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Let's Talk with Carl Lee - An Evening With MLB Former All-Star and NL Manager of the Year Dusty Baker · WCHS Network Podcasts

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you gotta work.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: You gotta work.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Ry sign is mine, gotta show, everybody is mine, soign
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: you gotta work, hy Son another.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Mind Saga Dogs day Line, don't tell you gotta work.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: Welcome to Let's Talk with Carl Lee. Let's Talk is
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: probably presented by Attorney Frank Walker. Real Talk, Real experience,
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Real results, Frank Walker Law dot Com. Let that conversation
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: begin on Let's Talk.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Hello, ladies and gentlemen.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: This is Curlly with Let's talk and uh in studio
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: with me today solo.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: It is miss Lisa Odie. How were you?
• 0:47
  Speaker 4: I'm good?
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and and enjoy her voice today because she
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: has a packer shirt on it.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: She there is no way she'll be back anymore for sure.
• 1:00
  Speaker 5: Now come on, everybody, Matt likes my shirt? You like
• 1:03
  Speaker 5: my shirt?
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Did you say that? Matt?
• 1:05
  Speaker 6: Listen my family?
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't have any power over you anyway, so
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: I lose.
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I love it.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: All right, ladies and gentlemen, we have I'm going to say,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: I'm going to call this like a super special guest.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: And in a sport that I am not.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: And I'm going to tell this story when we make
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: sure when he's online but uh a sport that I
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: just can't could not play, just no chance.
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: Of sports. But you keep going, you keep going.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: We have in the on on the phone. We have
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Dusty Baker. Okay, wow, playing the major leagues. Nineteen seasons. Okay,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: nineteen season, most notable for Los Angeles Dodgers.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Two time All Star, Silver Slugger Award.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Golden Glove Award, NLCS MVP. I mean, this is a
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: this is a notable great player and individual.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Dusty. How are you, man?
• 2:26
  Speaker 7: I'm doing fine.
• 2:27
  Speaker 8: I'm listening to you, guys. I'm trying. Are you Are
• 2:31
  Speaker 8: you in Pittsburgh Steeler territory? Is that where you are?
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: I'm now?
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately a lot of people love Pittsburgh here or Cleveland.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: I grew up a Browns fan.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: I grew up a Browns fan, but I dropped them
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: as soon as I got to Minnesota.
• 2:46
  Speaker 8: So yeah, because I said, LC Greenwood used to be
• 2:50
  Speaker 8: a real good friend of mine and some of the Steelers,
• 2:52
  Speaker 8: and they should tell me about the caravans between Cleveland
• 2:56
  Speaker 8: and Pittsburgh. Yes, And I didn't know the right or
• 3:00
  Speaker 8: and I didn't even know there was, you know, the
• 3:02
  Speaker 8: proximity because I'm from California. I didn't know how close
• 3:05
  Speaker 8: it was until I start going back east. So that's
• 3:08
  Speaker 8: why I was curious about. You know, which teams did
• 3:10
  Speaker 8: you guys like the most?
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Well, like I said, I was a huge I was
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: a huge Brown fan. And unfortunately, uh, Lisa and she
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: wears Green Bay stuff to the state, to the show
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: just to get on me because she.
• 3:25
  Speaker 5: Knows that I like to give him a hard time
• 3:28
  Speaker 5: being a Viking for and you can't.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: You can't be you cannot be a Packer fan and
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: be on this show.
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: I get fired a lot.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: She's gonna get fired after this one today. For sure.
• 3:38
  Speaker 7: She's loyal.
• 3:40
  Speaker 8: I got to hear.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's a fact I am.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Now here's here's my story with baseball, okay, and then
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: I want to get into your story. I had a buddy,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: his name was Jimmy Harper, and we were playing youth baseball.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: And and this is how this is how much I
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: can remember this. A guy by the name of Jack
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: mctheiny was the pitcher, and he was a notable hard thrower,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: and he hit Jimmy Harper in.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: The back, Oh lord.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: And I saw he lifted his shirt up, and I
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: saw the mark, baseball went out the door for me.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: I was done.
• 4:20
  Speaker 8: Okay, were you afraid of the ball?
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Totally petrified of it?
• 4:24
  Speaker 8: I understand that, But how were you afraid of the ball?
• 4:27
  Speaker 8: But you're playing.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Football everybody else that I'm telling you, man, I just
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: I could not. I just the ball is something that
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: you can't control like I can. At least if me
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: and you coming together, we're gonna make some kind of contact.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: But I don't get a chance that if the ball's
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: coming at me, hitting me in the back, I ain't
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: got a chance at that.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: No.
• 4:46
  Speaker 8: Let's see, I love football too, I mean that was
• 4:49
  Speaker 8: I mean, that was my second level. I love basketball first,
• 4:52
  Speaker 8: and then football. Baseball was like the fourth. I even
• 4:56
  Speaker 8: like track better than baseball. But just you know, I'm serious.
• 5:01
  Speaker 8: Things just worked out where, you know, the Lord put
• 5:04
  Speaker 8: me in a position, uh you know, to be a
• 5:07
  Speaker 8: professional baseball player. Because see, I knew I was going
• 5:10
  Speaker 8: to be a professional uh you know, from the time
• 5:13
  Speaker 8: I was kid a kid. The only thing is no
• 5:16
  Speaker 8: one else knew.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: It but me. I know how that works.
• 5:21
  Speaker 8: But I didn't think that I was going to be
• 5:23
  Speaker 8: a professional baseball player. I mean, if I'd had to
• 5:26
  Speaker 8: choose something out of chose basketball because like a lot
• 5:30
  Speaker 8: of kids, basketball man, it gets in your blood. And
• 5:33
  Speaker 8: they talk about the basketball jones. Well I had it,
• 5:36
  Speaker 8: and I could play basketball like any time of the year.
• 5:41
  Speaker 8: And uh, you know, it almost cost me my career
• 5:45
  Speaker 8: in baseball because I hurt my leg playing basketball. They
• 5:48
  Speaker 8: all seasons, and you know how that goes.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: They hate that when you when you're you come back
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: and say you hurt your leg and you was doing
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: something other than your sport.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: You're in trouble.
• 5:59
  Speaker 8: Well well out here that out here the kids, the
• 6:02
  Speaker 8: rich kids. And when I grew up, if you want
• 6:04
  Speaker 8: to get in trouble, you get in trouble skiing or snowboard.
• 6:07
  Speaker 8: And see, I didn't neither one of those. But I
• 6:09
  Speaker 8: love I love playing basketball, and the coaches. You know,
• 6:13
  Speaker 8: that's one of my you know, few rules that I had,
• 6:16
  Speaker 8: because the more rules you have as a manager, the
• 6:19
  Speaker 8: more rules you have to enforce or somebody has to
• 6:21
  Speaker 8: enforce them. But one of my rules, and one of
• 6:24
  Speaker 8: my main rules, is no off the field injuries because
• 6:28
  Speaker 8: of what happened to me. So hey, man, if you
• 6:32
  Speaker 8: hurt your self, you you kind of you know, pretend
• 6:35
  Speaker 8: that you didn't hurt yourself when you get.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: Back to the locker room. So so I'm going to
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: jump in.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: I'm going to jump in right at trying to Okay,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: So when you became a manager, mm hmm, what was
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: what was? What were you what was your thought process
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: about where you were, where you were going to go,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: what you thought you were going to do and what
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: And did you copy or duplicate somebody else's way to
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: coach or did you just actually just go in at
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: your way and go full full board your way.
