Latest / The Favorites Sports Betting Podcast / Taiwan, Gambling and "The Untruth Game" with ex-MLB pitcher Don August

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Taiwan, Gambling and "The Untruth Game" with ex-MLB pitcher Don August · The Favorites Sports Betting Podcast

0:09
Speaker 1: Welcome to The Favorites, the podcast from the Action Network.
0:12
Speaker 1: I am Chad Millman. I will be joined today by
0:15
Speaker 1: Sean Zarrillo, our lead baseball writer, and a very special
0:19
Speaker 1: guest from the baseball world with some incredible stories. If
0:23
Speaker 1: anybody has been following at Don August thirty eight on
0:27
Speaker 1: Twitter for the past few days, you would have seen
0:30
Speaker 1: something very special because Don is a former Major League
0:36
Speaker 1: baseball player who, once his major league career was over,
0:39
Speaker 1: traveled around the world playing baseball, and he has been
0:42
Speaker 1: sharing strings of stories on Twitter at Don August which
0:48
Speaker 1: are both frightening and hilarious and feel like they are
0:52
Speaker 1: straight out of Bull Durham or Ball four. Don August
0:56
Speaker 1: is on the phone from Milwaukee, discovered by our producer
1:00
Speaker 1: extraordinaire Matt Mitchell, also from Milwaukee. Don, thanks for coming
1:05
Speaker 1: on the Favorites Man. How are you doing good? Thanks
1:07
Speaker 1: for an introduction? Sounds good. How is your quarantine going,
1:10
Speaker 1: how are you spending it? Are you with family? What's
1:12
Speaker 1: your situation? Well, I'm at home. It's just me and
1:16
Speaker 1: the wife. My son has come up to visit us.
1:19
Speaker 1: We've been seeing here for the last couple of weeks.
1:21
Speaker 1: And uh, you know we're making do so I mentioned
1:24
Speaker 1: off the top you have a Twitter feed at don August.
1:28
Speaker 1: You started telling some stories recently. Before we get into
1:31
Speaker 1: the stories, what compels you to even think about, Hey,
1:34
Speaker 1: I want to start sharing some of these things. Well,
1:37
Speaker 1: actually I'm in the process of writing a book sharing
1:40
Speaker 1: all of these stories. My son kind of like my
1:43
Speaker 1: pr gut. I guess he just thought, hey, won't we
1:45
Speaker 1: just throw a few stories on Twitter and just kind
1:47
Speaker 1: of see what happens. And I think tonight we're gonna
1:50
Speaker 1: we're gonna put out another one too. From Dominican Republic.
1:53
Speaker 1: I do have some questions about your major league career
1:56
Speaker 1: and your college career, because not only did you play
1:59
Speaker 1: the majors, you won a silver medal at the Olympics
2:02
Speaker 1: in four talk about what that experience is, like, what's
2:05
Speaker 1: it like to pitch for your country and then actually
2:09
Speaker 1: win a medal? But it's it's a great honor, you
2:11
Speaker 1: hear people always kind of say that, and that's truly
2:13
Speaker 1: what it is, you know, as a as a young kid,
2:16
Speaker 1: I grew up in southern California, and I watched the
2:19
Speaker 1: Dodgers in the Angels, I followed them. I played baseball,
2:23
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, I went to a little small
2:24
Speaker 1: college out there in southern California called Chatman University. It
2:28
Speaker 1: was a D two school, and I always watched all
2:30
Speaker 1: the Olympics that I can remember being a kid, you know,
2:32
Speaker 1: maybe be the summer and the Winter Olympics. So I
2:35
Speaker 1: had kind of dreamed like that as a kid. Then
2:37
Speaker 1: going into my junior year of college, there was gonna
2:40
Speaker 1: be baseball in the Olympics and that we're in l
2:42
Speaker 1: att So I went for the tryouts and I placed
2:45
Speaker 1: second in the trout which was held at kel State Fulkton.
2:48
Speaker 1: I came number two out of a hundred and sixty
2:51
Speaker 1: something guys. Shane mac out of u c l A
2:54
Speaker 1: with the number one guy, So they kind of put
2:56
Speaker 1: your name on a list and kind of waited for
2:58
Speaker 1: the season to come und and I had a great year,
3:01
Speaker 1: and you know, we went on this big long Olympic
3:03
Speaker 1: tour tryout beforehand, starting out with thirty one players had
3:07
Speaker 1: to be turned down to the final twenty. I made
3:10
Speaker 1: that and I was able to pitch in the Olympics.
3:12
Speaker 1: And I mean, what an experience coming out of a
3:14
Speaker 1: little Chinese dinky chatten in college too you know, playing
3:19
Speaker 1: in a full house of Dodgers, say him in a
3:21
Speaker 1: in the Olympics. So it was a great experience. It
3:24
Speaker 1: helped me and I know helped my teammates do but
3:26
Speaker 1: helped me kind of take into that next step to
3:28
Speaker 1: get to the major leagues and kind of play in
3:30
Speaker 1: atmosphere and crowd like that. I'm playing at that big
3:34
Speaker 1: league level, you know, playing against so many great players,
3:36
Speaker 1: future Hall of famers, some of them teammates and years
3:38
Speaker 1: some of them. You know, guys you're playing against. You
3:41
Speaker 1: struck out Joe Carter a bunch of times. I think
3:43
Speaker 1: you struck about more than you did any other player.
3:45
Speaker 1: What batter you know when he got in the box,
3:48
Speaker 1: would you say it just kind of had a different
3:51
Speaker 1: field than anybody else You would face the guy that
3:54
Speaker 1: I'm going against that I didn't like coming up to
3:56
Speaker 1: play with George Brett. So I'm not the only guy.
