Shaun Newman Podcast - Ep. #145 - Bluejay Paul Spoljaric

Episode Date: January 18, 2021

This was a fun one. First ball player on the show and he did not dissapoint. We discussed: - Journey from Canada to the major leagues - Salaries in the minors and how little they get - "helps separate the people that are after the money and people who want to play ball" - Steroids in the 90's, that he was asked to do them lots (he never did) and that it was evident players were using them. - Playing in Seattle with the likes of Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson & Alex Rodriguez - To make it to the big league you have to be able to deal with failure and persevere. Let me know what you think! text me: 587-217-8500

Hi, this is Brandon Holby. Hey, this is Tanner, the Bulldozer Bozer. Hi, this is Brian Burke from Toronto, Ontario. This is Daryl Sutterin. Hello, everyone. I'm Carlyagro from SportsNet Central. This is Jay On Right. This is Quick Dick, quick, tick coming to you from Tough Moose, Saskatchew. Hey, everybody, my name is Theo Fleary.

This is Kelly Rudy. This is Corey Krause. This is Wade Redden. This is Jordan Tutu. My name is Jim Patterson. Hey, it's Ron McLean, Hockeynet in Canada, and Rogers' hometown hockey, and welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks.

I hope you had a great weekend. Happy Monday. I tell you what, it was a beautiful weekend. We got out and did a little skating on the pond and just enjoyed the weather for what it was. And I hope you guys had a great weekend. Today, on tap, we have a great one. But before we get there, let's get to today's episode sponsors, Carly and the team, Carly Closson, that is,

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you're interested in advertising on the show visit shan newman podcast dot com top right corner hit the contact button and send me your info we are closing in on having 2021 slowly uh closed off which is amazing i got to say it's amazing the businesses that have approached and hopped them board for 2021, super pumped. But there is still room, so if you want to get involved, stop on in, and we'll see if we can't find something that'll work for the both of us. All right? Now, let's get on to that T-Barr-1 tale of the tape.

Originally from Colonna, British Columbia, he signed as a free agent with the Toronto Blue Jays in the summer of 1989. He started his first game in the majors in 1994, and over his career, he would spend time with the Blue Jays, Seattle Mariners, Kansas City Royals, and... in the Philadelphia Phillies. He represented Team Canada the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece.

I'm talking about Paul Spolgerick. So buckle up. Here we go. This is Paul Spolgerick. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined by Paul Spolgerick. So first off, thanks for hopping on.

I hope I didn't torture that name. No, you actually said it perfectly. Well done. Hey, hey. Well, like I was about to Sadie, you're dealing with the hockey guy, right? I love the Blue Jays. But it is opening night for the NHL and I am here with you. That is how much I was looking forward to this. Really? Are you telling me you're going to watch Montreal in Toronto tonight?

Hell no. The Oilers play tonight. I'm hoping we can get this out of the way and then get me back at time to watch the Oilers win a hockey game. There you go. Yeah. Will there be any, will there be some fist of cuffs throwing tonight? I think there's some bad blood running from last year still, no. I don't know. The new NHL, you know, maybe, maybe? I don't know. I'm looking forward to this Canadian division, right?

Like we're going to get all the Canadian teams playing each other a ton. And here in Alberta, as you know, the old battle of Alberta is going to get to happen many a time. And I think everybody in the province is looking forward to that. I just wish, I like everyone, you wish there would be fans in the stance. That's all. Absolutely. Yeah, that's the hard part for sure. I mean, it just, I can't even imagine what those guys are going through now,

not being able to have fans in the stands. You know what it's like, man. How motivated you get, the noise, the roar, the energy that's in the building. All that stuff matters and not having that there. I can't imagine playing in front of an empty stadium. That would just be plain weird. Well, it puts them right where all of us senior hockey players out in Saskatchewan are, right? like on a regular

game on a Wednesday night you got three flans doing the slow clap for you and you're like, my was just not have any fans. This is kind of awkward. Yeah, but they carry the cooler,

don't they? They most certainly do. They're most welcome. They're the best fans to have. Well, I'd love to sit here and talk about hockey with you, but I mean,

your story is certainly not about hockey. It is about baseball and you, sir, I believe, are going to be episode 145 for me and you're the first baseball guy, true baseball guy I've had on. Wow. Well, I feel honored. Thank you for having me. Yeah. Well, I tell you what, you played for the

Blue Jays and the Blue Jays have this like weird. I mean, it's cool because we're in Canada, but like normally you go on like proximity. And when it comes to basketball and baseball, Toronto has the entire market because there's nobody to compete with in all Canada. So when the Blue Jays are doing well. I mean, they become Canada's team. And when they aren't doing well, well, it's, you know, it's baseball on this side of the world. Didn't people go to the lake and carry on with life kind of thing. But I guess, you know, to start with, I know how hockey players and the system is built, especially out in the West, probably all across now North America, on how you get to the next level and the next level after that and the next level after that. And the baseball guys I

talked to today said, man, you got to ask what a kid in the 80s was. doing to make it to the majors? Oddly enough, I'll give you my full history of how it all kind of boiled down for me. I was not interested in baseball at all. I had no interest in playing it. I didn't watch it. And then I was in like maybe ninth grade, I think it was, maybe 10th grade. And my buddies who played was like, hey, we're short a player today.

We need somebody. can you come play? And it was a extent. Honestly, I look back at it and I can't believe how fast it all happened when I started to play. You know, I, you know, ninth, tenth, grade by grade 11, I was on the junior national team, grade 12, junior national team. First year in university, junior national team. That summer, turned pro. Three years later, I'm in the big leagues.

It was just like, what is going on? It was incredible. And in that area, while I was in the minor leagues, my second year, I blew up my elbow. And I thought, you know, I didn't have the very best rookie season and rookie ball. I was actually playing in medicine hat at the time. And I loved it out there, obviously, close to home. I'm from, you know, Colonna, BC. But, yeah, it was weird how quick it happened.

And then I blew out my elbow the next year. didn't have surgery just I could throw flat ground no problem no pain but as soon as I got on the mound it felt like somebody had a knife in my elbow and it took I missed the entire year I got four starts and that was it and then came back the following spring and we I got to tell you that story too because I was expecting to get sand home I really truly was I couldn't do anything during spring training except for like the last two weeks and I ended up getting on the mound throwing without pain made the club went to Myrtle Beach we proceeded to have the worst record in professional baseball in the first month so that in first month of the season we're four and 21 and we

then we went on the road and we were in i'll never forget this we were in columbus georgia and we had some internal issues i guess you might want to call them you know what it's like in a clubhouse when when things start to go a little sideways guys get a little angry at each other and next you know there's a table being turned over and somebody's getting flipped on their back and all hell's breaking loose so we have this massive internal brawl with all our players and i'm not kidding you it was 22 guys fighting in a clubhouse and it was craziness pat gillick gordash melkween bobby mattick who was a farm director time all flew into georgian next scene no they released like four players send four players away and and send two guys down and we get a whole bunch of new crew in we ended up turning it around um going from the worst record and professional baseball to winning like at that time the season was split into two halves you had a first half and a second half and if you won the first half you had to play into the playoffs to get into the finals uh but if you won both halves you just went

directly to the finals. We ended up winning the entire thing. It was the most amazing season I've ever been part of in baseball. It was remarkable to go from chaos to unity to this day. There's still guys on that team that I still talk to. And what year is this? That was in 93, no, 92, sorry. So that, what level was that? That was, it was low A, it was South Atlantic League. Yeah, it was crazy. It was unbelievable. Like, you know, guys typically get along in a clubhouse famously, right? I don't know. I don't know. When you're winning, you can have the biggest mismatch anything and winning solves all problems. You start losing and the problems come out of the woodworks. That's what you're talking.

100%. And that's exactly what everything just boiled boiled to the surface that one day in Georgia. and it was terrible. I remember the next day, our manager at the time was Doug Al and God rest his soul. He unfortunately took his life a few years later. But yeah, I remember the next day our pitching coach who was Darren Balzley,

who's been the pitching coach for the Padres for, I don't even know how long, forever. We're doing wall sits for minutes on end, not just one, but like 50 of them. It was the worst punishment I've ever gone through in sports, but I tell you, it unified us. And it was like everybody had everybody's back after that. It was great.

What an experience. Well, I can think of as Bull Durham, you lolly daggers, put them in the shower. Scare them. How much, you know, going back to your young years, grade nine, you're saying, when you first start throwing, you're telling me, your buddies must have hated you, right? Like, how is it that, were you playing hockey or were you just sitting there? Like, what were you doing at this point? I was doing my high school sport.

I was actually a really good soccer player at the time. Okay. Playing on the select teams and that sort of stuff and traveling around and doing that. And playing your high school sports, your volleyball, your basketball, that kind of stuff. And just keep an active that way. I played hockey a little bit, but I only think I only played for like maybe two years. you know, and then the 80s hit and the recession came. And, you know, my dad was a small business owner and that was really hard for him.

So we all had to make sacrifices and hockey was my sacrifice. And, you know, I feel lucky that I've been able to go back and play, you know, just pick up hockey and have some fun doing it. And, you know, I realized how much I miss the sport. You know, it's not like I can go play old-timers baseball right now. I can barely throw, play catch with my kids. Do they have? old timers baseball? Oh yeah, there's some men's leagues. I get asked all the time. Hey, can you

throw up for us today? I'm like, no, no, just can't do it. I can give you 10 pitches and that'll be my warm up and then what do I do to get in the game? And that's, you know, us hockey players always talk about it, right? Like, we have such a, especially in Saskatchewan, you have like such a, like a cool little way to keep playing. And I'm not sitting here saying, you know, you can play until or 60. Well, actually, I am saying that because even the old timers here in Lloyd that never sweats, they get guys who played up until their 80s. And now that's just commercial league.