• 7:12
  Speaker 8: Well, you know a lot of people don't believe this,
• 7:15
  Speaker 8: but that's the last thing I wanted to do was coach.
• 7:18
  Speaker 8: And I was a stockbroker in the summer of eighty seven,
• 7:23
  Speaker 8: which they you know, the stock market crash. At that time,
• 7:26
  Speaker 8: I was getting divorced. I was at a crossroads and
• 7:30
  Speaker 8: I really didn't know what to do. And the giants,
• 7:33
  Speaker 8: you know, Al ros and the giants came at me
• 7:37
  Speaker 8: at the time because Al Rose, I mean al Campaign
• 7:40
  Speaker 8: has had says and derogatory racial remarks and baseball was
• 7:45
  Speaker 8: trying to you know, disprove those you know, remarks. And
• 7:50
  Speaker 8: I was at the right place at the right time
• 7:52
  Speaker 8: myself Baylor, Cido Gaston, and Hal McCrae, and so, you know,
• 7:58
  Speaker 8: baseball was looking for some quality if i'd young uh
• 8:01
  Speaker 8: uh you know, retired black players, and I was there,
• 8:06
  Speaker 8: and uh, I really didn't want to coach. I asked
• 8:08
  Speaker 8: my dad, you know, what should I do? Because I
• 8:10
  Speaker 8: was at a crossroads, which is one of the crossroads
• 8:13
  Speaker 8: that I talk about in my book, because like, uh,
• 8:16
  Speaker 8: you know, at some point in time in your life,
• 8:18
  Speaker 8: you really don't know what direction to go or what
• 8:20
  Speaker 8: to do. And so al Rosen came at me, he said, hey, uh, uh,
• 8:26
  Speaker 8: you know, we'd like you to be one of our coaches.
• 8:29
  Speaker 8: And I told him that I take you know, I
• 8:31
  Speaker 8: give better orders, and I you know that I take them.
• 8:34
  Speaker 8: So he told me, you know, he said, buddy boy,
• 8:38
  Speaker 8: if you uh, you know, if you're looking for a
• 8:40
  Speaker 8: higher position, you're going to have to like, uh, you know,
• 8:44
  Speaker 8: coach for five years, because that's how long it's gonna
• 8:46
  Speaker 8: take to get the player out of the end. Five
• 8:49
  Speaker 8: years and one day from the time he told me
• 8:51
  Speaker 8: that was one I was named the manager. So you know,
• 8:55
  Speaker 8: a lot of things in my life have been you know,
• 8:57
  Speaker 8: kind of predestined. As long as I didn't grew them
• 9:00
  Speaker 8: up and tried to change the destiny and just just
• 9:03
  Speaker 8: follow whatever path that the Lord had for me, you know,
• 9:07
  Speaker 8: to go wow.
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: So so, coach, I'm going to ask you about the
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: World Series in twenty twenty two. You were a manager
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: with the Houston Astros and you finally captured that elusive,
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: elusive ring. It was elusive, Yeah, yeah, I thought that
• 9:25
  Speaker 5: was a good word to describe it that. You know,
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: Can you tell us what were the feelings like and
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: the festivities that go along with that kind of achievement.
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: What was that like for you?
• 9:36
  Speaker 8: Well, you know, the festivities started like years before that
• 9:40
  Speaker 8: because we lost in two thousand and two and and
• 9:44
  Speaker 8: we had the lead. You know, they came back and
• 9:46
  Speaker 8: won the last two games against us, and in game six,
• 9:50
  Speaker 8: I think we had like four or five you know,
• 9:54
  Speaker 8: run lead lead in the game they came back and
• 9:57
  Speaker 8: beat us. And my dad that told me after we
• 10:01
  Speaker 8: lost to your son, you know, I don't know if
• 10:04
  Speaker 8: you'll ever win one, because you know, that was tough. Uh,
• 10:07
  Speaker 8: you know, we thought we had that one, and so
• 10:09
  Speaker 8: my motivation was really to disprove my dad because as
• 10:14
  Speaker 8: much as my dad loved me back in that time.
• 10:17
  Speaker 8: You know, negative motivation was you know, was very prevalent
• 10:21
  Speaker 8: in the generation before us. And you know, you can't
• 10:24
  Speaker 8: use negative motivation now because the kids just quit on you.
• 10:27
  Speaker 8: But I anyway, you know, back in the day, negative
• 10:30
  Speaker 8: motivation was very prevalent. And you know, my dad said,
• 10:34
  Speaker 8: if you don't win, you know, if you didn't win
• 10:36
  Speaker 8: that one, you know, you may never win one. And
• 10:38
  Speaker 8: so my whole key and desire was to you know,
• 10:43
  Speaker 8: to win one or to win two and try to
• 10:45
  Speaker 8: prove my dad wrong, because my dad was my biggest fan.
• 10:49
  Speaker 8: And and so you know what I thought about after
• 10:54
  Speaker 8: we won that game, Well, actually we had lost in
• 10:56
  Speaker 8: the World Series before the year before that, and uh,
• 11:01
  Speaker 8: you know, we lost to the Braves, and that was
• 11:03
  Speaker 8: a year Hank Aaron died and so I figured that
• 11:07
  Speaker 8: Hank wanted the Braves to win that year. But then
• 11:11
  Speaker 8: but then the next year it was my turn, and
• 11:15
  Speaker 8: and my mom had died that uh you know, that January,
• 11:19
  Speaker 8: just like Hank did the January before that. And so
• 11:22
  Speaker 8: I was like, mom, come on, now this is my turn.
• 11:25
  Speaker 8: And Hank, okay, the Braids. I know you like the
• 11:28
  Speaker 8: Braids and you liked me too, but this is my turn,
• 11:31
  Speaker 8: and uh, you know, quite honestly, I just felt that
• 11:35
  Speaker 8: that that that this is going to be our turn.
• 11:39
  Speaker 8: And and really I really felt like if I win one,
• 11:42
  Speaker 8: I was gonna win two. This is what I tell
• 11:43
  Speaker 8: and everybody. And we almost got to that second World
• 11:47
  Speaker 8: Series and and had a chance to win.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: How how many other.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Black coaches were there during your first when you first started.
• 12:01
  Speaker 8: Coaching, well, uh, black managers, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, probably
• 12:09
  Speaker 8: uh one, I think Cito Gassing. And then and then
• 12:14
  Speaker 8: here comes, you know, can I came, Don Baylor came,
• 12:18
  Speaker 8: and and and Hal mccraig came, and uh slowly but surely,
• 12:24
  Speaker 8: you know, after a while, and then here came Jerry
• 12:28
  Speaker 8: Manuel Davey Loews. Uh, let me see Jerry Royster. But then, uh,
• 12:37
  Speaker 8: most of the time, you know, if you're a black manager,
• 12:40
  Speaker 8: there was probably only no more than three to four
• 12:45
  Speaker 8: max at a time. Most of the time it was two.
