The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Hour 1: Mr. Marlin In Studio!

Episode Date: August 6, 2025

"You told me I was worthless." Mr. Marlin himself, Jeff Conine, is in studio and tells us about his relationship with David, working out a trade on a cross-country flight, the Steve Bartman game, and why people in Miami stopped loving baseball. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is the Dan Levitar show with the Stucats podcast. One of the great things is when you get to meet your childhood hero, and they turn out to be way better than you ever could have thought, because sometimes you end up meeting your hero, and they stink. Who'd you have that with? I had it with Patrick Ewing, and it just was a nightmare. Oh, that was the bad one. That was the bad one.

What happened? He just wasn't nice. I wanted him to sign something. in an elevator, and I was obsessed with the Knicks, and I loved him. How old were you? It was like three years ago? I was 26, and I was in Houston, and he just wasn't nice. And now he's nice since, but it's hard to get over the first impression. You don't take into account maybe he was having a bad day. It doesn't matter. Or that it was the eve of game seven. Just be nice. Or don't ask for an interview or an autograph. I just wanted something. But then you get to a place where

you get to run a baseball team, and you get to bring in a player at a critical moment. And not only does he turn out to be better than you thought, but you end up gaining a lifelong friend so much so. You are right, Chris. Chris, you okay? Nah. Making a blunder like that in front of Mr. Marley, you fool! Instead of autograph in front of Jeff, I'm embarrassed.

You turn off your mic and you're like, I think I'm stupid. Niner didn't even give it a thought. But thank you for completely blowing the onboarding and doing it exactly why there's never any Marlins on this show. Little known fact there. We got Jeff Kohnai, Mr. Marlin, to join us. Yeah. He deserves an applause from everybody watching. This is big for legacy fans of the show that don't even care about the Marlins because they know that Jeff Coenine is Mr. Marlin because he's referenced so often as such on our show. You're the most famous Marlin ever. You're in the Marlins Hall of Fame. How about that? You're the first inductee. That was a pretty cool honor,

Actually, you know, you go around your baseball career and, you know, you get into multiple halls of fame, Broward County. But to be for your team, after 30 years, that was pretty cool. Was it cooler to be on the Hall of Fame ballot in Cooperstown? That was also pretty cool. That's, now that's cool. Even though I didn't get one token vote from these people down here, these writers down here. They couldn't give me one little tiny, hey. Were you zero point zero?

Yeah, not one vote. You were on Clark Spencer. I was on the ballot. I was on the ballot, but not one vote. People don't realize it's hard to be on the Hall of Fame ballot. Well, there's only, what, 20 guys on there? We spent so much time wondering whether we should do a Marlins Hall of Fame, and we just never got to it.

And then after Jose died, the team got sold, and that was it. Everyone was gone, including us. And then the new owners came in, and then once they got rid of Jeter, I believe that's when the Hall of Fame was born. and you were the perfect first inductee. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Still the only players. Did I see that they're doing Luis Castillo? Is that that was announced?

In a couple weeks, yeah. It's awesome. Yeah. So they've done, just put that up a little bit. And so what they do is they came up with two managers because they've won two World Series and two players. Now, people don't realize Luis Castillo has some of the greatest numbers in Marlon's history. He's a franchise guy. And then Jeff Conine is Mr. Marlon.

Are Jeff and Luis Castillo the only two Marlins with both World Series? Uno. You're the only one? I'm the only one, yeah. Luis wasn't also on, like he wasn't in the system in 97? He was in the system, but we went up, he was not performing very well, so we got Craig Council to take his place, basically. He doesn't get a ring?

No, he got a ring. Okay. But he wasn't on the postseason roster, so he didn't really, he didn't really get a ring. So you and Luis Cascio, the only two that have... We're in the system. Jeff's the only one. Well, he was the only one that was playing. I'm the only one that played in both.

What about Loew? Oh, he didn't become a... He was still a Yankees system. I think he was so... So there was not one other player. Not one. I don't know if you know, there was a fire sale after 97. You were an active participant in one of them.

Not the one after 97. And we didn't... Can we now put an end... I will disagree with that. I will disagree that. People say that all the time. Oh, we blew up the team after 2003. That is...

He was really good in 05. We had a good team, both 04 and 05. We had chances. We gave you flowers. David. You guys went for it. You got the Delgado trade. And then when that didn't work, then he blew up the team. And then after you got the stadium that you said was a problem.

