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Lovable Reunion - Tom Ricketts on breaking Chicago Cubs curse, World Series rain delay & celebration | Ross & Rizzo · Ross and Rizzo Unfiltered

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hobby. I think Hobby sneakly was a lot of people's
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: favorite player on that team.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Like I talk to people, they I mean I cried
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: when we traded him, like great story, like he We're
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: out on a family vacation and and you know is
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: you know everybody's getting traded. It's it's the red wedding.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: That whole week. It was awful, like but the that's good,
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: That's what Randy Borsh called it. And uh, like I'm
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: really just down on the whole thing. It's just kind
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: of a bummer. And I walked back to the to
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: the to the to the family and I'm like, hey,
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: we just we just traded a hobby and uh and
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: then and then uh and then one of my kids
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: like who we get. I'm like, oh, this first round
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: named Pete peul Armstrong. So my son Nick goes, oh,
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: that dude that keeps up on my couch Like yeah.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: So it turns out PC as friends with the one
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: of Nick's friends and literally like spent spring break on
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: his couch like the year before.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Wait a minute, what was going on that week? We
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: gotta we gotta nix this trade immediately.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, cancel and cancel yeah, or that was a
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: good story.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: You gotywhere to be?
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: No, I'm all good, let's go, let's go.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: All right, got to run the show.
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: This is gonna be the only intro I read off
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: the paper because I can't mess this up, because you're
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: too important. So Anthony Rizzo, David Ross, Tom Ricketts kills me.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: Say Tom, Welcome back to another episode of the Level
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: of Reunion. Today we have our most important guests of
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: them all, the man and family who had a vision
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: that started as a dream and along the way build
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: something bigger than baseball, a culture, a family, and a
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: team that people everywhere could believe in, and delivered a
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: moment that Cubs fans will never forget. It's hard for
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: me to call you anything other than mister Ris, but
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: today I'm gonna call you Tom. Hey. Thanks, Thanks, Welcome
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: Tom Rickets to the show.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, beautiful intro. Thank you.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: I have a hard time calling you Tom. And I
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: used to always call you mister Ricketts, and you used
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: to always say, please just call me Tom. And now
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: through the years I found out it actually made you
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: annoyed that I called you mister Ricketts.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you can go back to that if you want. Now,
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Uh no, it's yeah, a lot of guys. It's kind
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: of funny. Is the only place I get called mister
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: Rickets is by the players.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: I think when the boss man walks in, though, yeah,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: you feel a little bit of that. I felt I
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: was telling we were having kind of story time before,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, I remember being the manager. All of
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: a sudden you have a different perspective about the boss
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: and you're like, wait a minute, he bought this trash can,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: he bought his rug, He's paid for everything.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: I bought that left fielder.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: Do you ever think like when you came to my
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: wedding right? Yea, yeah, and it was a great time.
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: Is there ever a time you thought I paid for this? No,
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: because I would if I, like I put myself in
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: dream as being an owner, I'd be like, oh, that's cool.
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: Like sometimes I would see you in the parking lot
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: and I'd have my nice car, and I'd be like,
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: what if everything's like I'm just this little name.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: For everybody's everybody's nice rides.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah? No, no, I never would think that way. I
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: would think you earned this.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: Thank you, I appreciate it. That's nice. So the dream
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: of buying the Cubs, Right, you grew up a Cubs
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: fan and you and your family get together really turn
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: a dream into reality and you buy the team. What
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: can you still can you believe that you're the owner
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: of the Chicago Cubs or the chairman everything.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, you talk about a dream coming true, you
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: talk about winning the World Series, the dream come true.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: It's kind of a dream come true for me as well.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Like the you know, we grew up in Omaha, you know,
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: pretty pretty modest background, you know, regular childhood, like worked
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: at bur King, did all the things regular kids do.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: We just had a normal life. Came out to university
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: here at University of Chicago, and I started in eighty three.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Eighty four was of course the eighty four team, which is,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: you know, one of the most iconic teams in the
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: history of the club, and all these great players and
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: all these really compelling guys that you just wanted to
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: cheer for, and it just swept the city up. And
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: my first baseball game was it as it was a
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Wriggly and I was kind of a Cub fan, but
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: I cheered for the Royals as well because I was
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: in Omaha. But then once once that eighty four team hit.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: I was hooked.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: And so then we you know, we cheered for that,
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: you know, we cheered for them. And then after college
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: we moved around every every year, moved different apartments, but
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: we always you know, went to Cubs games, and that
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: was our thing. That was like our every Saturday and
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Sunday we would have like ten bleacher tickets. And in fact,
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: one year we lived literally right above the sports Corner bar, really,
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: and so people would come by and goes, hey, Riggets,
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: I got some tickets. Or one night, you guys are
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: probably one night I was up there and the doorbell
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: rings and the guys like my buddy would he's like, hey,
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: you gotta come downstairs, man, and I'm walked down. He's
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: playing pool in the sports Corner bar with John Kruk,
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: no way, which I knew Kruk from my fantasy teams
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: and anyway, but anyway, so we had our whole social
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: life was around Wrigley. And now that was before like
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: you know, my family made a lot of money. My
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: dad made a lot of money, but like, but you know,
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: it was our so life. We were there all the time.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: And and in fact, my business school, that's say, when
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: I applied to business school. They asked, you know, what's
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: your dream job, and I said, don't a baseball team?
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: But no, we had we got to get that paper.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we do what it wants a few years ago
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: and then I put it somewhere that I can't find
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: it again. But it's out there.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Wow, I can't find things. I asked for the W
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: flag one time when I managed and called you and
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: you were like, yeah, I gotta find that thing somewhere,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: but I have no, no, you put it in my office.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: Ok.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, you you you took care of me.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: You always take care of us. But uh, yeah, you
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: put that I called just the one thing I want
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: to symbolize me as a manager and what we're all
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: about is just like keep it about the W and
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: you you framed it nicely and put in my office.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah it was up on your wall.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah it was up on my wall. But you, uh,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: I think you had to find it for a minute.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: It's like you've got you've got a lot of memorabilia
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: laying around here. That's that's for sure.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: That you met CC here.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I met my wife and the bleachers. Wow, true story.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: We always we always sat in the front row of
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: center field because uh, two reasons. One, it's a great seat.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, people forget, people don't realize like
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: so many other ballparks, like the bullpens are between men.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: There's outfield, then the bullpen, then the fans. Really it's
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: not like that at all. Right, they're right on top
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: of you in the outfield and that. And we never
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: could get motivated early enough to be on the wall
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: then right and left. That's I'm just too early in
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: the morning for us. But we would take the front
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: row of center field on every game and get there
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: in time to get the front row because not only
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: could you see the game very well, but you could
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: send somebody down to get beers and you could just
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: hand the beers up. And this is before the tyranny
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: of the two beer limit, so you could send a
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: guy down with sixty four bucks and get sixteen beers
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: passed back up to the whole crowd. Oh wow, that
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: was our routine, and we were there.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: It was a beer choice. It was a old style back.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: That was the only old style in the stadium.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: It was fifty to fifty. You know, I probably did
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: some old style, but you know, I'm very very happy
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: with our bud partnership, So of course, yeah, of course,
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: yeah did a little bit of both. In fact, they're
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: a lot of Old Style. In fact, it was funny
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: we bought the team. Old Style sent me a big
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: box and I'm like, oh, it's going to be like
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: a lamp or a poster or something. And I pulled
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: this box open and it's a twelve pack of just
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: just two six packs. Bo that's a nine dollars value.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: But anyway, I sort of put.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: It in the fridge of morn stip it put it.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: I put it in my office and then we pulled
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: it out like that Friday afternoon, passed out some Old
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Styles and I literally took my first swig and I'm like, oh,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: that's what old Style tastes like without peanut shells in it.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, because all the time it was old Style. Anyway,
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: So yeah, we sat in the center field bleachers. My
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: wife and a bunch of her college friends were sitting
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: right next to us.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: And what was the pickup line? What was the icebreaker? Ah?
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: Gosh, you know, I don't know if I remember what
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: the pickup line was. But what happened was we met there,
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: and of course the Bleachers is one big party, as
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: you guys know, and you meet a lot of people
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: and then we're like, hey, we'll meet you girls at
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: Taste of Lincoln Avenue. You know, we're going to taste
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: a Lincoln Avenue as this festival. It was down like
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: on like you know, bright Wood and Lincoln. And of
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: course that's like saying i'll see you out because there's
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: you know, it's.