3:58
Speaker 1: But you know, the first time I was facing I
4:01
Speaker 1: mean already he was, you know, a major league legend.
4:04
Speaker 1: And one thing I noticed is he stood way off
4:08
Speaker 1: the side of the plate, not in the back of
4:09
Speaker 1: the batter's box, but to the side, like he's like
4:11
Speaker 1: almost out of it. And I thought, there's no way
4:14
Speaker 1: this guy can reach an outside pitch, you know, so
4:16
Speaker 1: I thought, I feel that little sinker fastball away. He
4:19
Speaker 1: jumps out there and reached out and he smoked the
4:21
Speaker 1: line drive off the center field fence. Like, oh wow. Well,
4:24
Speaker 1: I thought, well, if he's jumping out to get that
4:26
Speaker 1: outside pitch, well then I mus with his bucks him inside.
4:28
Speaker 1: Then so next up that I come here with a
4:30
Speaker 1: nice hard inside pitch keeps falling, he goes fast hands
4:33
Speaker 1: right on blue and just ripped a line drive double
4:36
Speaker 1: down the right field line. So not only has he
4:38
Speaker 1: done that to me, he'd done that to a lot
4:40
Speaker 1: of other guys. But you know, he was just a
4:42
Speaker 1: great player. Of course, you know, padding titles in three
4:44
Speaker 1: different decades, so that's a no brainer, I think. Alright,
4:48
Speaker 1: so you were on the Brewers in a eight you
4:50
Speaker 1: won thirteen games. I think that was your first year
4:52
Speaker 1: with the Brewers. You have Paul Molitor, hall of famer.
4:55
Speaker 1: You've got Robin Young, hall of famer. You've got Robbed
4:59
Speaker 1: Deer not hall of famer. Of all the guys on
5:02
Speaker 1: that team, who is the guy who you would want
5:05
Speaker 1: to go have a beer with? Oh God, there's a
5:08
Speaker 1: bunch of guys back then, very young and single, so
5:10
Speaker 1: we had we did have a few beers. The pitchers
5:12
Speaker 1: kind of hung out more with the other pitchers on
5:14
Speaker 1: the most part, you know, especially if we're starting pitchers.
5:16
Speaker 1: You know, we pitched one day, we had three or
5:18
Speaker 1: four days off. So the guys on the team back then,
5:21
Speaker 1: or Tom Feiler, Chris Bozzio, Mike Birkebeck, Mark Knutson, those
5:26
Speaker 1: are some of the pictures that I mostly hung around
5:28
Speaker 1: within that in that year. All right, So you were
5:30
Speaker 1: in the in the majors for four years, you won
5:33
Speaker 1: thirteen games, You won twelve games, a third year you
5:36
Speaker 1: only pitching three games. The fourth year you went nine
5:39
Speaker 1: and eight, and then you're out of baseball in the majors.
5:42
Speaker 1: What happened? Well, you know, like not fully sure, but
5:45
Speaker 1: I think just things happened. Uh, there's always those young
5:48
Speaker 1: guys coming up behind you. Um, you gotta be good
5:51
Speaker 1: all the time, you know, you gotta be consistent. My
5:54
Speaker 1: first couple of years I did pretty good. My third
5:56
Speaker 1: year I struggled. I didn't pitch that many games in Milwaukee.
5:59
Speaker 1: They even sent me down to the minor leagues. I
6:01
Speaker 1: went in Triple a which was in Denver at the time,
6:04
Speaker 1: so you know you're struggling, you get down and sent
6:06
Speaker 1: down to Denver to try to work on your pitching
6:08
Speaker 1: of all places. Um the reason why I left the
6:11
Speaker 1: Brewers after that last season, and they took me up
6:13
Speaker 1: the forty man roster at the end of the year,
6:15
Speaker 1: which made me a free agent. So I thought I
6:17
Speaker 1: had twenty something other baseball teams that would take me.
