Green Light with Chris Long - World Series Talk with Sean Doolittle

Episode Date: November 12, 2019

World Series Talk with Sean Doolittle on Green Light Podcast | Chalk Media. Chris Long talks World Series, Super Bowl and locker room celebrations with fellow UVA grad and Washington Nationals' pitcher, Sean Doolittle. About Chalk Media: Following the unfiltered voice and vision of Chris Long, Chalk Media is the interactive online community for you, the intelligent and humorous sports fan. Driven by access, Chalk delivers a unique perspective that cuts through the canned talking points and provides a variety of content from your favorite sports and entertainment celebrities. Here at Chalk, we don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we are rooted in challenging the perception of professional athletes. We embrace the “real” with a unique combination of humor and intelligence. Chalk is a community with a voice beyond 240 characters that brings a perspective and vibe to a traditionally brash and boastful sports media space. Subscribe and enjoy weekly content including podcasts, documentaries, live chats, celebrity interviews and more. Nothing is off limits at Chalk - hot news items, trending discussions from the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA are just a small part of what we will be sharing with you. 🌍🏀🏈SUBSCRIBE NOW ⚾🏒⛰️ http://bit.ly/chalknetwork Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

the two seamer. Is that the two seamer? That's more of a forkball now that you have your fingers over top of the ball. I don't even know there was a forkball. Put your fingers closer together between the railroad tracks. Oh, between the tracks. Thank you. There you go. There's your stick. Do you have a pitch that you can't throw so well, but you wish you could throw like if there was a fantasy, like?

Slider. Slider. Or breaking ball. Any type of breaking ball. I throw my fastball. This year, I threw my fastball 88% of the time, which was actually the lowest percentage in my career. And I started mixing in my change-up and my slider a lot more towards the second half of the season.

But I just have a really tough time spinning the baseball, sliders, curveballs. I throw with a very stiff wrist, which is one of the reasons that my fans. basketball has the deception that it has, but it makes it very difficult for me to snap off a break and ball. So I was working with Scherzer and Strasbourg on it for a bunch this year and with varying results. I had it for a little while and then I kind of lost it.

So that's one of my projects for the off season. Maybe a preview of things to come, but back to the, I mean, that was exciting. And like I told some people, I've been like Rip Van Winkle with baseball. I took 11 years off, because it's hard to keep up. I mean, the season's so long,

I'm an all or nothing guy, so I have to watch all of it. Now that I'm retired, I can watch it all. Everybody in Charlottesville was so hype for you in Zim and Ellywood Avenue was going nuts. I feel like you were there in spirit. What are the nerves like when you're getting ready

to take the field for a World Series game that you know everybody on the planet's watching? Like if a fly ball pops up in the air at night, are you like, are you nervous? You know, like, because it's petrifying looking to me. The nerves were, they're pretty intense, especially because there's so much happening before the game. Like, I don't know, like, you probably dealt with this in the Super Bowl that you played

in, but like, we had a media day on the day before the World Series started. And then, you know, I'd been lucky enough to play in a couple all-star games, but the media at the World Series was there were just it was like times a hundred there were so many more cameras and reporters and so you start to realize on the day and then we had

a light workout after that but you're right away you're like oh wow this is like a totally different beast this is something that none of us had ever experienced we had I think like three guys on our team play in a World Series before and the only got we had one guy with a ring on the team So a lot of us were going through this for the very first time. And then the next day, you know, you can't sleep that night.

It's kind of like the night before opening day where you're a bundle of nerves. Mostly you're excited, but you're also a little nervous. And you just want to get this thing started. Then the next day, you know, you go out for stretch and for batting practice and you're like, oh, my gosh, this is happening. I do think we did a great job as a team. We had a lot of really weird inside jokes that kind of came up organically over the course of this season that allowed us to have enough fun to be able to cancel out some of those nerves and to deal with them a little bit. One of the things we had, all the relievers, we wore polo shirts out for batting practice.

Because we said we started doing it in the division series when we were down. two games to one. This company just sent Aaron Barrett, one of our relievers. They sent them these Washington Nationals polo shirts. And we were like, and so like we all put them on and we were like, hey, we got to get down to business. Yeah. We got to win tonight. We're down to one in a five game series. We had to win the next two. We won that game. We won the next one and we just kept winning. So we kept wearing them. But that was like a silly thing that was like nobody does that in a world series. Like everybody's super focused, right?