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: Of course it's such. It was there.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: There's fifty thousand people. There are twenty thousand people there.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: But got lucky friend of mine had a little little
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: party out in his garden apartment with a bunch of
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: kegs sitting out looked up and they were all my
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: wife and all of her friends lined up to go
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: into like the like the porta potties or something. I'm okay,
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: we know you guys wow. And then I was just
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: chatting with her and she was a fourth year med
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: student out with really fun friends, you know, having a
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: few beers on a Sunday afternoon. I thought that was
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: a respectful kind of that's kind of a cool way
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: to start.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a good first date.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good first date. And so followed up
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: from there well.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: We got got a cool story coming back now and
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: being the owner of the Cubs, and right, that's how
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: where you met your wife and might go how that
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: story plays out pretty small.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: One day her friends bought, you know, bought some bleacher
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: tickets and said, it's the anniversary of you guys, like
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: July twenty nine anniversary. Go sit in the front row.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: Now they've rebuilt the bleachers twice since then, so so
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: so my seat actually is it just like it was,
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: but it's pretty close.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: That was my first year here with all the construction
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: with the bleachers in fifteen, and we played with no fans.
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah to start right, yeah, start yeah, yeah.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: I'll be pissed that one ready by opening day. One
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: of the many things you gotta do with Hey, we
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: have some very exciting announcement to share with you guys.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: We've had so much fun filming The Lovable Reunion. We
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: have a perfect exclamation point for this series.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: On Thursday, July sixteenth, at the Chicago Theater, we'll be
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: hosting The Lovable Reunion Live in partnership with Marque Sports.
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: Me and Rossi will be joined on stage by Joe
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: Madden Dexter Fowler to really the biggest moments from their
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: run and some things that didn't make into the podcast.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: And the show will be moderated by the voice of
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: the Cubs, John boog Shambi.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Tickets go on sell June fifth. The link is in
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: our bio, but for our loyal viewers who are watching
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: this right now, you can use code or reunion for
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: early access.
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: Okay, your tickets now and we see July sixteenth at
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: the Iconic Chicago Theater.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Let's go get your tickets. People. I actually want to
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: go back to, like when you made that phone call
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: to your siblings and how all that went down, Like
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: you guys just hop on a call and say, hey,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: this is a real viable option. Yeah, well so everybody
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: on board?
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah well yeah, I mean the siblings were. The funny
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: part was I did reach out to my dad, and
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: my dad, you know, he was he's a very very
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: successful man, made lots of lots of money and put
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: some of it in the kids' names. So that's kind
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: of what we were, you know, managing or what we
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: oversee and and I just called them up. So what
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: would you think if we took you know, this this
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: pocket of money and made it like the equity component
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: of our bid for the Cubs. And my dad, who's
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: not a sports fan, so that's the stupidest thing you've
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: ever said. And I'm like, okay, well I get some salesman, right,
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: so stupid and no, we're totally different answers. Yeah, I'm like, stupid,
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: I can work with stupid. So like, I go bad, No,
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: I can work with stupid. So I went back and
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: I'm like, then I started doing all the math, like, well, actually,
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: these aren't bad investments. They tend to go up the
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: recession proof. They're you know, like, we weren't thinking of
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: it in those terms exactly, but it wasn't it's not
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: it's not a it's not a dumb thing to do.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: And at the time we didn't really understand all the
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: all the problems that we had with the ballpark or
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: any other issues. But but then, you know, so eventually,
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: you know, we actually Dad came out, we had a
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: he had a we had a party, and we were
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: on one of the rooftops and Dad's like, wow, really,
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: this is really different. I understand when you look. Of course,
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: this is not exactly at all what I expected. No,
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's a ballpark, but it's a unique ballpark,
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: and it's a it's in a neighborhood, but it's a
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: unique neighborhood. It's a special game to experience that that
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: no one else has. And that's and he's like, oh,
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: I get it, I get I get why you guys
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: want to do this. So at the siblings, of course,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: we're all in there pretty much.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Do you bring them to a day game or a
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: night game?
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: It was a day game game.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the best one.
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: I think. I think it's so cool looking back and
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: seeing some of your interviews and I texted you, I
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: got chills watching it. Everything that you said early on
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: as the owner came true. You came in and you said,
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: we're going to rebuild the infrastructure here. We're gona the
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: best facility for not only the fan experience but the
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: player experience. You rebuild MESA first, which was incredible. Then
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: you start doing all the renovations here in steps the Dominican,
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: the facilities there. I think you were a pioneer in
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: that right. You were one of the first facilities that.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: Well we now, I think a lot of guys were
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: already down there, but our facilities were bad, pretty bad.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: The first state of the art, and it's so cool
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: to walk back and say, I'm going to redo all
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: of this. I'm gonna build a championship team and we're
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: gonna win a World Series here. And literally the year
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: pretty much the year that everything got done, we win
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: the World Series. So we were talking maybe the curse
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: was maybe in the clubhouse or something.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: That net that dropped down in front of the TV
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: right and I remember that, Oh my gosh, my blocker
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: was right there. And then we get this nice facility.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: We come in twenty sixteen and things just take off.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I remember that that net. Like I never
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: really was in the clubhouse before we closed on the deal,
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Like I walked around the park, but it was quick.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: It was cursory, like the you know, the cellar gave
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: you some materials and I'm like, I can't. We hired
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: a an architecture firm to help us look at it
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: a little bit, but you really don't. You don't get
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: much feel for it. We're like, hey, we'll have to
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: solve that problem afterward. And I'm walking through that first
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: time and I'm like, oh my god, this is so bad,
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: Like and that little tunnel across from where the where
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: the media room was, and it was just like dirt
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: and like where the quick creatives or whatever we throw
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: on the field. And I'm like, can't we leasse put
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: a curtain over this? I mean it was, it was.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: It was awful and uh and the and the tea
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: and I thought it was a joke when they that
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: tea was and I'm like, that's it.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Then what do we do with well even the board
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: to protect the t.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: So the ball doesn't break the television, like.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: That's how you're supposed to get loose and you're hitting
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: on carpet like it was.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a show. I'm so excited to see
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: in July. Is bon Jovi at the Garden.
• 13:50
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• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Thank you, see Geek, Thanks suit Boop, shout out suit
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Book SG in the house.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: But yeah, but obviously, like you know, just had a
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: great team. You know, Crane was already here, so he
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: kind of knew some of the things we'd have to do.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Brought in a lot of great people to help, and
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: I just started like making the list of all the
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: things we had to fix, and you know list, it
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: was a long list, and it took a long time.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: And then you know, you start, you start with what
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: you think is going to be the a plan, and
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: that over time, like the city has ideas and slows
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: you down a little bit. And then while you're delayed,
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: you change it around a little bit. And you know,
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: we got player input and and you know, tried to
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: make it as best we can. But yeah, all the
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: facilities now, I mean, I'm you know, obviously the greatest
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: thing we ever did is what you guys did in
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: twenty sixteen. But I'm just super proud of how the
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: ballpark looks and how it plays and and how fans
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: like it. And you know, there are people that come
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: to the game now who take it for granted. But
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: the guys who were coming fifteen years ago, they know,
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: they know it took an inning to go to the
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: bathroom during a playoff game. They knew, they knew it
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: took a half hour to get out of the park
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: because we didn't have enough exits. They knew there was
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: almost no elevators, like all and like food, we added
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: fifty percent more bathrooms, things like that that people appreciate.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: That well, I think that's what's amazing that you started
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: as a fan owner, but still your fandom is is
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: real and big, and how you interact with fans, yeah,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: on a daily basis like that that you've got a
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: fan vision as the own, which I don't know that
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: that's normal.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: ROSSI. We used to have to park right here, like
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: next to the stadium, next to like the dumpsters right
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: and to get out of the stadium, there was a
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: ramp up to the concourse. So it's sold out every
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: day here. So there'd be games where you know you
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: have family in time, you got to get out somewhat quick.
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: And I remember just sneaking through the crowd, and every
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: once in a while i'd bring like a broken bat
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: or something and just tap thee on the shoulder and
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: hand it to them and keep going, and they'd be
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: like it would take them a second to register I
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: very be gone, and they'd start screaming like, oh my god.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: They but I remember the grief that you got for
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: all of it, right from the neighbors and all the stuff.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: And I'm like in my head, I'm like, this is
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: already an amazing ballpark. And you see these renderings and
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: it's already been around for a hundre years, because until
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: I was a fourteen year celeburn in one hundred year
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: right of Wrigley, And I'm just in my head, I'm like,
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: these people are crazy. And I understand the baseball historians,
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: but the video getting everything up to speed of the times.
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: This is the Baseball Cathedral. This is stadium number one right,
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: it's here Family Park, Yankee Stadium, Dodger Stadium.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: That's it. That's the only well the Yankee Saams knew
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: like they moved that.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: Right exactly so it's really here family and Dodger Stadium.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: But if there's one thing that you can look back
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: on of all the renovations, what what is like your baby?
