Roger Clemens shares tips and epic stories on Dirt From The Dugout

00:00:00
Speaker 1: If the rocket is ready, let's bring Roger Clemings into dirt from the dugout here. He is there, he is. That's a great moment, Rogers. Great to see you, buddy. How you doing.

00:00:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm doing great, guys. I appreciate you having me on. Man, it's anytime you can have this kind of platform. And and you know we talked a little earlier, but you know, my foundation, I get letters, you know, obviously to help underprivileged kids, like we do, but I get a ton of letters from single parents, single moms wanting to help their their youngster. And so I really enjoy that because I was one of them, There's no doubt about it. So I love that aspect of like you guys are talking about when you first came on, about the journey and about how important your parents are, even if it's in my situation. You know, my pops passed away when I was nine years old. I was raised by two strong willed women, my mother and my grandmother, and they taught me a lot of things, you know, like baseball teaches you. It's a game of life. It teaches you a lot of things. Uh, there's there's peaks and valleys and Uh. And there's times when you feel like you're at the top of the mountain and uh. But it's it's it's a it's a hard road. I mean, it's not uh when when I talk about the transitions, the physical part, you're in charge of your body and how you look physically and how you are physically and and maybe better than the next guy physically. Second is the mental part of the game. I think it is so important to mental your your ability to focus better than the next guy. I tell people, you're gonna suck a lot at this wonderful game. You just got to suck a little less than your your opponent, you know. And uh. And then third, third, emotions come into play and I tell people, you know, in my twenty four years at the highest level, you know, I might have shown my backside a few times, not proud of it. But like my mother said, you you you you represent that city on your chest and you take pride in that and everything that goes along with it. So there's a lot that goes into it behind the scenes that you know, you just don't wake up and have a I feel very fortunate to have the career that I had, So it's it's very meaningful.

00:02:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt, there's so much to unpack there. That's a great answer and a great start. So let's start there, because I do think a lot of people got to be familiar with who you are when you were at Texas and started to get that national exposure. And I know what happened a little earlier, but I think the masses were that's their first exposure. But take us even further back. You know, when you discovered the game, you had a mom, you had a grandma. I mean, when did you fall in love with or did you fall in love with the game?

00:02:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, great question. I mean we just had you know, Mother's Day who just passed, and obviously every Mother's Day I think about my mom and every thing that she did as a single parent. I tell people, you know, I kind of it chaps to me when somebody said, oh, you million dollar ball players silverspoon this and that's a hold up a second. I said, do your homework. If you're going to make a statement like that, I said, you know, my mom raised six of us. My pops passed away when I was nine. My mom raised six of us. When we were here in Houston. She was trying to buy her town home. There was a high school called bel Air, very good baseball school. She knew I loved the game of baseball. I was probably a better defensive end that I was pitcher first baseman. My mom was a stickler on education. I graduated, took classes, and graduated early at seventeen, so I was still extremely raw green, whatever you want to call it. But I was fortunate. I had three wonderful coaches on my way through college. They were great coaches. They were better teachers of the game of life, if you will. My high school coach. All three of these coaches have since passed away, but my high school coach, Charlie Marianna at Spring was He was almost like a father figure to me. I think he saw the direction I wanted to go in. I didn't have a vehicle, thank goodness. We only lived about two and a half miles from my high school, so I basically ran after practice with my backpack. I jogged back to our town home. And yeah, I mean, hey, I mean I still when I sit here and talk about you and you y'all asked me the questions I think about. You know, A couple of times, our electricity got turned off. My mom didn't know how, you know, were the next bills. She was an accountant by day. I helped their stock coolers on the weekend at convenience store and we cleaned buildings at night where I would do my homework while she cleaned buildings so I could have a sweet, brand new glove and a sweet pair of cleats every season. I thought, there's a linch.

00:05:00
Speaker 1: How did how did you? How did you decide on baseball? I mean, you know you got all these stories you're running, you're a defensive end, Like why the game of baseball for the parents at home who've got kids that are that are doing multiple sports? You know, at what point did did the love? Was there a love? I mean it was did baseball take over? Because I know football is a big deal in Texas?