6:20
Speaker 1: I started to deal with the San Francisco Giants in
6:22
Speaker 1: that winter, but just before going into spring training, they
6:25
Speaker 1: made a trade. They traded Kevin Mitchell, who was an
6:28
Speaker 1: All Star at the time for the Giants. They traded
6:30
Speaker 1: into Seattle for three pitchers. They got Dave Berba, Bill Swift,
6:34
Speaker 1: and Mike Jackson. So they kind of took some some
6:37
Speaker 1: opportunities with and then I got released out of spring
6:40
Speaker 1: training and it was like a battle after that to
6:42
Speaker 1: try to get back to the majors a little bit
6:44
Speaker 1: the miners here and there, but then that's some kind
6:46
Speaker 1: of went well, you know, I started going on this
6:48
Speaker 1: international thing and that's how I end up finishing up
6:50
Speaker 1: my my baseball career. Yeah, so Donny, you kick around
6:54
Speaker 1: the minor leagues for a couple of years, end up
6:56
Speaker 1: in Mexican League, which a lot of people I don't
6:58
Speaker 1: think realizes unaffiliated Triple A Baseball. It's not actually a
7:01
Speaker 1: separate forart and professional league. It's a little weird. So
7:04
Speaker 1: how do you know, how does it get broached to
7:06
Speaker 1: the idea that you're gonna leave the minor league system
7:09
Speaker 1: and go play in Mexico or go playing Taiwan? Is
7:12
Speaker 1: that something that your agent brings up to you. Is
7:14
Speaker 1: that something you hear from you know, former teammates who
7:16
Speaker 1: end up taking that route? How does how does a
7:19
Speaker 1: player kind of find his way into a different professional league? Well,
7:23
Speaker 1: I was hoping to get another deal, at the very
7:25
Speaker 1: least back to Triple A with a team here Pitts
7:29
Speaker 1: will hopefully make it back to the major leagues. While
7:32
Speaker 1: my agent was trying to find me a team going
7:34
Speaker 1: into the nine season, no team was given me any chances,
7:38
Speaker 1: which I thought was surprising. I mean, at least a
7:41
Speaker 1: minor league screen training invite, you know, hopefully know I'd
7:44
Speaker 1: like to have gotten a major league invite, but not
7:46
Speaker 1: even the minor league invite anywhere. But when my agent
7:49
Speaker 1: was talking to the Texas Rangers, they told my agent
7:53
Speaker 1: that they have a working agreement with one of the
7:55
Speaker 1: Mexican League teams that there would be an opportunity that
7:58
Speaker 1: I could go there and play well. Since I didn't
8:01
Speaker 1: have anywhere to go for screen training, I I said, Okay,
8:04
Speaker 1: I'll I'll do this Mexican League thing. They start there's season,
8:08
Speaker 1: like in the guy about the middle of March somewhere,
8:11
Speaker 1: so I figured guys would be in spring training, but
8:13
Speaker 1: I would be pitching in games and getting paid. And
8:16
Speaker 1: then I had my agent, though, make a deal with
8:19
Speaker 1: the Mexican League team. If you're to leave the Mexican
8:21
Speaker 1: League team, you usually have to be to go to
8:24
Speaker 1: a major league team. I got him to get me
8:27
Speaker 1: a deal that I could find a Triple A team
8:30
Speaker 1: to be able to leave the Mexican you know, the
8:31
Speaker 1: team I was in Mexico. So that's what I end
8:33
Speaker 1: up doing. So next thing, you know, I'm I'm down
8:35
Speaker 1: in Mexico, and that the game pretty much at the
8:38
Speaker 1: beginning of my international play and just being an American
8:41
Speaker 1: travel around in different parts of the world to play baseball,
8:45
Speaker 1: you know, I I accumulated a lot of stories. So
8:48
Speaker 1: how do you end up in Taiwan? I had already
8:50
Speaker 1: played now a season and a half in Mexico. I
8:54
Speaker 1: got an opportunity to go to spring training at the
8:58
Speaker 1: Pittsburgh Pirates Triple A L major league invite. But that
9:01
Speaker 1: was the year the there was the lockout. Remember there's
9:04
Speaker 1: no nineteen ninety four World Series, and that lingered into
9:07
Speaker 1: spring training. So I had a minor league contract, so
9:09
Speaker 1: I went to spring training with the Pirates. Eventually, towards
9:12
Speaker 1: the ind of spring training, the lockout was done and
9:15
Speaker 1: the real rate major League Baseball players were back at it.
9:18
Speaker 1: And then there's gonna be a lot. It would be
9:20
Speaker 1: like a little delay because they're gonna late start to
9:22
Speaker 1: the spring training and they're gonna expand the rosters and
9:25
Speaker 1: do all these things. So I made the Triple A
9:27
Speaker 1: team to go start the regular minor league season. Now,
9:30
Speaker 1: my old scout who drafted the out of college, he
9:34
Speaker 1: kind of informed me. He says, hey, um, I know
9:36
Speaker 1: some guys that are agents and there are a pipeline
9:38
Speaker 1: to get players to Taiwan. He said, there's actually a
9:41
Speaker 1: team out there were an owner in Taiwan wants you
9:44
Speaker 1: on his team. I'm like, wow, how do they even
9:46
Speaker 1: know about me? So I say, I'm doing fine in
9:49
Speaker 1: truck way right now. If the Pirates, they say, I know,
9:51
Speaker 1: I know, but if something happens, give me a call. Well,
9:53
Speaker 1: after the first month of the season, you know, the
9:55
Speaker 1: Pirates were and everybody were setting their players down and
9:58
Speaker 1: there was crunch time, so the Pirates were least meet.
10:00
Speaker 1: So I said, Okay, baseball the messier in the United States.
10:03
Speaker 1: I'll go to Asia. Man, let me go to baseball's
10:05
Speaker 1: like over there, and then I'll try to get back
10:07
Speaker 1: in the States when things are all back under control.
10:09
Speaker 1: So that's just what kind of happened. And I went
10:11
Speaker 1: there for one year. It turned into being five, and
10:14
Speaker 1: little did you know that baseball in Taiwan was as
10:19
Speaker 1: crazy and potentially messy as it was in the major leagues.
10:24
Speaker 1: So tell a little bit about what your experience was there,
10:27
Speaker 1: and a very specific story that you shared on Twitter
10:30
Speaker 1: that uh is a very good reason why you would
10:33
Speaker 1: end up on the Favorite podcast. Okay, Well, I go
10:37
Speaker 1: to Taiwan. Don't play some baseball there. The fans love
10:41
Speaker 1: baseball there in Taiwan, that's their number one sport. They
10:43
Speaker 1: love it. The last year or so when I played there,
10:46
Speaker 1: they started building these nicer baseball stadiums when I was
10:50
Speaker 1: spending in these old kind of old ballparks of some sort.
10:53
Speaker 1: Now they were able to hold twelve fifteen up to
10:56
Speaker 1: maybe some of these parts eighteen thousand people, but they
10:59
Speaker 1: were kind of eat up. They're all dirt infield kind of.