Are you kidding? We were into the very end in 2005 in the wild card race. And then the hurricane came and screwed everything up. You had all the double headers. Exactly. We had 21 games in 20 days or something like that. And we were right to the very end. We were right to the very end.

We had to play a game in Chicago against. against the, wasn't it the expos? Expos in Chicago. And we couldn't stay at a regular hotel? Yeah, it was awful. Now, you guys were red hot before the schedule took a dump. And it was like, I remember as a Marlin fan, I was like, I think they're going to win the World Series again. And then you had all the schedule. David Weathers had to do a spot start. It was crazy.

So then they blew everything up after they got rid of me in 05. That's when it went down hill. That's what we were trying to say. You told me I was worthless, so. Wow. What the hell? What I said is that if you were, that's what I said is that if you were. want an opportunity to continue your career.

It ain't going to be with us. See you later. So how do you become friends with this person after something like that? Hey, it was business. It was business. It was just business. Nothing personal. But most players can't separate the two. A lot cannot. You are correct.

They take it personal and they have grudges and realize this is a business that needs to be run as such. And we are just part of the plan, basically. We brought Niner into the business after he retired. And now he fully understands it. I bet you that the answer to this question, because Niner is known as Mr. Marlin, but I would assume that having Griffin, your son is a big leaguer, is that a bigger moment than winning the World Series watching your son hit a home run in the big leagues? Yeah, I mean, that's it.

I mean, come on. Really? He hit a tying home run the day he got inducted into the – that was awesome, that moment. That was incredible. That's cool of them to throw home? It's your kid, man, and you've seen him since he was 10 years old, put on a uniform, and, like, you didn't think he was going to be that good. People asked me all the way up to probably his sophomore year

in high school, is your kid going to play college baseball? I'm like, yeah, he might, you know, Division 2, Division 3. And then all of a sudden that switch flips and he becomes a monster, he grows four inches and puts on 30 pounds in one summer. And now he gets Broward County player of the year. And like, okay, now he's a Division 1 player and goes to Duke. And then it's all about him. It's all about trying to

help him along in his path to the big leagues, and that's all he wanted. You know, he went to Duke, but he majored in baseball. But you won a World Series. I actually won two World Series. So how is that not, I don't know, you're just a better dad, I guess. But, like, him in a home wrong was cool. Don't get me wrong. You threw out J.T. Snow at the plate to advance.

What a throw. Do we sometimes think Pudge gets all the credit for that? People talk about the whole. No, no, I'm with you, but the throw, that perfect one-hop throw. Unbelievable. Doesn't get enough love, I think. Well, he got a lot of love from Ugi when he tackled him at home plate, that's for sure. Well, you hadn't gotten there yet.

No. You were still running it. Ui did the hug before you could run it. Yeah, it was the strangest play. I was watching that replay. The ball bounces and kind of goes to your left. Like, you had to like almost reach your glove out. That was the toughest part of the entire play.

That's what I'm saying. That play is sneaky tough. It almost skip by it. It's almost like a short hop going left on them and then just a perfect one hopper. Did you one hop it on purpose? You knew that was the best way for together? I mean, as an outfielder... That's a good question.

What are you laughing at? If he had the arm to get it there with that... Well, relax. He could be easier for the catch or if it's a one-hop. As an outfieler that doesn't have a cannon for an arm, I was trained to you one-hop everything. So as a base runner, if you see a ball too high, you keep on running. So I never wanted to miss my cutoff, man. Jeff, what was that like in that season 2003 where you are Mr. Marlin, playing for the Orioles,

and then you get traded to this team where... I remember this. It was a Sunday game. I was like, I got to go. We did it in the, I heard about it in the morning, I beelined over to the stadium. And so this team is obviously doing well, succeeding, sort of going for a playoff push. And then Mr. Marlin, who hasn't been here all year long, joined the team. Were there anybody kind of looking at you sideways, or was it always just full embrace?

You mean from the team themselves? Correct. Full embrace. But, you know, like you said, I'm in Baltimore. Really enjoyed playing in that city and that stadium. And back then, not a whole lot of interleague interaction with the Orioles or, with the Marlins. So I had no idea about the team. I knew they were fairly close to the top of the Wildcard standings. But when I got traded back, I knew nothing about the Marlins.