You're supposed to, this is the pinnacle and you're supposed to be laser focused. And we're out there wearing like polo shirts and not goofing around, but like. No, but you got to have fun. I mean, you can't get, like especially younger players. It takes pressure off,

at least in football. It takes pressure off younger players if they see guys who get it. And you don't have to have played in a World Series or a Super Bowl to get it and what it's about the postseason. I just feel like. that helps set the tone for some guys who might be a little bit afraid. They see that and they feel better. I'm picturing you in like a polo,

like from Belk, or like a Tommy Hilfiger polo, but you would get fine for that. No, we probably should have because they told us that before that you're only allowed to wear, I mean, they gave us so many sweatshirts and T-shirts with the World Series logos on them and stuff like that. And they said, these are the only things you're allowed to wear on the field. And we were like, okay, well, some guys put on like the World Series sweatshirt and then put the polo over top of it. Right, right, right.

Just so they had all their bases covered. It's a company from Austin, Texas, called Cricket. They make, like, golf shirts. Yeah. And they just sent them to one of the guys. And he was like, I don't know what to do with these. But, like, we had the baby shark. We had, um, we had guys in the dugout wearing like rose colored sunglasses.

I also think it helped that, especially in the division series against the Dodgers series against the Astros, we were heavy underdogs, which is a weird thing to think about for us on a team that has a rotation that starts with Scherzer Strasbourg and Corbyn, a lineup that has an MVP candidate, Anthony Rendon, and Juan Soto, to think that we're huge underdogs is weird, but we embrace that role. And we were like, hey, man, we're playing with house money. Let's put this all out there and see how we stack up. We probably shouldn't even be here.

We were kind of aware of that just based on the way our season started. So we tried to look at it like what an incredible opportunity we have here to flip the script on these guys. Let's take it to them and see, let's just see what we can do. And I think that allowed us to play just loose enough that we were able to take advantage of a lot of stuff. Yeah, when we made the Philly run, everything for us was, like you said, we're playing with house money. No one thinks we're going to win. It's not going to be a disappointment. And you guys snuck in in the wild card, right?

So I was going to ask you how you feel about the one game wildcard thing. Do you think that should change down the line? I mean, obviously. As a player, I hate it. As a relief pitcher, as a relief pitcher, I hate it. I got burned by it in 2014. I blew a save in the wild card game against the role. and we ended up losing an extra innings.

This year, we pulled it out late. I think it's awesome for fans because in the second half of the season with the two wildcard spots, there's a lot of teams that are still in a playoff race. So it's great for late season drama. But I think when you play 162 games and then it comes down to one game, game. That's a little bit nerve-wracking, man. Weird things can happen. We caught a break in the eighth inning when the ball took a weird hop in right field, cleared the bases, and we took the lead. I think players would love to see some sort of three-game series that we could maybe sandwich in

before the division series round. I don't know if you're looking at, because you would have to do it really quickly. So there's not too much of a layoff before the division series. Maybe a double header on one of those games. If the team, if you guys split the first two games, just go right into it. High school summer baseball style. Let's get weird. Yeah, let's get weird. Exactly. I mean, and you guys got really weird because you went on the road the whole time. I mean, like, in the World Series, is there a home field advantage in baseball? I don't understand. because when I look at it, it doesn't seem like it's as clear as in football or something, or home ice and hockey or, you know, even basketball.

You're right. And I think the numbers back that up. I remember going into the wild card game, people were asking us if we'd rather have the game at home or on the road. And, I mean, we were all like, whatever, we're in the playoffs. We just want to, we have a chance now. But in the wild card game, I believe the road team actually has a better record. record, which is weird. And then, I mean, this year the World Series, it had never happened before in the history of the World Series. No home team won a game. All seven games, the Road Team won. But like both teams that were in the World Series, we both had really, really good records at home during the regular season. So like, I don't really know how to explain that. I know I know in the World Series in games three,

and five at Nat's Park, I think we were a little bit, we were a little bit overamped. First World Series in D.C. since 1933, our crowd was unbelievable. And I think we were pressing a little bit to try to blow the roof off the place. And we weren't really able, we weren't really able to get anything going. And by the time the series went back to Houston, it was like, part of what some of us were joking that we were like all right we got to win these two so we can show our face again in dc but then other guys were like no we're fine like no road team or no home team has won so we got them right where we want exactly i mean you you talk you talk about pressing though sean i mean like in our sport everybody energy is your friend you know like that energy