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: What what are you like most proud of of the renovations.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: Oh that's a great question.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: Well, uh, or to help us win a championship.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean the clubhouse that that was quite a turnaround.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: But you guys when you guys came back on opening
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: was it before opening?
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Christmas walking?
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: Remember that that was that was so pathetic.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: I think I've got video on my phone. Everybody had
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: their videos. I just like that place was amazing.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I think, I mean in terms of
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: in terms of you know, I thinks that were desperately needed.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: I think that was number one. I mean, you can't
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: tell everyone they're at a first class organization and then
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: you know, tell here's your third class facilities. So in
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: spring training, you know, that's the best spring training by far,
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: Like we crush everyone in spring training. I think the
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: signature move there came from my wife and she's like
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: more shade, and we're very proud of we most shade
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: of all the spring training.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: I never thought of our valiches so okay, it was
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: her first genius call.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it makes a big difference to people.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: When it's a packed place too. I look on now,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: you know, sitting back, you look at it, it's like
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: it's like spring training. It is the spot to be
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: in spring training too. It's like it's sold out.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: We're in our own categories.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah by far in a different way. Speaking
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: of spring training, And I did forget to set the scene.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: We are at the most iconic sports venue in the world,
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: Wrigley Field, in Tom's office. God, it kills me to
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: say Tom Ricketts in his suite overlooking the stadium, and
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: it's amazing.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: But why is it? I had this one just because
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: it popped in. You buy the Cubs, you're you and
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: your family only goes you walk in the first time
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: as an owner. Like what like that's got to be
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: just like chills.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, yeah, certainly. Well so one of the
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: things we were coming up to that that very first
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: opening day. You know, it's like the Brewers on April second,
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: twenty ten or whatever it was, and I'm like, what
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: am I gonna do? So with like a week before,
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I got it. So I told Lorraine, my assistant,
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: who you know, well, hey, print me a dozen baseballs
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: with the date on and do it for every home game.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: And so every more, every every game, I get, you know,
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: twelve baseballs and they say April second comes versus Brewers,
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: and tomorrow's April third, and and so it gave me
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: an opportunity to get out and just talk to people.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: For a couple of reasons. One is like, you know,
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: if you're at Wrigley Field, then you're just you're up
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: in a box, like you know, like you're just hiding
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: from the fans. You're kind of missing the point. It's
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: a social place. Everyone's having a good time. Everyone is
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: in their happy place, and you want to be part
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: of that. And then secondly, you know, I think there's
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: there's a presumption about you know, ownership that like you
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: you don't care. It's about the money, it's about your ego,
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: and you know, and I just want to get out
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: and talk to people. You know, the baseball is a
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: great way to break the ice. Give it to your kid,
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: talk to their parents. You get some advice on some
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: things you could do better around the ballpark, Like you
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: can't hear the radio in the women's room or something like.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: Those are things that naturally I wouldn't hear about. So
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: you know, sometimes I get real advice, so that that's
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: really important. And you know, you also just don't want
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: to be like one of the NFL guys with the
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: tie up in up in up in the upper up
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: in the suite.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: And almost like a mythical Yeah, well I just lording
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: over the you.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Know, it's separate. Well you are a fan again, going
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: back to like you know what that's like.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: Not only did you do that, you do that to
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: this Tom does that to this day every single game. Right,
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: you're passing it. He's going up usually to the upper.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: Decks, the upper jacks.
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: Right and handing out baseball. You just that's that's one
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: of one. No someone else does that. There's I can
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: guarantee it well.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: And it's kind of in those first couple of games,
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: it was people were like didn't know what to do
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: or should we do, you know, do a photo or
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: make a comment or whatever. But like now I'm pretty
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: much everyone sees me at every game, so it's just
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: pretty natural and just go try to find it.
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: I think it was for me as a player, it
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: was so cool being on the on deck, like your
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: your seats are right there on our on deck circle.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: And seeing you there with a beer in your hand,
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: enjoying the game with your family, with your kids was
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: just as a player seeing that, I thought it was
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: the coolest thing that you were so accessible. Because in
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: spring training every year Tom would address the team and
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: he talked about family and culture, and I remember you
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: are first spring training you talked about charity and giving
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: back and giving back to the fans, and that's when
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: I was going through opening starting my own charity. And yeah,
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: I remember going into your office and like terrified. I
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: was twenty two years old, twenty twelve, I believe the
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: end twenty twelve, and I asked you. I was like, hey,
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: mister Ricketts, like I really want to start a charity.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: Can you help me? And without your blessing, like the
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: Cubs charity team was amazing, but you've helped me now
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: raised over close to thirty million dollars because you said
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: yes and put the stamp of approval. And it's just
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: how many lives you've changed outside of the game, especially
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: through your own own Cubs charities, has just been incredible.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: Well, what you what you've done with your foundation is
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: in its own category as well. Pretty pretty incredible, And
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: I think it was also nice because, like you know,
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: the teams kind of go inside goles a little bit.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: We try to not have that happen, but it typically
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: tends to happen anyway. So like the guys for like
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: the Good eight and nine teams were kind of like
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: moving on, and you know, they had some charitable efforts,
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: and then we went through a couple of years where
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: not a lot of the guys knew they'd be here
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: very long, honestly, so like you know, they were just
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: just trying to get established, and so we didn't have
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: a lot of players doing a lot of community things.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: And then when you came through in like twenty fourteen,
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: twenty fifteen and started doing it, and then the other
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: guys had you know, we brought in some guys already
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: had their foundations, like Leicester and those guys, but then
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: you encourage other guys to do it and it became
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: part of the team culture in that era and just
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: you know, and like someone went.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: To more events in twenty sixteen and fifteen and sixteen
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: when I was here that I've been with any teams.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: I mean we had you know, Lester's event at jose
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: On Weed, your event, the cook Off, I mean all
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: the stuff that we convention a big martin. Yeah, like
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: it was bricks and Ogriculture are off. Days were usually
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: a nice party that somebody was throwing and braising a
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: ton of money.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: And I mean, I don't know, you guys can answer
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: this question better than me, but it can't hurt the
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: culture to be able to everyone get together at height
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: just for a quick beer. And you guys you always
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: had an area where it wasn't too uncomfortable with the
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: fans totally, and I think it was. That was a
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: great ra for us in terms of community for sure.
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of those, A lot of those wise
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: I moved on. A lot of those can be like irallly,
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: oh I have to go to this event, right, But
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: when we were doing it, even the bricks and ivy
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: was like, it was so much fun.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: It was fun.
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: It was just some huge party. Usually we would win
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: well early on, we didn't win a lot of games,
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: but when we were rolling, we would always usually come
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: after a win or something and it just be a
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: fun I.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Only know winning when I got Harry kind of yeah, right,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: I don't know about the dusk days speak speaking of
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: a guy it's got a lot of wins on his belt.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Tell me about hiring theo Epstein and you get to
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: interview whoever you want, pick whoever you want. That's the
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: guy you selled on. How did he How did he
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: impress you? Was his resume obviously what he already did
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: spoke for itself. But tell me a little bit about.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: So that was so when I think one of the
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: better decisions that that we made coming in his ownership
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: was to not like change everything right away. You see
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: a lot of guys that come in and they want
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: to bring in you know, their their own people right away,
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: and and you know and try to change you know,
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: kind of like get off to a fast start or
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: something like that. I mean I got some advice actually,
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: Jerry Ryan gave me good advice, like said, I don't
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: worry about that stuff. Just get you get your deal done.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: You've got plenty of time to think about that. And
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: and so when when we got in, you know, we
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: had a business leadership, which is Crane who's still here,
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: who's I think the best team who was amazing as well,
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: who's you know, as good as it gets. Crane been
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: here twenty some years, yeah, a long time, predates me
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: for by ten years anyway. And then so I would
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: give give those guys a shot and see how they do.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: And obviously they you know, we brought in some new
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: people to help him, but performed extremely well. And then
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Jim Henry was our GM who who I love still love,
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: was a great guy, was so so good to me,
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: like you know, like in terms of when I would
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: go to all the minor league parks every year. You know,
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: he'd send sends his guys with me, or he'd answer
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: any question anytime. He was so available and so great.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: But but at some point it was like, well, I
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: think there's there's kind of a wave of of like
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: just the wave of gms that are just kind of
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: doing things a little more sophisticated in a more sophisticated manner,
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: and we probably we should try to get on that wave.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: And and so, you know, you let him go. And
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: and what I did, I actually did a like this
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: super secret I made a list of twenty people I
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: wanted to talk to, you know, no no no candidates,
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: just people like a couple, a few agents, a few
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: former gun asks for former players. Uh, you know, Billy
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: Bean sat down with me for like three hours during
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: that's so cool. We did it a secret meeting and
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: some hotel like conference room, because we did I didn't
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: want to be seen at lunch and start the rumor mill.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: But like so I just went around, I was talking
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: to I went around just as secretly as possible. I
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: did even let Lorraine know where I was. I just
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: don't anyone to know where I was because I didn't
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: want any rumors. And of course all that really was
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: at a great, great use of my time because the
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: most obvious person was THEO, because during that process, he
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: basically made it clear he wasn't going to be at
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: the Red Sox. You know, at the end after the year,
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: he was going to just leave and exercise is right
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: to leave. So you know, then you go through a
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: process like you you have to pay a form more question.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: John Henry called me said, I know you want to
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: talk to THEO. I don't think he's really going to leave,
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: but I'll let you talk to him. And so I
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: called him the next morning and I said, let's meet
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: in New York tonight. We have an apartment in a
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: family as an apartment in New York. Let's just meet
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: in New York. I'll just because I can't go to
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: BC with you in Boston or Chicago, that's pretty weird.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: We just want to have a discrete meeting. And so
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: we met at our place in New York, and really
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: the first thing out of his mouth was, Hey, look,
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: everything you're reading about, you know, my success, it's it's
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: not me. It's a whole bunch of people. And like,
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: you know, and and he really like, I think that
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: my my image is overinflated. It's it's not what you think.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: And then we talked for three or four hours, and
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: by the end of that I was kind of like, Okay,
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: well this guy's got game. And obviously his records spoke
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: for itself, and that's incredible.