11:02
Speaker 1: But the fans there are incredible. Some people I heard
11:05
Speaker 1: some people describe as be like Friday night football games.
11:08
Speaker 1: I mean, they have bands and they're just just like
11:10
Speaker 1: half the stadium is one team, the other half is
11:12
Speaker 1: the other. They wear the team's colors on both sides
11:15
Speaker 1: of the stadium. They both got their bands and they're
11:17
Speaker 1: playing music. They got drums, they're banging and the thing.
11:20
Speaker 1: They got these classic bat things that they bang pain
11:22
Speaker 1: paint too, and they're they're channing, they're singing, they're running
11:26
Speaker 1: back and forth with these big old banners. I mean,
11:28
Speaker 1: it's just crazy and it's just loud the whole game.
11:31
Speaker 1: It's a different kind of game. It's more of a
11:33
Speaker 1: small ball type of games. You know, there's a lot
11:35
Speaker 1: of funding going on it early in the games and
11:37
Speaker 1: things like that. But it was it was a difference
11:39
Speaker 1: for me to go to another part of the world,
11:41
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of getting my Spanish down, you know.
11:43
Speaker 1: And then in Mexico and I played a couple of
11:45
Speaker 1: winner balls in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Now a
11:47
Speaker 1: lot of people learn how to try to speak Chinese
11:49
Speaker 1: to survive. The food is different, the culture is different,
11:52
Speaker 1: Baseball is kind of played a little bit differently. But
11:54
Speaker 1: you know, I've learned how to get by and survived
11:56
Speaker 1: by already playing these different countries. How you learn how
11:59
Speaker 1: to find your way around. You learned the key words
12:01
Speaker 1: to speak so you you don't starve to death, You
12:03
Speaker 1: know how to get from one place to another, and
12:05
Speaker 1: all that sort of stuff. But then I guess the
12:07
Speaker 1: key point we're getting to. I mean, one thing bad though.
12:10
Speaker 1: As I say, before us in Taiwan, they were starting
12:12
Speaker 1: to take some nicer and nicer money. Someone told me, hey,
12:16
Speaker 1: baseball is really growing to Thailan. You can eventually make
12:18
Speaker 1: about a million bucks a year there. Okay, let me
12:21
Speaker 1: see what that's about. I mean, but the way I
12:23
Speaker 1: saw the fans there, and every game is televised throughout
12:26
Speaker 1: the whole country, and I thought there's a potential. Well
12:29
Speaker 1: then there's the rumblings. It was in my second year
12:32
Speaker 1: in Taiwan. That me and some guys, you know Cup,
12:34
Speaker 1: another American guy on my team, we started to hear
12:37
Speaker 1: that some guys were like fixing some baseball games to
12:40
Speaker 1: win or lose by certain amount of runs or to
12:43
Speaker 1: lack you have to lose the game. We started hearing
12:45
Speaker 1: about that. So me and my my buddy, we're kind
12:47
Speaker 1: of started watching the games more closely to see if
12:50
Speaker 1: they can knows that this was really happening or not.
12:53
Speaker 1: You know, so we're watching the other teams playing, and
12:54
Speaker 1: we're watching our teammates to see if there's any kind
12:57
Speaker 1: of goofy going on. So I would really hoping and
13:01
Speaker 1: believing that it wasn't true. But at one point during
13:04
Speaker 1: the season, you know, the home city I played, it
13:07
Speaker 1: was called tai Chung, and then the one of the
13:09
Speaker 1: teams from Taipei, which is the capital of capital city
13:12
Speaker 1: of Taiwan, the Elephants team was in town playing this
13:14
Speaker 1: in a four game series. And then the next day
13:17
Speaker 1: we heard this big commotion going on that some of
13:20
Speaker 1: the Elephant players ran into these gangsters at a at
13:24
Speaker 1: a bar and they took him back to the hotel.
13:27
Speaker 1: And the story was there's two sets of gangsters that
13:30
Speaker 1: had these elephant players supposed to manipulate a game from
13:33
Speaker 1: one group had him to win, the other group had
13:35
Speaker 1: him to loop. So the group that that got supposedly
13:39
Speaker 1: crossed ran into these guys at that bar, took him
13:41
Speaker 1: back to the hotel room, and one of the elephant
13:43
Speaker 1: players kind of lipped up to these gangsters and he
13:46
Speaker 1: proceeded to pull a gun out and pistol whip them
13:49
Speaker 1: across the head. So now that next day at our ballpark,
13:51
Speaker 1: we saw this extra security around their dug out and
13:55
Speaker 1: at at the field two, and then we saw this
13:56
Speaker 1: guy that had a big old bandige wrapped around his
13:59
Speaker 1: head and all this kind of stuf. So we kind
14:00
Speaker 1: of started hearing the store from that. So then it
14:03
Speaker 1: was like, man, there must be something going on with this.
14:05
Speaker 1: About three weeks to about a month later at this time,
14:08
Speaker 1: there's probably about five to six weeks left in the season.
14:11
Speaker 1: How much were you making at this point in Taiwan?
14:13
Speaker 1: I was making over a hundred thousand dollars playing there,
14:15
Speaker 1: all right, so you were making a decent especially in
14:18
Speaker 1: ninety five, like in Taiwan, and like do they pay
14:21
Speaker 1: for your housing? Like what is sort of the financial
14:23
Speaker 1: situations a hundred thousand, then you get to put in
14:25
Speaker 1: your pocket or you gotta pay for other stuff too.
14:27
Speaker 1: I took care of my apartment while I was there.