00:05:19
Speaker 2: Man, it is it is and and uh, I was, like you said, I fell in love with the game of baseball. And then when I started pitching, Uh, you know, I was lucky throughout my whole journey. They really met. I really was pretty religious on you know, back then, we didn't have all the videos like the the I T Boys have now and everything you can go look at video, so I had, and I think Bravin you know the deal. Obviously, my two my two guys that I watched was Nolan Ryan and Tom sever And so I would sneak into the astrodome and watch Nolan just warm up. I had a little connection with one of the security guards and they let me sneak in there. And all I would do is go down the bullpen and watch me warm up. You know, in the astronom, Nolan throwing warming up, throwing ninety five ninety seven miles an hours. It sounded like when it hit that mint, one hundred and seven miles an hour. And then I played with the ultimate power pitcher. I'm a power pitcher. I don't throw my power pitch when I'm in my bullpens. My side work. It's super important because then it makes everything that you do when you go out there on game day, you know, somewhat fall. I'll fall in the place you practice perfect. You're never going to be perfect, but you practice perfect for those big moments when they say, you know, the lights are the brightest and all that stuff. But I was lucky. We traded when I was jumping from high school and college here but real quick. But my professional. You know, I was a young, young twenty three twenty four year old, and we made the trade for Tom Sever, So I got to actually sit on the bench and keep my mouth closed as a and listen and just be a sponge and have the opportunity to talk to severer one on one who Tom Sever is the ultimate power pitcher. I mean when I watched him, he was a forty year old man out there on the mound and the first thing I'm looking as like, I told our pitchure goes Bill Fisher, who Fish actually had Sever in Cincinnati.

00:07:21
Speaker 1: Yep.

00:07:22
Speaker 2: I was like, good lord, I'm never pitching till I'm forty This looks ridiculous hard and you know, you know I pitched till I'm forty five. But you know I watched Sever out there, you know, hitting the corners at eighty eighty seven, eighty eight and grunting, and you know that that was the drop in drive days where he would drop and you know he had a knee pad on his knee because his knee would hit the dirt and when he when he would deliver the baseball the home but uh no, I mean it was you know, he was sitting at the you know, in night, eighty eight miles an hour and get second third and one out and need a strikeout and just bust one on the inside or outside corner, ninety three miles an hour, and I would say, oh, okay, I see what's going on here?

00:08:06
Speaker 1: And much you had? Man, what a classroom you had.

00:08:10
Speaker 2: Ei, You're exactly right, you're talking about, you know, a pitching seminar. I got to see it up close in person, but every day. So again, I was young, had an opportunity to go to further education, which my mother wanted me to do. I got to ended up getting to junior college instead of a four year school. Texas was just going to offer me books and tuition. We couldn't afford that. You know, I had to go wherever I was gonna go, they were gonna have to pay for everything. So I got lucky. There was a man named Wayne Graham, who you guys knew, who went on to take Rice University to a national championship at Omaha, and I got to play for another I think Wayne Graham was like Don Zimmer, the great bench coach for many teams. He was a baseball lifer coach. Graham was a baseball lifer. I don't think he cashed a check out side the game of baseball. And uh so I got to play for him, a lot of learning lessons with him. I got drafted. My mother said I would. I had the opportunity to go to Texas. Coach Cliff Gustison came hunting me down again, and this time it was a full scholarship to go to Texas and get into business school. So my mother again loved that. And and like you said, it kind of started there. I grew two inches to six four. Uh. We didn't have a baseball lifting program. We lifted with the football guys. So my legs got tremendous, they got strong. My fastball jumped to about ninety five. And uh kind of the rest is history. As they say, we lost to Miami. Uh you know, coach Guss Cliff Guston at the time was the winningest coach at that point in college baseball history. My boys, my two younger boys, Casey and Cody, got to play for another wonderful coach, Augie Garrito. And so these are these are great baseball men. When you and you guys have the opportunity to go sit down and talk to like slosh, like you said earlier, just great baseball minds, great baseball men, and really care about their players, and it means a lot. It's no different than jumping ahead when I talk tell people about, you know, playing for somebody like Joe Torri. When I was with the Yankees, Joe got fired five times before we got him. I think the headlines when the Yankees got him said that instead of shoeless Joe, clueless Joe.

