Crime in Sports - Where's My Chain? - Kevin Mitchell - Part 1

Episode Date: September 8, 2026

This week, we talk about a former MVP baseball player, who made one of the most memorable plays of a generation. He came up in gangs, and general street crime, not even really playing high school baseball. Somehow, he made that into a lucrative baseball career, even winning a world series ring. The more success he achieved, the more his head seemed to grow, with odd behavior resulting. His first bit of trouble involves a gun, a girlfriend & a settlement. And it will only get crazier from here!!   Come up the hard way, with sports not being your biggest concern, have your mom & grandmother argue publicly over who actually raised you, and make a wild one handed catch in left field with Kevin Mitchell - Part 1!!   Check us out, every Tuesday! We will continue to bring you the biggest idiots in sports history!!   Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman   Donate at... patreon.com/crimeinsports or with paypal.com using our email: [e-mail] Get all the CIS, STM & YSO merch at crimeinsports.threadless.com   Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things CIS, STM & YSO!!   Contact us on... instagram.com/smalltownmurder facebook.com/crimeinsports [e-mail]

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to crime and sports. Yay! Yay, indeed, Jimmy. Yay, indeed. My name is James Petra Gallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wiseman. Thank you so much for joining us today on another fun, crazy, wild adventure known as Crime and Sports.

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Everybody, here we go. Jimmy, it's Kevin Mitchell. You know Kevin Mitchell. Big Kevin. What did you immediately see in your head when I said Kevin Mitchell? A card of him, I think it's a card of him running the bases, but he's a home run hit and son of a bitch is what he is. Well, everyone has that highlight of him catching that ball barehanded in the outfield. Oh, yeah, there's that too.

Crazy is in left field. This crazy ball hit kind of into the corner there, and it's coming down. And rather than reaching his glove, I've never seen another outfielder do this, he just reached his bare hand up. and grabbed the motherfucker. I was like, wow. It's impressive, honestly, because you're like, holy shit, he just got that with his bare hand. I'd had to sting a little bit.

And the tigers didn't have a lot to cheer about for a long time. Giants. What? Did he play for the Tigers? Not a game. He played for one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine major league franchises, or eight. One was the twins.

Another one he never played for. What? he's never never played for the twins or the Tigers the Mets the Mets he definitely played for Started with the Mets he was on the 86 Mets That's where I see

He's on the 86 Mets team He became very famous with the Giants In the late 80s That's the him and Will Clark Yeah yeah Like when they played the Cubs He never played for the Tigers Not a one game

He played against the Tigers Who the fuck am I picturing Chet Lemon maybe Cessel Seisle Fielder. He's a big thick son of a bitch too. Bingle Fielder and Kevin Mitchell are interchangeable in body type. Cessel, yeah, they're both, like, they both have thighs that are like fucking, you know, two of your thighs put together. But Cecil also has a huge gut around him.

Whereas Kevin Mitchell was just like this thick fireplug dude. He had like a big stout. Yeah, big step. Yeah, big stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Big arms, big legs, like short looking arms, like just a powerful look. little son of a bitch here.

He's not even... So funny that you said. You're going to recognize him all fucking eight, can I? And Cecil Fielder. Cecil played for the Tigers and Yankees. Yeah. And he got around a little bit. Blue Jays, I think.

All right. Kevin Mitchell born. He's Kevin Darnell Mitchell. Born January 13th, 1962. He's born in San Diego. Born and raised San Diego. And we'll talk a little bit about that because a lot of

the San Diego gang life gets mixed into this whole thing. Kevin is family. Oh, really? Kev, his older brother. Yeah, it's my friend Rod Beck, who played for the Giants, played with Kevin Mitchell on the Giants. And we'd talk about old players and he'd tell me funny stories and shit. And he loved talking about Kevin Mitchell because he said he's such a fucking character. He goes, great guy.

He said he's a great fucking dude. Cool guy. Brother, I guess, this is only what Rod told me. I don't know if this is true. This is of his understanding that his brother, was like pretty heavy and gang shit. And, you know, Kevin was a little bit of that too, but he's an athlete. So he kind of got, you know, athletes are like kind of immune from, you know what it's like?

If you're in a shit neighborhood and there's a lot of gang shit, it's like, you know, they'll fuck with you or want you to, you know, whatever, unless you're like a really good athlete, then everybody kind of leaves you alone when it comes to that. And you can, you can join them, be a part of a gang and all that shit. but it's more like, hey, they don't fuck with you as much, like if you're an athlete

because that's what you're doing. It's a different thing. But I guess his brother was, and there's a great story I'll tell before we even give his day to birth here that Rod told me about where Kevin Mitchell used to always come to the ballpark and he said you could tell what he was doing that day

because if he came in some days, some days his tribe told Jimmy about this years ago because it's just a funny story. Some days his trunk would be dragging on the ground. And so finally, Rod said, dude, what the fuck? Some of the day is like your, what's going on with your car, bro? Something wrong with your car. His whole fucking trunk was full of quarters.

Full. Big giant bags of quarters because Kevin Mitchell owned a bunch of laundromats. And he would go around before fucking games and personally collect all the coins and have them in his fucking car trunk pulling into the stadium. So this multi-million dollar a year professional athletes. Like, I got my quarters back there, motherfucker. That's what I got. Got all my chain. I got a trunk full of quarters from my laundromats.

But that's what he's about. That's my loose chain in the trunk. That made me love him so much more. Kevin Mitchell that he did that. I'm like, that's so cool. That's hilarious. That's just a guy that's bent through it and he's collecting and making sure that he can still scrap and still still hang on to that lifestyle that he knows is always going to be there if this goes away. And all those quarters?

How much of that is? he claiming on his taxes. You know what I'm saying? You don't have to claim all of it. That's one of those things too. Or that's like a resource of money. A couple handfuls. The rest of it's just lost a lot of money on. He's probably writing it off his losses and shit, you know? So he's born January 13th, 62, like we said here. All right, a little bit about Kevin. His mother's name is Alma. His father's name is Earl. And here we go. He's born in San Diego, like we said, Earl and his wife Alma, I guess Earl was an electrician with the Navy, like a civilian guy, or he was in the Navy and was an electrician.

I'm not sure. Contractor or enlisted either way. Electrician is what always. Yeah. So his parents separated when he was two years old, after which he was raised mainly by his grandmother, a woman named Josie Whitfield and his mother in a shit area of San Diego. So very poor neighborhood. By the way, there's different, there's accounts of his childhood, and then he'll kind of update and change them over the course of the year.

So as we go through this, there's going to be multiple parts where we're going to be talking about his childhood again, but it'll be different now. So that's later on. It's very fun. So we left those where, when he told them. So it's like, well, 96, he said this. And then 2000, he said that. And we can go from there. So he said that he was a shy quiet kid, apparently.

But then started fighting because I guess kids would take his lunch money. And so his mother urged him to stand up and fight for himself and stand up for himself. Yeah. When someone took your lunch money, which is what you did back then. That's if someone, I know that's an old-timey thing and might not be the best thing to do, but your parents used to make you solve problems. They were your problems and you solved them essentially. And they would give you advice on how to do it, but that is it.

Yeah. And as much of a grown-up problem as that is to be being bullied and robbed, essentially, if you don't teach that kid how to stop that, that's going to happen forever. I'm going to be dead one day. I can't keep coming around saying, do you bully my kid? there's got to be a happy medium between you go out there and fight half the neighborhood for taking your lunch money

and her running down there holding him by the hand saying I'm going to get everyone expelled from school and I'm going to call a police so there's got to be some sort of happy medium I don't know what it is I don't think I don't think we figured it out yet as people and parents and a society

but it's got to be something so he grew up in a rough area he said he was involved with the Crips as a teenager because I know he had some gang bangers kind of backgrounds here. This is teenager 14, 15. He claimed, though, later that he was never a formal member, but he just hung around with these guys and whatever.

It doesn't matter. He's engaging in street fuckery, essentially, is what he's doing. Whether he's hanging around or officially a member is really irrelevant to, you know. In the early times of it, too. Oh, this is the very early times because the Crips started in the 60s in L.A. Right. And he's born in 62, so this is like really the beginning. By the way, do you, I don't know if this is true or not, but I read this in a book about like.

It's usually true if it's in a book, right? Always, yeah. No, it was in a book about the Tupac Biggie murders and all this, and it was written by this cop and this author who does a very thorough job of everything. And he was an L.A. cop who worked the gang unit, so I assume he would know this. how the name Crips started? I don't know that. I know I've heard, I've heard several origins of it.

Apparently this is what the police, what the LAPD says the origins are. So I don't know if that's true or not. All right. But what have you heard? Well, I'll take LAPDs. I can't think of one off the top of my head, but I know that I've heard several different things.

And one was about a neighborhood and another one was about. Did anyone involve an Asian store owner? No. Okay. I don't like that already. This involves an Asian immigrant store owner. Uh-oh.

Who got beat up by a group of kids in the neighborhood who had a little street gang. Because they had tons of gangs and stuff without these big names. And apparently they all had, they beat them up with sticks. They all had a bunch of sticks like mop handles and broom handles and shit. Yeah. And so when he was telling the cops and this was reported in the newspaper, because the guy was reading directly from the newspaper at the times. He was telling the cops that they had sticks.

They had sticks. And they didn't understand what he was saying with the language barrier. So he was trying to say they had walking sticks like cripples. And he was saying, crips, crips, sticks like a cripple, like crips. And he was saying like cripples have. And they said crips, crips, crips. And that was in the newspaper, this person saying that. And that the kids and the gang were like, hey, cool.

That's a good name. because that's what they're calling us and that's what everyone started calling them so they adopted it as like fuck yeah we're the Crips that's right that's their story don't know if that's true or not

like we said all these origin stories could be anything a neighborhood in Crenshaw too to where that's where the C and the R come from I've heard several different stories I don't think anybody really knows I think it's lost

I think it could be an old old wooden ship we don't know we don't know this the the guy with the sticks and shit, that had a newspaper article from the time to back it up. This person actually did say that. But who knows? So the cops

investigation netted them a nickname. That's fascinating. And they thought it was that. That's what people were calling them and they were like, hey, some notoriety. Fuck it. Well, they could call us the fucking assniffers. It doesn't matter. We're getting some pub here. There's no such thing as bad press and they realized

that from the start. And sometimes you don't get a choice in your nickname. night soccer. You know what I mean? Sometimes you just get what you get. Sounds like BTK sending his list of possible names you could call me. Maybe this. I mean, maybe this one would be better.

I kind of like this, though. This thing with the boobs and the dick is cool. So anyways, his grandmother is his main source of kind of strength and, you know, home life here. She encouraged him to participate in positive activities like Little League, baseball and shit like that to get him off the streets essentially. So he wouldn't be running around with the bad kids. He said he was shot three times as a kid.

I don't know. I'll believe it. I mean, damn, he's a pretty good athlete for someone who got shot three. Although he's got a lot of meat. So it looks like he could withstand a shooting somehow. A flesh wound is very easy with him. He said once in the leg, once in the wrist. And he said once when he was 14 at a carnival,

He got shot with a sought off shotgun that left buckshot and a crescent-shaped scar on his back. Is that right? That seems insane. That's a very wild upbringing. Buckshot and a crescent-shaped scar on his back. That would have to be a very close shotgun blast. You know what I'm saying? That's what I mean.

He's very lucky to be alive. He's meaty. I think that's all it is to it. He's just, he's meaty enough to withstand the shells, the pellets. So here's an article here where he said this is from Florida Today newspaper. And it says Mitchell is not proud of that he used to run around, that he used to run the streets in a gang. He's ashamed of all the scars all over his back, the residue of beatings and gashings. He doesn't like to get back into the tales of horror and shame.

Of a car pulling up beside him, someone leaning out with a pistol. And he says, quote, that was a long time ago. I was a dumb kid, 12, 13 years old. old. My grandmother once asked our church to pray for me that I make it to my 15th birthday. 15th. That's how bad it was. And he said, the prayers got answered somehow. Huh. Yeah. Somehow. He said, I had a temper. He said, I would snap just like that. And when you hung around with guys, once something happened, you had to help them, which is you're with a gang and they're in a beef. It's your friend. You've got to be, you're in the beef too now. He said, you know, in San Diego. He

He was always, you know, doing all this shit. He said he fought with his fists. He said other people used guns. He said he got shot three times again, but he remained undeterred. He began to believe he was invincible, especially after the shotgun blast to his back. Oh, boy. He said, well, you know what? Let's give him an in their own words on this.

What do you say, everybody? I think it's only right. Let's find out what old Kevin has to say for himself. In their own words, quote, once I was just walking at a carnival. They tried to shoot some other guy and hit me. I came out of the hospital the next day and told myself, hey, they can't put me down. Hey, hey, Kev. Okay.

Hey, hey, cab. He said, I've seen people shot and killed. I would snap if somebody said something wrong. I would punch them right in the mouth just for looking at me wrong. Sometimes I'd do it for no reason at all. I was one of the toughest guys around. I kind of believe that based on his physicality. Yeah.

Like, he looks like he'd fuck your ass up. He just, you know what I mean? He looks like you kick your goddamn ass. And whether or not he can deliver a punch, he looks like he can fucking take your best. Yeah, he's got that low center of gravity. He looks like there'd be no way to wrestle him to the ground. No. His head is huge and his neck is as big as his head.