That's just, you know, you're going out, no hitting, nothing like that. But, I mean, there's ways to continue to play the sport you love up until you can't essentially tie your skates, right? Like, that's kind of what it is. There's not many sports that are like that. No, there isn't. And that's unfortunate. I mean, you know, baseball is the type of game.

It's a young man's game. Let's face it. You know, most careers are done by the time you're 30. Who thinks you're old at 30? No one. Wow. At 18, you think they're old. But when you hit 30, you go, why don't they ever think this was old?

Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, it's a game that has to be played every day for your body to adapt properly. You know, there's just no way that a hockey player or basketball player or football player can play it every day. There's just way too physical. You know, baseball on the other hand is an explosive sport. A lot of downtime, but you got to be able to move quick when it happens.

And, you know, as you get older, you'll losing a step takes a whole new meaning, doesn't it? It certainly does. You bring up something us, well, non, let me give me my baseball career in a nutshell. I was a bench warmer. I got to be a DH for a little stint. It didn't last very long. I was a hell of a lot better hockey player than ever was baseball. The wife still teases me about it.

162 games, man, is a lot. You're saying that needs to happen? It absolutely does for sure. And really, in reality, it's a lot more than 162. Add another 20 or 30 games in spring training plus playoffs. You know, you're closer to 200 days on the field. And yeah, I mean, don't get me wrong. It wears you down and you're tired.

you're more mentally tired than you are physically tired. The grind of the season is, I don't know of anything like it, to be honest. I mean, I've been in business for myself for 15 years now, and I don't think I've ever felt like I do at the end of August or September at the end of a season going home and like, holy moly, I just, you're like, oh, my brain can't even function anymore. It's just, I need time off to just clear my thoughts. and get back on the right page.

And don't get me wrong, business has its problems too. But when it's performance-based like sport is, it just, there's no opportunity to correct that in sport. You've got to continually perform. And that just grinds on you on a daily basis. Professional sports to me is like a meat grinder. As soon as your number comes up, it's over. There's no way to hold on to it.

You're just put through the grinder. The next guy's pushing you out. are they going to pay you a couple million dollars when they can have a rookie making 400,000 or 500,000 dollars doing the same thing. That's just the way sport is. Yeah, numbers game. Yeah, absolutely. And now it's even worse, I think, because of the, the matrices that they compare everybody to, your spin rates, your exit veloes, your first to third times, all that stuff is starting to add up and they can show where you're losing ground in certain areas. And age, how do you compete with age?

You can't. You know, the young guy coming in, he's got a better arm. He's more alive. He's more energetic. It doesn't have the experience. Sometimes that doesn't matter when it comes down to paychecks. So do you hate Moneyball or do you enjoy Moneyball? I don't.

I don't like the new brand of baseball at all. I think it is the, to me, baseball is a game where the manager has to have a really good understanding of his players and their capabilities, the hunch that managers would play by bringing hitters in or bringing pitchers in in in certain situations. I think that is just gone. Now it's all your lineup is handed to you. Here are the guys. Here's the matchups we're going to go with. These three guys off the bench, these two guys out of the pen and are closer. That's it. Go get them. and you know hopefully the game works out the way the the the matrixes say it's supposed to work out but you know when it comes down to it's it's a hundred percent stat driven uh to me the endearing part

of the game is gone that that you know the old timer off the bench you know the guy that's you know 37 years old and and he's a dh and you know the all the thing he can do is hit home runs or or or that type of thing you know everybody wants to see that guy succeeded but you know now it's a a 22-year-old rookie coming off the bench looking to slap the ball into the into the shift you know what I mean like it's it's a totally different mindset it's a totally different way of playing the game it's it's fun to have a guy on uh you speak very well I got I must say that you probably I I feel like uh you must have done some broadcasting or something at some point I have I've done a bit for uh for sports net and uh and um the score at the

time but yeah I yeah I did some work on TV for sure did you not want to keep with it I do I really did but it's it's hard you know I've got I've got five kids and we travel my my three oldest boys well I've got I've got three boys and twin girls and my my oldest two boys play baseball together in London which was like a two and a half hour drive so I drive them three times or four times a week down there to go practice and play so it was it was tough to kind of continue that now I'm coaching my youngest son who's in 17 new baseball and travel you know travel baseball and we go all over the place i mean we're in the states for three or four times in the year and i got i got to know the twin girls were they the finals were the day that you're last two you were shooting for a fourth

and you got you got the dreaded deuce yeah i got kings over queens baby i've got a full house Oh man. The listeners get probably tired of me talking about it, but I got three kids. The oldest is closing in on five. So we're going to be this year, everybody will move up here. We'll have five,

four, and closing in on two. So it's a busy household. And all I thought when we were having our third is just don't be twins. Just don't be twins. Just don't be twins. And what you're-

I feel lucky. I honestly, I feel lucky. On my dad's side of the family, there's quadruplets, triplets, and twins. And, you know, so I got lucky with only one set. That's, that's for sure. But when, when my girls were born, we had five kids under five, and I was going to the Olympics in 2004.

How do you think my wife felt during that time? Yeah, babe, listen, I'm packing up. I'm heading to Greece. I'll see you in about a month. All right. Good luck with the kids. And don't forget to mow the law. That happened. That's a true story. I wish I had a picture of her because CBC did a special report on her. And she's out there riding on the ride of them over with the kids and on those backpack things, one on the front, one on the back, one between her legs. It was great. It was the funniest thing I'd ever seen. You know, I've had a guy who listens to the podcast quite a bit suggest that I should interview a couple of the pro wives. like the wives of the pro players because they probably have better stories in the guys anyways

because they're the ones that are just like, well, I just got traded to Seattle. Guess we're moving there. Oh, okay, right? Like, and I get, well, now you're saying it. I'm going to the Olympics. Like what, what's she really going to say, though? Wow. You can't say no to that.

No, absolutely not. You know, and for when it happened in my career, I was 36 years old when I was going to the Olympics. I'm like, I had an opportunity in 88. before I'd turn pro, but I don't know what happened or something messed up happened and I ended up not being able to go and ended up going to Australia for the world junior championships instead, which was which is a nice trade off. Don't get me wrong, but sure would have been nice to get the Olympics out of the way before I had a professional career. What was the Olympics? What was the Olympics like? Yeah. The Olympics, how can I even put this? I'm glad that I had,

the experience that I had through professional baseball before I went there because the media, the environment, the Olympic village, the athlete's village. I mean, it was just, it was chaos. It was just mayhem every single waking minute. It was just nonstop action. And, you know, dealing with media is one thing. But when you're, you know, you never had play at a set time. It was, you know, two in the afternoon or noon or four. seven, you know, there was, there was no set schedule. So it was just, you know, and I think back to when we were playing for the, for the bronze medal, the night before we'd lost to Cuba, an absolute heartbreaker. It broke my heart and I've never been part of a team where you had 25 guys that just

sat on the bench for an hour after the game and then another hour on the bus. And, you know, the game finished at like 10.30. We weren't getting back to the Olympic Village till like two in the morning. And then we have to get up at seven to play a nine o'clock bronze medal game the next morning. You can imagine the energy level at that game and why we lost. I mean, it was just, it was obvious. You know, we didn't really stand a chance. We had nothing going in there. We left it all on the field against Cuba.

So, but it was, it was a remarkable experience. And I wish that everybody in sport could have the opportunity to go and do the Olympic events and just, or even go to the Olympics and see what it's all about. It truly is underappreciated in my mind. Not only by fans, but by those who participate, they don't really, I didn't enjoy it as much as I would have if I had had some previous experience and knowing that, okay, now I can take a second shot at this and take in all the things that needed to be done and really soak it all in. It took me years after to realize just how fun that was and what kind of excitement level it was. It was just, it was an unbelievable experience. I loved it. Well, and I got to follow that up with, you know, anytime I never got to wear a Canadian jersey,

I'm sure, like, in my book, you know, obviously a hockey guy, Stanley Cup, I'm sure for you, World Series, right? Those things are awfully high, but what was it like putting on the Canadian uniform? You know, there's a million cliches that you can say about it, but we're as Canadians, we have a very unique sense of pride in my opinion. We are not boisterous about it, but don't mess with the flag, don't mess with the beaver, and God, don't talk bad about the moose, you know?

Listen, putting it on is, it's a sense of glory. It's an awakening of your soul because you are one of the best in the country. And to be able to put a jersey on that reflects that, the sense of pride is enormous. It is just truly enormous. Yeah, that's cool. I like how you phrase that. There is a lot of pride in the maple leaf.

You know what? I was, this is a side note. I'm a history guy. I like, I like, I graduated with a degree in history. And it's funny,

I listened to you on a different show, talk about, you know, lots of guys go to school and then they don't use the degree they got. And I started laughing. and I'm like, well, that's me in a nutshell, right? I got a degree in history and I work in the oil field now.

Now I'm doing podcasts. But I learned off of, I do some interviews for Lloyd Minster archives. So some, the community pillars of Lloyd, right, that are in their, you know, essentially 65 to 95 range. They've seen some things. And one of them was about her father and her father fought in World War II and his family had then fought for Canada and World War I. And anyways, they'd fought under the red enzyme.

Did you know anything about that? No. So in the wars, we didn't fight under the Canadian Maple Leaf. That was something that was brought in. Yeah. And so we got talking about this. And I was like, you know, you talk about the unique pride we have of putting on that, uh, the leaf, the, the Canadian flag, the everything that is so that that's all I know.

And, uh, that isn't what we fought. under back in the day and it blew me away. That is honestly, I'm having a hard time digesting that. I just can't even imagine that we wouldn't have the Maple Leaf sewn to our uniform in some shape, way, or form. Like, that is just, that's crazy. Yeah, the red enzyme.