00:10:28
Speaker 1: I'll be honest with your rocket. That's the one thing I'd never understood. Yeah, you know you've You've opened up so many doors and pathways for us to go down. I'm sorry, I just never understood the firing of a manager who one year gets fired and two years later he's Manager of the Year. Like the guys, the guy's never changed. But for the purpose of what we're doing here tonight, we have questions that come in from our teammates here, all specific related to their players, and they come from parents. The first one that I want to ask you comes from an anonymous team and who just says, how do you think your son's journey to the majors has been different than yours? Uh? Can you even compare the two.

00:11:08
Speaker 2: Great question and easy answer. He Cody, my youngest one, still with the Twins, and he rubs it and I've already he said, I've already done two things in the Major's Dad, that you'll never do. I hit a home run at Penoy Park, and uh, and I struck out Otani and I say, yeah, that's that's that kind of put me bad place. You know, back in Texas, my numbers retired, and I was really high up on the totem pole until Casey and Cody came along and and we're all Americans and uh, and went to the College World Series. They kind of knocked Poppy Rocket. I'm Poppy Rocket with the grand Boys now, so they kind of knocked me down a couple of notches. But uh yeah, I just kind of stay out of his way, even even if it wasn't my son. And uh, you know, all my sons played, they played at extremely high level. Uh, but you know, I stay out of Cody's way. He's a profecttional hitter. He loves the game. Well, his baseball IQ is off the chart. I mean, you know there's more to this going to the plate and hunting a pitch and trying to hunt a pitch down and hit or his fielding or whatever he's doing. There'll be certain times I'll just you know, he might be zero for three and if hit three balls on the nose, but he made two. Great he was. You know, Cody's mainly a second basement, but he's a hybrid. He can play third, first corner, outfields, but he made like two or three game saving picks at first base. And I would just text him, love the way you're swinging the bat. I love your defense even more so as a pitcher, and I remind him. I remind him and his outfitlders. If there's a ball that I've thrown in a hit or hits and it stays in the air three seconds, it has to be caught. At your level, at your professional level, that ball has to be caught. So and then and then all of his pitchers are coming to me and wanting to see that bad boy that split hanger on my out there. That's a lot of people are asking, is that you know in spring training, I want to see three of my teams and most of the time now the pictures that I talked to that's you know, change ups devastating but some of them have a hard time throwing that change up, so we uh it's it's funny. They go back to the split finger where they want to see exactly how I hold the split So I show them in the split finger. It's not a fourth ball, it's not jammed all the way back there. Some of the guys are hooking a scene. Now. The only thing about hooking a scene when you're throwing that split it comes out a little bit like a knuckleball. Hitters are able to spot that pretty quick. So yeah, we visit with them reve you know, anytime. And and like you know, Justin was talking about earlier, these guys there's a lot of information. You don't want to overload them, but you want to stay on point with the information you're getting giving it to them. And uh, I think they enjoy I think they enjoy it.

00:13:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, And Roger, that brings me to this, like all of that, right, there's so much data, so much information. Uh, you know, Todd asked the question that I want to I want to get to about keeping it light on the mound. So what's your favorite memory or advice as Todd asked for moum visit uh for kids.

00:14:14
Speaker 4: To keep it light and fun.

00:14:15
Speaker 3: Do you have anything that comes to mind on some visits that you had over your career.