He barely has a neck. So punching him in the face. You're not rocking him. Yeah, there's not a real good point of attack on this guy. You kind of have to go for kidneys or something. Probably going to take a shot. shotgun. Yeah, he can take a shotgun blast. He said that you had to never show any weakness, especially when you're scared. And his mom, Alma, said he was acting stronger than he really was

because he had to. His mom gave birth to him when she was 14, by the way. Oh, no. 14. And he was one of five sons with no father. So imagine... Is he the first? No, I don't think so. I think he's got an older brother. My God. That was more into this shit. And that's kind of how he got into this shit. And that's why he could run with a gang and not have to join and shit like that is because his brother was big in this. Real young then with the first one. 14.

Either that or yeah. Either way, 14 having no help, no other person, especially to raise five boys being a single mother would be really fucking hard, I would think. Real hard. She said, Kevin would come home and he'd roar and he'd grab. He had that chip on his shoulder like he was going to whip the world. Anyways, he had that anger. He said that he was into shit. He said he took a knife.

He got stabbed in the back. He still has that scar. He got shot the three times like we talked about here. He said, but he never backed down. And his mother says, I was a single parent and it was tough for him growing up. He was my oldest. Oh, he's the oldest. so he has another brother.

Okay, my bad. And I'd wake up, yeah, good is right. Yeah, lucky she didn't have somebody when she was 11. God. He was my oldest, and I'd wake up nights and the police would be at the door. When he was nine, I whipped him for letting some of the other boys beat him. I told him he had to take care of himself. Well, he's been stopping people ever since.

Is that a compliment? Jesus Christ. I've raised a real monster. I made him into a gangbanger. Congratulations, Mom. Good job. Besides, the article says, besides stomping people, the one thing Mitchell could do was play baseball. It was the only reason he ever showed up at the half dozen schools he attended.

And even then, at the age of 15, he would sneak off, quote, to play with Mexicans, some of whom were twice his age. So he's playing with 30-year-old Mexicans for some reason. That's how the article put it. He couldn't understand Spanish, but his bat left translating unnecessary. His mom said, I guess, oh, by the way, his mom was a Navy electrician, not his dad. His mom was a Navy electrician. That's how she supported the family. Good for her.

She said he could play baseball backwards. It was a game he conquered. He had a gift and God allowed him to succeed. She said, but he was always searching for something, maybe because he never had a father. He needed someone to look up to. And when he didn't find anyone, he became his own man, his own hero. We grew up together. People thought he was my boyfriend, but I leaned on him at an early age.

Still, he was my baby boy. By the time he gets 15, if she looks pretty young, they look like they're together. That's crazy. Yeah, she's only fucking, what, 29 at that point? Yeah, she's only 14 years older than him. And if she looks a little younger and he's got a little teenage mustache, they look like they're together at that point. So he did say, though, Kevin said, baseball wasn't a big thing on my agenda. I loved football, which makes all the sense in the world looking at him.

I was a middle linebacker and a running back. There you go, exactly. He did not do well academically because he didn't give a shit. He was only there to play sports. He went to several high schools, Lincoln, Claremont, and Crawford and a bunch of other ones, and the family would move in attempts to maintain eligibility for sports. So he'd have bad grades and they wouldn't let him play, so they'd just go somewhere else, basically. he attended Claremont only briefly, September through October 1978, which is not a lot at all,

and never graduated from high school despite a lot of media stories and everything saying that he had. The Mets didn't say we drafted a kid who didn't graduate from high school. They said he came out of this high school and graduated. You just assume he graduated, but he never actually graduated. He just say we drafted this kid that attended this high school. I guess you don't have to say. And back then, too, a lot of the kids, I don't know when they made the, because they had different drafts. And some drafts they had earlier in the spring.

And if you got drafted, some of the kids would just drop out because they got drafted by, so they wouldn't finish. Yeah. Yeah. So they're going to play baseball. So the June draft, I think, is because of that. So they'll finish the school year, I believe. So he apparently wasn't a. big football player there, though.

No? Yeah. There's a lot of people say that he, he said he liked football the most, but he didn't really play extensively in high school. He also mentioned, he played, he mentioned water polo at Crawford,

which, okay, sure, why not? And he preferred football over baseball, saying that he thought baseball was boring. Basically, he played, no high school baseball and spent his time on co-ed softball.

That's what he was playing. He's playing with girls, huh? It's a really odd story this is. This is not our usual, like a base, this is like a boxer story or something. Right. You know, some coaching coach saw him, and so why don't you come in the gym with that all that energy? And then they came in and realized her, this, usually a baseball player is like, got into baseball at nine, never got out of it. found this guy on a co-ed beer league and he's a fucking ripper and I know it.

It's crazy. Yeah, baseball is, hitting a baseball is the hardest thing in sports, I would say. A hundred percent. Every professional athlete pretty much says the same thing who's done other things. It's the hardest thing to do to hit a baseball. People can say golf, that ball doesn't move and everyone has to shut the fuck up. This guy's 100 miles an hour with movement while people yell and flash photography is going off. That's crazy.

That's a hard thing you fucking do. I know that golf isn't harder than baseball because there's no other baseball league. You know what I mean? There's no guy that is an accountant all day long and then goes and plays a mean and then goes and hits a 101 mile an hour slider. That doesn't happen. I know it's not because you can play it when you're 70, which means it's easier. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

Ever seen 70-year-old guys playing baseball? It's ugly. It's not pretty. There's no professional baseball player that's 70. That's the fact. Yeah. No one gets paid to still do it at 70, whereas golf, there's still the senior tour is on and people watch it.

And they can still play pretty well. They're still under par for Christy. Is Jack Nick was dead? He's got to be dead, right? Gotta be dead, right? I don't fucking know. But if he was alive, I'd watch the Golden Bear play. Sure.

Yeah. Yeah, if I was really bored one day. I mean, I'd have to be, I'm not watching it. I really needed a nap. I'd have to be there to say that I saw it happen. Yeah, that would be something. I'd watch it. So they said he, like I said, bounced around all the way because of his grades from

school to school. They said Mitchell's family was continually moving to one part of San Diego to another, went to Lincoln High School before transferring to Claremont. He attended Claremont until October 78, according to the registrar's office. After that, he moved to Crawford, where he was enrolled for only two weeks, according to school officials. And he said he played water polo there in the two weeks he was there somehow. But he said, quote, baseball was boring to me then. That's it.

And his mom said he went to a lot of schools. I even had him in private school at around 16. Sometimes he would leave school and go play baseball. He'd just be like, I'm playing ball today. he was so obsessed with playing baseball, he would play with the Mexicans even though he couldn't speak Spanish. But then he said it was boring.

It doesn't make sense. He skipped school to play baseball even though he didn't like it and he was playing water polo even though he was only in the school for two weeks. I guess that's why you play baseball with guys twice your age because they're not in school today. I guess. The only other people who can play at noon on a Thursday. The guys got rained out on their framing.

job. Yeah. So he spent a lot of time playing baseball and softball at the southeast sports field. I guess in Claremont, even though he had shit grades, he was showing more promise in baseball. His grandmother was the one who wanted him to focus on baseball over football and boxing, which is what he was more interested in. Yeah, he was like, let's not get hit in the head as much. She had a foresight. Why do you get hit in the head less?

Definitely a cooler gig, right? I guess. Yeah. I mean, what football you mean? Football and boxing, definitely more like your friends are going to be more impressed that you're good at those. Yeah, there's more like testosteroney swagger to it. Yeah. Like for a teenager, you know what I mean?

I guess. Like, I hurt people and stuff like that. Or baseball is more, you know, a little more artsy. More casual. It's a little bit part art, you know what I mean? whereas football isn't and boxing can be, but also you're punched in the face, which is much different.

That hurts. That hurts. So he had great athleticism, obviously, you can see. I guess he had an academic in eligibility that prevented him from playing and entering in the MLB draft. Oh. So he didn't go to the traditional route at age 18 here,

which is be drafted out of high school, have the scouts take a look at you, and all that shit. That never happened with him. There's no scouts looking at Kevin Mitchell. There's no, he's not around long enough for anybody to hear about him. So in 1980, a friend told him he should go to an open tryout that the Mets were having at Grossmont College in San Diego. So they were like, they're having open tryouts down there.

You can fucking play. You should go down there and hit. This is some friend just telling him, you know, he doesn't understand how it works. And yeah, I played some high school baseball. I'm not ready to try out for the major leagues yet and blah, blah, blah, but fortunately for Kevin, he doesn't know either. He just thinks, yeah, sure, fuck it. I'll go down there and swing the bat a little bit. Like invincible, though.

Yeah, it's interesting. So he goes down there, but with talent. That's the thing. Invincible, he was the last guy on the roster, like the absolute last guy. He didn't really even play, right? He ran a special teamer. Special team's guy. Right, he ran a return.

Yeah, yeah, which is a big part of it, but he's literally. If a kicker sprained his ankle a little bit and they wanted to keep him on the roster and get another kicker for a minute, he's the guy cut. Like, he's the last guy on the roster. Whereas Kevin Mitchell's a league MVP later. Like, he's a stalk. So, yeah, the same way they find him, though, is just open tryouts. We've heard of this a couple times, this open tryout thing. Yeah, it sometimes works.

Yeah. Ted Lassow's trying it right now. It's working out. They get like a thousand guys, and, you know, Two of them will be signed to the minor leagues out of that. Like it's usually real what you end up with a Kevin Mitchell. Anyway, MLB pitcher Bud Black, who wasn't in the league yet but was a highly touted prospect. Sure.

He was the guy pitching to these guys. So you're, you know, it's real pitching. And Kevin hit enough real shit. Kevin hit two home runs off him. Oh. So they were like, look at this guy. Look at this. Look at this.

And like I said, when you look at him, you go, I mean, he looks like a strong son of a bitch. He looks like an athlete. This performance earned him a contract here. He signed for $600 a month in the minor leagues. A month. A month. And a $1,500 signing bonus. That's pretty good, right?

For a guy that didn't graduate? It's okay. But, I mean, you couldn't get a guy to take a swing for $1,500 now. Couldn't get somebody to throw one pitch. Well, yeah, I'd be afraid I'd get injured for, $15 a $1,500 a month, too. That's during the season.

That's not for a year. Oh, fuck. That's during while you're playing. So that's, you know, you're getting like $2,400 bucks plus a $1,500 signing, but it's not even enough to live on. So it's tough.

So he has signed November 16th, 1980 as a free agent. Never drafted. No one knew the fuck he was. He just played a lot in the sandlots and showed up and could swing a bat and they signed him. Where did he go to?

He went to the Mets. The Mets sign him. They send him to the minors, obviously. Now, the Mets number one overall draft pick in the 1980 draft was who, Jimmy? Was it our arrested friend? It's one of them. We've done an episode. Was it Doc Gooden?

Or was it? Three, sorry. It's one of the three. I was thinking Lenny. Doc. Lenny, yeah. No, it's not. It's Darryl Strawberry.

Darry strawberry. Wow. Holy fuck, they had all four of them? Yeah. Yeah, that's why they... At the same time. Absolutely. That's one of the reasons they won the 86th World Series.

Kevin Mitchell wasn't on a fucking starter all the time on that team. They were loaded. So apparently here, and this came out recently, he did... Kevin Mitchell's been doing the rounds talking lately. He was on all the smoke pot. podcast. Really? The one with, what's his name?

The Dipship and the cool guy? Yeah, you know. That's what they should call the show. The Dipshit and the Cool Guy. Yeah, I guess. Everybody's, yeah, that's true. That is true. Yeah, yeah, because I love fucking.

I mean, I don't know. I like, what is his name? The tall black guy from the fucking pastors. Stephen Jackson. Barnes is the Dixon. Jackson and Matt Barnes. Yeah. Jackson.

Yeah. That's who I like. Yeah, a lot of the guys... He's great. Yeah, Matt Barnes was not a guy a lot of people liked, really. No, he's a dipship. And he's just one of those guys that...

I mean, he was talented enough to get in the NBA. Oh, yeah, yeah, fine. He's just got a fucking attitude like he's fucking amazing and he's not. Yeah, like he's a star. He was good, I mean, a good player and all. But Jack's fucking great. Well, Jackson's awesome. Yeah, Stephen Jackson's a great way.

of the running back from the Seahawks. Marshawn Lynch. Yes, I want to hang out with the both of them. They both seem to say hysterical shit. I really have to have, like, my brain working when I'm talking sports with you. You better start running your rolodex of roxters. I got to happen already. Cecil Fielder, Marshaun Lynch.

And this isn't just on the show, listeners. Listening. We're driving like from, you know, if we have cities that are too close to fly on a tour, you know, we drive it. So we drive it together, obviously, and we're cracking up laughing the whole time. This is the whole three hours. It's hilarious. Three, four hours we'll spend in a car going on.

You better run your rolodex of movie cast. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Team rosters. Team rosters and fucking actors and everything else. And even then it's going to fail because this motherfucker didn't play for the, for the tiger. Not at all, a completely different guy.

Oh, God. So Mitchell does an interview on this podcast, and he says a couple of funny things. First of all, I like that he said when he was on the Giants, Willie Mays was there hanging around. Willie Mays always hung around the Giants. Oh, yeah. He said Willie Mays was talking to him. And Willie Mays told him that he said, you could shoot a bullet from that pitcher's mound. I'm going to hit it.