• 12:48
  Speaker 8: And most of the time when the you know, when
• 12:50
  Speaker 8: the black managers did get a job, uh you know,
• 12:53
  Speaker 8: that was most of the time the only job that
• 12:56
  Speaker 8: they had a chance to manage, you know, which makes
• 12:59
  Speaker 8: it tough. And people ask me, you know, I managed
• 13:03
  Speaker 8: five teams and asked me, how did that happen? I
• 13:07
  Speaker 8: really don't don't know because a couple of teams, I
• 13:12
  Speaker 8: wasn't fired, but I wasn't offered a contract, So it's
• 13:14
  Speaker 8: not much different between the two. And like in Washington,
• 13:19
  Speaker 8: we won ninety five and ninety seven games, and you know,
• 13:25
  Speaker 8: I still wouldn't offer the contract. So you don't really
• 13:27
  Speaker 8: don't know what you have to do, you know, to
• 13:31
  Speaker 8: get offered the contract, because there were some guys finishing
• 13:34
  Speaker 8: last or next to the last, and they were getting
• 13:37
  Speaker 8: extensions on the contract, and and you know, I really
• 13:41
  Speaker 8: should have been on three teams to the five. But
• 13:44
  Speaker 8: I was very very fortunate. And also I think, quite frankly,
• 13:49
  Speaker 8: the system, you know, couldn't figure me out, because it
• 13:53
  Speaker 8: seems like if you remain mysterious and they can't figure
• 13:57
  Speaker 8: you out there, they'll keep you around till they figure
• 13:59
  Speaker 8: you out, you know. And so like I said, you know,
• 14:03
  Speaker 8: God was on my side, and you know, I was
• 14:06
  Speaker 8: very fortunate to have manage as long as I did.
• 14:09
  Speaker 8: But it did hurt sometime in between, because there were
• 14:13
  Speaker 8: a couple of years that well, in probably two to
• 14:18
  Speaker 8: three teams after that, I was off, like you know,
• 14:23
  Speaker 8: I was off two years. You know, he's time with
• 14:26
  Speaker 8: out an offer, not even an offer, a sniff or anything.
• 14:29
  Speaker 8: So but you know, everything worked out fine during that
• 14:34
  Speaker 8: time because one year my mom, I mean, my dad died,
• 14:37
  Speaker 8: another year, you know, my brother died, another year my
• 14:41
  Speaker 8: you know, my daughter got married that I was off,
• 14:43
  Speaker 8: and another year I took my son to you know,
• 14:46
  Speaker 8: to Alaska, where where I always wanted to go. So
• 14:50
  Speaker 8: you know that, you know the moral of my stories.
• 14:53
  Speaker 8: I usually try to turn a negative into a positive.
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: And it sounds like you're really good at it. To coach, I.
• 15:02
  Speaker 8: Want to fa well, you either be good at it
• 15:04
  Speaker 8: or you just.
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: Are you just fake it till you make it.
• 15:08
  Speaker 5: I mean, it's a little bit of both, right, So, coach,
• 15:11
  Speaker 5: I'd like to fast forward, you know, talking about your
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: your history, you know, being one of the first black
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: managers in the Major League Baseball. You're fast forward to
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: twenty twenty six. You're you're widely expected to face the
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: Hall of Fame Era committee ballot this December. Correct, correct? Okay,
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: So what would it mean to you personally to become
• 15:33
  Speaker 5: the first black manager elected to the Hall of Fame
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: in the in Major League baseball.
• 15:39
  Speaker 8: I haven't really thought about it that much because no, no,
• 15:43
  Speaker 8: I mean sometimes you get tired of hearing a black manager.
• 15:46
  Speaker 8: You know, why not just the manager, you know, I
• 15:49
  Speaker 8: mean if they're in its honor, but you know they don't,
• 15:52
  Speaker 8: say an Italian manager or a German manager. And so
• 15:56
  Speaker 8: I just wanted to go in as a manager, even though, uh,
• 16:01
  Speaker 8: you know, like Stevie Wonder say, you can't cash in
• 16:03
  Speaker 8: your face. Everybody know when I walk in the room
• 16:05
  Speaker 8: that I'm black, and so uh, you know, let's get
• 16:08
  Speaker 8: past that and hopefully, uh you know, in the future
• 16:11
  Speaker 8: there will be more more guys. Uh you know that
• 16:15
  Speaker 8: would be getting the Hall of Fame. I mean, you
• 16:17
  Speaker 8: look at Dave Roberts. This guy's one night, you know,
• 16:21
  Speaker 8: I think three and he's going for three pete. So
• 16:24
  Speaker 8: so he's probably the next as soon as he gets
• 16:27
  Speaker 8: you know, gets finished winning, because look like the Dodgers
• 16:29
  Speaker 8: ain't gonna never lose.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 16:34
  Speaker 8: So you know, I'm pulling for him and and and
• 16:38
  Speaker 8: I'm pulling for baseball to give others uh uh uh,
• 16:42
  Speaker 8: you know, black coaches a chance to manage because I'm
• 16:47
  Speaker 8: not the you know, the last or the best necessarily
• 16:50
  Speaker 8: neither's Dave. I mean this this could you know, should
• 16:53
  Speaker 8: be a situation where where you know, other uh players,
• 16:59
  Speaker 8: other coaches ended up you know, being sought after, you know,
• 17:02
  Speaker 8: because you know, we led the way in and possibly
• 17:06
  Speaker 8: led the example.
• 17:08
  Speaker 6: Right, question, I've got so dust. Your career was as
• 17:12
  Speaker 6: a manager was a span over thirty years. You started
• 17:15
  Speaker 6: with the Giants in ninety three, you left the Astros
• 17:18
  Speaker 6: in twenty twenty three, so you saw really kind of
• 17:22
  Speaker 6: several different eras within baseball, going from kind of that
• 17:27
  Speaker 6: sort of steroid era as they called it, to what
• 17:30
  Speaker 6: has become that post period since then. What over the
• 17:35
  Speaker 6: course of the thirty years that you were a manager,
• 17:38
  Speaker 6: how did you see the game evolve? What were some
• 17:41
  Speaker 6: of the biggest changes that you saw.
• 17:43
  Speaker 8: Well, I mean the game evolved from the time I
• 17:45
  Speaker 8: was playing, because see what that there I came up in.
• 17:49
  Speaker 8: Everybody was drinking. You know, that was a drinking era,
• 17:52
  Speaker 8: and then you know, you know, there's always something and
• 17:57
  Speaker 8: you know, I saw the money change. I saw, you know,
• 18:01
  Speaker 8: some of the quality of the games changed. The basic
• 18:04
  Speaker 8: philosophy of the game has changed, where where everybody now
• 18:09
  Speaker 8: wants a strikeout or a homer. You know, I've seen
• 18:13
  Speaker 8: a game change to where you know, there were you know,
• 18:17
  Speaker 8: quite a few minorities in the game and then it
• 18:19
  Speaker 8: just you know, dissipated and now there's very few except
• 18:23
  Speaker 8: for you know, you know, some of the Latin Americans.