that that excitement that aggression and like that's interesting you tap into it at home it's like these fans are out of control. I really want to mash the ball or strike people out or like, you know, it's just, it's weird. It's a different vibe. Yeah, you have to be able, like, football, like you guys run out of the tunnel and you're like, let's go. And it's, you, you very much feed off that energy. Baseball, like, it's a slower game. Like, it's, it's, it's a little boring at times. Like, you have to be able to manage those, manage kind of the low of the game. You have to, to be able to think a little bit more strategy. You're trying to figure out the pitcher.

The pitcher is trying to make a pitch in a pressure situation. You can't just feed off those nerves. You have to be able to channel them somehow. And we just might have been pressing during those three home games. But once we won the wild card game, especially the way that we won it, there was a feeling of almost like invincibility. Maybe like are we supposed to do this? There's a team almost every postseason that ends up with devil magic is what we call it.

Like they catch every break. They get a lot of the close calls to go their way. Every clutch situation, somebody steps up. And so after the wildcar game, we were like, whoa, maybe. we have devil magic and with the nationals they had always been we had always been the victim of it yeah and so this was this was like a whole new thing and we just tried to take it and run with it you got to flip the devil magic that's what i always say but you save some some energy and some devil magic for probably a celebration right because like that's the big question before

i won a championship i always wonder what it be like the night you win a championship and then the parade which i never thought about is the best part in baseball the night after the Super Bowl is not as cool as you think. Like the night after you win, it's more about the parade in the next couple days. Did you sleep? Like, what, how many hours of sleep?

Not REM sleep. Just sleep. Did you get? Not a lot. You're, I'm totally with you. Until, first of all,

being in the World Series was crazy. Winning it, until you've done it before, I don't know how, if you felt this way, but like, it was such an abstract idea, winning a world,

winning a world championship, it was obviously the ultimate goal, right? And you talk about it every spring training, but I'd never made it past the first round of the playoffs. I lost in the division series three times before we broke through this year. So winning a world series, it was very, very surreal, even as you know, you're hugging your teammates and you're getting doused with champagne. That night, that night, I mean, we celebrated in the locker room afterwards champagne shower everything um but it was there was so much media in there it was i think it was our most tame celebration um just because it was so crowded it was so crowded and all the all the cameras there's a every every media uh outlet i guess

they have a camera a cameraman and then a reporter and there's a microphone on a cord connecting the camera and the mic. And so they create like this chain where like you can't get through to like hug your teammates. Like it's weird. And so we were like, we were, I mean, once the, once the champagne was popped and a lot of the, a lot of the beers and stuff had been drank,

we went back, oh, we went back out on the field. We took some pictures with like our family and stuff. And then we went back to the hotel. There was a party at the hotel and there was a party at a restaurant near the hotel. But I agree with you. It was a little bit more tame than I had thought. I think by that.

Bars, bars don't stay. It's like, where do you go? Like after most games, you know, Super Bowl ends late, right? And to your point, we never had the champagne thing going. Before my first Super Bowl in New England, me and a couple guys the morning of the game, I haven't ever shared this. We were so inspired by the baseball stuff.

We went to a Walgreens in Houston. and you want to hear this cool you so we went to walgreens in houston maybe it was right near where you were staying but we copped like 10 bottles of andre and snuck them in our bag yeah the cheapest shit we could find and uh we tried to do like a little mini celebration didn't look as cool as yours it didn't we didn't know how to get it to fizz like i know there's like an art to it are there like are there codes within that celebration like don't spray me too hard bro like you know i i need my goggles on. I don't, you know, like, are there, there's a lot of unwritten rules and unspoken rules in baseball. What about the ones in champagne parties? No, it's, there are no, that might be the

only rule is that there are no rules. Yeah. Everybody, you're, your fair game all the time. You, you kind of have to have your guard up, whether sometimes you'll be given an interview and you might take your, you might put your goggles on top of your head to give the interview so you can see who you're talking to and what's going on. And I mean, you're a sitting duck. And, somebody will come up behind you and either pour it over your head or sneak behind the cameraman and and spray you pretty much right in the face. The only rule is that you don't spray it before we're ready to go. Everybody gets in there. You take the, you unscrew the little wiring off and you start shaking it up so that it's ready to go, but you don't pop that cork until everybody's,

everybody's ready. I should have shook it up more. That was the problem. DeAndre kind of just like, it was more like hot lava running down like than a full-on explosion. It was kind of like, oh, well, fuck it. We won the Super Bowl. This was awesome. You know, yeah, Mike, you got a question here. Doc, it's Macon. Take us back to the late aughts, if you will, which, Chris, by the way, is the last time Doc and I were together.