Willie Mays said, I'll hit it. He goes, because it's straight. Yeah. He goes, it's straight. He goes, no one in the major leagues shouldn't be able, you should be able to hit any fastball or you shouldn't be here. He goes, that's, that should be praying for a fastball. That should be easy for you. He's like, that's prerequisite number one.

If it's coming straight, you should be able to crack the fuck out of that thing. He goes, when they start bending you, you said, that's when it's a problem, obviously. That's when you, that's when you, that's a 220 hitter and a 320 hitter. You know what I mean? That's the difference. So, but he talks about this. Apparently, this was the first week or so after he arrives. And keep in mind, Darrell is their number one overall draft pick this year.

I mean, he is the shit. And Kevin Mitchell is a complete nobody who didn't even really play high school baseball and who they signed during an open tryout. So he means nothing to the team. Darrell, they have a bunch of money invested in him and everything else. Apparently, there is a pickup basketball game. going on between whatever they're playing all playing pickup basketball apparently darrell starts talking shit and calling Kevin names which if you've ever seen young darrell strawberry he weighed

about 130 pounds yeah this is a not a good decision 120 of it was his dick was just his dick and uh his dick and afro was about 120 pounds of it so he also um he's calling kevin Evan Mitchell names and all this shit. And he's like referencing, he's like saying Crenshaw motherfucker, stuff like because he's from Crenshaw, Crenshaw High School he went to, Daryl. So he's saying like Crenshaw motherfucker and all this type of shit and, you know, trying to like scare Kevin Mitchell. Yeah.

And Kevin Mitchell said he was like, I don't know who this motherfucker what. He didn't know that that was the number one draft pick even. He didn't know who he was. He just thought he was some other guy in the minors that got signed from an open tryout. So he has no idea and responded physically and fucking rough Daryl up a little bit till they got pulled apart. And afterwards, they pulled him in an office and they said, do you know what you just did, stupid? Yeah. And he said, what?

And they said, you just got in a fucking fist fight with our number one draft pick. Darry, you heard of him? And he said, that was, I didn't know who that was. He said, I thought Daryl Strawberry was a white guy. he does sound it he said I just heard his name I thought it was a white guy he said I didn't even know who the fuck this guy was

he said I didn't know he was Darrell Strawberry I didn't know he was the number one draft pick he said otherwise I wasn't a strawberry shortcake it was a freckle face redhead chick I thought that's what he'd look like he goes Darrell Strawberry that's a white guy I figured didn't know there's no internet or anything back then

so you don't know what the fuck these guys look like unless you get their baseball card in a couple of years so Right. So he thought he thought he was getting sent home. He was like, oh, they're going to send my ass home. I just fucking roughed up the number one draft pick because I'm nobody. I mean, they got 1,500 bucks wrapped up into me.

They gave this guy like $2 million or something. I'm fucked. He said that shit, I thought that was all over. And he said, by the way, him and Darrell became good friends and all that kind of shit based on similar backgrounds and everything. But he said it was just we were young competitive and all that. And they basically told him, don't beat up the number one draft pick, please. Please, yeah, please don't ruin all the money we have in him.

Yeah. The other thing he did, which is fun, is Mitchell was the team barber. He would cut everybody's hair on the team. Yeah, he'd cut a lot of people's hair. I don't know if it's everybody or whatever, but he'd cut a lot of people's hair, which was my job amongst my friends as a teenager. Yeah?

As well, yeah. My grandfather was a barber or my dad knows how to cut hair. It was just one of those things you know how to do. So I used to do that shit all the time. It seems like, and I only have this reference because of Ted Lassau, but it seems like there's probably somebody on the team that does things like that on a lot of teams. Oh, nowadays not, because these guys got to get a perfect cut because they're hot shit and it's got to be just right and all that. But back then it was just like, yeah, fucking edge me up.

Yeah, that's it. Or fucking trim me up or whatever. So he starts with Rookie League, Kingsport Mets of the Appalachian League. you want to talk about a fucking culture shock. You go from San Diego gang neighborhood to the Appalachian League and tell me how different that shit is in Kingsport, which is not a big place, I would assume here. But he hit 335 down there and showed some good power. He played third base and outfield there.

I'll end up being a left fielder later, you know, for as always pretty much. He went to Class A Lynchburg in 82 in the Carolina League, which is Lynchburg, Virginia. He hit 318 and did much better as far as didn't strike out as much. Drew a little more walks and shit. So they were like, oh, he's getting better. In 83, they move him up to AA Jackson in the Texas League, where he hit 299 with 15 homers and 85 RBI. That's terrific. This is good.

Yeah. Yeah, they're looking at this guy going, he wasn't playing. Like, a lot of these guys were playing high-level competitive high school baseball and stuff. He wasn't even doing that. They threw him in basically cold, and he's just going from level to level every year, which is exactly what you want a guy to do. And they were like, wow, he is a very quickly improving prospect. And, you know, wow, if only he would have, like, been playing hard on a lot since he was nine. as a child.

Be fucking incredible. So his stepbrother Donald, and this is what I think is what I heard about, what Rod was talking about, I believe. His stepbrother Donald was killed at the age of 16 in a gang-related shooting in 1984. So that's why I heard his brother was deep into gangs. I think it was because his brother got killed. Donald's body was found on railroad tracks. What? That's not good.

He was murdered. That's a gang hit, yeah? Yeah, it was a gang-related shooting. At the time, there were reports that Kevin was considering returning returning to San Diego to seek revenge. Kevin? Kevin, you're on the Mets, bro. Calm down. Yeah.

You cannot go seeking revenge. No. You're on a team with Daryl Strawberry, that white guy. You know, that big tall white guy, Darryl Strawberry. He, yeah, this is, he's an interesting guy. Like, I hope he like, if he ever hears about this, I hope he likes it because I really don't want him to beat the living shit out of the both of us at the same time. Even in the 60s, I'm very afraid of him. He's a very large man.

Looks strong. So, anyway, Mets coach Bill Robinson, who was working with him down in the minors there, later said that he advised Mitchell against it. I wouldn't go back and murder gang members. I would stay in professional baseball, probably, if I were you. you know let's yeah let's just let's just let's just let's just be professional athletes he said you want to help your family rather than avenging their murder make a lot of money playing baseball and get them the fuck out of that neighborhood and that's how you can help your family and you're almost you're right there dude so keep playing um this guy said uh here by the way that one guy said that if mitchell

had stayed in san diego he would be you know obviously and doing the same bullshit here um he said that quote, this is Kevin about the killing. It happened, but I don't want to talk about it. That's all he would say. And nobody would really talk about it. Kevin Mitchell said, he was going in the wrong direction like I was. He was smoking a lot. And one day they found him behind the tracks.

They shot him and left him there. They didn't find him for a few days. Thank God I escaped that. It's brutal. Yeah, they found his decomposed body on some railroad tracks. That's gross. And he says he was smoking. Usually that means crack, right?

Yeah, oh yeah, he wasn't smoking a pack of cools back there. It was definitely... It's not weed. No, no, no, no, no. It's heavy narcotics. Smoking, yeah, he's smoking something else. What is it, the early 80s? Either crack or free basin or fucking, you know, smoking PCP you could do back then, whatever he was into.

So, 84, the Mets here. New York Mets are 90 and 72 in 1984, finishing second in the NL East to, I believe, the Cubs who played the Padres in the... That's the Leon Durham ball through his legs, the Bill Buckner play, except in the playoffs for the Cubs and San Diego went to the World Series and the Tigers beat him, I believe that's 84. Okay, 90 and 72, Davy Johnson as the manager here.

1972, pretty good record, and this is a good lineup. You got Wally Backman, the on-again, off-again coach, who always gets in trouble. Billy Bean is on this team. Money ball, moneyball Billy Bean. That guy.

He's only 22. This is when they brought him up when it didn't work. Yep. Who else? Uby Brooks. I remember him. Ron Darling, Sid Fernandez.

Ever see Sid Fernandez? Have I seen Sid Fernandez? Perhaps. Just a big fat Spanish guy. He had like a... Probably then. He was a lefty and a fun little wind up, but he just looked like this big soft fat guy.

He didn't look like he was... Picture like Mexican Frank Viola. That's what he looked like. I love him. Yeah. I loved El Cid. They called him El Cid. I loved him. Fettie makes it killer nachos. Oh, yeah. George Foster. I love George Foster.

No meaner-looking guy in baseball ever of all time to George Foster. With those fucking mutton shops and shit, he was mean-looking. Ron Gardenhire, future manager. Doc Gooden, of course, and his rookie season, 19 years old, about to take the fucking league by storm. He was rookie of the year that year and everything else. Second and Sy Young.

Oh, Danny Heep. Danny Heep a crap. I remember Danny Heep a crap. So everybody called him. Keith Hernandez, of course. The Gold Glover there. He was second in MVP voting this year, Keith Hernandez was. Ray Knight, he always seemed like a dickhead to me.

Jesse Orozco, the lefty who played till he was about 68 years old and was in the boat when that one guy died on the Indians. Oh, yeah, yeah. He was part of that trip. Jose Akendo, who was a long time. Was he on the Pirates Forever Akeno? Raphael Santana, Junior Ortiz, Calvin Chiraldi, Rusty Stob, Darrell Strawberry, Rusty Stob with a 40-year-old pinch hitter at that point. Mookie Wilson, of course, one of the heroes there, Walt Terrell, Dick Tidro.

These are all older guys too. Mike Torres, Christ, that's Yankees, Red So, Yankees, Red Sox 70s, Mike Torres. Holy shit. So interesting. And this coaching staff is a lot of future managers here. Davy Johnson is the manager. Mel Stadlmeyer, longtime Yankee pitching coach. other shit.

Bobby Valentine, who managed a bunch of people and was an asshole. Frank Howard, the gigantic, scary old baseball player. He was like a huge, like six foot seven,

260 pound monster man person. Huge. And then Bill Robinson. So Bill Robinson is the coach that talked him out of going to seek revenge. God.

Okay, that's one of the coaches. And he comes up to the Mets too when Kevin does. here. And he said, quote, Kevin had a bad attitude. He's the Mets batting coach, is Bill Robinson. He says, if you didn't tell him what he wanted to hear, he'd tell you off. Well, one day I sat him down in that adjoining locker room chair and told him the way it was. Told him how much I hated him. Kevin, sit down. I hate you. Told him the world didn't know him a damn thing and that if he couldn't turn it around, he'd be out of this game. A shitter get off the pot. You. I hate you. I hate you.

get your head out of your ass talk that I'm sure a lot of young players need once in a while. This league owes you nothing. Wow. Yeah. All right. And you can say that to a guy who's made no money yet, too. Yeah. Yeah. If you're like a first round NFL draft pick quarterback and they signed you for 40 million guaranteed,

you're like, listen, they're going to keep me around longer than you, coach, because they got 40 million in me. So buy asshole. Don't tell me shit. And if they do shit can me, they do owe me something. It's called $40 million. Yeah, that's my signing. So they already paid it to me.

That's sitting in my account right now. Whereas baseball, when you're not making any money, it's like you can go get a job after this if you want. So those are your options. Play with the Mets or get a job. Pick one. So he made his major league debut on September 4th, this is a September call-up in 84, pinch hitting against the Cardinals at Shea Stadium and flying out to center field. He was a utility player appeared in seven games that year. had 14 at bats,

hit 2.14 with one RBI and three strikeouts. So it's only 14 at bats. So you really don't get a lot of... They were spread out, too. So it's like you can't... He was in seven games. Yeah. I don't know how many games he actually had like, you know,

five at bats, you know, hitting fifth in the lineup and playing the whole game type of thing. He spent the entire 1985 season in the minors. Oh. Which is normal. September is when they expand the rosters. So they bring up a bunch of guys, see what they look like in a big league uniform, see how, if they look overwhelmed with the pitching, all that kind of shit. And then most of them get sent back down the next year.

So he plays with the Tidewater Tides of the International League. He's an outfielder in third baseman. It's 290 with nine homers, 43 ribbies, and 95 games. So not bad. Then the 86 Mets come along. kind of a touched by the heavens team one of those teams

lucky team had a very interesting mix of players and a lot of personality and a lot of craziness a lot of coke and a lot of drinking and a lot of carousing

and a lot of wildness Jeff Perlman wrote a book about the 86 Mets what is it the oh god the bad guys won I think or something like that I don't remember the name of it but it's a good book

it's a very thorough and interesting, and you get a lot of fucking stories about these guys. So this year, they go 108 and 54, which is a great season, crushing it. They go to the NLCS, because back then the playoffs, there wasn't even a divisional round, never mind a wild card. It was championship series, world series. That was it. It's only two teams made it to the playoffs from East and West divisions.

And they play Houston in the NLCS, which was a really good series. I remember watching that. It's a six-game series, and they beat the Astros there, and then they play the Red Sox in kind of a, even if you really don't know much about sports, you kind of know about this World Series. This is Bill Buckner,

ball going through his legs, and all that shit. We've talked a million times about it. Does it come off a rock? Is that what it happened? No. He just, it's when you... Not even.