14:29
Speaker 1: But also what they did in Taiwan, and they paid
14:31
Speaker 1: your bonus money for every time you won a game.
14:34
Speaker 1: The team page a bonus. You know, if you're the
14:36
Speaker 1: starting pitcher and you went nine innings, you've got a
14:39
Speaker 1: nice trunk of money. If you were three for four
14:41
Speaker 1: or the home run, you got a nice trunk of money.
14:43
Speaker 1: Even if you sat on the bench, they gave you something.
14:45
Speaker 1: It's like thirty bucks worth of money just by being
14:48
Speaker 1: on the winning team. So you have these bonuses that
14:51
Speaker 1: you made too. So it's weird to me, like people
14:54
Speaker 1: are getting paid pretty well and they're getting these bonuses.
14:58
Speaker 1: You've really got to be incentivized. If, like you had
15:00
Speaker 1: heard there were gangsters trying to get people to throw games, right, yeah,
15:06
Speaker 1: I was kind of surprised that you're getting paid, as
15:08
Speaker 1: why would people even want to do it. Gambling is
15:10
Speaker 1: a big part of the culture there too, so well, right,
15:14
Speaker 1: it just things happened one night after a game, you
15:18
Speaker 1: are approached by a buddy. He wants to go sing
15:21
Speaker 1: at a karaoke bar, which is a pretty regular thing
15:23
Speaker 1: because that's a big part of the culture there in Taiwan.
15:26
Speaker 1: They love to sing. There's karaoke bars everywhere. I mean,
15:29
Speaker 1: like I mean in the building. There might be three
15:31
Speaker 1: different businesses in one building. You look down the street
15:34
Speaker 1: used to down the road, you see four or five
15:36
Speaker 1: of these things, so they're big. I was asked numerous
15:38
Speaker 1: times by friends that I got to know their teammate,
15:42
Speaker 1: the Taiwanese people who often want to bring me because
15:45
Speaker 1: I could sing the American song. I sung them terribly,
15:48
Speaker 1: but they told me I was good. We we need
15:50
Speaker 1: your go to karaoke song on Well, first of all,
15:53
Speaker 1: I tell my boy can't sing. I'm terrible. Only time
15:55
Speaker 1: I can sing if I'm drunk. I mean, I'll tell
15:56
Speaker 1: you about within a second, there's a glass of full
15:59
Speaker 1: whiskey right in front of my face. So that's another
16:01
Speaker 1: part of the culture there too. But my go to
16:03
Speaker 1: song was Come Together by the Beatles? How did you
16:06
Speaker 1: end up with Come Together by the Beatles? I gotta
16:08
Speaker 1: go to karaoke song too. It's I want to be
16:10
Speaker 1: sedated by the Ramones, which is basically how people feel
16:13
Speaker 1: when they hear me sing I like that song. By
16:15
Speaker 1: the way, I was one singing karaoke in a bar
16:18
Speaker 1: and the bartender asked one of the people I was
16:20
Speaker 1: with to make sure that I didn't do it again
16:22
Speaker 1: to story, So I didn't sing good, but they kept
16:26
Speaker 1: telling me, and they kept asking me to sing more
16:27
Speaker 1: and more. All right, so you get invited to go
16:30
Speaker 1: to this karaoke bar by someone you know that's on
16:32
Speaker 1: the team. Yeah, he was a guy that worked. He
16:34
Speaker 1: was a young kid that worked through the team. I
16:36
Speaker 1: like the kid a lot. We often did a lot
16:38
Speaker 1: of things together, so it was no big deal for
16:41
Speaker 1: him to say, I know some people that want to
16:43
Speaker 1: take us out to the KTV tonight. It's all right,
16:45
Speaker 1: let's go do it. You know. We go in there
16:47
Speaker 1: and we know most of the people people I've seen
16:49
Speaker 1: before this or that. We drink, we sing, we eat,
16:52
Speaker 1: they bring lots of food in and it's a good time.
16:55
Speaker 1: So I thought, Hey, no big deal, done it. Before
16:57
Speaker 1: we go as usual, were going a place it's entai
17:01
Speaker 1: Kai I know, I remember I basically I think we went.
17:03
Speaker 1: I was like on the ten force, so it was
17:04
Speaker 1: kind of a little bit taller of the building and
17:06
Speaker 1: all those buildings are It's like being in New York City.
17:08
Speaker 1: Everywhere it's like just a densely populated place. So anyways,
17:12
Speaker 1: we walk in the place and normally when we go
17:15
Speaker 1: would be like five the six guys that most you know,
17:18
Speaker 1: something left laying there. I bet there's like fifteen, maybe
17:20
Speaker 1: twenty people, and so there before the room was bigger
17:23
Speaker 1: than normal, and I walked in. At first I wasn't
17:26
Speaker 1: really looking there, but I didn't really recognize anybody, which
17:29
Speaker 1: is like, oh wow, a lot of people I don't know.
17:32
Speaker 1: Maybe some friends of mine who I will know might
17:35
Speaker 1: come later or something. So me and my buddy we
17:37
Speaker 1: sit down and have a few drinks and listen to
17:40
Speaker 1: the music. And then this Taiwan easy lady approached me.
