is the best part of the book.
• 38:20
  It's only the ruse managed World Series winners in uh St.
• 38:24
  Louis and Oakland.
• 38:25
  And uh, you know, he's a respected man around baseball.
• 38:28
  And to have him write the forward me for me was uh it was a thrill, and uh uh it uh meant a lot to me that he did it.
• 38:34
  Mark, what does it take psychologically to survive as a professional athlete?
• 38:40
  I had a patient that was with me for a number of years, probably eight years, who was not a professional athlete, but he's but he was a professional musician, uh, internationally known.
• 38:51
  Uh I would call him upper A-list, quite wealthy, and uh was headquartered overseas uh in Europe, and he spent most of his time in California, but also traveled on tour with his band.
• 39:06
  Uh probably nine to ten months out of the year, and he did that for a number of years, close to 10 years.
• 39:13
  And I know the toll it took on him because of the traveling alone, which is very similar to what professional athletes are engaged in, in that it made it incredibly difficult for him to maintain a stable love relationship.
• 39:34
  It was difficult for him to resist the seduction of endemic drug use of all kinds.
• 39:45
  And he could not really spend the time that he needed with his biological family in order to maintain good relationships with them, particularly when they were going through tough times like cancer.
• 40:00
  Cancer, sudden uh sudden death of a relative or the birth of a child.
• 40:04
  And and that psychological toll was so strong that after about a decade, he eventually decided to go back and become a studio musician in his hometown in Europe because he felt like despite the accolades, the wealth and and the fame, life was passing him by in other areas, and he didn't want to miss any more.
• 40:28
  I think there's three challenges really.
• 40:30
  One is the physical challenge of the work that you actually have to do, travel, and then as a professional athlete, of course, your body is beating is getting beat up.
• 40:40
  And if you're injured, you don't get paid, I imagine.
• 40:43
  Uh and there's risk if you get injured that your career is going to be over.
• 40:46
  And then the second is you're coming into money that you're not used to having.
• 40:51
  Uh, many people they work and they have a job and their income incrementally increases and they achieve a level of wealth.
• 41:00
  Rarely do they just suddenly come into wealth.
• 41:02
  There's studies about lottery winners, and you look at them a year later, they're broke and miserable uh after they win the lottery because they just don't know how to handle it.
• 41:14
  And then there's the issue of fame.
• 41:16
  Uh, you have, I imagine, I don't know, you'll you'll tell us, Greg, but you have groupies and people that want your autographs and look up to you almost like you're godlike.
• 41:25
  And uh, I imagine in some regards, although it's maybe intoxicating initially, it can also be very difficult.
• 41:34
  Which which of those are most difficult?
• 41:37
  Well, let me uh go back and tell you uh something that I'm think everybody can relate to is um when we played, uh we didn't have anything in our briefcase except an empty briefcase, and some of us would stick mini bottles in the briefcase.
• 41:50
  You know, we didn't have computers back when I played.
• 41:52
  When I got done playing, and I entered the world of uh typing here and and pushing a button and watching it print out on the machine over there.
• 42:01
  I'm thinking that's magic.
• 42:03
  That is absolutely magical that I saw that.
• 42:06
  I didn't know that until I got done.
• 42:08
  Now, fast forward to all this information that we're being bombarded with, and any and now we got artificial eye uh that is uh making it chocolate and villa milk.
• 42:22
  It's it's a mixture of truth and and uh untruths, most of it.
• 42:25
  I think you'd be be careful what you read anywhere now.
• 42:29
  Um you know, that's that's something that I think that uh it was very difficult for me to deal with in my postseason for sure.
• 42:37
  Did you have groupies?
• 42:38
  Well, you I heard you say the word groupie, and uh was that grouper?
• 42:42
  Uh, we a lot of us like to fish.
• 42:44
  We would go and try to find catch some grouper.
• 42:47
  I mean, fans that just waited to see you that wanted your autograph and your attention.
• 42:51
  You well, you you call them a groupie, is it what you think that's really called.
• 42:55
  You must have had a groupie in your life.
• 42:57
  Now they're called pick me girls.
• 43:01
  Well, you know, it's um something that um I might put in my third book about uh groupies because you know they're not here to defend themselves, and certainly not gonna write this anything disparagingly.
• 43:13
  But Dr.
• 43:14
  Barkey told uh me I was gonna talk about a guy that tried to kill me, and it's time that we get that picture that story out real quick.
• 43:20
  Really okay.
• 43:21
  Uh let's do that.
• 43:22
  One of the 27 stories in my book is uh every every story starts with the day that and um and this story was the day that a pitcher tried to kill me.
• 43:31
  So I when I wrote the story out, I said, if I write this and print it, I say he might not like it.