When you watch the footage, it's the strangest thing in the world, man. It was like, you see... It's slow motion. you see Buckner's glove right in front of it and then the glove like wags like if you were to move your arm and had something flop that way

before flocked back that's what it did but I'd never seen a glove do that before and the glove like shut it like moves just out of the way of the ball it's the craziest it looks like it's like angels in the outfield like one of the angels went doink and just like pushed the glove

like an inch to the fucking right and the ball went by or to the left it's crazy it's fucking crazy I've heard all kinds of stories about why and what, but, I mean, I wasn't. It looks like it's right there. It looks like it's right there. And then the other thing is that that wasn't, if he, there's the big, everybody thinks like if he picks that ball up and steps on first, the Red Sox win. But the game was already tied.

So the Red Sox do not win. That just made them lose. And then they still had to play game seven, which they got their asses kicked in. So it doesn't, not Bill Buckner's fault. Everyone should leave him alone. But that ball also went. it didn't just like it went real wide didn't it

no it was just down the it was it was go out did it go I mean did it go between his legs? Yeah right between his legs yeah like I said he set up to get it and just it the glove just kind of wavered it was weird and if he wasn't like older and had terrible knees

he would have got down lower and been in front of it more and it would at least bounced off of him and he would have been able to keep runs from scoring but they the thing about it is they wanted him in there they put They should have taken him out for a defensive replacement because he was all banged up and everything. But he was a huge part of the team and a veteran and never got to this point. So they wanted him on the field when they won.

So they put him at first and thought it wouldn't be a big deal because it was a respect thing. They wanted him to be out there. And it didn't quite work out like that, obviously. It was real close to the baseline, real wide like that, right? Yeah, it was barely missed the base too. It wasn't ever going to hit the base. It was never in danger hitting the base. wasn't that close, but it was over toward the line.

It certainly just tracked the lineup. Yeah, yeah, it wasn't nothing wild, not a particularly hard hit or just a routine grounder, routine, as can be. It was just routine. So, anyway, they went in seven against the Red Sox. And this year, I see how they picked up Rick Raggiolera on the team, guys like that, pretty much the same roster. Oh, Tim Tuffle.

Oh, boy. Roger McDowell is on the team. That's a big difference, too. Howard Johnson's there now. Old Hojo, if we remember him. I never forget him just because of the hotels. Just because of Hojo, yeah. And his card was in fucking seemed like every, must have been the most common baseball card.

So packed. So every pack. Oh, look, another Hojo. Yeah. He wore the double flapped helmet a lot, which I like because he was a switch header. I thought that was kind of cool. That was neat as a kid rather than the one flap there. So, yeah, this is obvious.

a big year. Beginning of this year, June 27, 86, in the Daily News, New York, for Mitchell, bottom line is a plus. That's the headline. And they said here that, I guess Keith Hernandez is already calling Kevin Mitchell the rookie of the year, National League 86. This is in June, he's saying that. He's started in five positions. He's played six positions. He played the first game of his life at shortstop in St. Louis in April. How hell would you put Kevin Mitchell at shortstop? That's a weird place to put him. Very athletic, man.

It's strange. He turns routine grounders into fun house adventures, it says. He has forced Ron Darling to establish a plus minus system of evaluating his games at short, like the system employed for NFL players. He has driven met pitchers crazy and his

fellow infielders to distraction with creative shortstop 101. But Kevin Mitchell, seems to take back a lot more from opposing pitchers than he gives opposing hitters. Kevin Mitchell has this significant grace. He's the best hitter to come out of the Mets Farm system since Darrell Strawberry and Hughie Brooks, they said. Keith Hernandez said he can hit with some emphasis on hit.

He said that. And yeah, he said he's great there. He said Kevin Mitchell has been a key cog in this machine. More than anyone else, he's the reason we have the record we do against left handers, 22 and 7. More than anybody, it's him. More than him, anybody. Davey Johnson said, I know what the pitchers think.

They want Raphael Santana out there at shortstop. Raphael Santana was a decent fielding, but light-hitting shortstop. Yeah. And then they'll try. He just played for the White Sox. Tim Tuffle around. He got, he went around over for a bunch of different teams after a while. He says, but if I went for defense all the time, we wouldn't be leading the league in hitting.

We're leading the league and hitting because I go with my most offensive lineup every chance I get, which means a big hitter at short, Kevin Mitchell. So he's not even really a shortstop at all. He never played shortstop before, but they just put him at shortstop because they're like, we like his bat in the lineup. Where can we play him, essentially? Which is weird. He said, they go on to say, the kid from San Diego is not unaware of his manager's faith in him,

and the kid indoors the jokes about plus minus and hits ropes here, there, and everywhere. line drives for the non-baseball initiated. Kevin said, I don't want to make nobody upset at me. Even when I make a mistake on the field, I know I just got to keep being aggressive at the plate. When I make an error, I try to make it go away with a hit. Okay. It's a good strategy. That's all you can do, make it up.

The article says, sometimes it doesn't work that way. His error in the third inning Monday night on a routine grounder probably cost Dwight Gooden to win. He double-clutched a relay throw from George Foster in the second Wednesday when he had a chance to get George right at the plate. But he comes off the rope swinging with both hands. He doubled in a run, then scored a run when the Mets took the lead for good in the fourth. Hernandez said, Mitch is going to start somewhere for this team next season. He's bona fide.

Listen, you have to admire a kid playing a new position who doesn't let defense affect his offense. That is a big deal. A lot of guys, they make an error. They're fucked for the rest of the game. They can't hit for the rest of the game. It's in your head, too. They get angry and that's their, you know, trying to make up for it. Usually that's not good.

Most guys don't play. There's only a few guys that have, like, violent swings. Most of the time, it's you're looking for pengriffy smooth. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. You want a robotic guy almost. Just, uh, just, uh, just fundamentals. The, the smooth swing and making contact and putting the ball in play.

Unless you're Kevin, Mitchell, Gary Sheffield, or Albert Bell. Then you want a guy up there pissed off swinging as hard as he can and crushing the fucking ball because those guys could do it, but not many people could. Most people, it's about smoothness. These guys can be pissed off and take violent swings and actually hit a goddamn baseball, which is crazy. Swabbering monsters out there. Yeah. Davy Johnson said he has the physical tools to play the position well, if ever given a full-time chance.

Kevin said, I'd really rather be more defensive than offensive. It's like, I want to be a good defender. The article says that is unlikely. He will continue to play some shortstop and some outfield and some third. In the fall, he'll go to the Instructional League to play a lot of short. It's one of the Dominican League or Venezuelan League or one of these different leagues they have. There was one in Arizona, too, the Fall League they had out there. Then, who knows, but there's no question at all about his bat or his spirit or his toughness or the fun he has provided in what has

been a heady met season so far. Kevin Mitchell said the manager's confidence in me pumps me up a lot. That's why I work so hard out there for that, for that man. Number five, he trusts me. And thank God he's the type of manager that loves the bat. And they talk about that too.

The bat has provided line drives and a 352 average. If you're Davey Johnson, you find a place for such a bat. You bet. Yeah. He said shortstop was the place for Wednesday. Mitchell got a plus one from Darling, meaning runs scored and RBI were stacked up against the double pump on the relay. He said,

you let one in, which you scored two. So you're up for the day, basically. You're a net one. But also, they got him at a bargain basement price. Oh,

I got him for nothing. Yeah. For nothing. They found him in a dumpster, essentially. Yeah. They were looking through shit, a dumpster outside of a Goodwill.

So it's some shit that someone dropped off. Then Goodwill threw out. And you went, bad at all and dusted it off and went, look at that. Hey guys, this dumpster's brand new and there's a seven-course meal inside it. It's amazing. That's, that doesn't exist. With lit candles and a tablecloth under it. It's awesome. Get in here, guys. Climb in. Yeah. Prime rib and a turkey. This is crazy.

There's wine poured. This is incredible. And it's a cab. It goes with it perfectly. This is amazing. There's chairs. I'm so happy. So they said, Kevin Mitchell, he is not a dull player. but he's been in the middle of things all year and was Wednesday, which is why the lead over the Expos is nine and not seven. Okay. Now, here's a little bit more on his confusing,

there's a contradictory past here. This is from the Los Angeles Times, and the article is, the headline is, The story of Metz Mitchell confusing, controversial. There you go. It doesn't add up. It doesn't add up.

There is an aura of mystery surrounding Kevin Mitchell, which San Diego high schools did the New York Mets Rookie really attend? How did someone who never played high school baseball get signed to a major league contract? That's a good question. When and how did he get rid of his, quote, attitude?

And what is all this about a family feud between Mitchell's mother and grandmother? Okay. This is a story about how a kid from Southeast San Diego who reportedly was involved with street gangs has suddenly become a key member of the Mets' impressive lineup. While consistently batting between 290 and 300 this season,

Mitchell has played every position except pitcher, catcher, and second base, and he's batted in each of the first eight spots in the batting order. Mitchell is as versatile on the field as his past is controversial and intriguing. He's told team members that he was a member of street gangs and was stabbed on more than one occasion. He said that he got into fights and broke windows. Quote, Kevin gotten a lot of things, said his mother. Alma. He was a busy boy. Everybody

knew Kevin got in trouble. Most, this is not her talking back to the article, most people think that Mitchell graduated from Claremont High School where he was reportedly a star football player. Wrong on both accounts. Despite a note in the Mets Media Guide and numerous

references and newspaper stories that Mitchell graduated from Claremont High, Mitchell never graduated from high school and he played football at Claremont for a very brief time. Because he struggled academically, he bounced from high school to high school in an attempt to attain good enough grades to compete in sports. Mitchell, whose family was continually moving from one part of San Diego to another, went to Lincoln High before transferring to Claremont, blah, blah, blah.

We knew all of that. After the stay at Claremont High, Mitchell moved to Crawford, where he was there for two weeks. He said baseball was boring to me then. They said, then why did Kevin Mitchell's mother say her son spent all his youth playing baseball? There you go. Again, great question. thing. The mysteries and incongruities continue. After Monday night's game at San Diego's Jack Murphy Stadium, Mitchell has asked whether he had ever played in that stadium before,

said Mitchell, I played here in the CIF championship football game when I was at Claremont. Claremont has only been in one championship game, and that was in 1981 when he was in Kingsport playing for the Appalachian League minor league Mets team. Unbelievable. Yeah, he said, There are a few straightforward simple facts to this story. They quote his mom. Quote, he went to a lot of schools. I even had him in private school. Sometimes he'd leave school.

Sometimes he'd play with the Mexicans, even though he can't speak Spanish. Right. They said he spent most of his time playing baseball and three-pitch softball on Southeast Sports Field. But it was Grossmont College that Mitchell got his big break, meaning the tryout. Mitchell said, I was out there playing around and some scouts were there and they saw me. Okay. He said, I remember the scout Dean Jongaward telling me how he signed Kevin on the hood of his car. And he said Stephen Shriver, Metz Director of Minor League Operations. Kevin had an interesting and different way of progressing to the big leagues, but behind that 747 body of his lies an extremely good athlete.

Asked if he knew about Mitchell's alleged involvement with gangs when he signed him, Shriver said, Kevin tells the stories about the gangs he belonged to. Sometimes I think he embellishes things. We don't believe him. That sounds right. Yeah, we don't. He hits so good, though. So we just think about now.

Think about now. Now these players are like, you have to be like, have like the crazy Instagram and TikTok. You have to have social media for your baseball when you're 10 now for anybody to ever look at you. This guy just showed up at a college, community college, hitting baseballs, and they just signed him. even though he said he was in a bunch of gangs. Right. Like now if you said you're in a bunch of gang, they just wouldn't sign you if you were in a bunch of gangs.

No. It is interesting, too, that he got to, I mean, that speaking Spanish doesn't matter in baseball. No. It's such a very, there's little talking that you got to do. It might actually be beneficial and a bonus to not understand what all these people are saying out here because, you know what I mean? the taunting of baseball.

There's a lot of head games in baseball. There is. Most of it's just pitch or catcher stuff, and they got rid of all that shit with the pitch clock. There's no way to have any gamesmanship anymore. Now you just get up and throw it and he hits it like a video game. If you're playing in a league or on a sandlot with just a bunch of Mexican guys that speak a different language in you,

they can't get in your head nor tell you, I'm going to burn your house down with this one. Doesn't matter. Can't hear you. And most of the shit talk. and always comes from dugouts anyway because people are too far away to shit talk. We're going to shit talk somebody from left field.

You're 300 feet away from them. It's a tough. Yeah. What? Hold on. Hey, you suck. It's hard. The pitcher can tell the catcher all day long what he's throwing.

I don't care. I'm just going to be watching this. Baseball, there doesn't need to be a lot of communication because most things can be done with signs, hand signals. You want a guy to move over a little bit in left field. You do this. You don't have to understand. English, you just fucking wave him that way. You want a guy, you know, doing whatever. They know to

turn the double play like this. They know when someone says, I got it, I got it, calling somebody off. That's pretty universal, you know what I mean? So it's fine. Kenny Powers thrived in Mexico. It doesn't matter what they say. No, they all seem to speak English, too, which helps. Also, it's a comedy show, so, you know, it helps to have some English speaking going on. A little bit, yeah. A little bit. Davy Johnson said, when I first saw him, I said he was the best prospect in the organization. when he saw him at Lynchburg, he said, in 82. In 84, while playing for Tidewater there, AAA, he hit just 243 with 10 home runs and 54 runs batted in.

Mitchell's grandmother said he wanted to quit baseball and go back to football when he was in Tidewater. No shit. Where are you going to play football? You're like 22. Where are you playing? Right. Where is there to go? You're not like you can go enroll in high school.

