Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - One Thing Leads to Another (Part I)

Episode Date: November 30, 2020

Jon Miller joins D.C. Lundberg on this episode. The two of them begin by discussing World Series memories, which leads to a discussion on Kirby Puckett, then his Minnesota Twins, their Manager Tom Kelly, then managing in general, which leads to a discussion involving Texas Rangers' manager Johnny Oates, Dennis Cook, and Ken Griffey Jr. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Locked-on Mariner's, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Here's your host, D.C. Lunberg. Here I am indeed. Still not exactly feeling like myself, but I am going to host this episode of Locked-on Mariner's. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, brought to you by Built Bar. Please remember to download, rate, and subscribe to this program using any podcasting app that you personally care to use. Ask your smart device to play Locked-on Mariner's podcast or any program here on the Locked-on Podcast Network or T-L-O-P-N for short or for shorter T-Lopin. Let's see, where are we. Follow us on Twitter. That's where we are at L-O-U-U-N-R-N-R-G. Follow me on Twitter at D.C. underscore Lund-U-N-D-B-E-R-G.

If you're scoring at home. Just a kind of an explanation of why we've had so many guest hosts on the show lately, ladies and gentlemen. I don't want to scare anybody, but I'm also going to be vague. I'm kind of going through some minor health issues at this time. It's nothing serious, and I'm going to be back to myself hopefully pretty soon, but especially with having basically a full-time day job, this is kind of a secondary job for me. And unfortunately, my main source of income is my day job, but I have to prioritize that. So I'm very sorry about that and the inconsistent scheduling that's come about because of that.

but today we are also going to step aside from talking about classic World Series. Maybe some World Series moments will pop up as I talk to Locked-on Mariners contributor. John Miller, John, how are you today? I am doing fantastic. Thank you for having me on, D.C. It's always a pleasure having you on the show. And as a matter of fact, ladies and gentlemen, John is slated to guest host, one of our World Series recaps coming up here in the near future. And I don't really want to say which one he is going to do because I don't want to spoil it.

but in fact, I don't even know if I can offer a hint. So let's just move on and look forward to that episode coming up here on Locked-on Mariners. John, maybe we will talk about some World Series stuff. And it can be any World Series. It can be one that we've already talked about. It can be one that we have not talked about yet. But I became a baseball fan really at the tail end of the 1995 season.

1995 is the first World Series that I remember watching. What is the first World Series that you, you remember watching and what were some and tell me about that i suppose the first world series that i have any real memories of would be for some reason i was i liked the minnesota twins yes having kent herback and i love kirby puckett god rest his soul how could you not he was just a great guy i got a copy of his book at a young age, shortly after that World Series and devoured it. It really is good if you can find a copy of it.

And having Tom Kelly as the manager, and then you throw guys like Jack Morris into the mix. I really liked the twins of that era. They played the game the right way. I have to agree with you. Even though I wasn't watching baseball quite yet, going back and looking at that World Series and looking at those Minnesota Twins teams, they played the game the right way, and I admire them for that.

Yeah, 87 and then 91. So I have vague memories of that, but it would probably be 92 and 93. Ah, yes, the first time that the Canadian team had made the World Series, Blue Jays did it both years. They won both of them, and speaking of 1993, one that I don't think we've done a World Series special on yet. I have talked about it a little bit before, but tell us about how that one ended, John. I'll let you say it. The 1993 World Series ended with one of the most famous home runs in baseball history.

It was the great Joe Carter, and you probably have it echoing in your head right now. that call. Touch them all, Joe Carter. You'll never hit a bigger home run. Absolutely. Yeah, that was a great call by Blue Jay's announcer Tom Cheek. One of the better announcers, for my money, who's ever called a game for a local team, he was very, very talented man, he since passed away. And I am not, I don't remember if he's ever, if he is yet to win the Ford Frick Award, which is basically the broadcaster's wing of the Hall of Fame getting in that way. If he hasn't won it, I think he's deserving.

Oh, definitely. Not only for that call, but I think he was like Dave Nehouse in that he called Blue Jays games from the beginning, from 1977, until his passing, I want to say, about 15 years ago. I could be wrong on that number, though. But anyways, let's talk about Joe Carter for a little bit. Let's use that as a bounce-off point, because you also mentioned Kirby Puckett.

and in terms of not necessarily their skill set because I think they had very, very different skill sets. Puckett was a better contact hitter than Carter was. They were both outfielders. Kirby Puckett played center, but Joe Carter mostly was a right fielder and first baseman. And while Kirby Puckett certainly had the power and could drive in a lot of runs, you'd be hard pressed to find a better RBI man than Joe Carter at the time,

consistently 100 RBI is consistently 30 home runs every season. But their attitude and how they played. the game with their ever-present smiles very, very similar to each other in that regard. And I think that's probably why I admire both of them as I do. What say you? I agree completely. And the ever-present smile speaks to what we've talked about to some extent when we've gone on our dialogues.