It's a red flag, all red, with the British flag a little bit in the top and then in the bottom right corner was like a crest. And I saw it, and I'm like, like I don't even recognize this. I mean, you kind of understand, but at the same time, I just always assumed, you know, it's funny how time goes on. And now you think when I get guys to talk about the Jersey and putting it on and what it means to them,

how time just marches on. And you can see and hear what putting the Maple Leaf means to us. Well, my dad talks about once I heard the red-in enzyme story, he remembers as a kid guys being very upset about it. And you can imagine. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, that's, that is shocking to me. Really, I will look that up and I will read into that. I love history too. And particularly World War I two stuff, I find it remarkably just intriguing. The warfare that happened back then and the sacrifices that these people made

for us today. It's just we can't forget that stuff. And I, you know, sadly, it is slowly weaning out of our society, but, you know, our freedom came at an extremely high cost, and those poor souls, they gave it to us. Yeah, they paid the highest price, didn't they? They sure did. Now, switching back to baseball, I was talking to a buddy of mine today, and once he put it on, to put it on me on to the topic, I can't get away from it now because I'm like, oh, man, that is, I had no idea, because all I ever hear about, and what I'm talking about is pay.

you know in baseball when you compare it to other major sports like i think of guys like uh mike trout right making 37 mill and you're going like holy dinah wouldn't that be nice right like you think you think uh you know what's connor mac david making 12.5 right like it doesn't even compare but he got me on to was the minor leagues in baseball and how little money is made there uh now you're a guy who spent some time in the minors What was it like back then for pay and making a living playing minor league baseball? Well, up until I think it was maybe two years ago, the wages haven't changed in 30 years. I made $850 a month, my first year in pro ball.

I made $1,200 my second year, $2,500 my third year. And then when I got put on the roster, I made $30,000 a year. So you can imagine how far $850 goes. You know, you're eating a lot of peanut butter and jelly, bananas, a lot of bread, baloney. I mean, you're just trying to stretch every penny as far as you go. I think a lot of it, as callous as it may seem, I think it's a pretty good design because it sorts those people out that are, that love the game, as opposed to those are just playing it for the paycheck.

Now, don't get me wrong, there are guys that are at the big league level that don't like baseball. They just like the paycheck and they're really good at what they do. and that's fine, but they at one point really, really love the game and playing in the minor leagues and the endless bus trips and, you know, the rules have changed along the way, you know, anything over 500 miles now you got to fly back when I played. We bused from Medicine Hat, the Salt Lake City, Utah to play games. Like, let me tell you, you get off that bus ride. You want to talk about not having legs?

Oh, man. You don't feel like you got rubber bands down there. It's terrible. It's a horrible experience. But that's what gave you the grind. It gave you the salt to continue to play. It was just, it was building character as far as I was concerned.

You know, and, and flying is great and charters are amazing, but you got to love the game. If you don't love the game, it's going to show so fast. And when it comes down to money, yeah, money is a beautiful thing. It makes the world go around. It pays your bills. It puts food on your

table. It keeps your, you know, everything. All the good stuff, right? But the amount of money, it doesn't matter. Honestly, these guys do not care. They just want what's fair in the market. If that's $37 million year, that's $37 million a year. The owners wouldn't pay it if they didn't have it. You know, I'm, I am really enjoying this because I expected you to go, yeah, you know, The minor leagues are, you know, underfunded. They need to be a little bit more. We were eating, you know, we didn't have much. We had bologna and whatever.

Instead, you kind of flip that on its head. I'm, I guess what I was surprised about. The Mike Trout, you're absolutely right. The owner is going to pay whatever they're going to pay. But if you're playing a ball and making, you know, enough to buy a bologna sandwich, you wonder, is that enough? But what you're saying is it absolutely is enough because it separates the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.

Yeah, I mean, don't get me wrong. I think you should have, you know, live certainly above the poverty line being a professional athlete. That is without saying. But, you know, at the end of the day, if it's too tough for you because you can't live on your paycheck, well, how did you get to where you are now? If mom and dad at some point contributed a lot of money to you to get to where you wanted to be, that picking up a phone going, Mom, dad, hey, need a little money this month. I got to get some food in my tummy, you know. Let's shoot me a hundred bucks.

I don't think I didn't do that. I called my mom and dad weekly. Yeah, so paycheck's gone. What do we do now? Hey, Mom, you mind sending a loaf of bread? I could use one of those. Yeah, exactly. I mean, they look after you now a lot better.

You know, there's meals and that sort of stuff. You're looked after a lot better because the, performance side of baseball has really, really stepped up to the plate as far as no pun intended, but looking after their players and really making sure that the athletes are the best that they can be at any given time. But that's all professional sports now. I mean, I mean, just watching young kids in hockey, it's like, that was not us. And I'm not an old guy by any stretch of the imagination. I'm like, what the heck is going on here? Like the specialization and the keying in on, nutrition at a super young age and like all the extras they do in training we didn't we had like

none of that and i don't know i assume we would all gravitated to if it was there but it's it's it's almost impressive to watch kids now uh like how much extra stuff they can do to prepare for their prospective sport or respective sport right absolutely i mean it just it's remarkable when you put You know, it's, it's the old adage. Good things in, good things come out, right? Like, if you eat like crap, you're going to play like crap. You're going to feel like crap. But if you eat well, you're going to perform well.

And yet, we all know that one guy who could eat cheeseburgers, drink Cokes, and go out and hit like a rock star, pitch like a rock star. I assume you got one of those guys. Oh, they're everywhere. David Wells was one of those guys. Remember Boomer? Yeah, I do. He was one of those guys, man. You couldn't put a, you know, you couldn't put a lean sandwich in his mouth because he's,

he'd throw it back up but you give them a big mac and you go throw nine in and scoreless for you you know it's just one of those guys you just bad body but just go ahead and just deal like there's freaks out there all over the place not everybody's got the three percent body fat and built like a Greek god some of them are some of them look like they said you know dad bodies at 25 you know that's what's awesome about MLB pitchers is that is a hundred percent true you can just to have a big juggernaut. But man, if he can throw the ball, what's it matter? Doesn't matter. Get people out. That's all they care about.

You don't have to look good out there. Just do your job well. Now, I think in my research of you, you were undrafted. But I think what I, if I remember correctly, at the time Canadians couldn't be taken in the MLB draft. Am I remembering that correct? Yeah, that is correct. It actually happened. The draft came into Canada, I think, in 1991 and I signed in 89. So it was a couple years after. So how what did you do then, right? If you couldn't be taken in the draft, what were your options? Well, it's not a lot different than it is today. You know, you go to school. You get noticed by by universities. You go through that system. You know, signing was a lot more. The scouting setup was a lot different than it is now. Bird Dog Scouts, I think, played a bigger part and then what they do today because they could be around you more often, see you provide the reports that whatever

organization was looking at you, provide in-time reports as opposed to, you know, these guys fly out. They now everything's done on Wi-Fi. You can send the video. They know everything about you before you know it about yourself. So, but, you know, the exposure level, the national team obviously helped. I went to a program after I graduated high school called the National Baseball Institute in Vancouver, which is like a proving ground for the national team and for the Blue Jays, they helped fund it.

So it was a great opportunity from that perspective and one that I'm glad that I took. I had opportunities in the U.S., but I couldn't afford to go to the states and go to a Big Ten school or, you know, packed in, it just wasn't in the cards for me. I just wasn't something that I could afford. So I had to find alternate ways to get to my end goal.

And I think that helped a lot in who I became as a player, that no, nothing was easy for me. Sure, the game came easy to me, but getting through the ranks was not easy. I'm going to ask a dumb question because I thought if you played Division I baseball, you got a scholarship. No, not necessarily. It's necessarily true. The way the NCAA is set up now, they only have so much money and they can only give away, I think it's 2.7 full scholarships. 2.7? 2.7 is odd as that. It's just a weird number, right? It's weird, but it all comes down to the amount of money that the school has that they can allocate to scholarships that don't infringe on the NCAA rules. It's it's hard. Trust me. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,

not easy. Most people go to school, get their, um, their scholarship might be a full scholarship, but they won't have a room and board or meals or books paid for. Sure, you can go to school, but you got to pay for all the other stuff. So that would be a full scholarship. That would be a partial full scholarship, but a full, a true full scholarship is you have no out of pocket cost, and those are very rare. Hmm. I did not know that. I, I, so I played Division III hockey and we all got partial scholarships, which means I fully understand the paying out of pocket for part of your schooling. Heck, I did it.

But what I thought I understood about Division I was it was full ride scholarships. And obviously, I'm mistaken on that. Yeah. That's a common misconception for sure. You know, everybody wants, you know, being a coach now and being directly involved with kids moving on to the next level, which is college baseball. in some cases professional, but most of them end up going to colleges or juco's and that kind of stuff. And I find from a Canadian perspective, unless you're an unbelievable baseball player,

going to a big school is going to be a hindrance to you. One, for a couple reasons. One being is the limited number of reps we get as the Canadians. How do you compete against the guy in Texas that played 70 games during the summer league? And then, you know, his high school was another 40 games. So he's, you know, he's 110, 120 games into his year. And we're playing 45 to 50 games. And, you know, in a busy year, we'll be 60 or 70 games between tournaments and

traveling and all that sort of stuff. So how do you compete against that? It's really tough. So going to a big school, you're not going to get to play right away. You're going to have to sit on the bench. You're going to red shirt unless you're an unbelievable stuff. So I, we, the organization that I'm part of, we try to send the kids to schools that they're going to get to play. You're not going to have any downtime.