Canada? I don't know. Yeah. I guess he said, I'm tired of Tidewater. Kevin gets a little impatient. This is his grandmother. I told him he made a lot of notches and to wait. I told him to keep a clear mind and just play ball.

He'd get a chance. Maybe they felt he wasn't quite mature enough last year. So when he was called up a little bit, that gave him something. But the Bill Robinson guy said when he came up, he had a terrible attitude. I sat him in front of me and told him how much I disliked him. I jumped all over him. Told him all of, you know, baseball don't know you shit, blah, blah, blah. At the time, I also knew he was going back to San Diego to avenge his brother's death.

I advised him not to do that. I talked to him like he was my son. He's a tough young man and I was prepared to battle. Maybe I said some things that helped. He has really changed his life around. How about that? His poor brother Donald there here. So, yeah, he went to play Mexican winter ball, winter ball in Mexico.

but he came home after just one week in 85 because he said he didn't like it. Didn't like Mexican Winter Ball. Yeah. Then he went to the Dominican Republic where he hit 13 home runs in a month and made friends with Tony Pena, the catcher and...

Oh, really? Manager later, too. Yeah. Reds? Yeah. Reds, Cardinals, Tony Payne. Oh, Cardinals too, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, they said that experience gave me a lot of confidence, Mitchell said. He said, Tony gave me a lot of talking to in terms of attitude and how to approach the game. Every time he saw me lacking, he got on my case. So they said a much more mature Kevin showed up at the training camp in St. Petersburg in 86. And Bill Robinson said, after he played winter ball, I could see a glow in him. Kevin Mitchell was not mentioned in our plans as far as making the ball club this year. but in spring training he was hitting balls all over the center field backdrop and he was opening eyes.

Hitting fucking bombs. Monday night wearing a devilish smile and a baseball cap with the beak cut off. Mitchell slipped away from batting practice long enough to pour a sticky orange drink on pitcher Bobo Hita's glove. Oh good, he's doing ribs, fun. Then for good measure, he rubbed the glove in the sand just to really fuck it up. That way it's all the sand is stuck to it now. It's like sandpaper. Some sun kissed in your glove.

Oh, Heady yelled out, no, that's my game glove. Like, don't do that to my game. Don't do it to my fucking gamer. Mitchell smiled with the confidence of someone knows, someone who feels he's been accepted by his peers. Robinson said, Kevin has gone from being the most unliked player on the club to the most liked. Now, Kevin's also the brunt of a lot of practical jokes. If you had joked with him before, he'd have wanted to kill you.

On Monday, his teammates, got him back. They cut up his new Fila shoes and tore his cap. That's why he had a hill missing. Which is just par for the nailing your shoes to the floor, cutting your shit in the ribbons or the best one I ever heard of is in Ball 4, the best

rib. Somebody actually, this was on the Yankees in like the early 60s. Somebody did this, I believe, Yogi Berra, if I'm not mistaken, or it might have been Joe Pepitone or one of those guys, but they went through the guy's pants and and unthreaded the fucking seams.

You know long that would take to do that in meticulous? So when he went to put them on, they just completely fell apart like tear away pants. Yeah. He left like two little threads holding them together, basically. There's a lot of time to kill in baseball. That's the thing. Sounds like it.

In spring training and shit, there's so much time to kill. Mitchell said, I feel like part of the family. They took me in and that feels good. I never had this much fun in my life. life. Darrell Strawberry said he's definitely having a better attitude and a better approach. At first, he didn't really know how to adjust. He was young. I told him to relax and have confidence in himself. I also told him Credshaw, motherfucker. What's up? A line of prostitutes in Brownsville will get you through the night, too. That'll do it too. Yeah. Hey, let me teach you something else. There's been a big change in his life. It's good to see that happen. I read stuff about him being in

gangs. He'd mentioned it several times. We don't ever really get into it. It was at a young age when he didn't realize he could be somebody. Now the good thing is that it's over. Meanwhile, lots of people said Daryl Strawberry was saying crunch on like cripshit when he first came up, too, that he was saying a bunch of gang shit too. So apparently Mitchell's baseball success, the article says, has created a family feud between his mother and his grandmother. This is not his mother's mother. It's his father's mother and his mother. Is his father's mother the one that helped take care of him? Yes, that's Josie, apparently. So this is his mother, Alma. I was very depressed about articles written saying that his grandmother raised him. That wasn't true. It's a

hurting situation. Raised them, meaning the family by myself was hard. All the tribulations and then someone else gets the credit. I can't go to lunch or dinner without someone saying that that his grandmother raised him. I'm very depressed about it. I cried for, I cry for three weeks, and then I read some of those, when I read some of those things. Jesus. That's interesting that she just said tribulations and left trials out of it.

Just tribulations. Very rare. Yeah, she didn't want to get into the trials. No. Wasn't about it. She was straight to tribulations. Yeah. So she said that she had such a good job that she couldn't get child support from the

too because she was an electrician and made a lot more money than him. So she had to work by herself. Mitchell said, my grandmother raised me. She took me out of the trouble I was in. I was never closer to anyone else. So Kevin says that. His mom says,

fuck that. I was the one raising him. Alma said nobody else was ever around. People only started being around after Kevin signed a professional contract. Kevin did not go to his grandmothers until then. I had no help from her. It bothers me to see a lie go forth. Alma said she suffered a heart attack seven years earlier, about 1980, and she no longer works for the Navy,

and that she's now a prison counselor and designs clothes. Wow, she is an onion. It's a lot of different things she's into. Baby at 14, a fucking Navy electrician who then prison counsels and designs clothes. That is a really interesting lady, very well-rounded. and she's hoping she'll be able to work things out with Kevin. She said, Kevin and I were always close. We were closer until he started playing in the big leagues.

And the article says Kevin talks more about his grandmother than his mother here. After Monday's early evening game, Mitchell took Robinson and some Mets players to his grandmother's house in southeast San Diego for dinner. Left his mom out of it. His mother was there to share the roast, potato salad, turnip greens, apple, pecan bread and lemon cake, but once again, she was in the background. Kevin says, my mom, she's always there. But it's different. I just got along with my grandmother more.

I lived at home, but my grandmother is real religious and always going to church. They said on Tuesday morning, Mitchell went to visit his grandmother, and she said, I always try to be his support. He's my oldest grandson, and he sticks kind of close to me. I try to understand him and get him to understand me. We're good friends. Him and I have been through a lot. When his mom wouldn't let him have his way, he'd run here.

I have more patience with him than with my own children. Kevin has always stuck by me. So that's really probably closer to what it is. He was mad at home. There's four other kids around and all that shit. He could go to his grandmother's house and feel like he's getting spoiled a little bit and paid attention to. Environment and economic situation forced him to make. choices that he made.

And that's how you bond generally. Yeah. So his grandmother said there were all the talk about Kevin and gangs. That is the part I don't know about. It's kind of shocking. When Kevin was around me, he always showed respect for me. Oh, good. He didn't try to mug his grandma.

That's helpful. Yeah. They generally, gangsters show all kinds of respect for their family. For their grandma, I would hope especially. Yeah, that would be a big thing. Just come in and slap their tech nine on. grandma's coffee table. What's the David Cross bit?

Fuck you, Granny. No, is it? Punch her, fuck you, Granny. And it's in Valley. Everybody disrespects their grandmother. She's been through enough. Yeah.

And oh, shit. So he said, that's how smart I was. Or I never saw that side of his attitude. He said, that's how smart I was. I said, I could never tell you, I could never tell that you had a bad attitude. Maybe it's different when a bunch of a bunch of men get together. Yes, a bunch of men act much differently when none of their grandmothers are around.

When your grandmother's around, you act nothing like you do when you're with a bunch of ballplayers or friends or anybody. I don't think I'd drag my grandmother to the strip club with me. Now, Alma, mom, said she's not surprised

that Kevin's grandmother was surprised. She said, she, the grandmother, never got involved until now. I've been very disappointed with all this, but Kevin is very emotional and I have to let it I have to let it go until he finishes playing. So I'll wait until his

baseball career's over and then we can work this all out. We'll sort it out. Wow. Wow. Unbelievable. So the 86 Mets, he plays in 108 games, 364 plate appearances, 328 at bats. He hits

277, 12 homers, 43 rubbies, three steals, 33 walk, 61 strikeouts. It's third and rookie of the year voting as well. Yeah. So I remember those numbers just because if you collected baseball cards back then, I remember looking and that was his rookie year, you know, 86 and being like,

wow, he only had fucking, you know, 12 homers that year. But then later on he was bombing. It was interesting. So his utility role in the playoffs was very valuable big time. He appeared in two games of the NLCS going. going two for eight. In the World Series, he appeared in five games

going two for eight with no homers or no RBIs. But in game six at Shea Stadium, he pinch hit in the bottom of the 10th with the Mets trailing five to three and singled to load the bases,

which later scored the tying run when Bob Stanley threw a fucking wild pitch. So Red Sox fans, if you're that angry, Bob Stanley literally threw the fucking ball to the backstop and the tying run scored.

That's who to do. That's who to do. be mad at. Not the next guy who batted when fucking Mookiee Wilson hit the ball and Buckner dropped it. The game was already fucked. So yeah, that year he does pretty damn well. They win the

World Series. There we go. The other thing about baseball is that momentum matters so much to that game. Huge. Huge. Whoever's hot at the end gets it. Yeah, when a team is hitting your pitcher, bombing your pitcher, and your pitcher's got to work to try to

keep them from hitting his shit. They know with stuff tonight. They just have him dialed in. Sometimes you got it clocked. Sometimes momentum just matters so much. You keep getting hit after hit after hit. You've got to pull that pitcher just based on his psyche.

He's going to keep serving him up. You can't do it the same. Yeah. And they're, well, if they're feeling 10 feet tall and he's feeling two feet tall, they're going to hit the shit out of him. Matters so much. It's huge with not just in a game but in multiple games. It's huge. That's why you see all these World Series teams are

usually the team that was hottest in September at the end of the season, not the team that stacked a huge record for being good in May. That team loses in the playoffs in the first round, whereas even if they had a better record. It's over. Yeah, whereas the wild card team who had to turn it on in September to get there, they win the World Series because they're hot. Or they go long and they get to the NLCS or whatever,

just because they came in hot. So, 1986, December 11th, the New York Mets trade Kevin Mitchell, No kidding. They trade three guys named Kevin. By the way. Kevin Armstrong, Kevin Mitchell, and Kevin Brown. I don't know if that's pitcher Kevin Brown or not. We're tired of Kevin's around here.

And also Sean Abner and Stan Jefferson. They send all those guys to the San Diego Padres for Adam Ging and Kevin McReynolds and Gene Walter. Kevin McReynolds played for the Mets forever. One of those boring players I've ever won. watch. Decent, he's so fucking dull. Did he not play for the Royals too for a while?

Possibly later on. That makes sense. I could see him in that uniform too. So 87, San Diego Padres, 65 and 97. Larry Boa, the later Phillies manager is their manager.

Here, this team, Jesus, I'm looking at this. Guys you know, Joey Corrus, Storm Davis, Mark Davis, Dave Javecki with the guy who snapped his arm in half when he tried to come back after having cancer.

Remember that poor bastard? We've talked about him before. Steve Garvey, 38 years old finishing up. Oh, boy. Goose Gossage, 35 on that team too. Fucking great. Mark, or Tony Gwynne there, 27. He to his career, Andy Hawkins,

guy who later on played for the Yankees and lost a no-hitter four to nothing. Don't ask. I watched the whole game. Very frustrated as an 11-year-old watching that. John Crook on this team. Shane Mac, Kevin Mitchell, Lance McCullors, yeah, Eric Nulte, Randy Reddy, Eric Scha.

Craig played for the Padres, huh? Yeah, first, yeah, then he went to the Phillies there. Benito Santiago at 22 years old. He was a phenomenon when he came out, throwing guys out from his knees and shit. Eric Schau, Gary Templeton, Ed Whitson. All right, there we go. Marvell win.

All right, so is that it can't be? Their coaching staff is, Larry Boa, Galen Sisko, Sandy Alamar, senior, Harry Dunlop, and Deacon Jones. Could that be the defensive end Deacon Jones? He's

53 years old. He's born in 34 to campy at him then, because Deacon, that would have made Deacon too old to play. Because Deacon was born in 38, so he's a different person. It's different. I was going to say, Deacon would have to be a little bit younger than that

because he was a big star in like 74. Well, that's a big, those four years are a big difference. Otherwise, he would have been 40 when he was a star at defensive end in the 70s, which would have been too old. There are two athletes on this planet. Deacon Jones. Name Deacon Jones? How fucking weird is that? That's insane. That's the craziest thing ever. But those are different guys. Now, he is, Mitchell's going to be the starting third baseman this year, replacing another big legendary, legendary. veteran Greg Nettles as well. Yankees World Series, a great defensive third baseman, one of the best ever. Now, Mitchell did well.

245 batting average in 62 games with the Padres here, including seven home runs and 26 ribbies, but he's very inconsistent. And he, first of all, they sent him home, which is bad, as we've talked about. That's like Rule 3 of the Crime and Sports, never go home. Right. They traded him back there now, where he's, He knows people and where people are going to be bothering him for tickets and for things and for appearances.