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: I just showed Rassi a video and I'll have to
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: throw it up of my high school swing and speaking
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: of THEO saying it's a team of people. Las Gutier's
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: was my scout from the Red Sox that Keo hired
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: under Jason McCleod right and Jed So it's like that
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: whole team and they saw something in me where I
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: still asked j mac all the time, I'm like, dude,
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: what did you see in me?
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Because video I'm like, that's not ugly.
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: If you look at any of my high school videos,
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: it's terrible. I show Happer all the time and he's like,
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: how did you get drafted? Right? But again that team
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: of people that is hired underneath the baseball.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: Charge and you guys know so well, like what you
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: know what I learned later, you know, as I got
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: to know THEO work with him for all those years,
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, he was he was he was sufficient
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: in the quantitative skills, but he was he was superlative
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: in the personal skills, understanding people, an incredible communicator, just
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: a person that like, you know, he can he can
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: just get he has credibility with you immediately and whether
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: you're a player or an agent or an owner or
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: a fan whatever, Like when he talks, you listen because
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: he's he's like he really understands the game, he understands
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: what you're concerned with, and ultimately like just has also
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: just a really high EQ. And so I think that so,
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: you know, that was something as I got to appreciate
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: over time, because if you just read like oh it's all,
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: it's all moneyball stuff or it's all Bill James, that's
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: only a little piece of it in that package.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: When you guy, he comes in and you guys have
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: to pretty much tear it down right, and and and
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: and to the plan and lost the.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: Whole stadium almost flipped over, fell over. At one point
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: we turned the roof.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, chunk of the roof and blowing off this
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: this this could have tipped over. But anyway, keep going, No, I.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: I didn't have the you know, he talks about how
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: grinding it and how much more rewarding was when we won,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: but like going through the hundred loss seasons and like
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: just some of some of that to and and as
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: an owners stay true to like, Okay, this is the plan.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was tough, Like we sat down,
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: we had to be really honest about the fact that
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: we had we had some great players there were towards
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: the end of their careers. We didn't really have a
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: wave of young players that could take their place and
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: make us competitive. And you know, we just had to
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: be honest with ourselves about we were going to have
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: to like prioritize future wins over current wins. And then
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: I think one of the things that we did that.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: You know, maybe other clubs do now, but a certainly
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: a large market club that never done is just be
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: honest with the fans as well, and just go out
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: and say, hey, look, I can't we can't deliver overnight results,
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: like we're gonna have to build this brick by brick.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: We're gonna have to be thoughtful and consistent and just
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: bring in one piece at a time and when it's
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: when it's time, you'll know it. And and so the
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: trades obviously, you know, trading for for for riz, but
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: you know, like the draft and we drafted, well, we
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: got a couple of guys out of the draft, just like
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: you know, you know, the area to trade. I mean,
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: there were a whole bunch of little things that happened
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: over those years that just just put little pieces into
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: the puzzle. And then obviously, like you know, by by fourteen,
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: it was starting to feel like the team's got a future.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: And then obviously by the middle of fifteen, oh yeah,
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: it was.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: I'll tell him, I knew this team. I was in
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Boston in fourteen when Jake almost threw that no hitter
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: in Boston, and I remember thinking, I was like, who
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: is this guy and these guys, and I went into
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: free agency that year and signed here in fifteen. But
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: that's I was like, they've already got one ace because
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: I played that day and I didn't have a chance,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: which was most days in my career, but it was
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: it was definitely, you've got okay if they get Lester
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: and Area, there's two aces right there.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: And then, well, we were building before that. And it's
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: not about me.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: I say this in every episode he makes about him.
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: I was the first trade in twenty twelve. I stunk
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: in San Diego. So the fact that THEO went out
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: and traded for me was for me was like the
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: most incredible thing ever. Because I'm an East Coast biased
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: guy and I got drafted by the Red Sox and
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: I get traded out West and then I get to
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: the Cubs. I'm my own O. My gosh, Rookie of
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: the Year is my favorite movie growing up, right, So
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: I remember coming here for the first time. But in
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: spring training, Jeff Baker goes to me, hey, riz, uh
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: you better, uh, you better pan out. Andrew Kashner's throwing
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: a hundred in Padres camp. No pressure, kid, and like,
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: that's me on the ass, and I'm.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: Like, oh shit, what was the first round pick? Yeah,
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: he was a stud high ceiling. I mean he had
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: he struggled with injuries, but he he had some he
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: had he had a high ceiling.
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: And he was stud great dude too.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: And you had all these guys coming in. You went
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: through the tough times. When did you feel I guess
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: fourteen you're saying started to turn around, But did you
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: when did you feel like, man.
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: We're pretty darn good.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, I felt like the loser part, lovable
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: loser stuff started to leave in fourteen a little bit.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: You know, there's games like your game in Cincinnati where
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: you tried to fight the whole bench.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Like a lot of people claim that's the big moment.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: That's a moment.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: It is kind of It is kind of an inflection
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: point in like when you know, like if a team
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: doesn't happen, you kind of feel like if the team
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: is not gelling enough that they don't care if they lose,
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: or they don't care if their players are disrespected on
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: the road or whatever. Like that's when you got it,
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: you know, when the team started standing up for itself
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: a little bit. Is is it personally and both as
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: an organization and then going into fifteen, every one felt okay.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: But obviously it was like, you know that that series
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: against the Giants that like were like, holy cow, like
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: this team's real. And then I forget what the win
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: forty three of the last sixty one games or something.
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: Wow we did that.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: It was actually I don't know.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: We caught we call them. Yeah, we definitely caught fire
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: and we swept the Giants here. Yeah, I remember that well.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: Then bringing it and then obviously bringing in, you know,
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: bringing in Lester, like that was the first commitment to
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: the fans that we think we can win this year,
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: like the first time anyone because because you know, we
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: had some guys we brought in in you know, eleven, twelve,
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: and thirteen, but they were the fourteen and they did
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: you know, they were solid players, but not the kind
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: of guys you expect to see in the playoffs.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: Tell me about it, Tell me about signing Johnny that's
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: that had to be your first big free agent huge.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was kind of fun. So uh so I'm uh,
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: we set up a dinner so it feels like, you know,
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: we're recruiting John Lester. You gotta come, come, you know,
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: you gotta come meet him. And I'm great, Great, So
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: I'm driving down and calls me on myself phone, Hey,
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: what's going with you? Hey, we're at the dinner. Lester's
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: gonna be here with his agents. You're gonna sit right
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: across room. Okay, great. He doesn't talk much. I'm like,
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: what do you mean doesn't talk? He does, so I'm
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: gonna have to sit in silence across from It turned
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: out we sat down and we talked the whole day,
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: but talk the whole night, Like but but I was
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: talking about his fishing on his ranch, you know, fishing
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: on his farm, you know, and like things are you know,
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: just guy stuff, you know, and and talking about he
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: had just gone and shot a buffalo or something. We
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: raced those. You can you can have all you want shooting.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: But anyway, so anyway, so we got a lot really
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: well and that that dinner was great. And then at
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: the end of that dinner was towards the end, he
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: was like, oh, hey, Tom, there's one thing that really
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: can serns me. You know what's that? John? You know,
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: I just don't want to be the old, only old
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: guy on the team. And I'm like, wait, you're thirty one,
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: that's not that old. Like how like, well, I don't know.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: I just'd be nice to have another veteran presence in
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: there in there and I'll talk to the about it.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: No, I didn't know that boy, I like that.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: So what was that all about. He's like, yeah, he
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: wants to sign David Ross.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: Idiot?