• 18:26
  Speaker 8: And you know, the of the salary structure has definitely
• 18:31
  Speaker 8: changed because when I first came in the game, you
• 18:34
  Speaker 8: know we're making you know, the minimum was fifteen thousand dollars,
• 18:37
  Speaker 8: and I think now, I think now the minimum is like,
• 18:40
  Speaker 8: you know, close to nine hundred thousand dollars. I mean,
• 18:43
  Speaker 8: I know inflation has has increased, but it had increased.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: That yeah, and.
• 18:51
  Speaker 8: You know, you see you know TV, you see you
• 18:56
  Speaker 8: know gambling. Now Pete Rose was exile because of gambling
• 19:01
  Speaker 8: right now and now it seems like it's okay as
• 19:04
  Speaker 8: long as you're not gambling on your team. But as
• 19:06
  Speaker 8: long as there's you know, temptation, there's somebody is going
• 19:10
  Speaker 8: to succumb to that temptation because it's there and you know,
• 19:15
  Speaker 8: the game is alive and well. But I've been through
• 19:20
  Speaker 8: every strike that there was. In my very first year
• 19:23
  Speaker 8: was the first strike in nineteen seventy two. I've been
• 19:25
  Speaker 8: in seventy six, nineteen eighty one, ninety four. So you know,
• 19:31
  Speaker 8: the toughest one was when I was in management, and
• 19:36
  Speaker 8: I consider myself middle management when you're between you know,
• 19:41
  Speaker 8: upper management, in between the players, and you know, upper
• 19:45
  Speaker 8: management is paying me the but the but the players
• 19:49
  Speaker 8: are the reason why I'm getting paid because I'm I'm
• 19:52
  Speaker 8: lonely as good as they as they are. And so
• 19:57
  Speaker 8: I've seen the game change, you know, change the men.
• 20:00
  Speaker 8: You know, the rules have changed, uh you know, like
• 20:03
  Speaker 8: the uh uh the speed up rules, the uh you
• 20:07
  Speaker 8: know throw to first base, the you know, put a
• 20:10
  Speaker 8: runner on second base, and extra innings and so you know,
• 20:14
  Speaker 8: you know, the automatic strike zones. And so I've seen
• 20:16
  Speaker 8: quite a few changes. You know, some of us good,
• 20:19
  Speaker 8: I think, and better, you know, better for the game.
• 20:22
  Speaker 8: But but some of it is uh uh you know,
• 20:26
  Speaker 8: made the game a little bit worse.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Can you can you give me one that you think
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: is really not in your favor, that you just feel like,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: is really a bad rule.
• 20:40
  Speaker 8: I think the the you know, throw.
• 20:43
  Speaker 9: The first or second try to pick a guy off twice,
• 20:47
  Speaker 9: and if you tried a third time, it's the automatic
• 20:49
  Speaker 9: bok Because see, if they'd had that rule, they had
• 20:52
  Speaker 9: never thrown Ricky Henderson out or.
• 20:56
  Speaker 8: Yeah, because that was the whole game that you were
• 20:59
  Speaker 8: trying to keep can close pick him off? You know,
• 21:02
  Speaker 8: like you step off, you know, you have a quick step.
• 21:05
  Speaker 8: There's all kind of you know, there was a game
• 21:07
  Speaker 8: within the game to try to stop the running game, right,
• 21:10
  Speaker 8: and and that's the one that that you know, I
• 21:13
  Speaker 8: think has changed a lot.
• 21:15
  Speaker 5: Hey, Ketch, I was going to ask you about your
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: your newly released memoir titled Crossroads. It's a memoir in
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: baseball in life. Tell us about how that came to
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: fruition and what that journey looked like for you in
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: writing that book.
• 21:30
  Speaker 8: Well, I mean it was it was a journey of
• 21:32
  Speaker 8: my life really, and you know I started. I'm seventy
• 21:36
  Speaker 8: seven now and I wrote the book at seventy five,
• 21:38
  Speaker 8: and so I didn't want to write it while I
• 21:40
  Speaker 8: was in the game because then, you know, it could
• 21:43
  Speaker 8: have made it tough on myself and my son is
• 21:46
  Speaker 8: trying to play. And plus I don't like sequels, So
• 21:49
  Speaker 8: I had to wait a certain I had to wait,
• 21:52
  Speaker 8: you know, you know, until I got you know, pretty
• 21:54
  Speaker 8: close to the end. But you don't want to write
• 21:57
  Speaker 8: it at the end because you don't know if you're
• 21:59
  Speaker 8: going to remember, uh, you know, what happened eighty years
• 22:03
  Speaker 8: ago or at the same time, you know, you want
• 22:06
  Speaker 8: to write it before you pass away, because you don't
• 22:08
  Speaker 8: want somebody else writing something about you that might not
• 22:11
  Speaker 8: have been true. And so that's why I decided to
• 22:17
  Speaker 8: write it at that time. I think that some people
• 22:19
  Speaker 8: might have needed to you know, They've been asking me
• 22:21
  Speaker 8: a lot of people if I write it for a
• 22:23
  Speaker 8: long time, but I just thought it was time, you know,
• 22:27
  Speaker 8: especially you know, with the unrest in our country and
• 22:31
  Speaker 8: and and and having been out here in the sixties,
• 22:35
  Speaker 8: and this kind of reminds me of some of the
• 22:37
  Speaker 8: worst times that that I've I've experienced, you know, because
• 22:41
  Speaker 8: I was back into peace and love and Vietnam and
• 22:45
  Speaker 8: race riots and and and and freedom marches. But this
• 22:49
  Speaker 8: is like, I mean, the political flavor, and you know,
• 22:53
  Speaker 8: in our country, I've talked to some of the young
• 22:55
  Speaker 8: people and they're doing great or they don't have much hope,
• 23:00
  Speaker 8: and uh, you know, that's one reason I was just
• 23:03
  Speaker 8: trying to help some people get some hope and let
• 23:05
  Speaker 8: them know that hey, man, uh, you know, there's some
• 23:08
  Speaker 8: people out there, no matter how successful we appear have
• 23:12
  Speaker 8: had the same problems in our lives that they've had.
• 23:14
  Speaker 8: And if you just persevere and just just you know,
• 23:17
  Speaker 8: just live one more day, that might be the day
• 23:19
  Speaker 8: that you know your life turns around.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: One of the one of the interesting things that that
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: that I'm I'm getting it keeps running through my head
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: as you as you talk. I think there's there's a
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: there's still that reality for you that there wasn't racial
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: issues taking place during that time, and you had to
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: find a way to manage it.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: To to work around it, ignore it.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: When to speak, and I and I don't and and
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: I don't really know if people understand the challenge that
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: that what that, what that means, and and how hard
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: that has to be when you're sitting there and you're
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: you're you're not gonna say something because you already know
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: what's gonna happen, or you say something like that had
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: to have been an awfully hard time for you to
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: try to manage that, knowing knowing you as a as
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: a I'm gonna I'm gonna put myself in me and
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: you in the in the in the box together as
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: a black athlete, we see it different, you know, and
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: and and and we hear it different and we can
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: look at it and and and say, oh, yeah, okay,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: that's what that is. How do you how did you
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: have how did you manage that throughout your career, because
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: I'm sure it was worse then than it is now
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: or even during my time. How did you how did
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: you manage to to work your way through that and
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: be great?