And when I arrived, I literally made the deal on an airplane flying across country. Thank God they had the phones that used to be in the back of the headrest. So expensive to use these phones. I don't even know. I don't even know what the bill was. I put a, I swiped a credit card, but I'm talking to my wife who's talking to David and Larry Bynfest, who's talking to my agent and literally got the deal done at 11.58 p.m. when I'm over the Mississippi or something like that. It was crazy. Eastern, because that's the trade deadline. Back then, they moved the deadline to 6 p.m. now because nobody wanted to be on the phone at midnight.

Did you have any idea leading up to? Because it was conversation down here. Marlins fans just starting, oh, Marlon's my trade for conan. Like, did you know in the days leading up that they might bring you back? Absolutely nothing. We had just finished a series in Seattle. We get to the airport and you are on the bus and then you got your table there with TSA to check you before you get on the plane And I decided to wait on the bus for a little bit to let the line go down and I'm the only one in the back of the bus And our GM at the time Jim Beattie gets on the bus and there are two guys at the very front and he walks by them and starts walking back towards me looking at me and I'm like well something's going on because he never gets on the player's bus And he sits down next to me. He says well, we got a tentative deal

worked out to take you back to Florida but there's some negotiations to be had and I'm like what and I gotta get on the plane I'm not gonna not get on the plane so I get on the plane and I don't know what to do so I well I call my wife beforehand and she's going berserk ecstatic

that I get to go back home and then from then on it's like all right I'll be calling you and I swipe my card and every 30 minutes I'm checking in this whole negotiation and you have your Oriole teammates though who are on the flight like next to you. Yeah, they're like, dude, what's going on? And then finally at the end, you know, I finally, Larry Bynfuss says, Jeff, we have two minutes.

If you don't tell me right now, this is not going to go through. You're not going to be on the postseason roster. I said, all right, let's do it. And then I put the phone back in there and went up and down the aisle of the plane and said, see you later, fellas. I'm gone on. This recounting. You hopped out on a parachute and you were Marlon.

Yeah, right. And well, and then. Drove in and run his first step at. He was awesome. The rest of the years of Powerball, but it's still. Hey, whatever, dude. RBI's an RBI. How is it your friend?

Sack fly. Right? It's just business. Who needs enemies when you get friends like David? I love you. Sleep isn't just rest. It's survival. Especially when your alarm clock is a 5 a.m.

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Don Lebertard. That was a long story. Yeah. It's the only kind he tells. It's a short one for me. I tried to speed it up for you guys. You forgot about the Leagues Cup. Stugats.

Yeah. La Caretta is a place where the best of the celebrations has to be the 97 Marlin celebration because it was Levant. Well, when Fidel died the first time. This is the Dan Levitar show with these two gods. What's the deal of this bus, the two of you own together? That David always brags about.

Can I finish my story, please? Yeah, come on, man. Thank you. This guy's a pain, isn't he? It's a tangent. What's the tension about? Mr. Marlin, with all due respect. I just want to finish this.

It is a wild billy Wednesday. Go ahead. Had you finished. All right. Anyway, I come from Cannon Yards, a cathedral baseball. We're getting $45,000 a night. I don't know anything about the Marlins. I fly overnight, and I get back to South Florida.

Pro player stadium. We are not taking batting practice. It's a Labor Day. I think it's a Monday game. It's a billion degrees out. And we can do everything underneath in the tunnel. So I do all my warmups, and I run out to my position. I turn around, and I see 65,000 orange seats.

and I'm like, what the hell did I just do? So inspiring. You got an extra year. I went to the cathedral. Don't start, no. Don't start. Cathedral baseball, too. I don't know what I did.

There's nobody there on this Labor Day. But within a week, I will say I had more fun with that team in the month and a half than I was with them than any team I've ever played on. Darren Dalton? Any good stories? Oh, yeah. Well, no, not that we can say. You can say anything. I know you can.

That's the best part about this, is you're just supposed to say it, while saying that that was a 97 guy. He was a 97 guy. He was part of the fire cell. But he came in and he took my position, basically. We platooned at first base, and after the World Series, after I could have been bitter and not like that move, but I will say he was one of the best teammates I ever had.

So it's a little like Corbyn-Bernston and Charlie Sheena Major League where there's a problem. There's been some nefarious activity, and then they hug once they win it. Did you hug Darren when council game seven? No, no, I had nothing against Darren Dalton. I had against the front office at the time because I was not informed of the trade before it happened.