00:14:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean when you're talking about a young I try and tell the dads that are really really into it, you know, it's a man's during the game, and just understand a twelve year old fielding a you know pretty good hit ground ball at him at third base when we're sitting in our loss, I mean as parents or on the you know, the the metal benches, they're watching the game, and that kid hits that ball down to your kid at third base. It looks real methodical to us. I mean, it looks like it's kate. But you don't. You can't believe how fast it is for that twelve year old. He's still trying to process that. And uh, maybe make your mental note as a parent or write it down, and then when you get in the vehicle to go home or to go get your sandwich afterwards or in between game, maybe visit there and just and really understand that the kid. You know, I want to get my eight year old, nine year old, twelve year old, fourteen year old, I want to get him to high school healthy. I don't know what was the price? Eight ten years ago we went down to Birmingham doctor James Andrews, one of the best orthopedics in if not the best, and Doc we myself and Charles Barkley and Smoltz went to Birmingham, Alabama to give Doc a Lifetime Achievement award. And I thought it was stunning. I wasn't surprised and I shouldn't have been. But Doc said that he was doing more Tommy John on fourteen and fifteen year old kids than he ever had in his career. And so that's why I really preach these guys. You know, sometimes you might want to set the ball down instead of playing all year round. And again, really take care of yourself when you're you know, when you're talking about a kid that that that's young, you know, twelve years old old, it's so it's so important to again know the kids, even if he's a youngster. I can go back again to Joe Tory. What Joe did. He was obviously a great manager, we had great players, we had an all star at every position. But he what he did, he he was he handled our personality. What he did that famously handle handling our personality. He knew my personality. He knew that I had a little bit of a football mentality on the mound and uh and to be able to control that was very obviously, as you guys know, I was very serious about my work how I prepared. And then in the locker room, I I you know, I was called back out of retirement by Brian Cashman just to bring some fun and light moments in the locker room. You know, I like to uh, you know, I don't. I think you guys know some some of us been out there, but I like, I actually am a DJ. I've been doing DJ events. I'm DJ. No request, I play what I want to. Yeah, you could sing man, I hey, and I got this KJAMS program. I love it. And uh we do a little singing and uh get the guys singing a little bit, and so I get ready to do it again. We'll have a dinner or end up in my buddy's place down there in Diamonte and Cabo, and we have some good It's a great way to kill thy hour.

00:17:21
Speaker 4: But yeah, like.

00:17:22
Speaker 1: Anyway, I do I do know this though, you I mean you you could get a little warm when you're on the mound, so so to the question, was there anybody who could lighten the mood for you when they realized, like we're losing the rocket. I mean, he's just he's off right now. Was there anybody that could lighten it? Or was that not something that they they realized, like, we're not doing that. He just stay in his lane.

00:17:44
Speaker 2: Now. The guys are all pretty good. I mean when you what comes to mind is when when maybe somebody boots the ball behind me and then instead of them having to answer questions to the media, I know, if I can strike this guy out or get him out and so my I doesn't have to answer to that. You know, your teammates really receive that extremely well. Light moments would be I mean I tease the guys now because I get on them. You know, I didn't want to. You know, you don't want to go ay back when I played or this or that. But some of these cats are only going four or five innings and I only remember, you know, I had the same question asked when I was out there the pitching coach you come. You know, he'd hear me grunting or I'm you know, getting one hundred and twenty pitch area and we're trying to finish the game. I mean we were trying to, you know, I think one yard, I had thirty two starts, eighteen complete games. And if either one of you were my pitching coach and you came out in the sixth inning like you were going to take me out, I had the ball tucked underneath my armpit and like, what the heck are you doing out here? Get back in the dugout, you know, get back in the dugout. I want to finish this thing.

00:18:50
Speaker 1: So I've heard a great story some starters. I'm sure you did the same thing. I've heard stories from starters who who saw the manager come out the starting pitch. You would look over his shoulder and say, wait a minute, you're telling me you're taking me out to bring that guy in Like that's not gonna happen. And you seem like the ideal guy to do that. Here's another one, Rocket and your foundation. Your foundation is phenomenal and it does help underprivileged kids. So the question comes from another one of our teammates. Any advice for players and families who don't have access to the best resources. What should they do?