You're not going to, you're going to learn the game on the field instead of watching it on the bench and charting and doing all the things that those other guys may have to do. It's hard. It's hard. Everybody wants to go to a big school, but the reality is it's not your best fit. You may be ability-wise, you may be able to compete there, but. But do you want to sacrifice a year of your eligibility to sit on the bench or, you know, have minimal exposure and your only reps are during practice and batting practice and inter-squad games?

Like that's just no way to develop. It doesn't matter whether you're a pitcher or hitter. It just, that's a bad way to develop. Baseball is a game of repetition. The more you play it, the better you get. And it's, it sounds simple, but it's a truth. You've got to go out, you've got to perform, and you've got to do it under game-like conditions or in-game conditions. I mean, you know what it's like when you play an inter-squad game?

Sure, it's fun and it's enjoyable, but that little bit of intensity that when it matters, when I got to step on somebody's throat or I got to knock somebody on their ass, I can't do that to my own teammate. But in a game, watch out. I'm taking names. If your number comes up and I got to hit you, sorry about your luck. pal you're getting one and there is something to be said about uh even in it's probably across all sports paul is if you're going to play you'd rather be playing well i mean even look at uh majors versus putting them in the the minor leagues right if you're going to sit on the bench and you're rookie wouldn't you rather have your rookies uh starting every game sitting in the minors instead of yeah

they're getting the exposure to the the show so to speak but if they're not playing what's what's better for their development. I think that's an argument, you know, as an Oilers fan, we've had that argument here an awful lot because we rush every single prospect we have until they brought in Ken Holland and that has been slowed down. And as a fan, you want to see all these young kids come in. You do because, you know, patience is a tough thing, right? Like you want to rush things. You want to see guys come through. You want to see the new, the new model, so to speak, the new car come out and show what it can do. But you won't, you know, if you can have the patient, you want long-term success, which means you want the best for the kids so that when they do eventually get there,

it's what you're saying. You want them to be able to walk in and play. And so putting kids in the right spot for themselves developmentally wise, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. The bad part about not being rushed to the next level or the bad part about being rushed to the next level is that are you going to be ready to step in when it matters? And, you know, it's hard for a veteran player to look at a rookie and go, this guy's taking my job. He doesn't have the seasoning.

He doesn't understand the daily grind that happens here. I get it. I mean, it's a tough situation for sure. And, you know, you have such a limited time frame in a professional career or any sport career, you know, high school until you're 30 years old. If you get past 30 years old, one, you're already making. making enough money. You don't have to worry about doing anything after sport unless you do something silly and blow it all. A van der Kaine. Oh, yeah, 26 mill I heard, huh? Yeah. That's a tough pill to swallow.

But, you know, that you have such a short window. So, you know, the flip side is, well, let's rush him up there, get him all the, the necessary experience that he needs within the clubhouse and dealing with veteran players and learning the bumps and downs and the bumps and the daily grinds. sort of stuff and learning it at the highest level. Sure, that makes sense. But again, then I revert back to the development side of it. Can you not develop those same kind of instincts in the minor leagues or in lower hockey or whatever the situation may be, having learning those things through trials and tribulations? To me, the more important thing is to understand failure as an athlete, how hard it is to deal with. You've had success your entire life in sports. Now you get mixed in with guys that are

the same level or better. That's right. And how do you deal with adversity? And to me, I saw a lot of guys going through the minor leagues making my way up that clearly had a lot more talent, but they didn't have it here. They just couldn't deal with failure. So they were gone. They just couldn't handle it. And if you can't deal with failure, baseball is a game of failure. Let's face it. Hall famers fail 70% of the time. Like, where else in the world can you get by and make money and fail 70% of the time? There's just nothing like it. Yeah, non-existent, I think?

I think it'd be the accurate term, yes. You know, in my current job, success is divine by 99% pass. Like, good. That's where I'm at. So, yeah, can you imagine being able to fail 70% of the time? Geez, never have to show up. Exactly. Yeah. And 99 is what's expected of you, right? Like it just, it's, there's no, there's no middle ground. It's either 99 or not at all. You can go home. I'll get the next guy in.

Can you teach in between the years? I try my best. I think that's my best skill as a coach is to help develop the pitching side of baseball. I, yeah, sure, there's some mechanical things that we all need to understand and, you know, basic principles of pitching, but the idea of pitching and understanding and reading hitters, I think is where I excel at. I really stress on my players, pitch selection, understanding hitters, executing the pitches. You can't go back and change anything. So let's not worry about the pitch that you didn't make. Let's worry about the pitch, this pitch, this moment right now. And keeping the game simple, I mean, it's just, if I wish I had somebody that would have told me that

when I was coming up because I have some spice in my blood. I'm not going to lie, I get a little fiery. And it's hard to accept failures, even though they may not be your own. And you make the right pitch and you throw it in the right spot and you still give up a home run. Sometimes you just got to tip your hat and educating a kid that doesn't understand that. But I threw the pitch in the right spot and he still hit it out. What did I do wrong?

He didn't do anything wrong. He did everything right. you know that's just part of the game and understanding that and accepting that is I did my job I just got beat sometimes you get beat it doesn't matter what you're doing you just get beat and if you can't deal with that failure then you got to really reassess your own self and say this is not for me or this is something that I have to overcome and understand it better so that the next time this situation comes up that it happens to me I just ask for another baseball I'll carry on like it never happened.

That's the failure part of that in dealing with it. I mean, it's pretty easy to see from a guy who's just a fan now watching, right? Like, there's very few guys who weren't very talented at the lower levels that make it to the next level, right? Like, that's pretty much the formula for it. You've got to be the best in order to keep moving up. But eventually, like you say, you hit this level where everybody's good or if not better. which means you're going to have you're going to start to feel more failure which you probably haven't felt a lot all the way up right yeah it is it's 100% true and the higher you go the more

failure happens and it's it's learning to accept it but not let it define you help you learn from it so that you can move forward from it and that that to me is um you can have the best stuff in world as a pitcher. But if you can't control your emotions while you're on the mound and put all of that beside you and say, I've got one job to do right now, I have to execute this pitch at this moment. And regardless of the outcome, it doesn't matter. My job is to execute pitches. Seven guys behind me make the plays. So let them do their job too, right? And it's hard for kids to understand that, yeah, strikeouts are great, but, you know, striking out 14 guys in a game, what did you learn? You didn't learn much. You just had a lot of success. But when you, when you

struggle and you're not commanding your pitches and your, your balls are bouncing all over the place, your defense may not be doing the best job behind you, how do you deal with that? How do you, how do you overcome that and continue to be able to succeed? And it's hard for kids to let that go because they feel like they've done everything that they could. And it's true. They probably have, but it's a team sport. And yes, it's done on an individual basis and your success is predicated only by your preparation. Those other guys, you don't think the coaches are going over there and going, hey, buddy,

you know, keep your nose down, keep your chin down, catch the ball. baseball. It's that simple. Catch, throw, run. What order we need to explain to you? Just get it done, right? But the understanding that and moving on from it is very difficult for kids. And I find I have a lot of explaining to do when they come into the dugout and go, well, what happened here? And it'd be like, well, you know, it's a game of inches. Making a good pitch what you think might be a good pitch. When a hitter sees it, that might not be such a good pitch. It, they get a better part of the bat on it or they recognize it or they get you in a pattern and you don't you don't see yourself in a pattern of pitch selection and that kind of stuff.

Good hitters pick that up. So you've got to learn to stay out of patterns. And that's all part of the development and things that I really stress on my guys again is staying out of patterns. And staying, it's a kiss principle basically. It'll keep it simple, stupid. Don't make it complicated. It's not a complicated game. Just keep it simple.

It's easy to overcome things when it's on a simple level and it's digestible. Smaller bits are easy to chew on than a big mouth. Yeah, that's very well said. Very well said. Going to your time in Toronto, what was your debut like? I'm still seeing a psychologist about that. Yeah, I didn't go particularly well. No, no, no.

I'll rephrase it then. I talked to you about putting on the Canadian Maple Leaf, Jersey Olympics. More so than the game result, what was making your debut like? You know what? I look back at it and I've looked at it a lot. My debut was absolutely a bomb-o. It was terrible. It was just shell-shocking.

It was. I got the first out. Tim Rains was the first player I'd ever faced in the big leagues. got them on an easy tap out to Ed's break and then I don't know what happened after that. Honestly, my legs went, I couldn't feel the rubber. I thought it was just weird. It was an explosion of disaster. I'm like, here I am, Canadian kid, living the dream, making my major league debut in Toronto for my beloved J's.

And I am just shit in the bed. This is not good. This is just horrible. I was it was a terrible experience to be honest with you other than leading up to it you know everything was great until the day stepped on the mound and it was like oh god you know just hearing you talk about it i i almost forget how interesting of a pitch position pitching is right like it's it it might be equivalent to being a goalie maybe just because of being up but I don't know.

Like, you go and you, you know, if your stuff's on, you're an absolute, wow, you're ace in the hole. Yeah.

The other eight guys on the field, you just got the pitcher just throwing the stuff. And when it ain't going right, I mean, everything's on you. Oh, yeah.

Those are the worst dates. So I look at the starting pitchers on a 10 start scale. Two are going to be really, good. Two are going to be really, really bad. What you do with the other six in the middle makes you as a pitcher. And when I say that to kids, and it doesn't matter whether you're in the bullpen or you're a starting pitcher or whatever, just look at it on outings, what you do with those six in the middle really define you as a player. And everybody gets their

ass kick. It doesn't matter who you are. Baseball is going to hand it to you at some point. It's just the way the game is. And learning to accept that is hard. I'm great. I want to be the best. I'm going to be the best. I keep going. And next thing you know,

you're looking up at the scoreboard, there's nine points up there and you're like, I haven't even gotten an out yet. What's going on? Right? Like, it's hard. It's really hard. And you go back and look at tape.