And it's too much, man. They shifted him around third base, left field. He said he had returning to San Diego was a lot of pressure for him. He said he couldn't relax away from the field due to constant, like everything, constant fan and community scrutiny overall is at bats. And he just felt like it was too much. He was under a microscope here. And he said, Larry Bowie. was a little too intense of a manager too,

that kind of style. So July 5th, 87, that is when they trade him with Dave Drevecki and Craig Leffertz to the Giants. And that's where he's going to become very famous. In return, they get Chris Brown, Keith Comstock, Mark Davis, who ended up being a big

time reliever for a shitload of save. So that's a good trade. And Mark Grant. 87... It's two, right, Davis? Mark Dave... Not sure. I don't remember where the hell he ended up with. That's possible. I wanted to say the white socks, but I'm thinking of Bobby Fick Ben. Totally.

The Rob Dibble, Reds and, yeah. Okay, 87 Giants. Roger Craig is the manager. Not the San Francisco Giants running back. Roger Craig always looked 100, by the way. The old man he always looked like. How about that? Roger Craig and Deacon Jones he had in the same year as coaches.

It's unbelievable. Now, this 87 Giants team, this is. a fun team and Roger Craig is a fun manager from what I understand because Rod played for him for years and he loved him, thought he was a great guy. Now this year the Giants go 90 and 72 first

in the NL West. So they are going to the playoffs, but they lose to the Cardinals in seven games in the NLCS. Oh, dang. That was a lot. I think the series went seven games too if I'm not mistaken. So Cardinals really drug it out

that year. This is Will Clark at 23 years old, Chili Davis there, or as Chris Berman called him, Chili Concarney Davis. Always had those annoying names. There's like three good ones, and he just wouldn't stop with everybody else.

It was before there was social media where he could get immediate instant gratification. So somebody, he'd go make an appearance somewhere, and somebody would have to, to tell him, man, I'll love when you do those nicknames. From what I understand it was just that's what made the crew laugh. Oh, for fuck's sake.

Because when they were doing this, that guy thought he was funny? Well, in 1982 at 1130 at night in the middle of Connecticut somewhere with like 18,000 people watching, he was just saying shit to entertain himself. Yeah. Fledgling Sports Channel where they're like, we're going to make this fucking great and it's just

this is for the boys. He's just doing it to entertain himself and whatever names like the crew would laugh at. The camera guys go, that's kind of funny. Then he'd keep that and whatever. So that's all it was there. That piece of shit has got to have so much money. He's got a lot.

Bert Be Home Bly Levin is my favorite one. That's the good one. I like that one. Otherwise, they're all terrible. So yeah, he's got a ton of money by now. They kept him around forever. A hundred million dollars, right? Forever.

Beats his shit out of me. He's comfortable, I would say. I bet he'll, I bet his grandchildren. are never working. Probably not. What is this? Adelae Hamaker? Dave Henderson there. Mike Cruco, of course.

Craig Lefferts, Jeffrey Leonard, Candy Maldonado, Kurt Manwaring. All right. Bob Melvin, future manager again. And Kevin Mitchell, and of course, a few more here, Jose Uribe, and Mackey Sasser, Rick Russell. He said it was the Padres.

Padres, yeah. Started out of shortstop for them, too. All right. So, anyway, this year, He's going to Giants Fresh Start And big article In the Chicago Tribune

Giants Kevin Mitchell Has come a long way It says Kevin Mitchell Is in the majors Which is a surprise to his friends They thought he'd end up in jail Or on a coroner slab The problem

Wasn't Mitchell couldn't hit It was what he hit Sometimes it was a baseball Other times it was people All right Kevin said I had a temper He said, I would just snap that quote from before here. He used his fists.

Others were less qualified and more desperate. They used guns. Three times Mitchell was shot, but he remained undeterred. He began to believe he was invincible. Once I was just walking at a carnival. They tried to shoot some other guy and hit me. And that's when he said they can't put me down. So, yeah, he said the Mets told him last year.

They told me I'd be there a long time and that they'd never trade me. He said, but here I am. He said the Mets appreciated what I did in helping them win the World Series, so no hard feelings, but they traded me to the Padres. And then the Padres trade me here. And he said, I was going home. I was so mad, but my grandmother wouldn't let me quit. He wanted to go home when the Padres traded him to the Giants. San Francisco?

He was just going to stay in San Diego. Apparently. Josie Whitfield's grandmother and he said got to do what grandma said yet he concedes

that wasn't always the case he said my grandma tried to talk me out of running with the gang but I stayed she told me that the man upstairs must be watching over me

because I never get in real trouble and never get seriously hurt yeah I guess so he says that he was a tailback and linebacker at Claremont High

Kevin was thinking about playing football at San Diego State. He didn't play and no one saw him play. So who the, was he going to show up there with pads on? I think about it every time, too. I think about it too. Yeah, I was thinking about playing at Miami, you know, the hurricanes.

Every time I see him play, I go, you know, I'd like to do that. Why don't I do that? And grandma told me to take the safe sport. So there you go. He tells a little bit about the Darrell. No, or getting hit. The Darrell Strawberry thing, he says, we were a. playing basketball one day. I didn't know anything about Daryl Strawberry. I even thought he was white

before I met him. Well, I wouldn't pass him the ball because where I come from, it was run and gun. That was street basketball in San Diego. But he didn't like it and was calling me names. I said, hey, you don't know me well enough to call me names. I didn't come here to fight, but I ain't back and down either. Well, we went at it. The other guys broke it up. I was mad. I was on top of him, and he was the rookie star. If he was on top of me, they wouldn't have broken it up. Oh, it's a great point. Yeah, he says, we laugh about it now, but he says he whoop me, but everybody who was there knows. He don't want to accept it.

He got beat up. He said Mitchell didn't want to accept friendship. He sulked, he bristled. He said, I didn't play no games with people. I just didn't communicate. And that's when they told him he had a terrible attitude. And, you know, all that kind of thing. He said that when his brother got killed,

He was in Tidewater. He said, I would stand in the outfield crying, but my teammates pulled me through it. Clint Hurdle really helped me. There's another coach. Oh, he's great. He follows me on Twitter or on Instagram with me. He's a sweet. Congratulations.

And he has so much, so much knowledge of the game. And he gives, like, he'll just DM you fucking smart things. Like, thoughtful quotes. Yeah. He's amazing. That's hilarious. Clint's terrific. He was the coach of the Rockies. He might still be. Rockies, yeah. So, and now at 25, Mitchell has survived the violence. Oh, boy, he's amazed at the distance. He's struggled.

Newspapers fucked up there. Others are amazed. I go home and everybody in the neighborhood says, that can't be Mitch the way he's grown up. He just used to punch people for the heck of it. Now, people, kids look up to me. I try to teach them not to do what I did. All right. Well, 87 with the Giants here. He played. and 69 games, has 268 at bats, hits 306 with 15 homers and 44 ribbies, which is, that's a hell of a second half of the season. That's great. You project that out for a whole season. You got 30 home run. That's 90 RBI, 300 hitting mug guy, which is incredible. He has 30 at bats in the playoffs that year, too. It's 267 with a home run and 2 RBI. 88 San Francisco Giants, 83 and 79. Not quite as good. Finishing fourth in the division this year. Roger Craig's still at the helm. Pretty much the same team. A couple guys here and there, but we won't go into all of that.

September 11th, 1988, Mitchell, to have surgery. Oh. He will miss the rest of the season after he has surgery to repair torn cartilage in his knee. So he's been playing left field now, and they said he's been playing most of the year with torn cartilage floating around in his right knee. So Mitchell and the Giants had originally planned on surgery after the season, but they agreed to move the date up after the team faded from contention for the NLS. Like if we're not making the playoffs anyway, just get yourself fixed up. Mitchell hit a pinch hit single in the seventh inning of Saturday's 3-2 win over the Astros. Mitchell, who's hitting 252, set career highs this season with 18 homers and 76 ribbies.

and he hits 251 with 19 homers and 80 ribbies that year and 505 at bats. So pretty good, but also they said his knee was hurt all year. That's crazy. He should have been better. Then the 89 season comes. He's healthy. He's got everything ready.

This is his big, big, big season here. This year, they finished 92 and 70, first in the NL West. This is they beat the Cubs in five games in the NLCS. I remember that very clearly. And then they go to Oakland, and this is the famous earthquake world series. This is the big earthquake world series. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, candlestick. Yeah, candlestick.

When they show Ricky Henderson sliding into a base and then the feed cuts and showing a highlight from the other game and all that. This is that season. So that World Series is just a fucking mess. And they get swept by Oakland because that's Oakland's. I mean, that was their heyday. That's Konseko and them. And they got Ricky Henderson back then. year and fucking Dave Stewart and Bob Welch and all those guys. They were nasty.

So there you go. That is the 1989 season. Like I said, Will Clark and all these guys on the team. It's Clark and Mitchell are the two big guys on the team. That's who, when I was a kid, was like, those guys are awesome. They were really fucking cool. So I believe Matt Williams, too, 23-year-old Matt Williams on this team. young for this Matt Williams there. April 26th of this year, so the beginning of the year, this is the bare-handed catch. This is sprinting toward the left field foul line

in St. Louis. Ozzie Smith hit the ball. Mitchell realized when you watch it too, the reason why I didn't put his glove up because he realized he overran the ball. He was running too much this way. So he just reached up back this way with his throwing hand and grabbed it.

Yeah. Which is wild. Sometime in 1989, he faced a civil lawsuit from a former girlfriend named Deborah Bryce. Okay. Bryce alleged that Mitchell beat her and threatened her with a gun at his home in Foster City, California and file a civil suit over these claims. It's not the only thing that's going to happen to Kev here. As part of a settlement, he agreed to enroll in a domestic violence program and complete 24 counseling sessions. That sounds like...

did that shit. Sounds like you did that shit. I'm not going anywhere for 24 sessions of anything unless I did something very wrong. I didn't do it, no. Or I'm forced to by a judge. It ain't happening. Yeah. So I guess there's articles from like 91 that reference the matter while covering a separate incident.

But all of them say 89 civil action tied to this domestic violence, gun threat and all that kind of shit. So there you go. 1989, here we, July 11th, newspaper article, Giant Slugger says, quote, I'm just Kevin Mitchell.

Oh, is that right? Oh, boy. Now it's going to get fun once he starts going, hey man, just Kevin Mitchell. That's all I am. In the National League clubhouse,

Kevin Mitchell's locker room is next to that of Ozzie Smith. This is the All-Star game, obviously. And when more than a dozen sports writers swooped in yesterday to surround the Giants left fielder who has 31 home runs and 81 ribbies at the break.

Wow. They were talking about him breaking the record this year. I remember that. All year it was well Kevin Mitchell because I mean at the break he's got all the fucking stats. He's going to break Roger Maris's record. This is the year it's going to happen. It was a big deal.

So Smith said time to go walking away. Like I don't want to have to be here to hear this shit. Not that tall at five feet 10 inches, not that muscular. at 210 pounds, 27-year-old Kevin Mitchell was wearing a gold left front tooth and enough gold chains to be the envy of Mr. T. But he's having a season that's the envy of all other hitters here for tonight's All-Star game. And in his soft-spoken style, he tried to minimize his sudden stature. He said, quote, I'm not the star here. I still get these other guys' autographs.

They're all stars in my book. I'm just Kevin Mitchell. Right. Just Kevin Mitchell, baby. You know how it goes. Just KM. Yep. So they say to appreciate what Mitchell is doing,

there should have been an empty locker assigned to Hack Wilson in the National League Clubhouse and empty lockers for Roger Maris and Babe Ruth in the American League clubhouse. With his 31 homers, Mitchell is on pace for 58, which would break Hack Wilson's NL record of 56 set in 1930, and threatens Maris' record of 61, set in 61, obviously. He said, you can't put me in a camera. category with those guys. They're great. I'm just Kevin Mitchell. I'm just Kevin Mitchell. So that's two things in a row. A, A, A, blah, blah, blah. I'm just Kevin Mitchell. That's it.

But Will Clark said that Kevin has been Superman and unconscious this season. He said, right now he's the best player going. 31 and 81. That's all you need to know, Clark said. He said, it's been unbelievable. He looks so comfortable. He's swinging the bat with reckless abandon, no matter where the ball is pitched, he hits it. He did have like a Vlad Guerrero thing back in the day where you couldn't... Yeah? If he reached out and got it, he could just get it. You had to pitch it where he couldn't get to it or else he'd take

a fucking hack at it. Might hit it. They said in San Diego, I was on second base when he hit one. I just turned around and watched it. In Pittsburgh, he gets fisted. Well, that's tough on him. Go on. That's brutal on a guy. You don't want to get... No wonder why people don't like Pittsburgh.

If you're getting fisted, no wonder. Yeah. I love Pittsburgh, but I've never been fisted. So that makes a lot of sense why we would enjoy it. You're going the wrong places. I guess so. Jesus, I'm just going out to eat and going to our shows. I think we should spread out a bit and maybe go around the college and see if there's any festing going on.

So he gets fisted. He hits it out to left center. That just means pitched very much inside on the handle of the back, jammed up, basically. But Will Clark wanted to put it in a grosser way, it's all. You know, if he could be a little grosser. So he hits it out to left center. In St. Louis the other day, he went down and hit a low pitch,

10 rows up in the center field bleachers. He said, on the Giants now, Brett Butler, Robbie Thompson, and I have one goal to get on base for Kevin Mitchell. We are riding on his shoulders because he's hitting cleanup. Those three guys are in front of him. But if Mitchell keeps hitting home runs,

those shoulders will soon be saddled with another burden, the challenge of catching Wilson, Ruth, and Maris. Mark McGuire knows, as a rookie two years ago at the All-Star break, the first basement of the A's had 33 home runs. He finished up with 49, a rookie record, but somewhat of a disappointment.