• 24:53
  Speaker 8: Well, you know, sometimes you have no choice, and uh,
• 24:58
  Speaker 8: you know, sometimes you learn learn from your parents. Sometimes
• 25:01
  Speaker 8: you learn through you know, through your own experiences and uh,
• 25:08
  Speaker 8: you know, like you learn to you know, to be
• 25:10
  Speaker 8: aware of your surroundings and aware and trust your feelings
• 25:14
  Speaker 8: when you can tell if you're wanted or not wanted it,
• 25:17
  Speaker 8: you know, to be in that situation or no when
• 25:20
  Speaker 8: to speak up and when do you know, uh, you know,
• 25:24
  Speaker 8: defend yourself as a man, and when to say Okay,
• 25:27
  Speaker 8: not this time, I'll wait till the next time. And
• 25:31
  Speaker 8: you know, like you know a lot of things that
• 25:34
  Speaker 8: I learned, like I said, from my parents and learned
• 25:36
  Speaker 8: in the military. I learned from you know, from you know,
• 25:40
  Speaker 8: various artists, artists that my parents used to listen to
• 25:45
  Speaker 8: and that I listened to, just like in my office,
• 25:47
  Speaker 8: and right now I got Bob Marley on one shelf
• 25:51
  Speaker 8: and I got John Lee Hooker on the other shelf,
• 25:55
  Speaker 8: you know what I mean. And so it's like, uh,
• 25:58
  Speaker 8: that's a and plus you gotta you gotta pray on
• 26:03
  Speaker 8: some things, you know, there are some things you got
• 26:05
  Speaker 8: you just got like, oh lord, I don't know what
• 26:07
  Speaker 8: to do, you know, right now. And so but but
• 26:11
  Speaker 8: the thing about it is, it's it's still here today,
• 26:15
  Speaker 8: you know, where there's religious or whether it's racial or whatever,
• 26:21
  Speaker 8: because you know, people aren't getting along, and and uh,
• 26:24
  Speaker 8: it's it's more subtle now in some ways, but in
• 26:28
  Speaker 8: other ways it's more in your face. And uh, you know,
• 26:32
  Speaker 8: the lines of separation are getting wider and wider. And
• 26:36
  Speaker 8: I've just urged those that have, you know, to share
• 26:39
  Speaker 8: with those that that are, you know, to have nots
• 26:43
  Speaker 8: because if not, then you know, you know, there are
• 26:47
  Speaker 8: some people that might start taking what they need to
• 26:51
  Speaker 8: feed their family. And and so we need less violence
• 26:55
  Speaker 8: and more love in this world in our countrymen.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: I love that.
• 27:01
  Speaker 5: Hey, So, coach, let's talk about at seventy six years old.
• 27:05
  Speaker 5: You said you're seventy seven now, But at seventy six,
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: you traded the Major League Baseball ground for an international
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: sprint with Team Nicaragua in the twenty twenty six World
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: Baseball Classic. What were some of the similarities and differences
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: in coaching in those two environments.
• 27:21
  Speaker 8: Coach, Well, I'll tell you there was a it was
• 27:25
  Speaker 8: a great experience. Number One, my guy who played for me,
• 27:29
  Speaker 8: Marvin Bernard. You know, he's from Bluefields, Nicaragua originally, even
• 27:33
  Speaker 8: though he's raised in the States. And my good friend
• 27:36
  Speaker 8: George Santiago, Puerto Rican, George from New York was a
• 27:39
  Speaker 8: general manager, and so they said, hey, man, we need
• 27:42
  Speaker 8: you in Nicaragua. And I had also studied, you know,
• 27:47
  Speaker 8: so Marcus Garvey and he had gone to Nicaragua and
• 27:51
  Speaker 8: some of the Caribbean you know, countries there, and I
• 27:54
  Speaker 8: was curious about that because I had played ball in Venezuela,
• 27:57
  Speaker 8: Mexico and Puerto Rico. So, uh, you know, I really
• 28:01
  Speaker 8: love you know, Latin America and love the people there. Uh,
• 28:05
  Speaker 8: you know, the challenges were, you know, we weren't as
• 28:09
  Speaker 8: good as Dominican, you know, because they're i mean, they're
• 28:13
  Speaker 8: tops in the in the in the Caribbean. And then
• 28:15
  Speaker 8: we weren't as good as the Cubans. We weren't as
• 28:17
  Speaker 8: good as the Puerto Ricans. The Venezuelans are are are
• 28:22
  Speaker 8: ahead of us, and so I try to catch us
• 28:25
  Speaker 8: up in a short period of time, Uh, you know,
• 28:28
  Speaker 8: with my you know, baseball background, and and you know,
• 28:33
  Speaker 8: they learned a lot, but it's tough in three weeks
• 28:35
  Speaker 8: to you know, to make up that much ground. So
• 28:38
  Speaker 8: uh and I tried to really influence the young young
• 28:43
  Speaker 8: kids because that's who's gonna, uh you know, be the
• 28:45
  Speaker 8: next generation of you know, Nica roguins. And uh, you know,
• 28:51
  Speaker 8: I had a great time. I'm going back down there
• 28:53
  Speaker 8: in November. I'm not managing. Uh, I'm gonna help coach.
• 28:59
  Speaker 8: And its struck for three weeks because you know, we
• 29:03
  Speaker 8: lost to Courus out. Uh you know, we were ahead
• 29:08
  Speaker 8: three to one. They had never won a game on
• 29:10
  Speaker 8: that world stage like that. We're head three to one
• 29:14
  Speaker 8: with nobody, no no. With two outs, guy hits a
• 29:17
  Speaker 8: blooper to to right field, said no fault. Next guy,
• 29:21
  Speaker 8: it's a third out. We won the game. It hits
• 29:23
  Speaker 8: the bag and bounces over his head. Next guy hits
• 29:26
  Speaker 8: a home run and we lost for to three and
• 29:32
  Speaker 8: I told my wife that that No, I'm serious, I
• 29:37
  Speaker 8: couldn't sleep for a week or ten days. And I
• 29:40
  Speaker 8: mean even now sometimes that you know, that decision or
• 29:43
  Speaker 8: that home run wakes me up and it's like, you know,
• 29:46
  Speaker 8: I thought I had had gotten over that or never
• 29:49
  Speaker 8: had that bad feeling in my stomach and in your heart,
• 29:53
  Speaker 8: because see, you know, people don't know that. You know,
• 29:58
  Speaker 8: you know the one problem that I had as a
• 30:00
  Speaker 8: manager or a player is that the the wins are
• 30:04
  Speaker 8: never equal, you know, to the losses. And you know,
• 30:09
  Speaker 8: if I can figure that out, I can go back
• 30:12
  Speaker 8: and manage the game.
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: Because well, you know what's funny, Coach that you said that,
• 30:16
  Speaker 5: because I had that written down. That was one of
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: your famous statements, and I was going to ask you
• 30:20
  Speaker 5: if you still take losses personally as you did, but
• 30:23
  Speaker 5: it sounds.
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: Like you do.