My wife got up that morning. It was Sunday morning. We got the newspaper when you got the newspaper back in the day. And she said, hey, do you know that you guys traded for Derek? and Dalton and they say in this article that he's going to play first base and I'm like nope I had no idea did you expect Ombrovsky to talk to you yes I think I was owed that for after five years I didn't really was informed of anything so I got to the ballpark and I acted dumb and I just got to my locker and all of a sudden I've got

Lebertar was probably in front of me asking me questions about about the trade and I'm like what are you talking about trade what and they're all looking at me like uh you guys just traded for Darren Dalton and he's he's going to be platooning with you at first base. I'm like, news to me. I don't think they owed you that. No. It's not how, I mean, the players sometimes complain.

Mr. Marlin, though. Come on. Were you Mr. Marlin then? Yeah. Yeah, by that he was. What year did you coordinate him? Five years into the... What year did you become Mr. Marlin?

That was around like 95. Yeah. That early? Yeah. There can be a Mr. franchise like three years in? I do have a top five that'll help explain. Okay, now we're cooking. Rolling 93, by the time 96 rolls run,

I'm like one of only two people that are still on the roster. Everybody else is gone. That wasn't me. All right, here's the top five moments in Jeff Kohnen's athletic career. Number five, his first Marlins' home run was a grand slam. And that helped build his case very early on as to why he'd be Mr. Marlin. Who was it off? David Need from Colorado.

He's the only guy. from that inaugural team to play all 162. Number four, I'd like to talk to you a little bit about, because it was a controversial game. 97 NLCS, Game 5, you had the go-ahead single. Ended up being the winning run. However, I was looking at the box score, and everyone wants to go to Levan and Eric Gregg and all that.

You had a pretty terrible game, that game, before you delivered that go-ahead run. You got picked off at second base by Greg Maddox, and you grounded into a double play. That was a sweet way to end that game. Do you have a cricket sound we could play? Dead fish, anybody? For people, for listeners who don't remember,

can you explain how crazy Eric Gregg was that night? They don't understand. I mean, I don't know if you've seen, I think you can get it on YouTube or something like that, but they actually put the box. It's unbelievable. That didn't exist back then. They put the box for the strike zone up then

and overlay it on some of these calls that he made. Is he a rest in peace? He's a rest in peace. He is. But it was probably the only time in NLCS history that an umpire was part of the press conference afterwards, and they were asking him about his strikes. I didn't know that. Don Denkinger? Were you a part of that?

I was part of a lot of them that were not great. That was a World Series 1 with the Kansas City Royal. Yes. I just saw that pop up yesterday. Did you? That's strange. And they threw them a couple of them right down the middle. And then...

Not great. Alexander or you got it Mike Hargrove came out of the dugout and went crazy that's a name he was my manager in Baltimore yeah he's a big guy he can tackle kickers

would be my guess number three if he could catch up to him number three 1985 winner of the junior racquetball final Jeff Kona tremendous racquetball player

took Marty Hogan to the brink you won a couple doubles with him as well wow that's a little known fact I heard you used to dominate the Bally's gyms when they were down here the racquetball It works. LA Fitness.

LA Fitness. Power. Do they still charge you? I still have mine. Do you still paying a monthly feed LA Fitness? No. I finally got out of it. Did you have to go in person and sign the form?

They charge Mr. Marlin. I knew of my research, power was legendary from Mr. Marlon. He was a power player. And for whatever reason, part of his banter after he beat somebody was like, you owe me a milkshake. Where the hell did you find that? That was a direct quote from this article. from this article. Wow.

The kid I beat in the Junior National Finals. You owed me a milkshake. That's a bar. That's a bar. That's quite an article. Okay? Number two, this one is a close personal memory of mine. I remember this moment watching it in my grandparents' house. You were, I believe, the lone Marlin representative at the All-Star game.

Yes. Yeah, the go-ahead home run. MVP? MVP of the 1995 All-Star game. Cementing your game. legacy is Mr. Marlin very early on. That is true. That was great because back then it wasn't a thing where everyone

was definitely going to play in the All-Star game. Well, I didn't the year before. I was one of only two players that did not get in the game in 94. And Jim Fregosi was the, yeah, it just didn't happen. It was actually a tie game and went extra, blah, blah, blah. I didn't get in the game. But Felipe Liu, who you

know well, was in an All-Star game, and I think he did not get to play. So as a manager, he said, he came up to me before and he goes, everybody is getting into this game. So I knew he was going to get in at some point. And number one, it's the throw. I would say you missed a few O-LIs

that just off the top of my head from his time with the second championship, we only talk about Josh Beckett in game six as throwing the shutout to win two nothing. Anyone have an idea of how we got our first run? Go on. do you remember I'm assuming

conine was involved I did score a run that game I think I got on base because of an error by Derek Jeter so this is where I was trying to get is that the final game the reason why we were able to win and score there was an error by

Mr. Jeter that's one of the reasons he hated that World Series and when he came to the Marlins he barely I mean you were with him well no wait were you fired you were fired by by Derek Cheater. Well, you fired me, actually. Well, he told me too.