• 43:36
  So I called him up.
• 43:38
  I said, Hey, I'm uh texting you a story about um me facing you up in uh Rochester one night.
• 43:44
  Let me know if it's okay to print.
• 43:46
  And he called me back after he read it, and he goes, Print it just like you wrote it.
• 43:49
  And here's the quick quick story.
• 43:52
  I'm hitting third for Syracuse, triple A Rochester, up in uh near in the international league, and I was hitting third playing shortstop for uh my my triple A team in Syracuse, and um and I hit a uh home run over the scoreboard in uh left center, and I studied it because it was very rare that I've ever hit a ball that far.
• 44:14
  So I said, Well, I'm just gonna get my money's worth, I think, but I couldn't run fast anyway, you know.
• 44:19
  And he thought I was uh make um um making fun of him by the slow process of me running around the bases.
• 44:25
  He he thought I was staring at the ball a little bit too much, or I wasn't the first base, right?
• 44:30
  Next time up, second time up, he throws the ball in the dirt on the outside of the plate, and then the next pitch was targeted for right here.
• 44:38
  I mean, I can still see it coming at me.
• 44:40
  And I've I've been hit in the head before, but uh this guy targeted me.
• 44:44
  He he was head hunting.
• 44:47
  So I go to first base, I'm screaming at him, and uh it hit my hand.
• 44:50
  I I I think I glance off my hand.
• 44:53
  Uh, and then a fast forward two years later, I'm with the White Sox, there's an empty locker next to me, and the clubhouse guy goes, 'Hey Greg, we just traded for a new pitcher.
• 45:01
  It's Ed Farmer.
• 45:02
  We're gonna put him in a next locker next to you.
• 45:04
  This is a guy that tried to kill me.
• 45:05
  They're gonna put him in the next locker two years later.
• 45:07
  And I didn't want any part of him.
• 45:09
  I mean, I knew he tried to kill me.
• 45:11
  Here he comes in the clubhouse, and then as a baseball player having to get along with 25 guys for seven months, it takes stuff like this.
• 45:20
  I went up to him.
• 45:22
  I said, 'Hey Ed, you know, Greg Pryor, we played against each other in an international league.' I was trying to be chummy with him, right?
• 45:29
  He goes, Yeah, I remember you prior that that night you hit that long home run.
• 45:33
  I said, What about the next pitch?
• 45:34
  He goes, I tried to kill you.
• 45:36
  What about it?
• 45:39
  I said, nothing.
• 45:41
  I'm I'm glad we got that settled.
• 45:43
  I'm not glad to have you with us.
• 45:45
  So what prevented you from taking a swing at him and trying to get retribution?
• 45:49
  I had told people, I said, We're getting rid.
• 45:52
  We're getting uh this pitcher that tried to kill me, and they're gonna put him in the next locker.
• 45:55
  What should I do?
• 45:56
  I feel like slugging him.
• 45:57
  Yeah, from behind.
• 45:59
  Right.
• 46:00
  But you didn't.
• 46:01
  No.
• 46:01
  Were you were you ever involved in one of those fights you see on TV?
• 46:05
  Well, no, I was involved in a couple fights with my own teammates.
• 46:07
  Uh okay, we must get that out of the place first.
• 46:10
  Anyway, now you you know, when you have friction and ego, uh, with with all these uh guys are strong and they're they're they're out to perform.
• 46:18
  It's like a circus, you know, you're you're a circus day sole with the baseball and the bat and a glove.
• 46:22
  That's what it is.
• 46:23
  Yeah, and um, you you go and and sometimes uh the friction uh guts gets so bad that you you take physical action.
• 46:31
  And I've I attacked a couple players uh on my behalf, they it wasn't because they were coming after me, I went after them, and I'm not proud of it, but uh but I that's the the level that I went to to become a performer because I didn't appreciate uh some of the things that they did, and I let them know.
• 46:52
  So you're World Series champion.
• 46:53
  There's a lot of players that play a career that never win a world championship with with any major sports, and yet you had the fortune of being at the right place at the right time and won a championship with the Kansas City Royals.
• 47:07
  What was that like?
• 47:08
  Well, it was uh who is it against?
• 47:09
  Uh we played the Cardinals, um, 70 or 85.
• 47:13
  Um, and they had won the National League.
• 47:15
  And so this is the first time that uh the National League and American League team would play each other the whole season.
• 47:21
  Yes, back in that day is in the world series.
• 47:23
  So we knew that uh when we beat uh Toronto in the American League Championship series that we're gonna play either the Dodgers or the Cardinals, and uh the uh the Cardinals beat the Dodgers and we beat Toronto and we met in the World Series and uh we we beat them uh four games to three.