• 30:25
  Speaker 8: Yeah, I think I'm personally or my wife are like, honey,
• 30:28
  Speaker 8: go to sleep, because you know you can't bring it back,
• 30:31
  Speaker 8: and I'm like, how do you know?
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: You know there might be a chance I might be
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: able to.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: But you know what, It's it's funny because I think
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: I really do think that, like a lot of athletes do,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: hang on to specific losses and and you can't let
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: it go. You know, we lost the NFC Championship game.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: And and.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: That was my only opportunity to have a chance to
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: go to a super Bowl. And to this day, that
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: still is a haunting moment for me.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: And I've been out of the league forever and still
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: I can.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: I can go back. I can look at the game,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: I can see it. It's I don't even need feel
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: I can almost run it through.
• 31:18
  Speaker 8: My And the problem is you can let it go,
• 31:25
  Speaker 8: but it won't let you go.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: There you go, there you go. I'll take that. I'll
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: take that. Yeah, I'll use it that way from there on.
• 31:33
  Speaker 8: Yeah, that's the truth. It's like, come on, man, I
• 31:36
  Speaker 8: want to go to sleep and I don't want to
• 31:38
  Speaker 8: see this, you know.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: And it's and it's amazing though, because I really don't
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: know if people understand the the intensity of an athlete
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: in on the professional level, in losing a game or
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: not making a playoff or you know, any of those things.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know if they can understand, because they do say,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: you know, you need to get over it, you need
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: to get over it. But you're you're you're going through
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: all the plays all the mistakes you made.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: You sometimes you.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Start talking about, well, such and such a heat had
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: done that, man, we'd have been all right. You know,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: you're you're likely to go any and everywhere before you
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: can actually really walk away from it.
• 32:22
  Speaker 8: Let you know, but you're always called back by by
• 32:27
  Speaker 8: that that adrenaline rush that you get because you can't
• 32:30
  Speaker 8: simulate it on this radio show. You can't simulate uh
• 32:34
  Speaker 8: in business, you know, the feelings that you get when
• 32:38
  Speaker 8: you win or when you lose. And I'm telling you, uh,
• 32:44
  Speaker 8: and and and that experience in the WBC. See, I
• 32:47
  Speaker 8: had played winter ball, like I told you, for three
• 32:49
  Speaker 8: different countries, and there's no pressure. I mean there's more
• 32:56
  Speaker 8: pressure playing winter ball than there is playing here in
• 32:59
  Speaker 8: the States because like I mean, the people down there
• 33:02
  Speaker 8: are passing it. I mean you got drums, you got
• 33:05
  Speaker 8: you got people like uh, cheering, you got dancing, and
• 33:09
  Speaker 8: I mean it is like exciting and uh, you know,
• 33:13
  Speaker 8: nothing like you know Latin American baseball. You saw the WBC.
• 33:16
  Speaker 8: I mean it looked like a party and you know, yeah,
• 33:21
  Speaker 8: and there was nobody fighting, That's that's the thing. And
• 33:23
  Speaker 8: they're all just jeering at each other. And you know,
• 33:26
  Speaker 8: the countries and then they would party like for two
• 33:29
  Speaker 8: or three hours afterwards in the parking lot out there, Like, man,
• 33:33
  Speaker 8: I mean, this is like fun. And it reminded me
• 33:36
  Speaker 8: of of of the World Cup, you know, because because
• 33:41
  Speaker 8: that was awesome. I mean, I mean as as a fan,
• 33:45
  Speaker 8: it was awesome, but imagine that, you know, the the
• 33:48
  Speaker 8: adrenaline rush that they had as players.
• 33:52
  Speaker 6: I'm curious your opinion about something that's kind of a
• 33:56
  Speaker 6: bit of a talking point right now major League Baseball
• 34:00
  Speaker 6: and potentially might even lead to a strike coming up
• 34:03
  Speaker 6: after this season. Famously, the Mets in the whole Bobby
• 34:07
  Speaker 6: Bonilla Day one and famous player that left the Reds
• 34:10
  Speaker 6: right around the time that you became manager there Ken
• 34:12
  Speaker 6: Griffy Junior. They had these deferred salaries. One of the
• 34:16
  Speaker 6: big ones. Now the Dodgers show, Hey, O Tani has
• 34:19
  Speaker 6: deferred salary of like I think seven hundred million. I'm
• 34:23
  Speaker 6: curious about your opinion on that and if you think
• 34:26
  Speaker 6: that's negatively affecting the game and if you think that's
• 34:30
  Speaker 6: probably going to lead to a strike this year.
• 34:33
  Speaker 8: I don't know. I mean, they can blame it on
• 34:35
  Speaker 8: a leading to a strike, whether it's true or false.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fair.
• 34:39
  Speaker 8: And you know, you know, deferred salaries have been I
• 34:47
  Speaker 8: tried to get a deferred salary when I was playing,
• 34:49
  Speaker 8: but the Dodgers wouldn't do it.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: Oh really, what I mean?
• 34:52
  Speaker 8: Oh yeah, I mean there are some clubs that did
• 34:54
  Speaker 8: it then and some clubs that didn't. Now now the
• 34:58
  Speaker 8: Dodgers are going to give me a deferred salary, but no,
• 35:01
  Speaker 8: but no interest. So so so what good is that? Yeah?
• 35:08
  Speaker 8: And uh, you know the American way though, is to
• 35:12
  Speaker 8: postpone debt into the future, Am I right?
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: Good point?
• 35:19
  Speaker 8: Yeah, And so like what's the difference between your first
• 35:21
  Speaker 8: salary and the postponement of of debt? That's a really
• 35:26
  Speaker 8: good point. Yeah. And I don't know who's right or
• 35:29
  Speaker 8: who's wrong. All I know is that you know, nobody
• 35:34
  Speaker 8: makes I don't know if you ever had a boss
• 35:36
  Speaker 8: that I said, hey, you give me this money or else? Okay,
• 35:39
  Speaker 8: they either told you or else. Yeah, the fact exact,
• 35:44
  Speaker 8: why don't you Why don't you go in and tell
• 35:47
  Speaker 8: and tie that tomorrow? See how you know? And plus
• 35:52
  Speaker 8: on the other hand, it's hard for me to believe
• 35:55
  Speaker 8: because I'm in I'm in business, and unless you're in
• 35:58
  Speaker 8: the sales, uh, who pays their employees more than they
• 36:04
  Speaker 8: If you're the boss, then you pay yourself, you know.
• 36:08
  Speaker 8: So no matter what they no matter what they show publicly. Uh.
• 36:15
  Speaker 8: You know, the salaries of or or how much the
• 36:18
  Speaker 8: teams are making is never there's never a public but
• 36:21
  Speaker 8: the players salaries are always public.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: That's a really great perspective. I hadn't thought about it
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: that way.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: It's it's amazing to me. You know, we had a
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: we had a general manager that none of them and again,
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: I hate to bring it, bring it back to this point,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: but he refused to pay black players like he just
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: like he would just refuse to pay them. And he
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: would you could walk in and sit down and he
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: would just say some of the craziest things.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: He would go. He'd say, if you don't want to
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: if you don't want to take this, go drive a bus,
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: get out of here. I'm like, like, are you are
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: you like that? Is that what you have?