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: I what? Well? ROSSI and I had met that that
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: off season and we first time we really sat down
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: and talked, and I told our agent we had the
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: same agent. I was like, David Ross is exactly what
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: we need. We need that that veteran leadership like that,
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: and then we get Joe Madden. Then we signed John
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: Lester and then you come in. And I remember in
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: the twenty fifteen Cubs convention, I was in a gym
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: doing one of the Cub's caravans and I said to
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: the media, We're going to win the division this year,
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: like out of the blue, and everyone was, what are
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: you doing. I'm like, we're going to be good because
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: in fourteen we made the trades after we traded for
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: Addison Russell, we traded away Samarja for Addison Russell. I
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: remember that shifting. We were in Oakland and we were set.
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: THEO was like that that's it, that's the last time
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: we're selling, and you felt it. And then the off
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: season the momentum kept going and then you bring in
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: the pieces and we just went on that run in
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: fifteen and then obviously we were heartbroken, but going to
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: the sixteen we had we were yeah.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: Well and and so that night guys gonna believe And
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: I'm like, what was it all about? Oh yeah, hate
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: David Ross and like the time we had well into
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: Castillo or something. Well, and he was a great guy,
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: and I was he was starting to you know, he
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: had potential, Like is he like is he right handed
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: or left handed?
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: Right handed?
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: Like it's a bad match.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: He was like, uh, you know, he's more of a
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: defensive catcher.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: Fact, I don't even know how I'm even on this podcast,
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: but it's like it cracks me up. They're looking back
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: at my career and being on some of these teams
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: and like the nice things that these guys have about me,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: and obviously like you get to go through all that,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: but like John was a big, like big piece of
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: my career obviously and taking me along for some you know,
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: two rings and being a part of that. But yeah,
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: it's like funny to hear everybody's story. Everybody said, I'm
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: this nice, lovable guy, but all the stories or me
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: beeing an asshole somehow on the field or in the dugout. So,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: but we brought up Joe Madden for a second look
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: him back. What kind of impact do you feel like
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: as a manager, because you've had a bunch of different managers,
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: what impact do you feel like was special that he
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: was able to do for a lot of winning here?
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I mean, I think what Joe brought,
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: you know, in addition to all of his baseball knowledge
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: and all the fun stuff he did on the field
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: and moving people around and keeping guys loose, like he
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: never bought into the like the curse stuff like he
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: kept everybody loose, like you know, and you can you
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: can talk to dem the guys that played in O eight.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: That was one hundredth anniversary, right, and and it was
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: like such the everybody talked about it and even like
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: it just even people in the work oranization talked about
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: it like, so, I think, you know, the last thing
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: in the world you need is your manager to to
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: like make that any worse than it has to be,
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: and I thought Joe di of the opposite. He kept
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: you guys loose and you did fun stuff, you know,
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: and like he he had enough of a personality that
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: when you know, like when there was a bad game,
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: he could just go out and talk about something to
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: the media and it all kind of went away from
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: us and it was a good game. He'd give you
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: guys credit. So no, I think I think he was.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: I say that all the time people talk about the
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: curse and all these things, we ever canvas like, I
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: never felt that in the clubhouse because we felt like
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: we were our own little well.
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: The culture shifted because of you and your leadership team.
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: We had roundtable meetings at the end of every single
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: year where THEO and Tom would come down and they
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: would ask for the players advice of what do we
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: need to be better? How do we however we become
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: the best and a lot of them were for the
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: early years. Was me just blabbing because I was the
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: only constant here. And then as years later it became
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: the cathedral that it is. But all of that when
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: into the culture shifting of when I first got here,
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: it was, oh, well, that's the way we've always done it,
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: and I remember looking at Otis rest in peace, Tom Hellman,
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: our old clubhouse manager, and I go, Otis, I go,
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: don't you think we should fucking switch it up? We
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: hadn't won in one hundred years? What do you mean
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: this is the way we've always done it? And he's like, oh,
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: I never thought about that. I would do that.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: Fans had come up to me and be like, hey, Rickets,
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: you're screwing this all up, and I'd be like, who whoa,
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: whoa whoa. Okay, you might be right, but answer me this,
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: which is your favorite championship nineteen oh seven or nineteen
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: oh eight?
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: I'm like what.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: I'm like, what are you holding on to?
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: Right? What are you clinging to? Here?
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: I'm like, we gotta do some stuff that's different.
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: That's funny, yeap, Because well, when we started winning and
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: the culture really started shifting, the expectations weren't well, just
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: wait till next year, right, That's always the phrase fifteen
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: going to the sixteen, it was no, we're winning. It wasn't.
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: You didn't hear you know, I didn't hear Danny Mueller,
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: our clubhouse attenant now saying oh, we're gonna wait till
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: next year. It was no, we're going to win the
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: World Series this year, and that was real expect.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: The two championship teams I've been on, they talk about
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: winning in like they're not talking about how long it's
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: been since we haven't won it, talking about why we
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: were winning. And we had that here with this culture.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: I think to your point, Joe had such a great
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: way of handling the media that we never had really
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: any outside distractions. We were kind of our own little unit.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: And then did you feel that you came down to
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: the locker room some like you're around that. I mean,
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: you've won a different vibe with the sixteen team.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, I think that. I think everyone it
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: was kind of a wire to wire kind of season.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, you got outa got off to a good start.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: Obviously a few near misses towards the very end there,
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: but like, I mean, it was it was expected. It
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: really was.
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: You needed, you know, go out and sign j Massive,
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: signing Lackey, Zobrist right, three more pieces re signed Decks
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: late or early in spring training, which was the one
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: we were kind of missing that leadoffs Bot going in and.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: Then fifteen died hard. Fifteen was tough, but if everybody, everybody,
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: I think everybody's ready for sixteen and hit the ground run.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: Feel like the team was a success though when you
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: step back obviously, like oh god, yeah, yeah, we're loving
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: that right, like from where we were at.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean the fifteen playoffs, like you know we
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: went uh, you know we obviously that game in Pittsburgh
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: was insane, insane.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: I think that's the single biggest And this is like
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: obviously I'm not a Cups historian like you are and
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: know all the back that the history, but that game
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: Jake Area had a pitch in that environment and we
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: was winning that game, to me is one of the
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: biggest wins for this organization maybe ever.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: Just like fun undoubtedly and leading up to that, you know,
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: all the media meeting, what.
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: Do you what do you think when you see that? Like,
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: what do you think when you're seeing players do bone
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: head things? And you're you're the owner, right so you're
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: almost from a distance, what are your what's your opinion
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: on all of that? I don't know.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, I want guys to be themselves
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: and I don't honestly, like of all the all there
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: through all the years, there's been very very few things
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: that the players have done that I think are truly
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: bone headed. I think most of the guys have always
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: been smart and respectful and thoughtful about what they say
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: and do and and I think that's you know, impart
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: in baseball because a lot of times before you're actually
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: someone in the media wants to talk to. In baseball,
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: you're a little older, you've been around a while, you're
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: twenty five or twenty six. You're not, you know, in
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: some of the other sports, your stars when you're nineteen
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: or twenty and so your point little people, I think
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: people little more grown up and have a little more perspective.
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: And then the other thing about you know, my observation
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: on baseball is like guys do not try to pull
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: themselves too far out of the team that everybody wants to.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: They don't want the individual attention like they might look
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: for in other sports. So but but yeah, so I
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: remember Chake, just think it doesn't matter what they think or.
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, do you have any pet peeves watching as a fan,
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: like if something goes astray in the game, is there
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: something that irks you more than others?
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: What's your what's your fandom like, is it like you know,
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: uh errors, like what's your fandom when you're like, what
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: are we doing?
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I think it's like the mental mistakes, like you know,
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: when when someone throws the wrong base or something, you're
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: just kind of.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: Like or base running. I used to come in and
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: tell me it's like Tom's dis about the base running,
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: Like I'm on it, I'm on it.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: I'm like it's there, you know, Like I I keep
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: it all in perspective, I think in general, but sometimes
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: you're just kind of like, okay, you even playing this game
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: that you were five, you know, like yeah, yeah, totally,
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: and like but you know, in the moment, it's in
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: the moment, but.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: You're a fan. But that's what I think. What's great
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: about kind of being a fan is like having still
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: seving some of that. That's what's nice to sit down
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: and talk to you is because it's so like everybody
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: has players perspective or managers or coaches, but like owners
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: perspective a little different, especially here with you and and
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: and you being coming from your background of being a
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: fan and invested in the team and in the seats and.