Yes. Is that they played the game like a kid. They truly loved the game. there was a joy in being out there and getting paid to play baseball, and win or lose, at the end of the day, they had fun with it. They did have fun with it, and this just popped into my head, which isn't necessarily going off what we just talked about, but it does involve Joe Carter.

Years later, he gave an interview where he revealed that after the 1992 season, which he was a free agent after that season, Kansas City offered him actually a pretty sizable contract, to go play for the Royals, and he didn't know what to do, because he liked the situation in Toronto, felt like they could continue to win, but Kansas City had given him this tantalizing offer.

He slept on it, and he actually dreamt about it, I believe, and basically that kind of played into his decision to stay with the Toronto Blue Jays, which was the right choice. They won another World Series, which he got to win, basically, for them. It was game six, so they weren't down to the wire or anything like that. but still a game winning, a game ending, world series ending home run.

You know, he gets to, you know, relive that moment for the rest of his life. And, you know, we get to see it, you know, in replays. It's one of my favorite replays. His reaction is rounding the bases, John. Oh, absolutely. Just, you know, in his words, total pure joy. And that showed. It showed, yes.

We're just about coming up on a break. So, ladies and gentlemen, hang tight. I'm going to tell you a little bit about Built Bar at this time. They are, of course, the greatest protein bars in the history of protein bars. They come in 18 delicious flavors, each one covered in 100% real chocolate. Each one of them gluten-free. Each one of them high in protein, obviously, low in calories, sugar, and carbohydrates. All of this can be found at Builtbar.com.

Don't you forget about Built Boost Drink Powder or Built Go Energy Shots. The drink powder mixed with hot water. Great way to relieve a sore throat. Delicious when mixed with iced tea. You get a great flavored iced tea out of it. Wouldn't recommend putting it in Dr. Pepper. I found that out the hard way. Tasted okay, but it foamed up really, really badly.

Kind of like when adding baking soda to vinegar. So don't do that at home. It'll just waste it. And you don't want to waste this stuff. If you use promo code locked on at checkout, you get 20% off of your order at builtbar.com. If you've got a question or comments, send it into Lockedown Mariners at Gmail.com, I'll read it and reply to it on the air.

Questions and comments on any subject are welcome. Questions and comments on any subject are encouraged. Please just keep it appropriate, because this is a family show, as I keep saying, Locked on Mariners with John Miller will return. Oh, boy, I did it again. We'll be back. Welcome to the second half of Locked on Mariners. Here once again is your host.

D.C. Lundberg. Thank you very much, J.M. D.C. Lundberg is back with you. Speaking in third person for some reason, which I don't ordinarily do. But I am joined by a John Miller Lockdowne and Maritors contributed. Thank you. Hi, John. Hello. And see, ladies and gentlemen, now you know why I've had guest hosts do my show, because one of the side effects of these kind of illnesses that I've had, or illness, I should say, just really, really severe fatigue, which has turned me into a bumbling idiot, which is not exactly the best quality for a podcast host. We're just kind of kind of pick up where we left off at our conversation, you know, wrapping up the first half talking about Joe Carter and we had discussed, you know, his reaction

to hitting the game-winning home run. And Kirby Puckett, you know, played the game the same way. And John, both of those gentlemen, even though they had different skill sets to the man I'm about to mention, reminds me of the next gentleman in their attitude and the way. they played the game, and that's the meritor's very own Ken Griffey Jr. I could not agree with you more on that one. Yes, and I'm going to bounce back to Kirby Puckett because there's something I wanted to mention that I didn't get a chance to yet. You mentioned that you got his book after the 1991 World Series. Is that correct?

It was sometime shortly after then, yes. Right. Puckett, and for those of you at home who don't know, Kirby Puckett had to retire following the 1995 season because of a glaucoma problem. He actually retired during the 1996 season. He felt like he was going to be able to come back, but he just wasn't able to. They were not able to relieve the glaucoma problem, so he was forced to retire.

Around that time frame, I think it was Major League Baseball Productions, it could be wrong about that, released a VHS tape about Kirby Pocket, which is one of my better eBay finds, and it talked about his background and how he grew up and everything, and he came from very humble beginnings and was able to make it big and those kinds of stories John

always inspiring. Very much so. Yep, he basically lived in a small apartment in Chicago from what I understand. So if you have a VCR listening out there and I know that not a lot of you do, I have to have a VCR, John, just because I have a whole lot of things

that are never going to be released on DVD. But if you have a VCR out there, I suggest looking for this videotape on eBay. I think it's just called Kirby. And there's a big picture of him on the front. And it's hosted by Bob Costas. Let's talk about the 1991 twins for a little bit. That was actually the first World Series recap.