I'll give you an example. I was in AAA at the time and I was starting and I was dealing. I mean, dealing, dealing. and I went into Rochester, we were playing the Orioles. And I threw 35 pitches in the first inning and gave up eight runs and didn't get an out. And I went back and looked at the film. And I could have sworn that every pitch I threw was where I wanted it. Just the result wasn't there.

And then I go back and look at, I threw, I got taken out of a no hitter. Okay. You got taken out of a no hitter? I got taken out. I had a no hitter in the ninth inning with two out. And I would have had my no hitter, but there was a couple errors. So that didn't happen. So, but I got taken out of the game. And I went back and looked at the video after. And it was like, how did I get anybody out today? It was terrible. Guys were just missing balls, popping them up, you know, throwing a ball right down the guts. And he would just pop it straight up or pounded into the dirt. And I get this reasy roll over.

It was just like, what? It just made no sense to me. And that's the weird part about sport to me is that there's no explanation for why you have success one day and the very next day you do the exact same stuff and you have completely opposite results. It just, it's weird. It just rattles my brain sometimes. Let's put a pin in the too good, the too bad, the six.

What did you say when you got pulled on a number? hitter. That did not go well. I again, the spicy blood in me got the better part of me. I'm not going to lie. You tell me one person that wouldn't have a little spicy blood having a no hitter going. Yeah.

And oddly enough, it was Doug Alt again, the manager. I was like, oh my gosh, this is not right. So I get pulled out of the game. I go right into the clubhouse and Doug comes into the clubhouse. boss and I proceed to lose my crap on him and he's like you're at a hundred pitches I'm like it's a no hitter I don't care 105 110 120 who cares does it matter I've got a no no going while you had your opportunity for you no no but you know Alex Alix Nzals was a shortstop he kicked the ball and then our second baseman kicked a routine double play ball on the next play and then I was out of the game and

oddly enough let me finish that story We lost the game. We lost the game. Two to one on a no hitter. We ended up getting the no hitter, but we lost it. We lost on a wild pitch. On a pitch out. Running at third,

guy who's picking. So doing a pitch out, throws it to the screen and we lose. We're like, oh, come on. Really? I can't make up this stuff. It was crazy.

But anyway, back to my losing my mind. on Doug. So we have a big argument in the in the clubhouse and then we go to the bus and I'm still a little upset. You know, obviously we lose the game on a on a on a on a on a pitch out. It was just it was incredible to watch and then the players started chirping me, you know, giving me the gears and I'm already I'm already upset. And I don't know what happened. But anyway, it ended up being a great big argument on the bus with everybody. Everybody was supporting me and everybody was dog and dug. You know, you shouldn't have done that. We lost the game. I don't know what. It was just one of those

things, you know, it was a good time, man. Oh, God. That's, that's, that's a, that's a story that just keeps on giving. Yeah, yeah. And you know what? The odd part is, I think the baseball gods got pissed off at me because I never threw another, that was the closest I've ever been to no hitter. I almost had a perfect game playing in the Inter-County League here, but that got broken up. And then the next play I threw, I got 27 up, 27 down next guy hit a ground ball double play into the game. But yeah, never got to another no-hitter.

Man, well, okay, that did not see that coming. That's a fantastic story. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I mean, in the wrong way, a fantastic story. I mean, it would have been better if you would have just had the no-hitter, for him to have a pitchroat and that's how they win it. Geez. How many times does that happen to baseball?

Not very often. I'm going to say once and I was there. I've never heard of anything like it before. You know, the great thing about baseball is just when you think you've seen it all, it'll surprise you. It will throw something out. You just go, what? Did I just see? That can't be right.

That just can't be right. you know, whether it's a base running blunder or, you know, throwing behind somebody, you've thrown to the wrong, you just see stuff all the time that keeps the game intriguing. And no matter how well you know it, it just keeps throwing you curveballs. It's like, yeah, we've got you now. You've got you looking one way.

We're going to give you this one now. But that's, I think, what I love best about baseball is it's constantly evolving. It's constantly changing. It's never the same. No, the grind is mundane, but every day preparing for a game and getting into a game and performing. You just never know what to expect. How about the Blue Jays win in the World Series?

You would have been in the farm system then at the time. Were you around that at all? Or were you guys just watching? Yeah, actually, I was considered for a couple of the trades in 92, and we got Ricky Henderson. It was between me and a guy named Steve Carsey. and the Jays decided to keep me and traded Steve Carsey for Ricky Henderson. And in the following year, I was in spring training with the big club, you know,

and they obviously went on to win the World Series. And I was on the roster and I was really, really upset that it didn't get a September call up, just to have the opportunity to sit on the bench for a World Series. And, you know, I remember the reporter coming up to me at the end of the AAA season in Syracuse saying, hey, how do you feel about not getting called up? And I said, well, I'm going to quote my mom on this one. And I'm like, what do you mean? I go, well, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. And I turned around and walked away. And they quoted me in the paper saying that. And the next day Gordash comes up to me and goes, you know what?

I appreciate you saying that. You deserve it, but there's just, we had different plans. I'm like, well, it doesn't help me. I'd like to be in the big leagues, watching. or getting the opportunity to perform at that level and in a world series, it would have been amazing. Well, that's, that's good old Bambi for you. That's, I feel like that's been passed down in generations. Yeah. What was, what was Seattle like?

You know, when, I got looking at where you'd been, and then, of course, I got talking to some of my buddies who are avid baseball fans. We got talking about the Mariners back then. And then we got looking at the names and I'm like, oh my God, right? Like Griffey in his heyday, Ranny Johnson, like Alex Rodriguez. What was going to that team like? What was Seattle like? I'll tell you, I will never, have you ever been traded?

No, I can't say I have. Okay. So it's a, it's very, very unique feeling because when I got traded from Toronto to Seattle, it was, it was honestly heartbreaking for me. I, when Cito told me, I asked everybody, all the coaches to leave the coaches room because I broke down. I was like a little baby. I was like, I can't believe. I've dreamed of this since the day I started playing baseball.

And now today you're telling me that I can no longer be part of my dream. I've got to go do it on another team. It was it was very disheartening. And then it dawned on me. Holy shit. We're in last place. I'm going to a first place team. I'm going to get to go to the playoffs.

This is going to be incredible. And then I went from this total deflation to I can't wait to get on the plane to go there. Unfortunately, I got to tell you my story about that. So we were with Toronto. We played four games in three days. We had a split gate double header because of a rain out in Milwaukee. And if you've ever been to the old Milwaukee stadium, that is no place for baseball. So we go to Detroit the next after our four days or three day stint in Milwaukee, we go to Detroit. We play that night. And then the next night, that night I get traded to Seattle. And we go back to Milwaukee for the exact same thing. Played eight. games in six days in Milwaukee in the worst stadium ever. Oh, it was terrible. But yeah, it was, great. You know, I remember walking into the clubhouse in Milwaukee and the first person to greet me was June. And Mike Timlin was traded with me. And it was interesting because I did well against junior and the Mariners when I played against them. I pitched really well against them. So it was

interesting. And he comes up to me and he just like, fine. I don't have to face you anymore. Like, what? But yeah, I tell you, that team was incredible. When I looked back at the players that were there and, I mean, it was, it was incredible. Like, you know, it was, it was home for me in the sense that it was like being back in the Okinawagon and the mountains and being on the West Coast and all that. It was, it was fun.

And I, you know, I look back on my time in Seattle with a lot of regret, sadly. I didn't do well there. And I think a lot of that had to do with where I was with my development with the Jays and working under Dan Pleasack. Dan, I learned more in the year that I played with Dan with the Jays than I had my entire career up to that point. He taught me things that I had no idea about, just literally no idea. He was a guy that took me under his wing and I felt like I was really starting to make a turn. I didn't want to be in the bullpen. My eye was always on being a starter and getting that opportunity.

And Dan was filling my mind with these ten bits of information that I had been able to finish at least the year with him, I think would have made a big difference in my career. And going into Seattle, I felt a lot of pressure to perform. You know, they gave up Jose Cruz for me and Mike Timlin. It was going to a first place team, a lot of pressure to win, all those sorts of things. And I put that added pressure on myself to not, I got out of being who I was as a player and got into what I thought they wanted me to be and not who I was. And that really derailed me. And playing for Lou Pinella was, I mean, it was incredible.

It was, it was awesome to play for that guy. He was, it was everything that you know of Lou is absolutely true. but what you don't know about him is is how hard he is. He's a hard guy. He's, you know, I don't have the proverbial dog house.

Well, Lou, I haven't pitched in a week. Do you think I'd get some mound time? Oh, yeah, sure, we'll get you in there. Well,

there's a hard lesson learned. I did that, and I went 14 straight days up in the pen, into games, 14 days in a row. Now, I did, out of those 14 days,

I only got into maybe like six games, but I was on the mound. every single day for 14 days. It was horrible. And I'll never forget this. We were in Oakland. And I went to the pitching coach and I said, listen, I've learned my mistake. How do I ask for time off? He goes, what? Now you want time off? I go, yeah, because I can't even brush my teeth right now. I can't even move my arm. And he's like, well, you're just going to have to wear this. When Lou says you're done, you're done. And I said, oh, okay. So that night, I told my pitching coach, you got to tell Lou if he's going to get me up just to get me hot and not get me in the game, I don't want to be in the game.

I just get me hot and get me in the game because I have no bullets left to fire. I just, this is it. This is my last day. And I will go into Lou's office and I will ask for time off. And I don't care if that's an entire month because I might need surgery in a week. You know what I mean? So I come in and I face Jason Giambi and I'm actually feeling pretty good. Like, I'm like, oh, the adrenaline kicked in.