Well, don't worry. Wait. Give yourself eight years. You'll be fine. And in the AL Clubhouse yesterday, he had some advice for Mitchell. McGuire said, I'd just tell him,

don't let people take your time. Don't let people take your time. Try to keep the interviews to a minimum. Okay, that makes sense. He said, if someone wants to do an endorsement, do it after the season's over. I made the mistake of going to maybe half a dozen memorabilia shows to sign autographs. I also did a lot of magazine interviews, which takes a lot of time and takes a lot out of you. All that affected me.

My August was terrible. All that caught up with me physically. I got the flu lost 15 pounds. So McGuire remembered also when George Brett was hitting over 400 going into September. in 1980, but finished at 390. McGuire said, after what happened to me, I tend to believe that if people had let George alone, he would have hit 420.

That's the pressure is what gets to you up there. That's why you don't see anybody break the hitting streak record. It's just the pressure. Once a guy hits 30 games, all anybody talks about. If a guy hits 40 games, it'll be every at bat. It's all they're talking about. And guys, they melt. They can't handle it.

So hard. They just can't, yeah, they can't. I mean, Pete, Rose of like, what, two 40 game streaks? And it was just on him constantly, on him, on him, on him. So it's amazing that DiMaggio did that here. But no matter how many of or how few distractions exist, the primary burden of any player trying to hit 400 or trying to hit home runs

is the accomplishment itself. So Mitchell, the ex-Met, ex-Padre, who was traded to the Giants two years ago, talks about enjoying the burden. They want to have people up his ass. He said, I feel I can deal with it. I don't feel pressure. I do it or I don't. Okay.

Interesting here. So they said that, you know, they talked about he's from a tough neighborhood and everything's pressure and he's fine and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it's just Kevin Mitchell. This year for the Giants, 89, he is the MVP of the National League, Silver Slugger Award and an All-Star. How about that? Crushing it. He hits, what is this, 291 batting average

with a league leading 1,023 OPS on base plus slugging. So, how do you get over a thousand? Because it's plus. So on base plus slugging. So his on base was 388, his slugging was 635.

Got it. So it's why it's a stupid stat. It's just one of those new stats that people like. So he hit 47 home runs and 125 ribbies. So absolutely. crushing it. Had 87

walks, too, a career high. Also had 115 strikeouts a career high, but that's fine. So he's doing very well in 89. October 14, 89, they say that Baltimore's Frank Robinson here

will be manager of the year in San Francisco, and Mitchell will be player of the year, MVP. So, what is it? Mitchell, who led the majors with 47 home runs, received 114.14 points in voting by writers and broadcasters to out distance the second place guy,

teammate Will Clark, who got 20 points. Yeah. Will Clark seems like a huge, gaping, gigantic asshole, by the way, too. If you've ever heard him, he's a dick. Yeah. He's a fucking dick. And everybody says he's a fucking racist dick, too, on top of me.

Really? That's what everybody in baseball says. With those sunglasses. You're saying it's true. Fucking square hat, too. He always looked at a very stove piping. He was piping hard. Yeah, just had that, yeah, the one that I, they gave him the old Abe Lincoln, as Rod said.

Yeah, yeah. Dumb sunglasses. Would you guys get those hats, man? Love that story. October 17th, 89. Kevin Mitchell lives in his own world. Well, yeah, we all do. Okay.

Wow. Interesting. He said that Mitchell was looking for Willie Mays yesterday. and a guy standing and listening thought to himself, well, this might be nice, young giant slugger with the all-time giant slugger at the foot of the master and all that. No chance. Kevin said, quote,

Willie Mays owes me a gold chain. I want my gold chain. I'm getting it. What? Willie Mays owes me a gold chain. Kevin Mitchell is different, very different. A world of his own seems to be the most common description from those who spend time around him.

Now that he's good, he can be crazy. He doesn't have to kiss everybody's ass. Now you can be nuts as long as you had home runs once in a while. Nobody gives a shit. They tell two stories about Kevin Mitchell from this season. When he was hitting home runs at a terrific rate, someone posed the inevitable question of Roger Maris and 61 and 61. He asked back genuinely, quote, who's Roger Maris?

What? No, a lot of guys don't know shit about past players. Yeah, well, he wasn't a big, he wasn't a baseball guy. He wasn't a guy who came up playing. Yeah. Didn't he? Yeah. When Commissioner Bart Giamatti died, players in every park assembled for a brief moment of silence.

Who's Giamatti, he said out loud. He said, who the fuck are we doing this for? What's going on? Paul? Yeah, Paul. Big virus. Is that what's happening? But he knows who Willie Mays is.

The other Giants, Hall of Fame Giants, they're honored in the right field fence at Candlesticks Park are a mystery to Mitchell. He admits he couldn't have cared less about baseball when he was younger. And others say he doesn't care much more now. but he knows Mays. Willie Mays called him. Kevin Mitchell said, I talk with Mays a lot.

He tells me what I'm doing wrong. What about the gold chain? Okay. He owes me one because I reached the goals I set this year, 35 and 100 for homers and ribby's. Said he'd give me one. Really owes me my chain. How about that?

Break it out. It's mentioned to Mitchell that one of baseball's most incongruous statistics reveals that the very unremarkable Willie Mays Aitkins hit four World Series home runs, four more than Willie Mays hit. Willie Mays, by the way, and other crime and sports alum. Track it. And where the Mexican pimp came from and where, how is it you've come to arrive here came from.

Figured it out. Willie Mays, not a bad guy. Very good guy. Never had any problems. Just a great old man, right? Just a great old man. Mitchell said, Willie never hit none. I got to get him then.

So that'll be another gold chain maybe. Willie didn't get a chance to play in a lot of World Series, unfortunately, for him. They said if it seems kind of an odd currency by which to measure either Mays or a World Series home run, and the Giants desperately need someone to hit some kind of long ball before their embarrassment is total in this one-sided World Series. Well, that's Kevin Mitchell. By comparison, I don't know Wayne Gretzky at all, but I bet from what I've read about him that he's practically carrying Gordy Howe's luggage for him these days. you know what I mean? I guess he's kissing his ass rather than him saying,

give me a gold chain. There is none of that grace associated with Mitchell. Gretzky might call how his hero. Mitchell says his heroes are Freddie Kruger and Jason. From Friday the 13th, The Nightmare on Elm Street. He likes to wear a Jason mask in the clubhouse. Okay. He's different all right.

He was asked if being the Giants Big Stick met added pressure on him, being a team leader. He said, I ain't no team leader. He looked around, pointed at Brett Butler and said, that's Butler's job. It's not up to me to motivate this team. Scrappy second base. Yeah, he had four homers, so he's got to do extra shit. I don't have to.

I have 47. He can be a leader. He said many giants, according to whispers, are fed up with him. With Mitchell. He's getting to be annoying again. He didn't show up for a workout last week, and the Giants had to find him. He's been a no-show at other team functions this season. Once he missed an exhibition game because he told Roger Craig his mother had been in a car wreck and was in the hospital. The Giants

asked which hospital, apparently so they could send flowers, he gave them a name, no such hospital. She showed up at the ballpark just fine a couple days later. Okay. Hey, Ma, don't come here for a couple days. You're going to blow up my spot. Wow. They say players who at 47 home runs tend to get away with this kind of stuff. George Bell hit 47 a couple years ago and came to camp refusing to play where the manager told him to play. The Blue Jay front office tacitly or tacitly supported Bell since Jimmy Williams had hit 47 fewer home runs the year before and you know the rest.

That was the manager, Jimmy Williams. Well, he has 47 and you have none manager. So who's leaving? Yep. Craig and GM Al Rosen may not be so tolerant as the Blue Jays were. There's talk that Mitchell might find. himself a new location next year. Interesting.

The Mets got rid of him after 86, deciding he was a headcase slash headache they could do without. San Diego took him for half a season before sending him here. He's been great in the field for the Giants, but talk persists in the front office about being fed up with him. Before they move him, if they do, they'd like to see him win one more gold chain from Willie Mays. Okay.

By the way, in the World Series here, he hits, oh, this is in the playoffs, as a total here. He had 324 with three homers and nine ribbies that year. So them losing wasn't his fault in the playoffs at all. He did his part. The problem is their pitching couldn't keep the fucking A's off the scoreboard. November 22nd, he has voted MVP.

Wow. Absolutely. He joined Willie Mays and Willie McCovey as the only San Francisco Giants to ever win the National League MVP. How about that? Not too shabby. He said, every year I come out and I feel like I have to improve on something, this time it's my running. I know I can steal more bases than what I have, which was three the year before. He could probably up that to at least six.

He said, everything else, I think I pretty much got pinned down. I would say. Mitchell, who scheduled flight to San Francisco to meet the press, was canceled by Fogg, said he would have voted for Clark. But a baseball writers association panel disagreed, casting 20 of 24 first place votes for Mitchell, three for Clark, and one for Pedro Guerrero of St. Louis. Pedro Guerrero, if you don't know, is the guy who got in trouble for, I believe, drug trafficking or something. And his defense was he's too stupid to run a drug trafficking ring. He doesn't know how to tie his shoes. That was literally.

He had the, I can't tie my shoes defense, which is amazing here. Awesome. Yeah. So Mitchell got 314, Pedro Guerrero 190, Will Clark up there, Ryan Sandberg, Howard Johnson, all of the MVP voting here. Clark hit 333 with 27 homers and 111 ribbies, by the way. But Clark said he should be the guy. He said Kevin Mitchell's the one who carried us for three months. Without him, there's no way I'm having the season I'm having, which is true. You got a bomber behind you. You're getting all sorts of pitching to hit. I mean, They can't avoid you. They don't want to put you on and have him, so they're throwing you fastballs and hoping to get you out. So, interesting. He said, Mitchell, I'm very happy about it. It means a lot.

I can walk around with my head up, especially living in my hometown. I can walk around and people will say, there's Kevin Mitchell. He's the MVP. It's a great honor. Oh, man. They said, not since Brooklyn's Dolph Camilly. Give you a German first name and an Italian last name. What a weird combination.

Playing for the Dodgers? Yeah, Brooklyn in 1941. Had a player been traded twice before becoming the MVP. Normally you hang on to a guy with talent like that. But they're talking about more trades. Mitchell to Cleveland for Joe Carter, Mitchell for a top starting pitcher. He says, quote,

I don't want to be traded. I love Candlestick Park. But I've been traded before. I don't think it can do any more damage. I put up numbers no matter where I play. And he said the recent free agent signing of right fielder Kevin Bass should help the Giants. He said, I think we're going to be right there again. I would say so.

So by the way, Mitchell and Clark are the 22nd set of teammates to finish one, two in the voting. Oh, for MVP. Interesting, right? That happens a lot, an awful lot. That's plenty. Christ. How many times? 22 at that point.

Wow. One and two. Cal Ripkin and Eddie Murray in 83. Joe Morgan and George Foster were the last two. 22 times. 22 times, yeah. Mitchell's RBIs were tops in San Francisco since Willie McCovey's 126 in 1970. Mitchell drew 32 intentional walks, a major league record for a right-handed batter. That was a batter.

McCovee, a left, he got 45 and 69. Mitchell led the majors with 345 total bases. He also led an extra base hits, doubles. He's doing great. All right. We will finish this up with 1990 here. The 1990 Giants, and this is when it's going to start coming. The wheels are going to start coming off the wagon here in terms of his attitude and some legal problems that he has.

90 Giants, 85 and 77. Roger Craig again, they are third in the NL West. Let's see this year. Pretty much the same team at a couple. Jeff Brantley, I think Raghetti is on the team now, or might be. might not be on the team for a couple years, actually. Rags. Yeah, they didn't get him.

He was still on the Yankees. Dan Quisenberry on the team. Remember Quisenberry? Like, underhanded pitcher for the royals. Fuck, he was good. Rick Russell. Who else? He's still on the team.

Yeah, those guys. That's it. Okay. April 8, 1990. This will be the last thing here. San Francisco Chronicle, Most valuable, most vulnerable. Oh.

That's what it says. Most vulnerable player. Yep. Kevin Mitchell finds success doesn't always bring happiness. Is that right? Yeah. Early this past winter, back when a lockout still met you left your keys in the car, Giants hitting coach, Dusty Baker, he was just the hitting coach, was discussing

Kevin Mitchell's chances of matching one of the transcendent seasons in recent baseball history. Baker said, I think he's going to have another great year. because once you have one, you realize you have the ability. You know where to reach back for it, as long as you don't put too much pressure on yourself in panic. Mitch is loose enough where he won't do that. They said at least the Kevin Mitchell who left the Candlestick Park last October was loose, not to mention funny, engaging, and even charming when he wanted to be,

which is most of the time. The Kevin Mitchell, who returned to the giant spring training camp in late March, was wound tighter than 1987 fastballs, even before severely spraining his right wrist during batting practice Friday night. Mitchell's risk was put in a splint and he'll be out of action at least a week. He says, I'm just messed up right now. Not encouraging words from the man who electrified the baseball world last year. What was amazing, said Will Clark, is that when a guy hits that many home runs,

somewhere along the line you think he might have a cheapie. He didn't have any cheapies. Cheapies meeting first row scrapers and a you know, 316 foot down the line park, one of those. He was hitting shots, basically. But success hasn't brought him happiness. He said, man, it was better before.