17:43
Speaker 1: And she came up and, speaking in English, asked me
17:47
Speaker 1: my name. So I told her my name, says what
17:48
Speaker 1: are you doing here? I want I'm a baseball player, okay,
17:51
Speaker 1: and then just making some little talk. After about a
17:54
Speaker 1: few minutes or so wherever it was, then she is
17:57
Speaker 1: asking me and then this is where I knew gambling
18:00
Speaker 1: was for sure going on. She goes done, do you
18:03
Speaker 1: know what the untruthed game is, and uh, I just
18:06
Speaker 1: kind of looked down, and I mean I immediately knew
18:09
Speaker 1: what she was getting at, the untruth game, the faith game,
18:12
Speaker 1: the fixing of baseball games. So I'm just sitting there thinking,
18:16
Speaker 1: and she's asked me, would you like we can somehow?
18:20
Speaker 1: She said some would you like to do that with
18:22
Speaker 1: our group? Have you ever heard of the phrase the
18:25
Speaker 1: untruth game before? At that point I might have, but
18:28
Speaker 1: when she said it, I knew exactly what she was
18:30
Speaker 1: getting at. I'm trying to think, now, how am I
18:32
Speaker 1: gonna get out of here? Now? Now? As I kind
18:35
Speaker 1: of looked lift my eyes up and I'm scanning the room,
18:38
Speaker 1: I'm realizing these guys are gangsters. Here's right in the
18:41
Speaker 1: middle of the whole room is the big the Big
18:43
Speaker 1: Boss himself kind of surrounded with some kind of looking guys,
18:47
Speaker 1: you know, but you kind of picture in your mind.
18:49
Speaker 1: So I'm thinking, man, So she looks, oh, you're looking
18:53
Speaker 1: so sad, like, Oh no, no, I'm fine. So, hey,
18:56
Speaker 1: do you see that girl over there? She points across
18:58
Speaker 1: the room. Do you think she's cute? Well, yeah, sure,
19:00
Speaker 1: she's cute, just you can have her. Oh okay, then
19:04
Speaker 1: I go, you know what, I don't think I'm gonna
19:06
Speaker 1: be able to do this. No, just here's what we
19:08
Speaker 1: got it, here's what we do. They told me that
19:10
Speaker 1: they'll give you ten thousand dollars right now just to
19:13
Speaker 1: think about it. And I'm going no, no, I you
19:16
Speaker 1: know it, I'm not gonna do this. Go do you
19:18
Speaker 1: see that girl over there, that other one? Yeah, you
19:21
Speaker 1: can have her too, and there. Tell me we can
19:23
Speaker 1: make a lot of money doing this. So I finally said,
19:26
Speaker 1: you know it. Go tell the boss. They can bet
19:29
Speaker 1: on me to win all they want. But no, I'm
19:31
Speaker 1: not throwing any games. Tell him no, are you sure? Like? Yeah,
19:34
Speaker 1: tell him no right now, because now you know if
19:37
Speaker 1: you never you don't do this, you'll never win a game.
19:39
Speaker 1: Here again, I said, go ahead, that's fine. So she
19:41
Speaker 1: walks off. Fifteen feet away. She goes up to the
19:44
Speaker 1: big boss, and she tells him what I said, because
19:47
Speaker 1: then so that she has done talking, his head turned
19:49
Speaker 1: and met my eye immediately, and he didn't look too
19:52
Speaker 1: happy with it. About a couple of seconds he stands
19:56
Speaker 1: up and so he yells out loudly in the whole
19:58
Speaker 1: place something in Chinese. I and understand it, but like
20:01
Speaker 1: then a second or two. The music stopped. It was
20:04
Speaker 1: dead silent, and then I guess they're saying, everybody, we're leaving.
20:07
Speaker 1: So everybody started standing up and then started making the
20:10
Speaker 1: way to the door. They come back to me and said, yeah,
20:13
Speaker 1: you're leaving too. I go, oh, that's right, I'll I'll
20:15
Speaker 1: let you guys go. Now let them all leave. The
20:18
Speaker 1: off the door and I was gonna say you and
20:20
Speaker 1: sneak out of back door. Now I know I'm dealing
20:22
Speaker 1: with these gangs. I mean, they pistol with people on
20:24
Speaker 1: the heads, and you know they kill people. So I'm like, nah,
20:28
Speaker 1: I'll stare. Well, they kind of kind of not grabbed me,
20:31
Speaker 1: but they kind of pushed me and shoe me out
20:33
Speaker 1: the door. We go and towards an elevator and the oh, brother,
20:37
Speaker 1: so maybe I'll wait to be the last one elevator.
20:38
Speaker 1: I'll take the stairs down somewhere or something. Not they
20:41
Speaker 1: get me on the elevator and I'm the last gay
20:42
Speaker 1: in this elevator car. So I means as the door
20:45
Speaker 1: shuts right in my face, my back is turned everybody.
20:48
Speaker 1: Now I'm getting real nervous. Part I'm getting real nervousness
20:51
Speaker 1: is what direction is the elevator gonna go in, it's
20:54
Speaker 1: gonna go up or down. If it's gonna go off,
20:56
Speaker 1: that's to the roof. I'm getting tossed off the roof.
20:59
Speaker 1: My heart was pounding, needless to say, but it's I
21:02
Speaker 1: don't know if it's slowed down a little bit. But
21:04
Speaker 1: it felt better that we were making our way down
21:06
Speaker 1: the elevator. Now to go down ten floors took a
21:09
Speaker 1: real long time. In my mind, I was literally waiting
21:12
Speaker 1: for soa like step something around my neck and choke
21:15
Speaker 1: me off from behind and strangle me. We finally make
21:18
Speaker 1: it down to the lobby floor, the door, the door opens,
21:22
Speaker 1: they got left, I go right. That was when I
21:25
Speaker 1: felt like just this great relief. Then I saw the
21:28
Speaker 1: guy that Broughatbly there, my buddy. I went up to
21:30
Speaker 1: him and I do some some words I won't use
21:32
Speaker 1: here on your show, but some of them start with
21:34
Speaker 1: the letter up and asked what the blank was going on?