I'm starting to feel pretty good. All right, this is great. I look up at the radar gun after I threw my fat, my best, what I thought was my best fastball, and it was 84. Went from like 92, 93 to 84. It was my best fastball. I was like, oh, this is not. So anyway, ended up getting Jason Gianbi out.

And I see him under the tunnel after the game. And he goes, when did you start throwing changeups? I'm like, buddy, those are my heaters. he's like come on i go i'll tell you the whole story another time but yeah those are fastballs and he was swinging and whipping like he was 10 feet in front of them it wasn't it was so funny i was like i think i might be on to something might start losing some miles an hour and start getting some more outs a message was sent though oh the message was clear yeah i'll tell you when you can pitch and tell you when you can have rest and that's how it went for the next year i didn't

I hardly even spoke to Lou from the end of that outing after in Oakland till the following year. Like it was, hey, Lou, how you doing? Everything's great. Yeah, you feel good. Can you pitch tonight? Sure. Yep, no problem. Now it's about it.

Can we go back to Dan, please, sec? You said he gave you tidbits. And I just took from what you were talking about is that he filled you up, he filled you up, with confidence. And he was building you up, building you up, building you up. What was he talking about? What were the little things he was showing you? So one thing you got to understand about Dan is I saw him two, three years ago on a spring training.

And he was doing a game for major league baseball and whatever else because he's on, he's on the major league baseball network now. And that guy can remember pitches that he threw to people 35, 40 years ago. Like that's the kind of brain that's in that. guy's head. Like he just has remarkable recall. And so we, we would sit in the, in the bullpen and we would discuss, you know, the first couple of innings was always we were joking around and having a good time, getting into the flow of the game and doing that sort of stuff. But come the fourth inning, it was, it was a switch turned on. I know what I need to do in order to get ready

for my outing. And I don't know when that'll be. It could be the sixth. It could be the seventh. It could be the ninth. I don't know. So I need to start to understand what it took to prepare to get into situations, understanding lineups and how they're going to roll over with a number of outs and where your opportunity might be to come in and get the lefty out. Dan had that down to a science. It was remarkable.

It was, I'm going to get whoever player XYZ in the seventh inning with probably two outs. And it'd be like, are you kidding me right now? you really, that's your, you're calling it. Sure's hell. It would happen. And it would be, he'd be like, and then he'd try to go back and he tried to explain how he got to that point where he understood how the lineups would roll over, the number of outs, how the, how the manager is going to do. And if the games continued in the same situation, whether the score was, you know, one nothing or seven nothing, he knew when he was going to pitch. And he tried to, it was very hard to understand. And a lot of guys that I played with had no clue of it. And I tried to continue to learn that. So we would talk,

then we'd go down and we'd talk about hitters, you know, how we, how we want to address this guy, how are we going to try to get him out? Because at the end of the day, before every series, we have, you have a pitchers meeting and you go through the lineups. These guys are your everyday players, you know, here's your top 11 guys that are going to be in the game no matter what. Here's the two other guys that are off the bench. We're not really worried about them. Who are we not going to let beat us? And you and, or are we going to pitch around or are we going to pitch to you in the opportunities, right? So he would, he, Dan's recall of getting guys out and how he got him out, not just yesterday or a week, but literally years ago, I threw him a three, two slider. I had a runner on third.

You know, it was, it was a one run game and I threw him a slider and it worked. well try that and be like okay so you know there's there's something to be said for when you my stuff although dan and i virtually had identical stuff but velocity wise we threw the same pitches our stuff came out differently i had late life he had a heavy ball his slider was short and shallow where mine was more it had more depth to it but the velocities were all the same so he would try to he would pick my brain at how I would approach a hitter given a situation. And then he would either agree with it or he would say, this is where I think you could approve on that.

And that really, at the end of the day, that constant back and forth, that constant feedback with somebody that did the same job as you, to share that information and know that I'm going to run with it and I'm going to be successful with it. I think Dan took a lot of pride in that, giving me that information and it's seeing me blogging. awesome doing that because when I, before I left Toronto, I was, when I got traded to Seattle,

I was pitching very, very well. And it was, I'm convinced it was due to damn. You make me realize how much mental, and I've known this for a long time, I guess I just never really think about it. But listening to you talk, I go, man, there's a lot of the mental side of, of the baseball game, right? Like there's absolutely the ability. But the mental component, it's huge. And when you say he could pick out who you're going to face and everything, my brain immediately goes well, he's probably building scenarios. And in scenarios,

it's a numbers game. And you're a lefty. So now you have certain scenarios where you would probably fit right into it. And that's going to key on a couple guys. And so to me, I actually really, that really makes a lot of sense. And it's cool that how you guys interact and like built kind of an approach to how you were going to face these guys off of his experience and what worked but understood you had similar stuff but you didn't have

similar stuff and see how it was going to play out. I could see how that'd be very good to have a sounding board and a knowledgeable sounding board. It was like the master and the apprentice. That's the feeling that I had that I don't know if you've ever had a personal experience where somebody's took you under your wing under their wing and showed you what it was like to do things differently, but it made it easier for you. You had a predetermined way of doing something. And then somebody else shows you a different way. And now you've got two ways to skin this cat and you're able to go, well, now I can pick

and choose. I have more tools at my disposal to be able to make an adjustment, to make a change, to read a hitter, to understand the situation better. All those little things that play into your pitch selection, sometimes it's better to be, you know, let's turn the brain off and just go reactive. But that doesn't, that's not the best solution for everyday success in baseball. You got to have a plan. You know, the old saying is even a horseshit plan is better. than no plan at all. And it is absolutely the truth in baseball. And in trying to, if you go into a game and you don't have an idea what you're going to do, you're not going to be in there for long.

You're going to get exposed. It's that simple. You've got to know what you've got to do. And that's what separates, you know, aside from being the consistency that a big league player possesses, it's that understanding of the nuances of the game that can really elevate you or sink you at the same time. And you talk master and apprentice. I immediately think a mentor, right? Like you're talking about somebody who's, whether it's 10 years or 20 years or 30 years ahead of you,

because they've already been through what you've been through and they can share that experience and help guide you. You still got to do the work. You still got to put the pitches where they need to go. Or you still got to, you know, make it happen. But they can give you the experience or the, and I understand what you're saying. and if you can find those people, that can be a very powerful thing.

You want to surround yourself with really good people that have the best for you and challenge your thoughts. But to have it one so specific to you, I just, I guess in my brain, when it comes to baseball and it comes to a pitching coach and it comes to a guy who's going to help the pitchers, I just assumed you would find that. on different teams as well. But then again, that's taking into account that each individual is different. So when you go to Seattle, maybe you don't have that same guy who has your best, whatever, right?

That's kind of what you're saying. Yeah, and that's exactly what it was. Like when I went to Seattle, I had Norm Charlton there, one of the nasty boys from the days of the Cincinnati Reds. Well, he had a vastly different approach to pitching than me, one so much that I couldn't relate to his approach. What he was trying to tell me to do didn't fit into my game. It was, he was a grunt and farting guy. The harder I work, the harder I throw. And that was not how I approached baseball.

Baseball to me was, I needed to be relaxed. I was at my best when I was most relaxed and able to be the most athletic being that I could beat. And he was the exact opposite. Let me all get wound up on caffeine in craziness. and let me go out there and try to, you know, throw through the catcher. That was his approach, which is literally completely opposite to me. And that Dan had that same approach that I had.

I'm going to go out there. I'm going to be relaxed because, one, I trust my stuff. Two, I have a plan. And three, I know that if I execute my pitches, I'm going to get you out. Or you're going to get yourself out. So let's go. You know, and Norm on the other hand, was, I'm going to just bury it down your throat. I'm going to intimidate you.

I'm going to knock you down. I'm going to dust you up. Then I'm going to knock you down one more time just because I can. That wasn't the way I went about baseball. I took a lot of the things that Norm tried to teach me from the aggressive perspective because that does apply. It certainly is true. Intimidation is just a way of sport.

But it wasn't something that I flourished on. I knew when I had to knock somebody down because they were too comfortable in the box. That was fine. I already knew that. But having the approach that I'm going to throw three fastballs at your neck and then I'm going to try to throw, you know, three more fastballs down and away to get you out. Well, it's full count. If I miss one more time, what have I done? I've just dug a big hole.

You know, I didn't, and I didn't trust myself doing that. I wanted to be able to get ahead early and put you away as quickly as I could. Yeah. It's interesting to hear different guys on. just how they were influenced in their career, right? Because you probably wonder, and now you have me wondering, geez, you wonder if you don't get trade to Seattle, what happens? Although you don't go to the top team and you stay on the bottom side of the league, maybe your career, not that it was bad by any stretch. I'm not trying to say that, but maybe all of a sudden it blossoms and you become, you know, you start to become the master, so to speak, to use your words.

Right, exactly. And I think about that quite regularly. I mean, don't get me wrong. I don't regret my career at any level. I don't. I did what I could do. I did the best that I was given the opportunity to. I'm happy for it. I'm proud of it. Was I really good? No, I wasn't. I'm not going to try to pull smoke or wool over anybody's eyes here. I did what I could do. And some days are better than others. And hey, so what? And yet, I played for six years at the big league level. I'm happy with that. And yet you're a big league pitcher. And I mean, that is more than how many percentage you can say in the population. So you got something to hang your hat on there for sure. I got to ask, you know, you played in the time of slugging Sammy Sosa, McGuire, breaking records.

What were the thoughts back then of guys in the league? Well, how can I put this? Are you specifically referring to steroids? It's funny. No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm curious on your thoughts on this. You're a guy, you got to understand. At the time this is going on, I am like,

what was that 90 98? Is that not right? 98 I think is when it is. So what am I? I am, I'm 12 years old. So like to me, none of the other stuff matters.