But now you're back. I'm back. Thank God. I'm back, and it's been great. I only know baseball. I don't know anything else. To be back with the team that I grew up playing with, and I was kind of considered my team.

I played with five other teams in the major leagues, but obviously the first one that you really get your start with is the one that you appreciate the most. Hang on, David. One of Jeff Conine's most memorable athletic feats was an error by Derek Jeter? No, he scored a run. You can't win a game zero to zero. Got to score runs, Israel.

Everybody remembers the Bartman game, but in Game 7, you were pretty huge, too, of that series. Three for three. I had a good series. Was that the Mordecai double game? That was the April 8th. Everybody had a contribution. Jeff, what was the eighth inning like in the dugout that night? Well, it's Mark Pryor on the mound, absolutely dominating.

He's got five outs left to take them to the World Series. It's one out in the eighth, and the foul ball goes down the line, and I'm on the end of the dugout, so I'm looking at it, like, right on the line. And I see Moises Liu coming over, and I'm like, he's going to be able to catch this. And I see some hands go over and clank it, and the ball. I thought for sure the umpires were going to call interference because I thought he had a chance to catch that ball and he'll say no but he thought he had a chance

to catch that ball because if you watch his reaction he went berserk and what did you yell we all yelled immediately let's make him famous boys let's make him famous that's swear to God that's a true story because we were sitting

right above the dugout is where those seats are at Wrigley and we heard the players yelling let's make him famous not knowing you have to realize when you're at the game there's 3-0 at the time And when you're watching the broadcast, all of a sudden, they're focused on Steve Bartman every two seconds that are going back to it. When you're in the dugout or in the stadium, you have no idea that that's what the broadcast is doing. And so the players yelling, let's make him famous.

We were like, we didn't even know who the hymn was, really, that it was a guy with that. We didn't either. We just saw a pair of hands go out there and we're like, let's make him famous. And then what were you yelling after Alex S. Gonzalez's error? Well, that's just the snowball that started the whole thing. And what was great about that team is that we'd never felt we were out of it. I don't care what the score was. I don't care what the inning count was.

We always felt we had a chance to come back. And even 3-0 won out with Pryor on the Mound, there wasn't a sense of dread in that dugout. We just had confidence in ourselves. And 15 minutes later, it's 8 to 3. What about the clubhouse right after? Tell fans what was going on in the clubhouse after winning game 6. do you remember what I remember about that clubhouse? It was almost like we won game seven already.

Like we knew that we were winning the next day. It was crazy. I wish that we had the ability to wager. Didn't you have to go through Wood still? Well, not just that. And he hit a three-run Homer to put him up like six to three or something like that. Because we had a Red Man. I've never heard a stadium louder at that point than Riggily.

That's what I wanted to ask you. Because I remember watching and on TV and Wood hits the home run, put them ahead, early. And as he's rounding first base, you got that camera shot that's showing, you know, the entire stands in Wrigley Field. And it looked like a stadium was bouncing. And I remember saying and stuff, I go, holy shit, we got no chance. We're so screwed. That's a loss. But even then, even after all that, it was just like there's this, we're like, we sloughed that off. We bring Beckett in, and he's just absolutely dominating. So we kind of knew after the first inning that he came in, we're like, all right, they're not getting any more runs tonight. Let's

start chipping away. And sure enough, we end up scoring six unanswered and we win nine to six. Jeff, one of my favorite things about that O3 team was the guys who were there. I covered a team in 2000s for just one year. That was John Henry was still owner. AJ Burnett called the mugly once. He did, that asshole. Louise Castillo was on the team. Derek Lee is on the team, Mike Loew, and all those guys going from being on such a terrible team to just that difference in, what, three, four years? Like, how cool was it for those guys in particular? Any time you get to go to the postseason and do something special like that, that's why you put on a uniform. I mean, for me. But yeah, when you have those guys that have gone through the absolute doldrums and the absolute worst possible scenario of losing 90, 100 games, you know, people don't understand how good that team was. I think they, you know, they think the Marlins and, oh, they snuck in there, whatever. But it was the best infield defense I think I've ever played against or with by far. Vol Gonzalez, Castillo, and Lee. Those two guys up the middle.