Shout out to the Nest at Rugby Mac. Rugby Mac. You're drafted as a first baseman. multiple injuries, multiple surgeries. You're at the top of the mountain now. Did you ever see that path when you were going through that 2007, 8, 9? No, not at all.

I was drafted in 2007 as a first baseman. And by 2009, I was in a good spot. I was in AAA with the A's. I was hitting cleanup and playing every day and knocking on the door. I ended up having two knee surgeries and missing essentially all of 2009 and 2010. And then at the beginning of the 2011 season, I tore up, I tore a tendon in my wrist, my right wrist. I swung and missed at a pitch and it just popped.

And so I spent the rest of the 2011 season in Arizona. And the A's came to me and said, what would you think of? about getting on a throwing program in case, you have to start pitching. They called it my insurance plan because I did pitch in college and they said, if we have to activate your insurance plan, at least we won't have to start from scratch. You could get a couple of months in throwing while you're still rehabbing your right wrist. And then we'll see what the doctors say. I was in a cast for my right wrist injury that went from the knuckles on my hand up past my elbow.

So I couldn't put a glove on. I had to have somebody catch for me, kind of like quarterbacks do before a game. So like I'm long tossing. And basically by, I guess by mid-August, the doctor is like, hey, you probably need surgery, and that's a six to eight-month recovery. So that put 2012 in jeopardy, and I went to the A's, and I said, I was pretty much at the end of my rope. I had asked to switch right after that, and in the meantime, I'd called my agent, and I actually said, hey, what's the process look like for re-enrolling in college?

I was going to go, if they weren't going to let me switch, I was going to go back to school. and I wanted to get to kind of explore how to start doing that and they came back to me the next day and they were like we were kind of surprised you didn't ask us about this sooner about switching they brought a scout to watch me throw to hitters the next day I didn't throw and I didn't throw a single pitch under 95 and that was a little mind-blowing to me I knew I knew I knew I felt like I was kind of throwing hard, but even in college, I didn't throw that hard. Maybe a few extra years of development and strength training. That might have helped.

So, like, they were like, you can switch, but you're going to have to start all over again in the minor leagues. I was like, that's fine. I'd just get me off the training table, get me off the disabled list, let's go. I'll play wherever. Just give me a uniform. I started the next season, 2012. I started the next season in single A. I was there for a month.

I was in AA for three weeks, and I was in AAA for a week, and I got called up in June. So I never envisioned, I never envisioned going through all that, I never envisioned winning a World Series. My mindset during that time, I just didn't want to leave any stone unturned.

I didn't want to have any regrets if I was going to go back to school, which I plan to do at some point. You know me? We might be in the same classroom. Hey, that would be. I got like 20, I have 20 credits left. What was your major? So I was a psychology major. I have 30 credits left.

I might switch and catch up and then we could, we could just, you know, cross the finish line. There we go. I've got a diploma if you guys want to see what looks like. You know, I can't find the words because I'm not a college graduate. Go fuck yourself. So you talked about Oakland a little bit. You know, you were loved in Oakland. And for years there where I'm following you,

I actually would watch some Oakland games. And I love that as a sports town. I know you seem to really enjoy the area. They're losing the Raiders. You know, the Warriors bolt to San Fran. The Warriors get gentrified. Right. What, like, when you look at Oakland,

what do you remember as a sports town? And is there a way forward for them to preserve some of that magic that they've had in the past there? Oakland, they have, I still think they have some of the most loyal and passionate fans in baseball. If you, you've watched A's games, you turn those games on. And I mean, a lot of times there's 10,000 people, 15,000 people in the stands. and in that stadium that I think as they have it set up right now, because they have some tarps on the upper deck cover and some seating, I think capacity is around like 40, so it looks empty, right?