I'm tired of having to defend myself all the time. Yep, that's it. And he said, what should have been the best winner of his life? The time to bask in the glow of his MVP season was devoid of fun, he said. he felt like a prisoner in his stylish new apartment in the in the tony section of San Diego where he moved to get away from the bad influences of his old neighborhood. Every time he'd returned to his old stomping grounds, he'd find himself hassled.

He said, I had a really bad winter. I was limited in the things I could do. I'd go home to visit my mom and my little girl. Didn't know about that. Right. Tammy eight years old. I drive a nice car. The police figured if they didn't know, they didn't know who was in.

in the car, I must be a dope dealer. They'd pull me over and ask me questions. Mitchell, I had 47 home runs is your answer, motherfucker. Mitchell's grandmother remembers one time his car was surrounded by police helicopters. Kevin wasn't even in it. He'd lent it to a friend when he was at home. So he said that at his grandmother's urging, he severed ties with many of his old friends. He said, sometimes people try to pull you down to their level if you're not strong enough.

Grandma, Kevin says, Grandma, don't worry. I say, do worry, grandma says, because you're a part of me. Someone works as hard as you to get where you are if you lose it. It not only hurts you, it hurts the family and your community. So anyway, they were talking about he began to do the like MVP shit going to get, do interviews and all that. And he realized he didn't want to do it. And so he told his agent to put an end to it. He said, I knew what I had to do.

I had to work out. There's nobody going to pick up Kevin Mitchell. He's got to do it himself. Now he's talking about himself in the third person. Perfect. We have reached full crazy fucking lunatic ego status here. He's got to do it himself. I can't worry about what people want me to do.

I have to go out and do what I have to do. I get paid for coming out here and playing, not for doing all that other stuff. The only major endorsement Mitchell landed was for Diet Pepsi, his agent says. He says, there's no question we could have exploited the market. We could have taken in

over a million dollars, just an endorsement, sir. Then there's trade rumors. He got a one-year contract for 2.083 million, and he's very upset about that because they signed Will Clark a week later to a four-year,

$15 million deal. He's like, I'm the MVP. How's the MVP get less money than shit-ass, Will Clark in his stupid sunglasses. And one year. Wow. There was a false report that Mitchell had been arrested, and he was compelled to prove his innocence.

He wondered whether Giants' management still liked him and how much longer he'd be with the club. He said, it's like I have to start all over. And a messy start, it turned out to be. Mitchell reported to camp two days later than anyone else on the team, then was upset that many people doubted he had a legitimate excuse. He was undergoing a pair of root canals, which he had scheduled before. for the lockout ended. There was a brief lockout that year.

So his agent said he had a lot of pressure on him last year, and it took him a little while to relax and unwind in the off season. Then from day one, he's put right back under a microscope. The guy has two root canals in its headlines. That gives him a bad initial impression. Like, give me a break. Let me be a normal person. He feels overanalyzed and naked.

Naked. Now, his manager, Roger Craig, said he's felt to notice no change. and Mitchell on or off the field. And his bat's getting better. He said, that's good. He said, he'll be happy on the first and 15th, and I'll be happy watching him play every day. He'll be happy when he gets paid.

I get happy watching him. He said, the manager said, you guys are trying to make a bad guy out of Kevin Mitchell. And, yeah, they said maybe a little irresponsible, maybe this, that, but, you know, he's not a bad guy. Particularly upsetting to Mitchell was a profile in the Sporting News Baseball,

yearbook with the headline Earth to Mitchell. Kevin is just a little kid living in his own world. And they said in the accompanying photograph Mitchell's eyes have been doctored to appear like green globes. Oh. Like money, I guess.

Said Mitchell, shaking his head, I'm not in my own world. They're just saying a lot of stuff they don't know nothing about. I wonder where they're getting their information from. And he believes far too much has been made of his supposed indiscretions, such missing a workout before the World Series or, you know, skipping the sporting news banquet,

honoring him as the player of the year in the major leagues. Oh, boy, yeah. He said, I think a lot of people blew things out of proportion. I still hear about it and it's over. I was wrong. I made a mistake. It's over. What is it?

I can't do nothing, right? Ricky Henderson missed a practice, too. They're still on my case about it. What am I doing wrong? You hear stuff about Joe Montana missing a banquet, and then that's it. Because he's a local San Francisco guy. That makes sense. And Ricky is in Oakland.

So I'm like, why is he picking those two? Because they're Bay Area guys. And they're the biggest stars of the Bay Area, too. Exactly. Those are the two big ones. My issue keeps coming up and coming up like someone doesn't like me. If they don't like me, I don't like them. All I see is negative, never anything good.

The stories always have to end with something bad. So he said, I'm not going to make no mistakes. I can't because he's under enormous scrutiny. Absolutely here. So now who is this? Oh, this is his grandmother said he's unhappy, but he'll come out of it. He wasn't that way when he left here. He understood what Will Clark was doing that his time will come.

Then reporter started saying, you should have gotten more. Kevin's kind of easily persuaded. I tell him to look back where he came from in the short length of time he's gained all this. Maybe he's not wise enough to think all this like grandma being older. Okay. She said she praised that Kevin doesn't start running around with the wrong crowd again. You should be praying. He stops using him to his name in the third person and shit like that. That's what's going to fuck up his career. He's running down a wrong path just by himself.

Yeah. She said, I don't like him to be out night clubbing. Not clubbing, nightclubbing. He don't need those guys. He's big and husky and they think he should defend them. They're always looking for trouble. It's just not worth it. I say, Kevin, you're at the top right now. Stuff like that will bring you down. I'm his grandmother and I wouldn't lie to. him or for him. I just try to help him through his bad times. All of us have skeletons in their closet. He's had a rough life, but I'm proud of him

through it all. He's not polished like I'd love him to be, but he's come home to a heck of a long way. And his agent said another season like last years would set him up to become the highest paid player in the game. And he sat there and Kevin Mitchell said, I'll be all right.

Okay. He is going to sign a big deal, so we'll end with this. He signed It's a September 1st, 1990, a four-year $15 million pact. Hey, he got his Will Clark. They gave him Will Clark money. Yep, he'll get a $1 million signing bonus, and he's doing great. He said, I'm very happy about the situation.

It's good to be around people like Al Rosen and Roger Craig, the general manager. He'll also have bonuses, $100,000 for being the MVP, 50 grand for being the MVP of an NLCS, 50 for World Series MVP, 25 for making the... the all-star team in each of his four years. Yeah. It's got some things in there. So, yeah, 1990, he's going to be an all-star that year. 11th in the MVP voting.

He hits 290 with 35 homers, 93 ribbies. Pretty much almost the same year. Not bad. Not bad. Damn good year, All-Star and everything else. And we will pick up in 1991 next week, because this is right when the troubles start with legal issues. So we'll get into all of that and more next week here. But there is Kevin Mitchell part one, everybody.

We have set him up. His head is out of his. His head is insane. It's blown out right now. His head's another planet. It's in another planet with green globes in his eyes or whatever they said. So shit's only going to get crazier and you goddamn know it. Because within five years, four years, he'll be in Japan.

So that tells you a lot. How badly things fell apart for him. Playing baseball? Yeah. Crazy shit, dude. It's wild. So a little spoiler alert. But if you enjoy this episode or any other episode we put out,

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Does the executive producers are Gary Howard in Lurking, Texas? Oh boy, Gary Garry, Gary Gar. Boy, and happy hour on plain dealing Louisiana. I think that's a draw, fellas. Yeah, you guys, I don't know who wins this week. Those both sound god-awful. Elena Zemmel,

Elena, can't wait to see you this coming week. Penny Boyce, Rabaz Vlogs, Robaz, Robes, blogs, vlogs, James. I don't know. Britt Emanuel also.

Thank you all so much for everything you do. Thank you. Super matters. Other producers this week, Peyton Meadows, Janice Hill, AI, no name at all. Nicole J. Crystal Dawson, Rachel James, Laura. Larry. That's Larry, not Lori.

Larry Turner. Chelsea. Larry's such a guy named too. It's like such a Larry. It sounds like a hairy man. Chelsea. Nye, Bill's daughter, I think. Oh, perfect.

Adrianna Shaw, Adriana, perhaps. Stephanie would know the last name. Amber Smith, Kelly Johnston, Niancy? What did I? No, that's just Nancy. No last name. Celeste Sunbot. Andrea Knopp. Tracy would know the last name.

Page would know the last name. Terry Ann, Daisy Bowman Vallet, Valvaia. Taylor Perkins, Matt Heritage. Susan Ollman, Faith Astley, Eric Duzel, Brooke Rice, J. Mack, Lucky Lee,

Alyssa Kilmurray, Michael F, Kylie Preehem, preheim, Nisi would know last name. Mateo, Matthew, Peralt. Is that Matthio?

It's spelled like that Honeybadger guy. Yeah, yeah. How did they pronounce that guy's name? Mateo? Vanessa Bush, Stephanie Pearson, Lexi Kling, Matthew,

Matthew, Matthew. Matthew. They did say Matthew, didn't they? I don't know. I mean, you could make it, Matthew. Yeah, sure. Wanted to craft it that way. Yeah, it could be Matthew. Lexi King. Hannah would know the last name. Dan Sharuke, Michelle Hogue, Tanya Roll.

Jelly's daughter. I don't know. Kim Howard, Aaron Hunt, Jody Pitesmeier, NWC. Morgan, not doing it. Morgan Harris. Alyssa, Paramo, Jack. Franklin brothers. Kristen Mamarillo. The Italian boobs, the

Mamarillo's. Nice. Patricia Browning. Carla would know less name. Patrick would know last name. Space Cowboy Lux. Alyssa would know last name. Brian Bargiale. Borgiale. Casey Pryor. Kimberly

Clupex. J. 4th. J.V.I. James. That's a... Oh, six. Sixth, the sixth J. So like instead of Johnny 5, they're Johnny 6. Johnny 6.

Johnny 6 we found. Elizabeth with no last name. Jennifer Husson. Wendy Reinhardt, Aden Johnson, Katie Strake, Rob O'Neillio, Missy Harness, Olivia Carter, and Caroline the Q, James.

Oh, well, that's a new pirate. Yeah, watch out. Cheryl Wenbin, Anthony the Tho, Thievino, Thévano, Anthony. Steve Edwards, Cindy Haas, Melanie Barga, Sugar Magnolia, Rachel Postone, Poston, Poston, Poston, Tasha and Brian Brown. Oh my God, I'm stoned. I know that feeling. Terry would know last name.

Dye would know last name. Shanna A. Skyler Duclose. Did I say that already? Johnus. Jonas. Jonas Bernie von Lundstinstead. Jonas Bernie von Lundstedt. I don't know.

Burnt. Oh, that's burnt. Not Bernie. That's a D and a T. That's what that is. Rowan James, Rowan, Amber Fisher, Kara Cameron, Brandon Collard. Cody would know the last name. Larnie Hennessy, Angie Pennington, Stephanie Johnson, Don Hegelson, Helgeson, Miller, Sarah.

Oh, boy. N-I-G-B-O-R. What is that, James? Not going to do it. No, no, you're not going to bait me. Brian would know last name. Neboar. I can isolate that shit.

Chris 77, Lori Sasse, Jerry Fletcher, Kiki would know last name. Todd Phillips, good for you, taking a break from directing the 97th hangover. Terese Carr Sharbonneau. Ginger Schwab. Kierza, Kierza Lappensky. Shannon, Shinnin, Shinnin Stutter, Stewart. Matt Aguile. Aguilera.

Mike and, oh, Mike from Dufan, Dauphin, D-A-U-H-I-N, that's overseas, right? Europe.

Guessing. C-K. Good for you, Louis. Simon Chamberlain, Chamberlain, G. Neo would know last name. Andrea Massey,

Susan, Suzanne Pinelli. Tanya would no last name. Lexi Trammell. Oh, look at that. Alan's good. Alan, that's it. Amanda would no last name.

Trina C. Rebecca Seeger, Bob's kid. Amanda Barker, Travis's kid. Heather would know last name. Ty Saylor. You go Travis before Bob? What is it? You go Travis before Bob on Barker?

I did. Wow. He said Bob Segar, Bob, and then he said, Travis. Bob it up, man. Double Bobbs. He's now dead, right? We didn't kill him again. Bob Barker.

No, he is dead, I believe. Yeah, he is dead. Nicole Schmelser and all of our patrons. You guys are the best. What did you say? Travis Barker might as well be, but he's still alive. He died several deaths. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Thank you so much, everybody. God damn it, you guys are awesome. You're amazing. We appreciate the fuck out of you. Thank you for everything you do for us. And thanks for your money and for hanging out with us and everything else. Hope you're liking this. This is about to be a real fun episode after this one was fun.

But next week, we got a bunch of problems and issues and all sorts of shit. So we'll get into that. And way more. So keep coming back and seeing us week after week, everybody. Check out, shut up and give me murder.com if you want to find us on social media or any information about any of our shows. That is the place to go. That said, live from the Crime and Sports Studios, we will see you next week. Bye.

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