We're second and nine. I've never seen a double-play combo better than Castillo and Gonzales. Gonzalez was the best defensive shortstop in all the baseball. For him to not win a gold glove was an absolute crime. You know, the L.A. media machine got Asturis to win the gold glove, especially in O'Four, I think it was, and Alex had a phenomenal season. He deserved it big time. Still with the Marlins.

And still, yeah. Sea, Bass is still there? Best hands I've ever seen. No, I'm saying Gonzales in 04. No fire cell. Yeah. Castillo is still there. having to defend that.

But Castillo was still there. Yeah. Dan Lebatard. Tatas. Stugats. Taitas? This is the Dan Levatar show with the Stugats. Yeah, what about Tremel and Whitaker?

I didn't, well, I played against the very tail end. They were pretty good. But not like these kids. I know. I loved him. Not by these kids. These kids were amazing. Louis was just at the game when Jack was put in the Hall of Fame.

Louis looks great. He looks like better than when he played. He was like it barely walking. when he played I finished up with him with the New York Mets and he was having troubles you know his knees were bad and that was sad but right now he looks jacked there are very few things that I remember specifically about the locker room one of them was Ryan Dempster I was doing naked shit and the other one was Luis Castillo every like every once in a while usually when we were in Atlanta

you'd see him going across the locker room and he'd just be like a I a cdc song right that they just kept playing over and over and he would just be like a a a a a it's Ozzy Osbourne excuse me but yeah that's what he would do you're doing it all the time and I'm just like that's just weird that's a great imitation of louis because he only called me poppy hey poppy yeah still even this weekend you got anything fun on mckeon i mean jack was uh he's one of a kind no doubt about it he's 94 years old uh we just had him here for his induction into the marlins hall of fame and he's still sharp as as he was back then he hasn't really changed much you watch the video board and see the highlights you're like

But it's amazing that that was 22 years ago, and Jack looks as good as he does. And he's still an advisor to the Washington National, still making calls. I still lean on him for advice. And, I mean, it was, like I said, he had a clubhouse that was fun. And he told the guys, check your egos at the door. That was his big saying, and let us play. I still questioned the decision to start back at game six. I know it worked out.

You guys can play the results, but I wanted to keep them for game seven. So did I. Yeah. Jack didn't won at Game 7. Who would it have been Game 7? Brad Penny? We would have had to go back with Livano on short rest. See, that's, I remember at the time. It worked out. I would have saved Beckett. I asked Jack to do that on the flight.

Flying to New York, I asked one last time, can we not start Beckett? And this is back when managers were making decisions. How old were you? I was 35. We had some balls to say that, right? Well, I was president of team. I understand. But yes, we had the conversation, and Jack said we got to win it in six.

We are going to win this in six. I said, what if you're wrong? He said, we'll worry about seven tomorrow. Was Josh Beckett ever really liked in that clubhouse? Because I remember when he came in as the 19-year-old, 19-year-old, just without the big bonus and everybody was looking at him because he was making all the money. By the time he got to this point, I'm pretty sure people loved him, right? Yeah, we loved him.

You know, he acted like a high schooler most of the time, but we all love Josh, his little outbursts. And, you know, that was great about that team. There's such a great collection of personalities that even though someone might be childish, we all just took it in stride and made fun of it rather than resenting it. The thing about Josh Beckett, you're killing me, Niners. The thing about Josh Beckett that I love the most is when he had the – he was a kid. He was 23 when he went through this postseason, and we pitched his arm off. so you blew by

Dusty Bakered him He had never even come close to a complete game in his career before that postseason What about the fact that we kept pitching him On this bullpen day You just mentioned the fact That he pitched part of game seven

Do you remember he pitched game five In the LCS as a starter And then we put him in for multiple innings In game seven And that game five was one of the best games I've ever seen pitched man They got two hits And they were lucky to get those two hits

And I don't know if you remember At Bad against Sammy Sosa He don't In one of the seventh or eighth inning. Navriced him. Did you goose that radar gun? He hit triple digits on that. I'm like, I don't know if he's got it like that.

This is a question for David, but he had 100 MPH on the Fox broadcast. That didn't make any sense. Niner knows the answer to this. Did we ever screw around with the pro player radar? No. That's the answer. Only when Brad Penny was pitching. Right.