But they always made it sound loud. They bring drums, they got horns, they're signs. It's unlike any other fan base in Major League Baseball because of the energy that the fans bring. They're incredibly passionate. They find connections with players. And as a player, they're like, it makes you feel like you're really like a part of the community. It's a really cool vibe. I think, I hope, and I had said this when I was playing there, that wherever they build a new stadium,

whenever they do build it, they have to find a way to make sure that their fans can still bring that kind of energy to that stadium. I think it would be really sad for Major League Baseball if their new stadium. Because originally there were rumors that one of their plans was to build in San Jose in the South Bay, which is like 45 minutes to an hour away. Silicon Valley. Yeah, you're not going to get the same vibe in the stadium. No, it's going to be real techie. Yeah, a lot of tech bros. Who said tech bros are not the Oakland crowd?

No, no. And so, you know, they do have plans right now. They're trying to build the stadium across the bay from AT&T Park on the Oakland side, which would be really cool to kind of have mirror images like that. But they're running into, I think, some problems with infrastructure as far as they would have to update a lot of the roads and the rail system to get people over to the games. I think what you're going to end up seeing is they build a new stadium in the parking lot next to the Coliseum, because they have the space. There's already infrastructure built.

But I loved my time in Oakland, man. I really did. I was a part of that organization for 10 years. And I grew up in that organization. I played there for six years in the big leagues. And I loved it. It's different. It's unique.

The facilities are a little bit lacking. Spartan. Spartan would be the word? Yeah. All the West Coast football. stadiums, which are going by the wayside, we talked about the other day. Like, Qualcomm, gone, candlestick was my favorite place to play in the world. Like, even though they were fierce robberies, Rams, Niners, so fun to go there.

Even though I had to tell my wife and my mom do not wear Rams clothing, like none of that. Yeah, you know, bring a big buddy in with you. I'd send one of my buddies in to sit with them. It's a rough place for football. and that's what football is all about, and I know the baseball fans are in the black hole in the Coliseum, when I watch A's games, it doesn't seem corporate, it doesn't seem gentrified,

and I love that about it. I hope they find a way. On a lighter note, Sean, is baseball the best sport to take a dump during the game in? It has to be, right? I mean, it's, there are natural, there are probably more natural breaks in the game

than any other sport, I would think. there's more downtime. So if you're a position player and your spot's not up that inning or you're a pitcher and maybe it's not your start day or you're in the bullpen, I just feel like now with the facilities and all these new stadiums especially, but there's a bathroom right in the dugout

and there's bathrooms in the bullpen. Are you allowed to, is there like there's rules out of the wazzo with baseball? Are you allowed to dark? in the main bathroom right there and blow it up? Not in the dugout. You're not supposed to do it in the dugout. In the bullpen, you're kind of,

it's supposed to be kind of emergency situations only or nothing like that past the fifth inning. Because you got your late inning guys that are gonna need to maybe use the bathroom before they have to start warming up and you don't wanna drop a bomb in there to leave it for them before they're trying to get ready to nail down a win.

So nothing after the fifth. But so many of these places have, you can use the tunnel to get from the bullpen to the locker room if you really need to. And it's gotta be peaceful when there's 20,000 fans out in that stadium to find a quiet place to just be alone and exercise the dean.

What'd you call devil magic? That's not devil. Make, what did you have? I want to bring us back a little bit. Okay. I know that's your go-to topic more often than not. Sean, 2019 baseballs. Talk to me about the significantly lower drag coefficient

than that of 2018. Now, I want to know which camp you're in and I'm going to give you three options followed by in all of the above. and all of the above or none of the above. Okay. Smoother leather covers, A. Greater spherical symmetry, B, a more centered core, C.

All or none of the above, or one of those, is the ticket. I think A and C. So the smoother leather, the balls did feel in general. they felt a little bit more slick and the seams felt lower maybe even a little wider so I know early in the season there were a lot of guys

that were having trouble with their off-speed pitches walks were up hit by pitches were up this year I think because guys had difficulty adjusting to the grip of the baseball you'd see a number of times where the umpire would throw a pitcher

a new baseball I did this all the time and I would get it and it just doesn't feel right in your hands. And so we'd go through like two or three before he threw one out that I felt like I could do something with. The centered core, that might be a part of it too. Balls aren't juiced. I think that's the wrong way to say it because we're not seeing, we're not necessarily seeing higher exit velocities. We're just seeing balls that get hit in the air. They just don't come down. We saw home runs hit this year with exit velocities in the low 90s and even in the high 80s, which a year or two ago would be absolutely unheard of. You have to hit it

almost 100 miles an hour at the right angle for it to have enough energy to get out of the stadium. and now these balls just aren't coming down. So if it has to do with the drag and the smoother cover or if it's spinning better because of the core, I really don't know. But Major League Baseball, they weren't traveling like that in the playoffs. Then there was a bunch of theories that MLB changed the balls maybe for the playoffs. So I don't know.