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: Being seen coming get to my wedding, dancing at my wedding.
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: I have pictures like I pictures the whole crowd and
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: like you're dancing right in the middle like the owner
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: of Chicago Cubs. My boss is at our wedding right
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: And coming to the charity events and being available I
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: thought was so special, Like I said, and in the
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: seats with your kids sitting there. I remember giving Cole
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: or Quinn, I gave him ship. They one year they
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: came in a Smoky's Tennessee Smokey jers. I'm like, what
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: the hell is that and missed Thompson right there, and
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: then the next day as a Rizzo jersey on it.
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: For years he's wearing a Rizzo jersey, and then all
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: of a sudden he wore Hobby jersey one day and
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: I saw it because I always looked on the on
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: deck circle and I was like, really happens that quick?
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: And the hobby became his fairit. But just you being available,
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: I thought was so important for our young team to
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: not feel that pressure. There were so many pieces. Joe
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: nothing the pressure. You never put pressure on us from
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: the outside of like we need to win this year.
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: It was a process and we stuck to that process.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: You got any superstitions when you watch games superstitions. No,
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: not not really, there are I do believe that you
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: don't talk about like with all the World Series stuff
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: was going down, Like I don't talk about that, man,
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: don't chink it.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: Don't chink it.
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: Don't chink it. Like I'm like, we're not gonna know,
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to talk about the parade, Like we're
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: not going to pre plan that stuff, like like some
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: people in the down in the org. Yeah, actually because
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: it takes more than a day to do that. But
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: like I'm like, no, leave me out of those meetings.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: I'm not talking about I'm not talking about celebrations or
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: championships or anything like that. You know, just leave me out.
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: Well, when we get to the playoffs in twenty sixteen,
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: we go through. The whole year really started at the
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: All Star break. You charted us two planes, which owners
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: at the time did not do. I think you were
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: one of the first to charter all the All Star
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: Games two planes. I think they're both G five's six
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: is so thank you, right, eight or nine players with
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: seven seven sorry, and we had all our families on
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: there and it was so awesome. And then we get
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: to the playoffs and we have a round table meeting
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: about the playoffs, and Tom is so generous flies all
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: of our families on separate planes to and from all
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: the series and let us still be you know, the
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: boys on the plane. And that was such a big
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: help too. And then we get to the playoffs, go
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: to the NLDS, which was a wild series out in
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: San Francisco. We come back here and clinch. How much
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: did that mean? Clinching here to go to the World Series?
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: Was that? I mean, that's a dream come true in
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: its own?
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was that was a crazy day. The Yeah,
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: that was amazing to get back to the World Series.
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: In that game that Kyle pitched such a great game
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: against the Dodgers all night, and because we had a
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: couple of those games early on that we just didn't hit.
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we were down to one and that, yeah, that
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: it got.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: A little nervous, nervous in La. But the funny one
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: of the funny stories for that night was Crane is like, hey,
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: you know, if we win tonight, we get a trophy
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: on the field, there's a there's a celebration and I'm like,
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: I didn't know that. He's like, you want to hear
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: anything about now, don't tell me anything about it at all.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: Like yeah, I'm like, if it happens, it happens, I'll
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: figure it out, grab it out. So then so the
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: game's over and like I think it's Fox or whoever
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: that the broadcasters set up like a little little platform
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: on the field and walk out, and you know, they
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: hand me this this like trophy and it's it's like
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: this trophy. It's like it and it weighs like forty
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: pounds or something. And the next day my brother calls
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: me and says, hey, Tom, you can't say fuck on
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: national television. And I'm like, well, that's fine because I
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: did not say fuck on national television. And he goes
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: go back and read your lips because and you hear
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: me going this things fucking. And then I'm trying to
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: give it to THEO or Crane, but they're playing the
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: NHL superstition where you don't touch that trophy because you're
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: still going on. So then I'm just sit there holding
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: it and someone from Fox is like, here's here's another
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: thing for your trophy case. And I'm like, hey man,
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: we're the Cubs. We don't have it trophy case.
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: Like this is this is our first one in a
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: long time.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And that one was like that one's like a
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: traveling trophy, like like your kids had with their you know,
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: like the kids do that, and like it has like
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: you know, the different teams written out over the years.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: And I think I think we still have that one
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: because they canceled. They went on to like a trophy
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: you can keep when you win the pennant.
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: Now, oh, you don't get to keep that trophy.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: I think we got. I think we may still have
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: that one somewhere. But they went they moved on to Yeah,
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: they moved on to letting.
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: Letting somebody. How about the party after that outside of
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: Wrigley I mean, obviously it got better and we'll get
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: to that, but to go to the World Series clinching
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: at Wrigley Field first the Dodgers.
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: And all that stuff, it's just just amazing.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: Well, we messing up that brand new clubhouse, absolutely destroying.
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: That What was what were your I want to know
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: what your pregameer so games like?
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: But we did and we we didn't leave the ball
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: short of the cup on the pre gaming like we
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: we got all all our friends, like we took over
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: one of the rooftop buildings with one of the one
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: with the beautiful apartment you.
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: Guys, Oh yeah, the one you let me stay in
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: during COVID.
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was so we take that over, invited a
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: couple hundred people and uh, and it actually it helped
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: me during the playoff runs that that I had so much.
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: There was a lot of planning, Like getting everybody's tickets
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: was something you had to spend some time on, and
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: then just planning the parties and getting everybody together, telling
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: everyone where to meet, making sure that all the nieces
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: and nephews were taking care of that kind of stuff.
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: It like consumed a lot of my day just making
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: sure all that stuff was the logistics were done. And
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: but we we had our parties across the street and
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: and and we went back there after and that that Uh,
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: I think that game I think was pretty much an
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: all nighter for us.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: That was like that was for us definitely for us, definitely.
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: Right going back and you know that one, and then
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: the Game five of the World Series was another one
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: that was just went on all night.
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: That was that was that we were going to talk
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: about that with you're.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: Down three to one, We're down three to one. Right,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: we're going to the World Series. We're down three to one.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: Where what's the owner's mindset? Down three to one? Game
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: five here, my favorite game? What amazing?
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: We had two games here ready, and we had we
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: haven't had games here? How many years? Fifty plus, I
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: think it was. I haven't won a game here. We
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: get to game five, we win. That's the only game
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: we won, had home the only World Series game probably
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: ever won in Wrigley, I think.
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: Well, no, in nineteen forty five, that's right.
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: It was forty five. That's got forty five and.
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: There was a few, yeah, few teams for that, but
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: still yeah. I remember coming in for game five and
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: our party a little you know, our cocktail parties across
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: the street, and sitting across the street from our our
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: rooftop is the MVP car. Oh no, we news tonight
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: and that goes home with Jason Kloer ithing I don't.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: Know, and I'm like, that's not if you don't need this.
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: That was the first bad omen for the Indians.
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: I don't need to see that car. And but you
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: know what's funny like that night, I know if you
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: guess Charlie Jones from the music movie producer, music producer,
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: colle producer, good buddy, you know, and he was there
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: with Houston Street of all people, the player and he said,
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: we're at my party, and he's like, hey, Tom, don't
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: worry about it. You know, guys think they can always
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: win three in a row. Four in a row sounds
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: pretty hard, but everybody's everybody thinks they can win three
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: in a row. You guys are fine. And I'm like,
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: all right, I'm gonna believe you, man. And but I
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: did also think, like, god, if we get through tonight,
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: you know, we have Jake going in Game six and
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: then it's anybody's.
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, totally. That game was insane. And then Chapman throwing
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: I think two and a third or three and a
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: third to get us there.
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: That was.
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: That was. That game was my favorite game other than
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: Game seven, because winning here the first game here, I
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: don't know if you felt it, but I felt the
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: energy was just and now granted we didn't give fans
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: much to cheer about, but I felt like the first
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: game was just so mild.
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, playoff playoff fives are a little bit different, and
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: I agree with that game in particular, but in the
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: games in eight which you guys weren't at but like
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: it was a little tense, Like everybody is a little
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: tense until you kind of break the radio, break the
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: damn and start you score a couple of runs. Then
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: suddenly everybody's cheering and going nuts.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: And but yeah, I think we did give them not
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: cheer about so we did in game five, Game five
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: that way.