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: No?
• 37:08
  Speaker 8: But you know, it was similar, it was just more
• 37:12
  Speaker 8: more under the cover than that. I mean, you know,
• 37:15
  Speaker 8: we always knew that, you know a lot of white
• 37:18
  Speaker 8: players sometimes would get paid easier than us. Uh. And
• 37:22
  Speaker 8: and they were and they were like a couple of
• 37:25
  Speaker 8: different tiers, you know, and a lot of times the
• 37:29
  Speaker 8: Latin players were were paid even less than us back
• 37:32
  Speaker 8: in the day because because they you know, you know,
• 37:36
  Speaker 8: management figure that they needed less, you know what I mean,
• 37:41
  Speaker 8: they would be happy with it right well, but you know,
• 37:44
  Speaker 8: other dollar went further where there where they are. But
• 37:48
  Speaker 8: you know, with the strikes came came more equality of salary.
• 37:53
  Speaker 8: You know, with the strikes game, everybody's uh salaries are
• 37:58
  Speaker 8: are public now were before before they weren't public. So,
• 38:03
  Speaker 8: you know, some of the good things that came out
• 38:05
  Speaker 8: of you know, former strikes was the fact that now
• 38:09
  Speaker 8: now you can't have discriminatory you know salary, you know differences,
• 38:14
  Speaker 8: you know, which is which is the way it should be.
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I totally agree with all of that. Coach, So,
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: I was going to ask you about the way you
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: coached during your time in Major League Baseball. You you
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: famously managed generational talents like Barry Bonds.
• 38:31
  Speaker 8: What was your Sammy Sosa? I had some bad boys, absolutely,
• 38:43
  Speaker 8: you named them, had you know, Jeff I.
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: Had some bad Yes, you did, coach, So, so I
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: was going to led to this question, what is your
• 38:51
  Speaker 5: your secret? Well, what was your secret to gaining the
• 38:54
  Speaker 5: trust of those. You know, they were fiercely independent superstars.
• 38:57
  Speaker 5: You were dealing with their So how do you know.
• 39:00
  Speaker 8: There was no secret? Really, I mean the fact that
• 39:03
  Speaker 8: you know I was I wasn't a superstar, but I
• 39:06
  Speaker 8: was a star for a period of time. So you know,
• 39:08
  Speaker 8: I don't care about you being a star, and I
• 39:10
  Speaker 8: really don't care about how much money making because you know,
• 39:14
  Speaker 8: I've been through a lot of that. Plus at the
• 39:16
  Speaker 8: same time, you know, like your superstars can you know,
• 39:20
  Speaker 8: can bend the rules, but you know, don't break the rules.
• 39:23
  Speaker 8: And the key is not to have a whole bunch
• 39:26
  Speaker 8: of rules, right, And you know, I just had a
• 39:30
  Speaker 8: few rules, you know, don't lie to me, show up
• 39:32
  Speaker 8: to work on time, give me all you got, you
• 39:35
  Speaker 8: know why you're here, and don't be a distraction anybody else,
• 39:38
  Speaker 8: you know, and so yeah, and then so you know,
• 39:44
  Speaker 8: I believed in being firm but fair. I learned a
• 39:48
  Speaker 8: lot from al Addos, who I've known i was sixteen
• 39:53
  Speaker 8: years old, the basketball player and coach. And I learned
• 39:56
  Speaker 8: a lot, you know, from my dad, who was a
• 40:00
  Speaker 8: a coach for years and years. And my high school
• 40:03
  Speaker 8: coach was great, and I really learned a lot when
• 40:07
  Speaker 8: I started managing and coaching from Bill wallsh She took
• 40:11
  Speaker 8: a you know, liking to me when he was on
• 40:13
  Speaker 8: the forty nine ers. And then we went to Stanford
• 40:16
  Speaker 8: and I'd go over and have lunch at his house
• 40:19
  Speaker 8: and he would, uh, he gave me all his cue
• 40:21
  Speaker 8: cards on how he started the forty nine ers, and
• 40:25
  Speaker 8: you know, he had a grease sport and we'd go
• 40:26
  Speaker 8: over like you know, how to deal with the media,
• 40:30
  Speaker 8: how to like, you know, all kinds of things that
• 40:33
  Speaker 8: really help, you know, put me on the right course.
• 40:36
  Speaker 8: Because I went to his his uh you know, he
• 40:39
  Speaker 8: had like a I don't know if you call a class,
• 40:42
  Speaker 8: but he had like a you know coach a lot
• 40:45
  Speaker 8: of yeah yeah coaches claimed with black coaches. They're trying
• 40:48
  Speaker 8: to you know, trying to help him get a job.
• 40:50
  Speaker 8: He had like Lovely Smith there, like yeah, you know,
• 40:53
  Speaker 8: Marvin Lewis there, he had Winningham had there. I mean,
• 40:59
  Speaker 8: he had all of us there, and I was the
• 41:01
  Speaker 8: only baseball player that was there. And like you said, uh,
• 41:06
  Speaker 8: you know, I learned a lot, you know from him.
• 41:09
  Speaker 8: And then also, like I said, learned a lot from
• 41:11
  Speaker 8: my dad on whend to when to you know, pick
• 41:14
  Speaker 8: your battles, you know, because you can walk around tist
• 41:18
  Speaker 8: off all the time. Is you let yourself you know
• 41:20
  Speaker 8: what I mean? But you gotta yeah, but you got
• 41:22
  Speaker 8: to pick your you know, pick your battles. Okay, not now,
• 41:25
  Speaker 8: boom later and then you know, above all, you know,
• 41:30
  Speaker 8: I didn't lie to the players, and uh, you know,
• 41:34
  Speaker 8: don't lie to me now. Now there's a difference between
• 41:38
  Speaker 8: not lying to them. But I can't tell you everything either.
• 41:41
  Speaker 8: You know, you got to keep your job in order
• 41:46
  Speaker 8: to help them. So, like I said, I had some
• 41:51
  Speaker 8: valuable teachers. And also you know, you had to remember
• 41:57
  Speaker 8: how hard the game us to play or it is
• 42:02
  Speaker 8: to play, and sometimes it was for you and try
• 42:05
  Speaker 8: not to remember. Uh. When I first started coaching, lou
• 42:10
  Speaker 8: Brock told me, don't get greater in your mind than
• 42:12
  Speaker 8: you really were. I like that, Like, what does that mean?
• 42:16
  Speaker 8: I don't forget that you made the air, that you
• 42:18
  Speaker 8: struck out a couple of times and lost the game.
• 42:21
  Speaker 8: You might have won some games, but you know, the
• 42:24
  Speaker 8: longer you get away from from playing, you forget about
• 42:28
  Speaker 8: You remember the losses, but you forget about the bad
• 42:31
  Speaker 8: games that you had. You know what I mean, and
• 42:33
  Speaker 8: you just remember the touchdowns and interceptions, but you don't
• 42:36
  Speaker 8: remember getting burnt, you know what I'm saying.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: So, uh, coach, are you hitting over here? Because I
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: don't remember what they said?
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: Oh, don't worry. Sterling reminds them all the time.
• 42:55
  Speaker 5: We've got him to thank for that.