I think that's a really, that's something that, we as a league need to get a handle on because major league baseball at first they said the balls aren't different then they said they're different and we don't know why um so they they need to they need to figure that out because if they can change the the way the baseball flies they can change the fundamental nature of how teams are putting rosters together the strategy that they're using during the games um i don't know i think it's i think it's kind of scary actually well that was quite the segue from dumps in dugouts to exit velocity. So I don't know if that was the... That's what you get with Sean Doolittle. He's very versatile. Can speak on both eloquently.

I mean, that's amazing. So now I hate to be the guy again, but... Our dudes wearing cups. Nice, Sean. Did you hear that? What do you say? Exit velocity. They actually were more connected than you might think. That's what I... No, that was the joke, bro. Oh my God. I'm in third place. Holy shit. I thought the guy. The guy... with the degree doesn't get it, Sean. Hey, so do dudes wear cups? Because when I played, I used to just go out there and just say I wasn't on the hot corner, but I was in first base.

And you know, you as a first baseman at times in your career, like, what's the cup quotient? I would say almost all of your fielders wear cups. Even the outfielders? I'm trying to think of our guys. actually no yeah you're probably not gonna see it that much in outfielders yeah that'll be weird there's just but there there are some guys that do say most pitchers don't um but there are some guys that that do say like well we had to wear it in high school and i just i felt naked without it so i just wear it because like um that it's just they don't really think about it that much and

you know i play with some pitchers that had said that where It was just like I don't feel like I'm prepared to be on the field. I feel exposed if I don't have it. I think Philip Rivers wears a cup. He's fairly prolific at the procreation. Nine deep. I think he's protecting the jewels. Hey, nine, he could field a baseball team.

He could field a baseball team. That's true. Okay, favorite athletes that have worn goggles in sports. Oh, man. Um, goggles. Who was the, uh, who was the guy that played for the Bulls? Horace Grant.

He was the first one in my head. Yeah. Do you have one? Sean Doolittle. Sean Doolittle's up there for me. Yeah. Did Eckersley never wore? He just had a damn good mustache.

Yeah, and he had good flow too. He had great flow, which, okay. Speaking of Segways. Thank you. I'm covering up my flow today in honor of you to rep the Wahoo. your go-to hair product currently because your volume is something to behold. Voluminous. You don't have to give out your secrets, but maybe the kind of, what are we working in there to get that sort of... I know.

It's almost touching the banister there. It's going all the way to the ceiling. Yeah. Golly, it's out of the shot. No, there we go. Looking good, dude. Yeah, what are you using? made? It's a mess right now.

It's a, no, it's a, it's a paste. It's a Kevin Murphy Rough Rider is the name of it. Rough rider. Yeah, it's I have a ton of hair, and it grows so fast. It can be, it's a good problem to have, I suppose.

Oh my God. I haven't gotten a haircut in like two weeks. It was good luck. We were making it. We were making a run, so. Well, the flow, the flow is intact. It looking good dude uh UVA what's the perception of UVA baseball to other major leaguers like what do they think about UVA players what's the rep you know this has come a long way since i got drafted in 2007 and now UVA baseball is they're up in people put them up on the same

pedestal with Vanderbilt, Clemson, Ole Miss, like the traditional baseball powerhouses, Virginia is very much in that echelon. When I got drafted, it was the complete opposite almost, even though we had been good for like three or four years before I got drafted. I think we'd gone to the regionals every year. But, you know, they said, where'd you go to school? I said Virginia, and they said, oh, Virginia Tech, nice. And I'm like, I'm like, what? I'm like, no. Like, I got like where people were like, what conferences is that in?