Because he looked up there every pitch. He would throw and he looked up there every pitch. Redemption. Didn't McKee in demand they don't show it when Penny was on the mound? We would do several things with Penny. When we were angry with him, we would take it down. So he'd be thinking he's throwing 96 and it would come out 91, 92, and he'd be so furious. And then sometimes we put it up and say, stop looking.

And then you call him paranoid when he asked about it? Oh, we were never going to tell him what we did. Niner knows. Why would you actively agitate your pitcher who's on the mound? You don't want to take my point of view on a wild Billy Wednesday. So could you answer Brad Penny why we would choose him to screw around with the radar? Because it gave him a little extra push. Like, oh, I'm mad.

And I think it made him pitch better. Throw 92? I'll show them. Yeah, exactly. I'm going to hump up and throw 93 or 94. And he was actually throwing 101. So it worked in our favor. Nine better. Niner, did you hit like 800 against the Cubs?

Every game I'm looking at during this run, you destroyed the Cubs. I had a good series against the Cubs, yeah. Who's the pitcher in your career? Was it that you just, I crush this guy? Another, God rest your soul, but Corey Lytle. Oh, lefty. No, right-hander. It's a tough hander.

I might be thinking that, you know what? I think of Ted Lilly. That's my bad. I was good against him, too. 50-50, shot. I was good against Ted Lilly, too. Look, he quit. But then there's guys.

He's out of the room. Bye. But then there's other guys. think I'd do well against that. I didn't. My worst batting average against of anybody in my career was Tim Wakefield. Lefty. You can't hit it? Yeah, no, not a lefty. You can't hit the knuckleballer? I hit other knuckleballers fine, but for him, for some reason, with at-bats, I was like four-for-40 against him or something like that. How ridiculous was Cabrera? insane I mean we knew that coming up as a 20-year-old in that postseason and then I got to play with him two more years four and five I said this is going to be one of the greatest right-handed hitters in baseball history and he ended up that's exactly what he did he'll be a first ballot Hall of Famer and he was a stud I mean you saw what he did with nerves of steel as a 20-year-old in the postseason the legendary of bat off Roger Clemens when he takes him deep opposite field which is no small feat in pro player stadium that was a gigantic

organic right center. We got a bony pick with that one. Billy and I, as people that had tickets to that game, Carl Pobano game, Alex Gonzalez's game. That was supposed to be the moment. We were classy sports fans. We got all this crap for being bad baseball fans. He didn't deserve that ovation from you. We gave him a raucous ovation. He didn't deserve that. A. Big sendoff and he ends up for like three more years. Help kept us out of the playoffs in 05. Who knew that's a game he pitched after his parent died? It was him and A.J. Burnett gave it up. A. A. J. Burnett. We were right there in here. Houston, we score off Clemens because he's born in his parent, and AJ could not do a shutdown in him. Nope. Now I remember why my antenna goes up every time I hear it called Pavano. Didn't he date Alyssa Milano? Yeah.

Didn't she say? Sort of Penny. After they broke up. They all dated. There's not one starting pitcher we had or didn't date Alyssa Malano. That's strange. Oh, she went through the clubhouse like a summer cold. Not you, not her.

Not me. No, definitely not. I didn't want to stop on your story of how you were traded here, but I need to go back just to, because I want to give love to Cindy, your wife, because she was the hardest negotiator I ever dealt with in my career. And I dealt with Boris and all the negotiators. Cindy Conine negotiated on behalf of Jeff Connoyne while he was flying cross-country and got an extra year out of us. Cindy did. His wife. Okay, so what was so tough about that, though?

Why would we want to give him another year? We were trading for him, give him a chance to come home, be at home. We said to Cindy, your husband's going to be home now. She's like, don't need him home, don't want him home, don't care, one extra year. And they had an agent, a great guy named Michael Watkins, great guy, did nothing. So whatever commission you paid him on this deal did nothing. Did you have a no trade? Is that why?

It was all Cindy. This is so not true. This is so not true. Everything is so not true. Were we on the phone with Cindy? 100%. Were we told by Watkins that Cindy was holding up the deal? Maybe, but it wasn't because I wanted an extra year.

You guys take an extra year. You guys wanted to break money. They made you take less money, and in return, we'd give you the extra year. You had to take a pay cut. No, you wanted to take my next year's contract and split it in half into two years. And I'm like, you've got to give me something more for my free agent year. That's what the negotiation was. And you didn't want to give it to me at first.