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: So Game five I remember leaving here and like we're
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: gonna roll. Game six, We're gonna do it. And then
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: game seven is a crap show and we go to
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: game six, win it and.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: Taken everybody you took you know, Oh that's right, let's
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: not forget.
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: Not only are the families you flew, correct me if
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: I'm wrong, every pretty much every Cubs employee. Two Yeah, Cleveland.
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: Pretty much took the whole front office. Yeah, serious games.
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: I give give give Crane and the business guy's credit
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: for that idea. They came in, Hey, we can't leave
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: anyone behind that. I'm like, of course not, Let's just
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: let's just do it.
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: That's so awesome. So before game seven, what's what's your.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, where are you? What are you doing? Where'd you want?
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: Like? What what's the party? Is it? The same businesses.
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: Usually we got to keep the party going.
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: Well, you know what we did. It was actually kind
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: of worked out. Cleveland was the perfect spot for us too,
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: because it was kind of funny that I'm looking for
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: a place for a pre game in Cleveland and you know,
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: my since calling around and of course no one's gonna
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: let a bar we have a Cubs party at your
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: bar before the four World Series game in Cleveland. And
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: then I called my neighbor and I'm like, dude, you're
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: from Cleveland, you got to help me out. And he's like,
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: I'll make some calls. So he actually had a few
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: of his friends who live in Cleveland start calling around places.
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: And it turns out there was a hotel like two
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: or three blocks from from the ballpark that had just
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: pretty much opened and they had a rooftop deck and
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: no one had booked it. So we booked that for
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: all the games. And the first couple of games the
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: weather was kind of crappy.
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: If it wasn't, it was a very.
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: Those but those last couple of games in Cleveland, the
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: pregame was was great. So now I had a great
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: time with those games. We it was it was hard though,
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: like uh, like, well, we the way they set us up,
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: we have the whole family. So I got myself and
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: my three siblings and maybe like you know, twelve or
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: so nieces and nephews, and we all we can't all
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: sit together because they don't have tickets all right in
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: the same spot. So what we were doing during Game
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: seven was I sat on like the the in the front,
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: you know, in the front seats right above the right
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: above our dugout for a few winnings, and I'd rotate
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: over some other seats and let some of the kids
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: move around, and I went up to the suite to
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: check on my laws and kind of.
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: Moved series history our owners bouncing around carrying other people
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: more than so.
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: It's kind of funny, but like so, actually, you know
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: what I did last night, I watched the game for
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: the first time since the since I came back. So
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: that night we won, and I can tell that story too.
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: But I watched the game the next day at my
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: house because I was, like I said to my wife,
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: I just don't remember anything, like I just don't remember
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: what happened, like it was it was too I was
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: too stressed, and I just it just I'm sure you
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: guys have the similar times where you don't remember what
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: happened or it was just your two in the moment
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: and whatever. But so we rotated people around at the ballpark,
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: and so I was going to head back down to
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: like the front seats towards the end, but we had
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: the kids down there, and it's cute. And there's a
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: photo I just saw it on TV on TV last
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: night of Cole and a couple of my nieces and
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: nephews sitting in the front row in the ninth inning.
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: And and I was up with Todd and Pete. We
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: wrote we were up in like row twenty three, and
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: it was in the eighth inning. We were up in
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: row twenty three and something like that, just kind of
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: in regular seats in the middle of an aisle, just
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: because we were moving around. And then Davis hits that
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: home run and everyone's jumping up and down, and the
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: guy next to me grabs me and starts jumping way
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: why that was when they got that on camera.
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: That's a legendary fan right there.
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: No, sorry, dude, I'm not I'm the last person, not
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: the moment, the moment, man. But and then and then
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: wanted to come down and I was, you know, trying
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: to get back down for then then it rained, right,
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: it was starting to rain the ninth inning or whatever,
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: so then the rain delay went up to the suite,
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: but it was so quick, couldn't get back down to
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: the regular seats for the for the last out.
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: But wow, imagine imagine that fan. I wonder if that
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: fan even was it a fan.
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was a fan, just a regular guy. It
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: just started grabbing.
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: I think made that sixteen World Series so special is
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: both fan bases were happy for one another, really because
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: the Indians hadn't been at the time they were called
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: the Indians had n't been in I think they haven't won.
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: And it was sixty something years, right, sixty and we
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: were going on one Hungred and eighty.
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: Well, you like, so the you know, before the first
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: game of the World Series, the home team throws a
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: party and the Indians through their party at the Rock
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, and I'm walking
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: in to run into Paul Dolan, who's the principal owner
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: of the Guardians and anyway Indians. Then he was like, oh, reck,
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: it's Jesus if if we're playing any other team in
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: the world. Everyone's cheering for us.
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, that's right.
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: Come on, Paul Man, you won in nineteen forty eight.
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, sixty years a curse. That's not even a
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: slump for us, Like and know I've that's not a curse.
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: But we had a great experience. There were some people
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: did have some negative fan experiences in Cleveland. Mine we're
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: all positive.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, none of my family or anything. What you're
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: in the box during the rain delay? Yeah, what are
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: you thinking? The home run just hit? We get back out.
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: Of seventeen games, seventeen to get we'll go call it
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: tears of I don't know if.
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it just happen fast, right, we've got rolls, goes
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: back out, gets us out of the ninth and then
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: the rain comes. Right, What are you up there to that?
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: You just pacing in the box?
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: How pissed are you? Go back to the rajer? How heartbroken?
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: I know a fan was jumping on you, but what
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: where is your My head.
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: Was that's very clear. I'm like, I just think it's
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: just so hard to get here, Like it's so I mean,
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: I'm just you're just going through the amount of blood, sweat, tears, time, money,
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: like all the things it takes and all the like
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: the good decisions and the luck have to combine in
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: a way to get you to this moment in time
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: and when you're here to like if it gets away
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: from us now, like you know what happens next. And
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: I also, I mean and that that's.
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: That's real, that's real for us, Like I was thinking
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: of it as a curse.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: You know, a lot of things got to go right,
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: and it's really hard to get their health the whole thing.
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, and and uh, you know the
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: last thing I wanted to second guessing in game decisions
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: to that that's another one, Like oh my god, some
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: of these didn't go as well as you would hope,
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: and like, wow, this this is gonna this is going
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: to be a really rough one. So yeah, it was.
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: It was pretty pretty intensely stressful. I was, I was,
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: I was. I was getting through. But thankfully I didn't
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: kick anything like emotional John Mors at home when I'm
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: watching on TV and in the ballpark, I play under control.
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: Joe Madden had well. Joe told us he had the
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: plan right. His plan was one thing, and he deviated
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: from it with Lester not coming in on a clean inning.
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: He wanted cleaning with no one runners on, and he
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: deviated took Hendricks out. I can't wait to talk to
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: Hendricks about that, because Hendricks, for the first time ever
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: was a mo I never heard him yell and I
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: remember exactly what he said, put his hand in his
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: glove and I was like, whoa.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we all remember that, yeah, and we all have.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: We still we talked about we see Raj now and
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: you just like broke it away from me. I can't
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: even write.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: And we won.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: It's just so still still much.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: Like for me that night and then we did uh
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: obviously we did all that stuff and you know, the
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: all the the the trophy presentation in the clubhouse and
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: and that was crazy too, just see all the people
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: and it just and for me, like that night, I
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: you know, I hung out there for a while, eventually
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: kind of wandered back to the hotel, walked back into
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: the hotel that we were all staying in, and there's
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: hundreds of people just standing in the lobby, the bards
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: of lung since like they kicked us out, you know,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: like everyone just standing around is talking and and and
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: then I I was it was time to go upstairs
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: like three three three in the morning or something. But
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: but I committed to coming back to be on CBS
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: the CBS Morning Show. Uh, like they're like they're you know,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: the CBS Good Morning America or whatever, and and so
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: I had to be back at the ballpark in the morning.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: Oh so you didn't fly back with us.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: No, I didn't go back. I stayed. And I'm kind
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: of you know, I mean, in some ways, I'm kind
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: of glad I did, because like I literally I didn't
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: go to sleep because I figured if I went to sleep,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: I was sleep for twelve hours. So it just then
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: it was kind of wired anyway. So then went back
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: to the ballpark and walked back in and it was
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: still wow, like we left it because it rained all
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: night and so there was still like peanuts shells and
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: beer cups everywhere and they were just starting to clean up,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: like the clean up the you know, the ballpark from
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: from Game seven. And I got to I got to
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: walk in there, and it's just I'm basically with a
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: few seeing a few like people working, but kind of
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: by myself.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: Just like, wow, this is why you got to take
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: that in pretty crazy.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: And then did the did the show flew back as
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: soon as we landed. Phone was blown up because we
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: had to get all the parade stuff done and had
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: to call the city on a few things.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: That's one of my questions, what how the heck do
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: you plan a parade? And how many days take?