What? Like, especially like West Coast guys, you know, like, or guys that played. Cal State Fullerton, bros. Yeah, that's some Jukos maybe. Yeah. And I was like, wow, like, we're in the ACC. I mean, we'd gone to four straight regionals. I was like, we're putting the team on the map,

but it's cool to see how the program has continued to grow, and they won a national championship in 2015. So it's been so cool to follow. Give us an interesting, interesting, oak story, interesting. Oh, my gosh. An interesting oaks. There's a lot.

you put me on the spot here he does that he does that he does that a lot the good thing is we're going to trim this down so that while you're thinking it doesn't look like you thought for a while I'm thinking and ah man

the first thing that came into my head was from the first time I met him so I was a I was this was the summer between my junior and senior year of high school. So I had, you know, that I just started getting recruited. And he had just gotten the job. He was the pitching coach at Notre Dame. And I was doing a baseball camp at Hampton, Sydney College in Farmville, Virginia. Partied there. There's not much going there.

So much going on there. We got drunk and went to a haunted house, by the way. what we did an actual haunted house not one that's commercially that what they do there is they get drunk in fields or they get drunk and go into abandoned houses that's what they do in hampton Sydney go ahead I was going to say I bet there's several buildings in and around there that are very haunted very uh but no we I I met him uh it was an unofficial visit so um this was before school was in and he had just gotten the job and he was we met him at the baseball stadium and then we went to grab a bite to eat and we went to chilies and he ordered chicken fingers and i was like this is my guy that that's how i knew right then and there that this had a chance

to really work out you know you're not into the baby back ribs well he we ordered chips and salsa bottomless chips and salsa and he he got chicken fingers and i was like i was like we're vibing i was like this is my guy how did you know i was like i want to go here that's awesome I saw the baseball field and had chicken fingers with the coach and I was like, this is it. Chris is a big jersey number guy. You wore the beautiful number 21 at Virginia. Yeah. Talk to us about number 63 in D.C.

So I changed my number. I changed my number at the beginning of this season. I had won 62 for the first seven years of my career. It didn't really have any significance to me at all other than the fact that it was what was hanging in my locker when I got called up as a rookie in 2012. I'm pretty sure at that point it was just on the top of the pile because I had a different number in spring training that year. So I really don't know how that worked out. But I changed my number this year. And I didn't talk about this all season. And I just, after talking with my family, I just decided that we wanted to

tell the story, but we lost my grandmother in spring training. It was very sudden and unexpected. And so I was away from the team for about a week. I went back to Virginia to be with my family. And my grandmother, my grandfather, who were like my biggest fans, living in Williamsburg while I was at UVA, they were at literally every game I played, even on the road because they were right in the middle of ACC country. But they were married for 63 years, and it was a way to kind of honor them and keep her with me. And so it's always cool to see every time you walk into the locker room your last name on a major league uniform right underneath the major league baseball logo. And to have that number now carry some really, really significance.

is uh it's really cool along those lines uh after the world series ended and you were a champion was there one person outside your family that you wanted to call and talk to first or text oh um my phone was blowing up yeah how many text messages did you have after i came i came in um from game seven after the after the uh after the uh after the celebration when i when i could finally get my locker because they put they put the plastic over in front of all the lockers so you can't get to your phone you can't get you can't get to you really you could if you really wanted to but like crazy it would it would you would ruin your phone in the celebration for sure with all the all the time for an upgrade anyways so libations flying around so like you literally you come into the locker room

they take your jersey and your hat on the field they put it into like a big cart they give you the World Series champion shirt and hat. And then when you go into the locker room, some guys would like, they would leave out, the clubhouse staff would leave out your shower shoes so that you could kick off your spikes and slide into your shower shoes.

And then I guess it would, it was, so by the time the game ended, or by the time the party ended, it was probably like two hours after the game that you could finally get to your phone, which is probably healthy to be able to just. It's healthy. It's healthy anytime.

I'm going to set the over under at 200. You're taking the over of the under on text messages. Over. I'm taking the over as well. It was 402 when I finally got to it. And I had 400. I had like 460 or 400. Like yeah, there's a science to this, bro.

It was unbelievable. And so I'm still, let's see, what am I at right now? I'm still at 104. I'm at 131 and I haven't done shit. So yeah. I did get some, like, to be honest, we just talked about Coach O'Connor, but he sent me a really, really, really nice message. He's someone that, you know, I've kept in touch with over, you know, my entire playing career. That meant a lot to me.