• 47:40
  Were you favored?
• 47:41
  No, no, they had much better team on paper, if you will, but they they didn't have what we had in the clubhouse.
• 47:46
  So we we had a combination of uh of uh veterans and uh rookies in our clubhouse that was like they these guys meshed.
• 47:54
  I mean, I I was I was like the you know they they were hoping I didn't have to play.
• 47:58
  That's how good we were.
• 48:00
  Who are some of the marquee players on your team?
• 48:02
  Well, George Brett, you know, one of the best third basemen ever played.
• 48:06
  We won him healthy.
• 48:07
  Uh nobody replaced George Brett.
• 48:09
  And then Frank White, who won uh, you know, eight or ten gold gloves was second baseman, and then we had Steve bye bye balboni at first base, he hit 30 36 home runs set of club record for us that year.
• 48:20
  And then um, most importantly, um, we had a catcher named Jim Sunerberger behind the plate that we traded for from Milwaukee, and he uh was a six-time gold glover.
• 48:29
  And oh my gosh, we had young pitching, so it was a mixture of uh great pitching and timely hitting.
• 48:34
  And uh, you know, we we we were uh uh it was three to three, and we won a seventh game, 11th and nothing in Kansas City, and the city had the greatest uh parade in the world, but they didn't really know how to do it because war uh paper got caught up under the parade cars and they caught on fire.
• 48:50
  Oh boy, yeah.
• 48:51
  You can look it up on the internet.
• 48:54
  So your career comes to an end, and I'm sure it's I I know I had I have some professional athletes that are patients, and for that matter, even uh people of prominence that retire, and it's very difficult for many to retire.
• 49:08
  They're used to being on top, they're used to being the boss, they're used to whatever role that they're playing, and then it comes to an end, and they think initially that retirement is gonna be a great thing.
• 49:18
  You can play golf, you can relax, you can sleep in, you can read the newspaper, etc.
• 49:23
  But they soon learn that without some sort of purpose in their life, it can lead to depression.
• 49:29
  Mark, I don't know if you've seen this as well, but I certainly have in retirement, not just athletes, but almost in anybody, that it can have the opposite effect than what people think retirement is gonna be like.
• 49:42
  It's a problem for men more than it is for women, because the purpose of a man is to produce, and the purpose of a woman is to reproduce.
• 49:52
  So when men stop producing, they stop living.
• 49:57
  And I don't think there's many exceptions to this.
• 50:00
  And your production as a professional athlete is playing your sport.
• 50:03
  And when you stop doing that, if you don't have something to substitute it, you're going to, as this musician, uh, many musicians who are touring find out uh they don't have something to do after they lay up the glove or lay up the guitar.
• 50:20
  And this is one of the reasons why I think it's so important for men to if they can't continue their job because of physical limitations or because fame is being eclipsed by someone else, then they need to find a substitute occupation, maybe not a job, but something that means something to them.
• 50:39
  It can be volunteer work, it can be teaching, mentoring, charity, or it can be something like um woodworking and building, uh building guitars, which someone that I know is is done to a remarkably expert level.
• 50:51
  Ryan.
• 50:52
  Ryan Cole, exactly.
• 50:54
  He's he's he's a physician, he's a pathologist, and he lost his occupation due to unjust um attacks by the government and civil lawsuits.
• 51:05
  And what he does now is he he hauls logs and he cuts them in a mill on his property in Boise, Idaho.
• 51:15
  He planes them down, and he turns them into amazing works of art, guitars, uh, tables, chairs, and even small items like fountain pens.
• 51:28
  And it's it's breathtaking, and what he knows about wood and grain and scent and and drying and staining is is beyond what what most people who are professional woodworkers can do.
• 51:37
  Sure, sure.
• 51:38
  I like to talk, I like to talk about one of my jobs outside of baseball, if you don't mind.
• 51:42
  Real well, well, hang on a second.
• 51:43
  I want I want you to get there.
• 51:45
  What was it like when your baseball career ended?
• 51:49
  What was that like?
• 51:50
  Well, I was not good because I wanted to play another year.
• 51:53
  You know, I was uh under contract, I was going to get paid a sizely amount uh every month uh for the you know for several years, and uh and I wanted to play.
• 52:03
  So I go to spring training and they release me.
• 52:06
  And it was uh like the end, it was like the end of the road because we had just had our third uh child, and they wanted me to go be a manager for them and the minor leagues, and I didn't want to travel, so I quit baseball.
• 52:19
  It was it was uh not good.
• 52:21
  Um, I didn't have any job to go to.
• 52:23
  I as I told you, I didn't know how to uh print a sheet of paper off a computer.