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: The black Hawks?
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: Five days?
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: Is that what it? I mean?
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: Did you start calling other teams had done?
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well they had, I mean our our marketing group.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: They had to. They had to like get the rappers,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: like at the stuff they're gonna put on the buses
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: and it all had to be kind of planned out. Yeah,
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: just but the one thing was the city was saying, hey,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: can't you wait till Monday? Like Monday, Well, I mean
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: we like there's the GM meeting stuff, the perfect And
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: then it turned out to be sixty five or seven.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: It was seventy five. It was a beautiful day.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: The parade was just what's your most memorable part of
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: the parade that route?
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: Well, there was there's one like so we obviously we
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: all left here together and kind of going down on
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: Addison and there was a little kid on his dad's
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: shoulders and grandpa we did it holding up aside.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: All right, I'm a I'm a I'm a new dad,
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: so you're gonna get me about I.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: Took up when I talked about this a while. And
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: then of course, as you guys remember like being it,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: you know when you find you get first of all,
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: people everywhere all the way down that was. That was nuts.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: And then Grant Park is, Oh my gosh, it's it's
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: people as far as you can literally see all the
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: way back to the trees. And yeah, it was. It
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: was pretty amazing.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: I remember we rolled in that they had the confetti
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: and it's just like I felt like a thousand people deep,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: people on the fountains, on the light pole I got.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: My memory is like I just saw heads and then
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden the tree tops like it just
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: like you said, yeah, the way to the trees, and
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: then and people in those trees. You know, it was
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: it was. That was a special epic, uh epic parade.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: That thing was a maze one.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: I have probably one of my favorite stories, I would say, is, well,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: the thing I get asked most still to this day
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: is Anthony, you caught the last out. How did you
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: think they put in your back pocket? And then their
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: follow up questions what did you do with that ball?
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: And we happened? Tom. I don't know if you know this.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: We we now that I'm an ambassador. I have keys
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: everywhere here. This is the ball. This is the last
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: out ball of Game seven of the World Series. And
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: Rossie and I always had the plan, Hey, if we
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: just get all the balls, it'll be worth so much money, right, So.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: Like every playoffs seat, every last.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: Out on the parade route. I remember giving this to
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: Alex Werez when we clinched and I go, you need
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: to get this authenticated. I trust you for my life.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: His his wife, Abby runs my foundation. So I'm like,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: I trust you, right, And I have it in my pocket.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: On the parade I give it to my brother because
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: the plan was to give it to you. THEO called
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: me up and said, hey, I'm like, yeah, of course
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: I'm giving them this is where it belongs history, and yeah, yeah, right,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: I remember that. So I get a call on the
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: parade route from my agent and he goes, hey, are
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: you sure you want to sell that ball. I'm like,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: I'm not not sorry, sell it, give it away. I'm
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: like yes, of course. He goes, all right, I'm just
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 3: going to tell you what the first offer is my
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: brother has the ball because we're here, and I'm like, Johnny,
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: you're the biggest guy, you're the security guard. He was
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: the first offers two million, and I'm like, I just
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: hung up. I was like stop and giving you the ball?
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: Was I think this is right where it belongs because everything,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: the symbolism of this and what you invested in your family,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: it just belongs. It's I look at it when when
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: Pat Rondon and Jim brought and I've got literally goosebumps.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: Well yeah, and you had it to me at the
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: at the at Grant Park. Yeah, and then I had this,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: Oh I should have had a fake ball in my pocket?
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: Which one it just chucked it. Imagine that I don't
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: need it. Okay. So ten years later you look back
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: on this, we're going to celebrate this this year. We're
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: going to have our reunion in July, like super cool,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: We've already had one party. Is really amazing. Like that
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: experience going through all that as an owner, what do
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: you look back on and try to pull from that
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: year that just says I remember one of my first
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: world series as a player and going, oh, that's what
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: it looks like when once you finally get across the
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: finish line. What's that like as an owner?
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, any like obviously, you know, I'm at
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: first a fan. I'm just kind of like, you know,
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: I feel like the responsible fan, like the one you know,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: and I want, you know, to you know, get us
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: back to the point that we can have the kind
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: of memories that we had that year. And I think
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: we're head in the right direction and we got good
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: people and we got a great, great team. But you know,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: you're happy it happened because you know how hard it
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: is to get there, and there are days you're like, wow,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: if you know, you know something something goes the other way,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: or Kipness straightens out that ball in the ninth or whatever,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: like you know, like there's there's a few things that
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: are just kind of too scary to think about about
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: that not happening. But ultimately, like, uh, you know, I
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: think it's just a great thing that we were all
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: over there to do something for the fans. Like, you know,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: people still come up to be almost not not quite
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: every day, but if every time I'm at the airport
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: or at a restaurant and uh, you know, and you know,
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: people they choke up when they come up and talk
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: to you about it and and just to be you know,
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: even a small part of something that means so much
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: to so many people is a gift and something that
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: I just can't believe. I'm so lucky to be a
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: part of.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: And your a big part, say a little bigger part.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: We talk all the time because we now were traveling
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: a little bit together. And that's my favorite thing is
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: people that come up and tell me their their game
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: seven stories and how generational it was for them and
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: where it came from and how their fandom started. Like
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: that is by far my favorite thing that has come
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: from this world.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: City.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: They tell you who they tell you where they were,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: but almost immediately tell you who they were with. Yeah,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: and that's that's what baseball is. Baseball is it's a
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: social sport. The team is a member of your family,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: like and like you just you can go with your
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: grandkids or your grandparents or whatever. Like it's just it's
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: just different, and you know, and and people care so much.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: And every time I think I met the greatest Cup
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: fan in the world, a few days later I meet
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: someone could also be the greatest Cup fan in the world.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: So you know, and there's nothing that prepares you or could
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: have prepared you, guys for the amount of just passion
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: and uh oh yeah, and love that the team receives
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: from this incredible family.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: I remember I told the story at the lady at
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: the Cubs convention the next year was like an older lady,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: We're going to win another one, right, And.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: I got so mad.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: I was like, ma'am, with all due respect, and you
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 3: can say whatever we want have to say with a
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: due respect. We just won one before you died, Like
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: this is all you ever asked for, right, And but
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: that's what that's real. We shifted, all of us, shifted
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: a culture here to lovable losers to now expected yeah, well,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: winners every single year.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: The question like, you know, like do you get tired
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: of the pressure or people getting mad when the team
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: doesn't win? And I'm like, well, yeah in some respects,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: But on the other hand, do you want to be
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: levelable losers? And if you're not lovable losers, then you
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: you're expected to win. And that's got to be the
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: standard we we no doubt hold ourselves.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: That's the standard that you've built. Honestly, since you've been here.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 3: You you had a vision you said it in your
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: early press conferences, in your interviews, this is what we're
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: going to do, and you did it, and it's it's
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: been fun. You guys want to be fun. To be
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 3: a small part. I was a small part of that.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: We were small parts of Yeah.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: I was a really small part. Yeah.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 3: I love looking back at in the over the ten
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: years and all the stories of the people going to
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: the graves, how flags, the chalk on the wall. I
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: think it is so cool that we had it. You
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: have you read this redo the redo the wall ten
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 3: years later, of all the bricks and the chalk. I
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: think that's that was the coolest thing. But all the
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: stories Grandpa, we did it, All of that is just
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: so real. And Tom, I in fifteen when we beat
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: the Cardinals, you had a quote and it said nobody
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 3: during when you're in a those views, it said, nobody
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 3: here today will forget that they were here today when
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: we beat the Cardinals. And that resonates with me because
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 3: you come to Wrigley Field now today and nobody forgets
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 3: their experience at Wrigley Field. And that's because of what
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: you and your family built. This organization is built. And
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 3: ten years later, Rossie and I couldn't thank you enough
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: to be on here.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: So yeah, and I just want to say, like we
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: don't take for granted that nobody gets to sit down
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: with the owner, right, like this isn't normal and a
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: lot of people get sit down with managers and players
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: and stuff. And so very thankful for that. This you
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: you've made us, You've always made us feel like family.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: But and we are. And I think that's like a
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: special thing that you've given us your time to be here.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: So thank you, no, thank you, guys, and this is
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: this is fun and we got thanks. I love hearing
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: thank you, thanxious to hear all the stories.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: I cannot leave an Indians fan up and down average
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: saying true, well, thank you, thanks so much. Somebody that's
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: a rat, it's stuff. I thank you, buddy.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: This is actually sad thinking.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: But that was said. He well, I see the mark.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: I'm like, whoa