Some of the guys I played with at UVA, that meant a lot. Bob Melvin, who was the manager when I was in Oakland. Oh, that's got to be awesome to get that text. Some of the guys, and some of the guys I played with in Oakland. I think it was more so like former teammates, you know, that meant a lot, former coaches, guys that you'd played with before that had, you know, you just, I don't know, There's a mutual respect there, I think. Oh, yeah.

And they love seeing you succeed because you all grinded it out in tough situations for years. So it's always good to see your boy succeed on the biggest stage, which you did. Yeah. I've got one more for Sean. And then we're going to let the champ go. Okay. Sean, I don't think I've disagreed with anything you've said regarding baseball or anything else for about the last decade plus, maybe ever.

You're a reliever. Chris and I have talked a bit about Unwritten Rules in Baseball Please tell me that you advocate for More Bat flips Bigger Bat flips Better Bat flips Bigger Bat flips

We need some fun infusion To baseball agree or disagree Uh wholeheartedly agree I'm team bat flip Um Because especially as long as as long as the bat flip isn't directed at at me right direct the flip at the pitcher don't make eye contact with him don't show him up if you want to celebrate how excited you are

that you just hit a big home run in a big spot have at it you know um what about carrying your bat to first base like my boy bregman weird that was weird right i do love bregman though and then so i don't like playing it's bregman but i love watching him i think he's one of the more exciting players that we have in our game. And I think he's, I think the way that he's kind of doing it, that's the future of our game, right? He's got the social media presence.

He's got a YouTube channel. He's done a really cool job, I think, of walking that line, of having fun with playing the game, but still respecting it. I just think in that moment, he kind of got caught up. Like, he hit a big home run.

and I think he like started going down first base and he had the bat kind of up he was he had it raised and then like what do I do with the bat? Yeah, he was watching the ball and then like the ball landed because it was such it was a high home run. It took a long time for it to land. And then like all of a sudden he looked down and he realized he was like pretty much at first base and he tried to ham the bat to the first base coach. I just think he was like it was more awkward to me.

Awkward, yeah, it was an awkward move. It was like the misunderstood Jimmy G thing. Upon further review, if you saw Jimmy G. After the game, people thought he was shooting a shot at Aaron Andrew. I think he's just incredibly awkward. And his tone was off. They were like, how do you feel about, how does it feel to be undefeated? He's supposed to say, it feels great, baby.

And he said, it feels great, baby. Yeah. And it was just awkward. And I think to your point, Bregman might have just got caught in one of those awkward national TV situations with a lot on the line. I think too, though, one thing about that was later in that game, Juan Soto hit a home run.

I think it was a big spot. It tied the game or put us up Juan. He did the same thing because he said, when he did it, I thought it looked cool and I wanted to do that. This guy's 21. This guy's 21, and he's playing in his first world series in his first full season in the league, and he's planning his home run celebrations.

He's that good. It's not that easy. No. Didn't it cool? It's like looking at a young pass rusher or somebody in the NFL is like, man, it would be cool to be that guy. I mean, that guy's going to have a cool life. I mean, he turned, Verlander came, he threw him a 96-mile-on-fassball, up and in, dotted it,

put it exactly where he wanted to put it, and Soto hit it into the second deck. And as if that wasn't impressive enough. Now he's playing, now he's announcing after the game that he had to, he had to planned out because he thought it was cool. World Series home runs grow on trees. Yeah. No, I think with the bat flips, I think we should change the way, just in general, the way that

we define respecting the game. I think you can show how much you respect the game by how much fun that you have playing it. I think as long as you're not doing it directly at somebody, if somebody bat flips me, I promise you I will be more upset that I didn't execute the pitch. I would be more upset at myself. My feelings will not be hurt by you celebrating with your team because if I get you in that spot, I get a big strikeout in that spot. I'm probably going to yell or scream or do something towards my dugout. So it goes both ways. It's got to go both

ways. And I think I'm totally fine with having fun. Well, you have respected the pod here. You have respected green light by giving us a lot of your time. You are a champ, bro. Like, you have other shit to do. We appreciate you coming by. And just really proud of here in Charlottesville, really happy for you. You have set a great example your entire career on and off the field. So thank you so much for being you, dude. I'll see you in class. Yeah. Hey, man, I'll see you back on on grounds, brus. Grounds, bro. Hey, go to the Bears game. Give them a pep talk. We'll talk to you soon, Sean. All right, guys. Thanks for having me. Thanks a lot, brother. Congratulations. Thank you.