• 52:28
  I didn't know what a computer was, and I really wasn't uh able to, I didn't want to be a salesman.
• 52:33
  That would be the worst thing in the world is to sell anything.
• 52:36
  And uh I so I went through all those years uh doing that.
• 52:39
  Um you did start a new career though.
• 52:43
  Well, I did, but I just want to talk about um the the the six or eight months I spent uh trying to sell latex gloves.
• 52:50
  Oh no.
• 52:53
  To the proctology department.
• 52:55
  I'm I'm done with that.
• 52:58
  But you started you you started a very meaningful company though.
• 53:02
  But then a guy came to me and he goes, Pryor, you'd be great, uh you'd be great in the nutrition industry.
• 53:07
  And I said, Nutrition?
• 53:09
  What do you mean?
• 53:09
  He goes, I said, you know, you mean sells vitamins?
• 53:13
  He goes, well, it's not exactly that.
• 53:16
  So I was uh at the kind of like uh any I would do anything to to take care of my daughters and my wife.
• 53:22
  I was I had a lot of different jobs that weren't producing, so it was rough to get to the point.
• 53:27
  But he told me to uh look at the nutrition industry, and then um soon after that I made the wise decision to enter into it.
• 53:35
  Uh and my wife and I have run a nutritional company uh from not really knowing how to put a label on anything to to being investigated by the FDI in our company.
• 53:47
  We we have passed or the um FD FDA, we've we've passed everything, and my my wife and I are very proud that we own a nutritional company that we've helped people uh stay healthy, uh products that we've stayed helpy with for 30 years.
• 54:00
  And the nutrition company is called.
• 54:02
  That's called life priority.
• 54:04
  Life priority, life priority, and uh you can go to our website, lifepriority.com and uh meet my wife Michelle uh and me if you want to talk to us.
• 54:12
  We're open books, really.
• 54:15
  Uh and we're glad to help anybody that uh sees anything on our company that they want to know about.
• 54:20
  You've got about a dozen supplements that you sell.
• 54:23
  Yes, and you also uh at least Michelle does uh health coaching uh for folks that want to understand what supplements they should take and how to improve their lifestyle.
• 54:35
  Well, I being involved with uh what you're doing now, this is amazing.
• 54:39
  Uh, we're able to talk like this because uh in our in our country, our health is the most important thing to us.
• 54:44
  Yeah, you know, and there's nothing more important.
• 54:46
  Uh I I joined the right in industry because we are able to tell people the truth about things as much as we can find, and we're still learning.
• 54:55
  We've been I've been doing this, I'm 76, I've been doing this for 30 years, and I look forward to tomorrow because it might be somebody else that could help.
• 55:02
  And the same with my wife.
• 55:04
  So I don't know uh what else I can say, except I'm so glad that I've been able to do that.
• 55:09
  And uh I I can I recommend uh everybody in this listening to this to start uh taking care of yourself better, you know, learn about it.
• 55:17
  Uh there's people that are uh willing to help you, and uh we're not trying to take all your money like uh a lot of these organizations uh want to do.
• 55:24
  So we're we're here to help you feel better.
• 55:27
  And if you have uh a question by anything, you get in touch with us.
• 55:30
  What's next for Greg Pryor?
• 55:32
  Well, uh, we're gonna walk walk around Fashion Square Mall here, I think, which is right near Fashion Island.
• 55:39
  Fashion Island.
• 55:40
  And you got another book you want to write.
• 55:41
  Is that correct, Greg?
• 55:43
  Well, yeah, I've got more stories to write.
• 55:45
  Uh, I'm still trying, I got like 40 copies of this one left if you want to help me out here.
• 55:49
  But no, I'd like to do another one uh because I have another uh number of stories to tell people about the great game of baseball, because I came up uh to baseball in the old school system, and that's what I write about, and that's what I like to talk about.
• 56:03
  So if you like baseball, you'll love what I write.
• 56:05
  The book, The Day the Yankees Made Me Shave, you can Google that.
• 56:09
  And uh, there's a website where you can buy the book and you can learn about life priority supplements.
• 56:15
  They also have a website and an Instagram site and learn about the products that they have and information about how you can get healthier.
• 56:22
  So we are just about out of time.
• 56:25
  Uh Greg Pryor, thank you for joining us on Informed Descent.
• 56:29
  Thank you for having uh warst up ballplayer to come on and talk to you about some fun things.
• 56:34
  Absolutely.
• 56:35
  All right.
• 56:38
  You've been listening to informed dissent with Dr.
• 56:41
  Jeff Barkey, board certified primary care physician, and Dr.
• 56:45
  Mark McDonald, board certified child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist.
• 56:51
  Informed dissent, the intersection of health care and politics.