• 43:02
  Speaker 6: Okay, if you had your way, would you have been
• 43:04
  Speaker 6: a football player? Because you said baseball was like number
• 43:07
  Speaker 6: four on your list for sports.
• 43:09
  Speaker 8: Yeah? Yeah, Well but you know something, I chose the
• 43:13
  Speaker 8: right sport, or the right sport chose me because I'd
• 43:15
  Speaker 8: have been tiny Dusty Baker on the basketball court and
• 43:18
  Speaker 8: I'd have probably gotten you know, with my skinny legs,
• 43:21
  Speaker 8: and I had speed, you know, like you know, you know,
• 43:24
  Speaker 8: coming across the line or across the middle. You know,
• 43:28
  Speaker 8: somebody would have broken me up. I probably wouldn't have
• 43:32
  Speaker 8: played very long. But I loved it though. Uh but
• 43:36
  Speaker 8: uh yeah, I would like to think that, you know,
• 43:40
  Speaker 8: I could have been a good football player, but I
• 43:42
  Speaker 8: never really really got my bell run yet, you know
• 43:44
  Speaker 8: what I mean. Just like when I was a kid,
• 43:46
  Speaker 8: I wanted to be a boxer and I used to
• 43:48
  Speaker 8: box at the y and to this big boy, it
• 43:52
  Speaker 8: was fun when I was doing all the punching, this
• 43:56
  Speaker 8: big boy hit me in the those I was like,
• 43:58
  Speaker 8: I don't like.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: This, you know what what what what is interesting is
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: is like as I listen to you and I'm processing
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: in my own mind about my my career and thinking
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: about it, and and I guess most athletes probably follow
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: the same kind of path and thought processes as they
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: go through. You get to a point where you kind
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: of know how good you are. You get to a
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: point where you start to think, like I might need
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: to sit down here shortly.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: Sometimes you can get caught up and think it's just you.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: But it's it's it's I think it's probably every athlete
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: out there has to have to go through the same
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: protocol to actually walk themselves out of the.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: Game right well soon or later, sooner or yeah.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: And a lot of times it's if you're thinking about it,
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: it's probably in the.
• 45:00
  Speaker 8: Moment true because you know something that that that's that's
• 45:04
  Speaker 8: great that you said that. Because I remember Reggie Smith,
• 45:08
  Speaker 8: you know, when we're honoring this weekend in LA you know,
• 45:12
  Speaker 8: on the Walk of Fame, and he was the best
• 45:15
  Speaker 8: player out of all of us on our great Dodger teams,
• 45:19
  Speaker 8: and he told me, I remember one time and it
• 45:22
  Speaker 8: kind of you know, be Wildermere a little bit. He
• 45:24
  Speaker 8: told me, don't think about the end, because if you're
• 45:26
  Speaker 8: thinking about the end, the end's already here, right, yeah, exactly.
• 45:35
  Speaker 8: And he was right. You know, you started thinking about retiring,
• 45:38
  Speaker 8: you might little retire right now, you know.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: I see, and that's and and I was my last
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: season I played with the Saints, and I can remember
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: just like I just didn't. I wasn't enjoying it. And
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: I was like thinking, like, you know, this is not
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: I don't need to do this. I need to give
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: this up. And I ended up. You know, I couldn't.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: I did that. I processed that halfway through the season
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: and try to play the last half of the season. Man,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: I could. I could barely get through it. Like I
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: didn't want to come to practice. I didn't want to practice,
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to do anything. And I just I
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: was just hoping and praying, can we get to the
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: end of the season so I can go home because I'm.
• 46:19
  Speaker 8: Well, see and see, that's what happens to you know,
• 46:23
  Speaker 8: a lot of guys at the end, you know, either
• 46:27
  Speaker 8: either you know, they get tired, of playing, or sometime
• 46:32
  Speaker 8: they get tired of pain, you know what I mean,
• 46:36
  Speaker 8: you get tired of waking up or going to bed
• 46:39
  Speaker 8: and waking up with pain. Or either you've made it
• 46:42
  Speaker 8: enough that you think you've made enough or which which
• 46:45
  Speaker 8: which which rarely is the case that that that you
• 46:51
  Speaker 8: lose some motivation. And if you lose motivation, then then
• 46:55
  Speaker 8: it's time to go home.
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: You can't sit around and think about not that you
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: don't really want to play, You don't really want to
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: practice when you're when you're in that in that space,
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: you truly, like you said, you truly have given the
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: game out.
• 47:11
  Speaker 8: True, And you know something, The sad part is that
• 47:15
  Speaker 8: it happens. It seems like he played a long time,
• 47:18
  Speaker 8: but it happened so quickly.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it does, you know, because well it comes
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: on I think, because it comes on like you went
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: to bed last night, got up, and then all of
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: a sudden, midway through.
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: The day, it hits you.
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: Now you got to take it to bed with you
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: and wake up with it in the morning, and you
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: can't let it go.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: It won't it won't go away.
• 47:39
  Speaker 8: So no, it won't go away, And so I try
• 47:43
  Speaker 8: to tell tell guys to maximize your career because you
• 47:46
  Speaker 8: don't want to be another give me another chance guy, right,
• 47:49
  Speaker 8: because I've had I've had a whole bunch of give
• 47:51
  Speaker 8: me another chance guys, and there are very few that
• 47:53
  Speaker 8: get another chance. So so you got to maximize. Uh,
• 47:57
  Speaker 8: you know, your days, you know, you know, seize a
• 48:00
  Speaker 8: moment and and and try to make the most of it.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: Coach.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: We appreciate you, man, I appreciate all the good information.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: I hope all the listeners will enjoy it and we
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: will get back in touch with you again.
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: Man, I appreciate you.
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: Good luck in December, coach, thank you so much.
• 48:17
  Speaker 8: All right, thank you? Hey is Westerrginia're gonna be good
• 48:21
  Speaker 8: this year?
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: Well, you're talking to me, if you're asking me, I'm
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: a Marshall guy, So okay, so I'm thinking Marshall is
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: going to be good. But I do think that WV
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: is going to be pretty good.
• 48:33
  Speaker 8: The coach is pretty good at Marshall. One time I
• 48:37
  Speaker 8: I on a Cincinnati Rids caravans and we went to Marshall's.
• 48:42
  Speaker 7: Green right, yes, yea heard, oh yes, and and and
• 48:52
  Speaker 7: this was his name, Jason.
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: Jason Williams Oh yeah.
• 48:58
  Speaker 8: Coach reason I asked you, He's gonna ask you what
• 49:01
  Speaker 8: was West g Ain't gonna be good because I got
• 49:02
  Speaker 8: a friend named Sam who's lying this Integrate interview up.
• 49:07
  Speaker 8: Every time he talks to me something about Westernion, every
• 49:10
  Speaker 8: time he gives me a quiz, I'm like, how do
• 49:12
  Speaker 8: you know? Like I know you're talking about Western.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: That is every WU fan that is. That is true.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: They will not stop talking about their school.
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: All right, good luck, all right, thank you, We do
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: appreciate it.
• 49:30
  Speaker 8: All right later, all right
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: All right, ladies and gentlemen, we're gonna get out of
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: here and we won't see it again next week