21:37
Speaker 1: What is this about? And he and he started apologizing.
21:40
Speaker 1: He's almost in tears, ready to cry, apologizing, saying he's sorry, sorry,
21:44
Speaker 1: says they made me bring you here, and so don't
21:46
Speaker 1: you ever have to do that again. I was never
21:49
Speaker 1: approached again that season about that stuff at all. Was
21:54
Speaker 1: there any moment when that woman approached you and she's like,
22:00
Speaker 1: you can have this woman, You can have this woman.
22:02
Speaker 1: Just think about it for ten k Was there even
22:05
Speaker 1: a second where you're like hesitating, You didn't, you didn't
22:10
Speaker 1: oullowed say it, but like, did you run through scenarios
22:13
Speaker 1: in your head? No, it was a It was a
22:15
Speaker 1: flat not because I was looking. I was upset that
22:18
Speaker 1: there could be gambling going on with my teammates or
22:21
Speaker 1: or the rest of the players in the league, you know,
22:23
Speaker 1: And and I'm glad. I mean, I didn't want to
22:26
Speaker 1: do it. And I looked back now and think that,
22:28
Speaker 1: you know, I couldn't made a lot of money doing it,
22:30
Speaker 1: but I didn't. I wanted to keep my integrity, you know. Um,
22:34
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be a cheater. Um I wanted
22:36
Speaker 1: I didn't want to ruin my name and base especially
22:38
Speaker 1: after being a major league baseball player, and the last
22:41
Speaker 1: major major thing was I didn't want to embarrass have
22:44
Speaker 1: my name being an embarrassment with baseball for my son,
22:47
Speaker 1: who was a little kid at the time. So I
22:50
Speaker 1: had all those things that was just straight out there.
22:52
Speaker 1: There's no there's no way I was gonna do it,
22:55
Speaker 1: don It's such a wild story. I was. So I've
22:57
Speaker 1: been thinking about this in the context of why they
22:59
Speaker 1: would have preatricy like you. It's one of my favorite
23:02
Speaker 1: Major League Baseball records is Steve Carlton, the fact that
23:05
Speaker 1: he won twenty seven games for Phillies team that won
23:07
Speaker 1: fifty nine games. You won fourteen games for a CPBL
23:12
Speaker 1: team that won twenty eight games in one season, so
23:14
Speaker 1: you were responsible for half of the team's wins and
23:18
Speaker 1: of their innings pitch for the season. Do you think,
23:20
Speaker 1: because you were essentially the workhorse of the league at
23:24
Speaker 1: that point, that they saw you as a guy who
23:26
Speaker 1: could have more influence on the outcome of these games. Probably? Yeah.
23:30
Speaker 1: I mean we're on the last place team. We're a
23:32
Speaker 1: bad team. Yeah. We we played a hundred games that
23:35
Speaker 1: year and we only won eight. So I won half
23:38
Speaker 1: the games. Plus I saved the game that year, So
23:40
Speaker 1: I was just consible the wins that year. I think
23:44
Speaker 1: I looked back. I think they approached me because we
23:47
Speaker 1: were last we are losing all the time, and that,
23:50
Speaker 1: oh well, we're losing anyways, I might as well make
23:52
Speaker 1: some money doing it. You know, maybe because I was
23:54
Speaker 1: a major league maybe I maybe I get pulled off.
23:56
Speaker 1: I don't think I could have pulled off either. If
23:58
Speaker 1: I wanted to, I would try to rold fall four
24:00
Speaker 1: and I fight. I thought it right down the middle
24:02
Speaker 1: of the plate, I would try to throw. The game
24:04
Speaker 1: would be so obvious that they would just probably arrest
24:07
Speaker 1: me right off the field, put me in handcuffs there
24:09
Speaker 1: or something, you know, So they must have thought that
24:11
Speaker 1: I can pull this off. Now, the funny thing about
24:13
Speaker 1: it was they told me I've never won a game. Well,
24:16
Speaker 1: my last five games of the season, I had four
24:18
Speaker 1: wins and won no decision. So you know, they let
24:22
Speaker 1: me be and then you know, I didn't lose any
24:24
Speaker 1: more games and I played the rest of the year.
24:26
Speaker 1: Two years later, after that nineties six season, in Taiwan,
24:31
Speaker 1: they formed a second professional baseball league. I joined that one. Now,
24:36
Speaker 1: good thing I did that, because when this ninety six
24:38
Speaker 1: season ended, the gambling stuff came out in the news
24:41
Speaker 1: in Taiwan and the fans were deeply hurt. Now not
24:45
Speaker 1: only that, but several players in Taiwan got arrested. One
24:48
Speaker 1: team had so many guys arrested that they couldn't have
24:51
Speaker 1: a team the next year unless unless the other teams
24:53
Speaker 1: in the league loaned them players for the following season.
24:57
Speaker 1: So we moved on, and I moved on into the
25:00
Speaker 1: that was called the Taiwan Major League that next year.
25:02
Speaker 1: Good thing about that was we were a brand new leak,
25:05
Speaker 1: so we were cleaned, so we didn't have it again
25:07
Speaker 1: with the fans that were just truly faithful to the teams.