All I'm seeing is just dingers going out, right? Like dinger after dinger after dinger. That was exciting to me. I remember watching those guys and being like, holy crap, they could break the record. This is unbelievable. Hell,

Ken Griffey that year had 56. It wasn't like he was far. behind. Like he had crushed a ton. Like the whole league was smashing the ball. Yeah. Yeah. It's remarkable because the biggest thing that I have is I wonder, maybe I should

have used stairlights. Maybe I should have left the field. I didn't use them. I never, I had been asked many, many times to use them. And I never did for fear of Lyle Al-Zato. Remember Lyle Lazzato? He died.

of brain cancer from steroid use. And that, it really stuck with me. And I was, I was scared to death to use them. And I look back now and I'm like, man, like Brady Anderson, you go from 15 to 50 home runs one year. Like, okay. Now you look like a freight train instead of this little scrawny center fielder. You know what I mean?

Like, what's going on here? Like, you can't tell me you're not on the juice. it that was the hardest part for me is guys are smashing balls that they would go out when you know that they shouldn't be going out you know it's like that's lazy whoa that's not so lazy anymore that ball's carrying right and it it really showed to me the guys that were on steroids during that time was August and September how much energy they had those guys could still go like it was April and here the rest of it. of us that weren't using them were like, oh, pass me water, give me something, I need energy.

And it was like, it was a totally different approach to the game. And it made it difficult for guys like myself that, you know, a marginal big leaguer that that had to come in and get guys like junior up, not that saying junior didn't do steroids. I play with them. I know I can say for certain that I never saw him take 100%. But having to come in and get guys like Raphael Palmero or Mark McGuire or those types of guys. that wasn't easy to do knowing they weren't they weren't hurting like like i was or some of my other teammates might be hurting that weren't taking steroids so that was the hardest part to deal with was

was that part of it knowing that the field wasn't even it wasn't even close to even you mentioned that you've answered that question a lot and that you'd been asked lots to do or take steroids so was that just a common thing back then yeah it really was it really was it really was And I'm glad that it got sorted out the way it got sorted out. And the people got exposed for being exposed because to me, baseball is a game of integrity. And the integrity was lost. And it was lost for a couple different reasons, in my opinion.

One, the owners were starting to get fans back in the seat. So they just kind of just went, everything's okay over here, right? Yep, everything's good. They just kind of, you know, turned a blind eye to it. And players were at the cusp of money with, starting to become really, really good. And guys that I know were, would have never made that kind of money, made that kind of money because they took steroids. And that was the hard part for me is how do I look at myself in the mirror and say to my kids, oh yeah, okay, I'm a millionaire,

but I cheated getting there. That, to me, I couldn't live with myself doing that. And that was another reason that I didn't do it. Speaking of integrity of the game, you've probably been asked this one a lot. How about the Houston Astros? Yeah. Yeah, I, hey, cheating's been going on in baseball for a very, very long time. The way they cheated is what upsets me. I'm okay with the guy at second base relaying signs and doing that sort of stuff, or if you're fool enough on the mound to be tipping pitches and they pick it up and they start tallywacking you all over the bases and everybody knows your number because you're backing up some base that's fine i get that i can live with that but when you use technology to cheat

that ain't right that ain't right and in my opinion they should lose everything they should be stripped completely of everything i would actually say you're not the world series winner we're giving it to the other guys so i agree 100% with you what you're talking about with cheating is just part of the game with the human element, right? If guys can deduce what you're doing and pick up on cues, is that really cheating or is that just playing the game? That's a gray area to me. You know, the guy relaying signs from second base, that type of stuff. Is that really a gray area, though? Like if as a pitcher, you go through the same whatever you want, right? You can have the same routine through each batter. If you don't pick up on that as the other team, and you just go up there

and keep your blinders on, hey, guys, we're just going to hit the ball. And if, you know, you're picking up on the little, you know, like the hidden little gems there. And if you can find a couple of those, why not? I'm not disagreeing with you on that. Where I draw the line on that for the gray area is, why does a hitter need to know what's coming? If he can't figure it out himself and he's getting the information from somebody else on the field. And, while I'm trying to get out of a jam, that to me is cheating. And that's fine. I can accept that.

I can live with that part of the game, no problem. But when you start using, you know, a buzzer on your chest or, you know, lighting, you know, when I played, we always felt like the White Sox had something going on in the scoreboard when I was with the Mariners. It was a little bit with the Js, but it was more with the Mariners. They were certain that there was cheating going on and it was done through the scoreboard. scoreboard because we would just get beaten by these guys and it was like how do we like they come to our place they can't even hold our cups up and we go to their place and they bury us like how's that

even this something's not right like Randy Johnson getting tallywacked all over the field and and four days later he's throwing a no hitter against them like what's going on here like something's not lining up right so those that type of stuff is I think it's just What happens on the field and how you deal with on the field and how you deal with your teammates getting the information to make you successful, that's not cheating to me. That isn't. Because if the guy at second base wants to relay a sign and I catch him, you know, whether it's a crossover step or he does a little drop step or he steps forward for location, whatever, or, you know, hand signals or whatever, I know that I can get that guy. you know, next time he comes up to bat, I might put one in his ear flap just for relaying signs. Keep the signs to yourself. My job, your job is to talk to them on the bench, not on the

field. So that's hard. And you know, a lot of players, they don't even want to know what's coming, right? I know guys that would be like, do you want to know what's coming? We've got their signs. We can relay them from second, whatever, right? We can figure that, we'll figure out some sort of guys would be like, no, I don't want to know. I want to have my game plan and I don't want to deviate from. And that's fine too. I can see how there's a gray area there. I just, when it comes to the technology side, to me as a player, whether we're talking baseball, hockey, basketball, anything, anything like that where you know, like when you're

putting on a buzzer, you know, you're breaking the code. Like I, when that story came out, I don't know if I heard one person go, well, they're just, you know, they're just playing the game. It's like, are they? I don't feel that. I don't feel that, right? When it comes to stealing signs on the second, right? Man, can you imagine if all the fans have been able to get in the buildings like they should have been and just give it to them?

Oh, the sad part is they will never pay the full price for what they did. No. The fans, I think the fans are more or less forgotten. You know, they, it's sad because they, they what they did was was terrible for the game. You know, the last thing baseball needs is another black eye. It doesn't need it.

It doesn't want it. It just having a scandal like this, it takes people out of the stands. It's, you know, in a game that's already losing its demographic. It's clearly getting older. They're trying to get younger fans in.

They're trying to adapt the game to these younger fans. But to me, the endearing part of baseball, when I was growing up was I could bet on that whoever, you know, let's use Griffey as a reference, that junior is going to be in Seattle his entire career. Now three or four years, this guy could be a next hall of famer. They're going to ship them out of there because they can't afford them. That to me is where baseball loses its fan base is that it's so multi-dimensional that in order for me to be a fan, I can't be a fan of the team anymore.

I have to be a fan of a player. So whatever team he's on, that's my new favorite team. And I don't know what you, but like when I was growing up, I knew every single hockey player on every single team. And I could, I had them all memorized. Yeah. And I was the same with baseball. You know, I didn't, I didn't like baseball as much as I did.

But I took to it to understand the players and, and have them, you know, that this guy was on this team and who he got traded for. That part of the game was great for me. I like that part of it. And now it just seems like it's just a puppy mill. It's just next, next, next. And it's sad because baseball is a long game. And to go through and not be able to recognize somebody,

where's the joy in that for the fan? I think getting it back down to the basics, having people, teams stay together longer is, in my opinion, the way to get people back. As you point out, my laughter comes from puppy mill. I don't know if that's a new one or if I just haven't thought of that one a long time. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. The animal activists won't like that, but I get what you're saying. would you know i we come from around emminton the oilers obviously everybody knows the oilers

last little bit right i mean mac david and dry settle and everything's been great and you had the 80s when they were great but we for majority of my life they were man they were fun to watch because they were blue-collar team there for a little bit but they they couldn't compete with the new york rangers the Toronto maple etc the big bad money spenders and then the salary cap came in and I believe me if you're a free agent and you got the choice to go to Tampa Bay or Dallas or San Jose or whatever Anaheim or come up to Eminton. I mean, Eminton's got to be good for you to want to go there. You ought to want to win because you're going to pick probably the destination, a choice over, you know, who's got a little more cash.

Maybe not. Would that help baseball? Because now maybe you pull it, you take away from Well, I mean, in baseball, look at the Yanks, the Red Sox. They spend an awful lot of money. They do. And I think it's difficult to unfold, really. Does a salary cap add to the uniformity of the league, you know, taking the bottom teams and being able, you know, taxing the high money teams and giving that money to the low-income teams to create some sort of utopian society in baseball. I don't think that works.

You don't think it works? I don't. I don't because, one, if you're a superstar and at the time, like, let's use Tampa 15 years ago or 20 years ago and they weren't, they were crap, who would want to go there under a salary cap? Like, you just wouldn't want to go there, right? Like, the whole idea of playing is to win. So if you're in it for the money and you want to go to a poor team or a less financially stable team than the Yankees or the Red Sox or the Cubs or one of those higher echelon teams, that's fine.

If you're not going to win, does the money matter that much? Because winning is really what you play the game for. Yeah, I know. But you're talking character now. You're talking two different types of people. And you said this right at the start, right? there's guys that want to make their money and then there's the other guys. Yeah.

Other guys still want to make money. I mean, you can't do it for free. Yeah. But that's what you're differentiating there. The thing that, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know the baseball world good enough. I just know the top to bottom, the division between the two is very big. Whereas.