I think I actually did on this show. You mentioned Tom Kelly, the manager. He did win two World Series with the twins. And those teams didn't necessarily have the best talent, did they, John? No, they didn't. They had what some might say, the perfect common. combination of role players. They didn't have just the one big superstar, the 40 plus home run hitter, or the

Ricky Henderson type might hit 100 RBIs, get 100 steals or something. They just had the right players in the right places at the right times. They really did, and they had above average talent, really at every position. And both teams are very, very similar teams, and had a lot of the same players play for both teams. Greg Gagney, the shortstop, played for both teams, kind of an offensive shortstop, but he used the turf to his advantage. He wasn't necessarily the best shortstop and he was playing on grass, but he could play on turf, great. The catcher, I believe, was Tim Laudner on the 87 team and hit 191 or something in the regular season and then

came up aces in the World Series offensively. Tom Kelly stuck with him. He was a good defender, and that's what kept him in the lineup. I think he wound up making the All-Star team the next year. Tom Brunansky on the 87 team, after the role players would kind of get on base, very good RBI man, Gap Power, kind of a 250-ish hitter, Kirby Pucket hitting three, Kent Herbeck hitting four, and Dan Gladden at the top of the order. That's a very solid.

It's not a spectacular lineup. It's not going to blow anybody away, but it's solid, and that gets the job done. Absolutely. And then if you want to go into the pitching side, 91, Jack Morris at the head of the rotation, 87 Frank Viola at the head of the rotation, and the rotation in 87 wasn't necessarily a blow-em-away rotation.

It was actually pretty weak. The bullpen was okay, but Tom Kelly knew when to press the right buttons. He could match people up well out of the bullpen and put his players in a position to be able to succeed. And that, when you have that kind of talent level on the team, is paramount when it comes to a managing job. And I can't think of many better at that than Tom Kelly.

And I would say Tom Kelly is among those kind of old school type who did what he knew would work. He knew his players. He followed the scouting reports. He didn't do too much of this. We have to shift with every lefty batter. Right. We have to put a lefty in for this guy.

well, and if you've ever watched a game, D.C. or anybody listening and looked it up, they put a lefty in to face this one batter. Well, it turns out he hits 280 against lefties. I can give you a perfect example. One thing that I would do every offseason is rewatch the four-game series in September that the Mariners played versus the Rangers in 1996 in which they swept the Rangers. And they brought this up on at least two of the games where Johnny Oates, who, and don't get me wrong, gang. I think Johnny Oates was a very, very good manager, if not a great manager, but at least

two of the games, he would bring in Dennis Cook to face Ken Griffey Jr. Ken Griffey Jr. owned Dennis Cook, and Ron Fairley made exactly your point. I seem to remember something like that, and they didn't look at the...

I agree with you about Johnny Oates. Yes. I agree completely. But, and nowadays, especially, we get too much into like, well, it's a lefty we have to put the shift on. And, or yeah, it's a lefty, it's King Riffey Jr. up, but we're not going to bother

look at the scouting report and see that he hits 500 against this pitcher and half of those hits have been home runs or that this pitcher has walked him six out of eight times he faced, or anything like that. We just, we have to match that up. And

then when it blows up in your face, yeah, well, I guess I didn't know. And I think that Griffey was hitting 444 against Hook. I think it was 4 for 9 against him at that point. And I think Cook might have walked him. Griffey reached base somehow, and it didn't work. It's basically the story.

And Edgar Martinez is the cleanup hitter, and of course it went awry from there for the Rangers. Another thing that I remember about that series, since I think that's kind of a good bouncing off point, was at the first two games of that series were pitched by Terry Mulholland and Jamie Moyer, who the Mariners picked both of them up at the trading deadline for the stretch run, pardon me, two veteran left-handers, and Mulholland, if memory serves, was perfect through five-and-a-third or five-and-two-thirds or something

like that pitched very, very well. Moyer wasn't perfect, but he was certainly excellent and shut the Rangers down. The Mariners were not known for great pitching at that point in their history, but those two starting pitchers, their performances, rather, really propelled them throughout the rest of that series. We're just about out of time, John, so let's... Oh, boy. I'm so sorry, gang. John, where can people find you on Twitter? I can be found on Twitter at Seattle Pilot 69. Thank you very much. I'm glad one of us is coherence. Ladies and gentlemen, yes. We're going to be back later, and I don't know if I'm going to be hosting the next episode or not.

So download, rate and subscribe to this program, Apple Podcasts. I don't say that anymore. Just download rate and subscribe to this program on any podcasting app that you can think of. Follow show on Twitter at L.O. underscore Mariners. And follow me on Twitter at DC underscore Lundberg. I can't tell you how exhausted I am, ladies and gentlemen. That'll do it for today's show. Thank you for listening and for muddling through my incoherence.

And thank you again to John for basically right. for doing great on this show and for making it what it was. I'm going to stop talking now. This is Joey Martin speaking for Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network.