They just wanted to break that, split that Orioles salary for my next year in 2004. We're going to split that up into two years. And then they thought I was going to be okay with that. But I believe Jeff. I believe, Jeff. Of course you guys do, and that's fine. That's where the negotiation was. I needed something for that second year.

And he won, or his wife won. Well, I agreed. It makes sense. I didn't win. It makes sense. You know why, right? Yeah, it makes sense. You know why?

Wise love money. Yeah, that's fine. It's true going on. Jeff, why did almost everybody in this room stop loving baseball about 10, 15 years ago? Look to your left. Well, no, not specifically, not like the Marlins anymore, but just baseball in general. It felt like just the fandom kind of fell off, and then that's why they went to all the new rules and everything else they've had to do. I don't know.

I think we're seeing that with other sports now where it's like a cyclical thing that people get tired of it. I know that, you know, the strike in 94 really killed baseball in South Florida. You know, I don't think people realize we drew over 3 million fans our first year. we were on our way to draw close to $3 million in the second year in 94 and went on strike. And then after that, I think people just said, all right, we'll go somewhere else and do something else. Even after two World Series, though? I mean, your franchise had cracked the code in terms of how to win fans back outside of having a home run chase. You guys killed it.

Well, that's what Heizenga did in 1997. He gave Dave Debrowski pretty much open up the checkbook and said, I want you to build a World Series winning team. I want to see if these fans will come back and really support. And in his mind, they did. They came back. We had a much better attendance than we did in 96, but not to his liking. So he said, okay, that's it.

He also couldn't get a ballpark. And he couldn't get a ballpark, so that's when the love affair. I feel like that's where he made the mistake, though, because I remember it was at the parade where it was, you know, enjoy it while you can. We all knew he was going to break it up there. If you want to see the attendance figures, I mean, David, you would. know better than me, of course. It's the next year, right? Like, Hysinga probably should wait. Let's see what the attention was like in 98 the year after the World Series, right? That was such a great team. If they would have kept that team together again and gave us a shot

to run it back, I mean, I think you're right, because Miami loves a winner. And we won, and if bringing back the same team, that would have been special. It was all ballpark-related. He wanted to build an entire facility around pro player. Really, what Stephen Ross has done, Wayne Huayzinga had that idea well before Stephen Ross. Well, it was going to be Wayne's World. Wayne, and he was going to call it Wayne's World. It was going to be a hockey arena. It was going to be a baseball stadium.

It was going to be an amusement park all out west, west of 75. Copyright. Yeah, and it didn't happen. Jeff, how do your shoulders get so large? I have issues with shoulders. I never can really get them to grow. Yours seem like they've been that big your entire life. Good genetics.

My dad's pretty big guy. right yeah right thanks appreciate that it's no I work out this is not by accident I work a lot I still I think they don't just stay that way forever four times a week I'm in the weight room so I still train like an athlete because I believe I still am one but even though I'm not Niner thank you for being a Marlins representative to come to the Dan Levitart show with Stu Gatz because it doesn't happen often so like when's the last time have we had I think we had Skip Schumacher when he was managing in studio good forearms Yeah.

Very. Because of him. That guy's Jack, too. I don't need after 7 p.m. anymore. Really? He has a skip. What's he doing that? And which, were you guys talking about tackling who?

We could. I saw in the lobby. I can definitely. You think we could tackle like a kicker? Somebody said that we couldn't even tackle any punters or kickers in the NFL. A standard tackling drill. Have you seen some of these guys like after they mess up a punt or something like? Have you seen the progress I made over the last few months?

I don't know. Why is he squinting? I didn't see what it was before. Yeah. Yeah, why you squint just... I didn't see what it was before, so I don't know what to compare it to. Listen, it doesn't matter what kind of tackle. If it's a shoestring tackle, it counts.

I once had a teammate said that if a 10-yard buffer that he would be able to tackle or touch Barry Sanders, I said, you're out of your mind. No, no one's claiming that. Out of your mind. Jason Sanders, not Barry Sanders. I believe Devon White. I would love to have... What's his name? Jason Sanders?

Yeah, come in here and... I put them on floor. Prove you guys wrong. I'd put him on the floor. Don't bring Jason Sanders in here if you don't want him on the floor, Miami Dolph. We'll put him on the floor. I am 210 pounds, 6 foot 3. I can tackle him and bring him to the ground.

That's right, only 210, Chris.