It's not as big as you might think, though. You know, it's a lot smaller than it ever has been. But to me. me, if I'm the commissioner of baseball and whatever owners group wants to put together a dynasty team for the next 15 years, how can that be bad for baseball? Yeah, but look at that's what the NBA did, right? Like the Golden State Warriors had this team that were like, holy, man, who's it? Like, you already know who's in the finals before the season even starts.

How's that fun to watch? Because it's sport. It's sport. You never know what's going to happen. Nothing is set in stone ever on any level. Maybe that's true except for in baseball. Because basketball, you get LeBron James. It pretty much buys you into the finals.

Does it not? Okay. Fair enough. I mean. But you're comparing two different vastly different. True. I am. I am jumping on you.

there. I am jumping on you there. And it'd be, and I don't think he can even put hockey in a basketball world. No, you cannot. Basketball is in its own world because simply one player can have such a great impact. You get Connor McDavid, and we talked about it all the time, one great player in the NHL still needs a team around them, right? Like, he only plays, I don't know, 20 to, like not even 50% of the game. That's what the best player in the NHL does.

plays a third of the game, maybe a smidge more. Yeah. And in baseball, you get the best pitcher out there. He pitches once in a rotation, right? Like, I mean, even if he pitches a no hit or every game he pitches, that's 20-some starts. Exactly. Exactly.

And that's where I feel like baseball, okay, if you want to have a salary cap, cap it for the amount of earning for the players, not what the team can spend. And if the Yankees want to spend a billion dollars a year and put 25 guys making 30 mil a year, hey, go get them. If that's the way it's going to be, that's the way it's going to be. It wouldn't happen. No team could afford to do that is my point. So having these echelon teams like the Yankees and the Red Sox and the Cubs and all these teams that put money where their mouth is and go after championships, don't think that doesn't drive the rest of. of the league to try because it does. It absolutely does. You hear, oh, you know, every year

the conversations are the same. Well, who's to beat this year? Well, of course, the Yankees are in the conversation. So Red Sox are in the conversation. All these, the same teams are always in the same conversation. So by by taking taxed money and giving it to the lower teams and having them to try to be able to spend that money on free agencies, what was initially, designed for. Now they're going the other way. They're drafting people and they and they become like a farm system for these for these the Yankees and the Red Sox and these high income teams which is not really fair. But at the same time, what are you doing in order to improve your team from a financial standpoint as an owner? I get it. You may not be

in the oil industry and you're not you're not a billionaire. I'll tell you what. The oil industry isn't great right now. So. Right. Yeah, this is true. That is absolutely true. You know, some of these, some of these owners, they own these teams. They're literally like they're a toy for them. That's how wealthy they are. They just, it's not their main income. They, you know, this is their toy. And, and they go about it that way. They treat it that way. They, sure, nobody likes to spend, you know, $200 million a year on payroll and not have anything to show for it. But at the end of the day, why would, you know, these guys are all. obviously tremendously successful business people, they're spending their money the way they deem fit to in order to succeed. So that's a funny thing about baseball, right? It comes back to that 10 thing, right? You're going to have 20 loss. You're going to in baseball, it's 40 losses, 40 wins, and 60 in between. And what you do with those is what makes up your whole season, right so uh it baseball the amount of injuries that you have throughout the year you look at a roster

i mean you start with 25 guys on your roster by the end of the season you've used 50 sometimes if you have a really rough year you're in the 60 player category that's a lot of players to run through your system so it doesn't always come down the money it's always to me it's always about staying healthy well i got to say i have really enjoyed chatting with you and i just looked at the clock and I'm like, oh, well, maybe I should allow you to get on with your night. I get lost in this. I really, really enjoyed this. It's always nice to have a surprisingly good conversation, I must say, from my side. I love the diversity of people that I have come on. And I got to give a shout to Clay over at Prophet River for hooking us up, because that's, this is how it all comes together,

right? Like, yeah. So before I let you go, We do a little thing here, a little five questions right at the end, the Crude Master Final Five. A shut out to Heath and Tracy McDonald. They've been sponsored to the podcast since the very beginning. And it's just five questions for you, long or short, and then we'll let you go. And I promise we are going to get you back on because this has been,

the time has just ticked away. And I've really enjoyed this, Paul. Well, I appreciate it. I've had a great time too. Okay, well, the first question I always asked for a guy's first time on the podcast. is I'm always curious who you would want to sit down with and pick their brain the same way I'm doing to you. Oh, wow, that's a tough one. There's so many people that I'd love to pick their brains apart.

Oh, I don't even have, I honestly, I don't even have a good answer for that because I think my list would be too long. I mean, I guess at the end of the day, I'd probably want to sit down with God. No, like, hey, lay this out for it. me, man. Like, what's going on here? Give me some insight to what, what was going to your mind during all of this? You know, I don't know. I mean, there's so many different aspects of my life that I would love to be involved with that have the people that I would look up to have some sort of input that I have no access to. Well, I'll, that's a good one. But I'll give you a book for you then. My sister put me on to this.

It was Conversations with God, an uncommon dialogue by Neil Donald Walsh. You got to email me that. I will. I will. And the book, she gave it to me, and my sister's a spiritual person. She's very, well, just spiritual.

I can say that. Yep. And she gave me this book, and I started reading it, and it's a guy talking with God. And I went, oh, this is a load of fooey, right? And then I put it down and I walked away from it. And I came back and I went, you know what, let's play the what if game and say this guy actually talked to God and approach it from that and do that thought experiment.

And it turned into like this fascinating book, like fascinating. So I'll make sure I email that to you because, I mean, unless God comes down and sits on the podcast next week, that's a tough ass. But I can get you something close in a book and you can listen to it on an audio book. and I promise, it was a fun little listen, and it didn't take long to get through. Okay. Well, I appreciate that. Thank you. If you get traded, if we go back and you were going to get traded, and you could bring

one guy with you, hey, man, you're coming with me. You may not like it, but you're coming. We're going to wherever. Who would be the guy you'd bring along? You know, oddly enough, when I got traded from Toronto to Seattle, Mike Timlin and I were, like, tighter in two coats of paint. I think having him go with me was probably the best thing. It eased the blow of learning a new team.

And he had many more years of experience under his belt than I did. So it was a quick, easy adaptation. And I guess at the end of the day, the simple answer is it'd probably be somebody that I would trust with my life. And he was one of those people. That's a cool answer. trust with your life i like that yeah it's game seven world series you're up three two bottom of the ninth uh bases are loaded and you're brought in to close it up okay who's the one batter that you're like yep i got this rafiel palmero oh yeah hands down since burger game over i think i i want to say

I faced him 17 times and he, I think I struck him out 12. And I think he got a little dribbler infield hit off me. That was it. Like it was automatic. I'd come in to get him. It was just like, oh, yeah. Game on. Foaming at the mouth.

Oh, yeah, I couldn't wait. Give me the ball. I don't need no warmups. This guy's out. You get, you get a talent agency calls you, we'll call it. Well, actually, no. A talent agency calls you. And they want you to recreate one of the baseball movies.

classics. You get your choice though and what role you're taking. What movie you're starring back in? Probably Bull Durham. Yeah, frick. Who can argue Bull, freaking Durham? Yeah, I mean, seriously, it's just, it's a, I mean, that's just an unbelievable, unbelievable movie. And I would come back as New Kloosh. You would. I would. I'd be, I'd be nuk in that movie for sure. Oh, man, that, I tell you what, that ranks up there as one of the best sports movies. of all time. Absolutely. Yeah. Like Kevin Costner is unbelievable, but like just the entire movie is fantastic. Nick Lush too, what a, what a gem. Yeah, absolute Jim. Beauty. Your final one, what is one

lesson you learned along the way that is stuck with you? In sport. Sure. Or in business. It can be either. Stictuitiveness has its rewards. You know, perseverance pays off. It really does. I think a lot of people take that for granted. They give up too easy. They succumb to doubt way too easy. And I've always been, maybe it's a stubborn streak in me, I don't know, but I think having the ability to just keep pushing through and know that your goal is somewhere down the line. And it doesn't matter whether you take one step forward and two steps back, you're making progress. Every time you take a step is progress.

It doesn't have to be leaps and balance. And not losing that focus is the thing that I think has allowed me to be, you know, successful as an athlete and as a business owner, just never stop. Just keep going, keep pushing, keep working hard because it does pay off. That's cool. That's a cool way to end it. I appreciate you coming on. Paul, this has been highly enjoyable for me.

I appreciate it, Sean. It's been great. You've done a great job today. I love it. I'm going to start watching all your, listen to all your podcasts now. I'm going to get them all here going. I've pulled up your webpage and I'm going out of. I'm going to start listening to them.

If anything like this, this is, I'm not a podcast guy. I'll be straight up with you. I don't listen to too many of them. But I like the way you do this. This is refreshing. It's fresh. It's neat. It's great.

I love it. Well, I appreciate that. That's a nice compliment from you. I do. I think you've done a great job. Thank you for having me. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, folks, thanks for joining us today.

If you just stumbled on the show, please click subscribe. Then scroll to the bottom and rate and leave a review. I promise it helps. Remember, every Monday and Wednesday, we will have a new guest sitting down to share their story. The Sean Newman podcast is available for free on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever else you get your podcast. until next time. Hey, Keeners. How about some bloopers?

That all came from these guys. They are, um, oh, fuck. That's how we start. That's how we start right now. I start filming this, and then, of course, I got to shit the bet. Let's try it again. I hope you had a great weekend. We had a great weekend.

This video thing is fucking me up. Fuck you, video. The camera is not there. The camera is not there. Welcome to the podcast, folks. shit oh god welcome back to the pog

no welcome back fuck that's a wrap