25:10
Speaker 1: I mean there was thousands of thousands of people going
25:13
Speaker 1: to games. And then in that following season, after all
25:17
Speaker 1: came out in the CPBL, sometimes like a couple of
25:19
Speaker 1: hundred people would come to a game, so it hurt
25:21
Speaker 1: them big time. The fans felt cheated. So I moved
25:24
Speaker 1: on to the Taiwan Major League. Now, in that next year,
25:28
Speaker 1: I was out one time and this one guy again,
25:31
Speaker 1: this other guy approached me and they wanted to go out.
25:33
Speaker 1: And I was a little suspicious something or other, and
25:35
Speaker 1: he came in. HEAs, hey, there's this guy. He wants us.
25:38
Speaker 1: He wants me to know if you'll if you'll do
25:39
Speaker 1: the storm games. I said no, no, no, and he says, okay,
25:42
Speaker 1: Because I had to ask the gangsters all know that
25:45
Speaker 1: you won't do it, but they wanted me to ask
25:47
Speaker 1: you anyways, I said, will you go tell night you
25:49
Speaker 1: better mean to win? But none of this. So it
25:51
Speaker 1: did come back a couple of years later, and man,
25:54
Speaker 1: that's just kind of a sort of why why they
25:55
Speaker 1: chose me? Well, they thought maybe I could pull it
25:58
Speaker 1: off or to make a lot of money doing it.
26:00
Speaker 1: Were you ever scared after they had approached you and
26:03
Speaker 1: you said no, Once you get out of the elevator
26:05
Speaker 1: and we're back sort of in general life, Yeah, I
26:09
Speaker 1: was scared. Yeah, I mean I knew I was in
26:11
Speaker 1: a room full of gangsters and I'm telling them no
26:13
Speaker 1: that big time in the in that in that karaoke
26:16
Speaker 1: room was supposed to be a big celebration of me
26:19
Speaker 1: joining force with them to make a lot of money,
26:21
Speaker 1: and then and then in their face I tell them no,
26:24
Speaker 1: so they don't play nice. So I was. I was
26:27
Speaker 1: in fear of my life. I mean, I thought I
26:29
Speaker 1: would be throwing off of or killed or or something's
26:31
Speaker 1: gonna happen to me. So yeah, I was afraid. And
26:34
Speaker 1: I thought, who knows in the next few weeks or
26:37
Speaker 1: to come, you know, my suddenly is something gonna get
26:40
Speaker 1: me out of nowhere, So I was kind of looking
26:42
Speaker 1: over my shoulder a little bit, but nothing never did.
26:46
Speaker 1: You know, he talked a lot about losing with integrity,
26:48
Speaker 1: and I think that's certainly something that people could understand.
26:51
Speaker 1: But when we're coming off of, you know, the the
26:54
Speaker 1: entire Astros scandal, and obviously we haven't really seen that
26:57
Speaker 1: play out because we haven't had major league games for
27:00
Speaker 1: those players to get food yet. But you know, based
27:02
Speaker 1: on the era when you played, I'm sure you had
27:04
Speaker 1: guys doctor and the baseball stuff like that. How did
27:07
Speaker 1: you feel at the time about guys trying to gain
27:11
Speaker 1: an unfair edge, you know, on the field in terms
27:14
Speaker 1: of trying to win, you know, unrelated to the gambling
27:17
Speaker 1: side of things. That's when I was playing in major
27:20
Speaker 1: leagues or even minor league baseball. I mean, guys are
27:22
Speaker 1: trying to stuff the ball up a little bit and
27:24
Speaker 1: get a little movement, and some guys that loaded up
27:26
Speaker 1: and build a little spit ball here and there. I
27:29
Speaker 1: mean getting signed. But I think on the field is fair.
27:34
Speaker 1: If there's a runner on second, that's why the catcher
27:36
Speaker 1: gives multiple signs because guys to look in and I
27:38
Speaker 1: think that's part of the game. But how long is
27:41
Speaker 1: the guy in the second base? Is he there long
27:43
Speaker 1: enough to get the signs and then have time to
27:46
Speaker 1: then flash into the batter. Yeah, it happens, but it's hard.
27:49
Speaker 1: But if you're sitting there with a TV monitor watching
27:52
Speaker 1: every single pitch and you break their codes, you know
27:55
Speaker 1: what's coming in. You're banging drumps. That's just that's outside.
27:58
Speaker 1: That's using technology and and cheating in that way. You know,
28:01
Speaker 1: I felt that what the Houston Nationals did were was
28:05
Speaker 1: definitely wrong. He said, you're writing the book. I want
28:08
Speaker 1: everyone to follow you at Don August thirty eight because
28:12
Speaker 1: I feel like they're gonna enjoy more and more stories
28:15
Speaker 1: from the wild and fabulous world of international baseball. Yeah,
28:20
Speaker 1: I got the rough book already written out. I'm just
28:22
Speaker 1: in the process of ending it clean up with. I mean,
28:24
Speaker 1: the guy I'm working with is you know, we're trying
28:26
Speaker 1: to get an editor a publisher, which is always the
28:29
Speaker 1: hardest part. But you know, I think one of the
28:31
Speaker 1: reasons why my son, Hey, let's thro some some stories
28:34
Speaker 1: up there. If they're good. This thing kind of does
28:36
Speaker 1: a hey cam cam hurts. So yeah, alright, Don August
28:42
Speaker 1: at Don August thirty eight. Thank you very much for
28:45
Speaker 1: coming on the Favorites. Thank you everybody for listening to
28:49
Speaker 1: the Favorites. Downloaded from Apple podcasts, from Spotify, from Stitcher,
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Speaker 1: anywhere you get your podcast. Rate review, subscribe, unsubscribe, re
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Speaker 1: subscribe until next time. I Love you, h