00:19:28
Speaker 2: Oh man, there's plenty of there's plenty of Hey, I learned, I learned how to pitch. My mom got me a pitch back. Oh yeah, a little screen. She bought me a pitchback. I have it for my twin grandboys that are nine years old, and have them. Have them throw their ball into that little square on the pitch back and it bounces back to him. I tell him, hey, Poppy, this is how Poppy learned how to Grandma got him one of these when when I was nine, and I wore that thing out. And so, yeah, you don't have to have the best hitting coaches. I mean I I looked at like I said, we didn't have videos. So I looked at eight by ten photos of where Tom Siver was kicking his leg up to and maybe another still shot of his delivery getting out over his front knee. The proper way, the proper way. That's the first I checked. I checked big league guy's grips to see where they're at, if they're off center, or where they're at on the baseball. The proper way to hold the two seamer or the cross seamer. Details. Man, it's it's about details. Then it comes down to I tell him how fortunate you are even to be playing. I said you should never get out hustle. Take zero talent to hustle. Zero. We have a children's wing down here with my name on it, and there's two little guys down there. One of them's missing his foot, one of them's missing his hands. He would love to be at home plate and take a swing and hit a dribbler dribbler back to the picture and run like Derek Jeter with chalk coming off the bottom of his shoes down to first base. So it takes up zero zero talent talent to hustle. Have the kids make sure they're paying attention. I have no problem with a physical physical mistake, a guy laying out for a ball forming missing it, and a guy getting a triple. But if if you're if you're missing a cutoff man, and you're you're not paying attention out there, then then we got a problem.

00:21:18
Speaker 4: Yeah it's awesome.

00:21:19
Speaker 3: And Roger, I'm gonna you know, twentieth anniversary right of your twenty twenty K performance.

00:21:25
Speaker 2: Uh performance, forty forty all.

00:21:29
Speaker 4: Right, sorry, forty forty years.

00:21:31
Speaker 2: I wish it was you're older than that.

00:21:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, there's there, it is right there. Forty years ago. Man, twenty K performance. I want to ask you, man, there's a there's a backstory behind that that I had never heard until in the last couple of weeks.

00:21:46
Speaker 4: A lot of people don't know that.

00:21:48
Speaker 3: You don't have to rehash the whole story, but yeah, fascinating to hear that you were almost late to the You were late to the ballparker.

00:21:56
Speaker 2: I was late. I was late.

00:21:59
Speaker 4: You dive into that, man, that's a wild story.

00:22:02
Speaker 2: Yeah. Let me give a little shout out to my Red Sox too. They're doing an anniversary Bibblehead. They have a Bibblehead Day coming up this month, and it was really cool. Instead of doing it on the actual date, they moved it back to when the Minnesota Twins are in Boston, So my youngest one's going to be there, Cody with the twins, so it's gonna where the family. Everybody's going up. So it's going to be a fun couple of days. Yeah, man, I was doing my routine. You know, the game started at seven thirty five back there, and I usually like getting to the ballpark around six, about an hour and a half before showtime. I like getting there and going right into my routine and making things happen. And the reason I say that, there's other pictures that for seven or seven thirty game, they'll get there two o'clock and play Solitaire and look at stats and the media stuff, and you know, they'll sweat through two T shirts, you know, worrying about the game sometimes. But I like to getting there and getting underway. Well, I got stuck in traffic on store drive. There was actually a concert going on at the Austin Commons and I totally missed out and forgot that the Celtics had a playoff game, So the traffic was a mess. Wasn't moving in traffic at all. It was kind of panicing a little bit. Had boots, jeans, and a golf shirt on. I knew I had running shoes in the trunk of my vehicle, and I could see the sit CO sign, so I knew I couldn't be more than a mile, maybe a mile and a half. And now the clock is ticking, so I jump out. I jump out and rip my boots off, put my running shoes on. I'm going to run. And a Boston police officer saw me and he freaked out that I wasn't that I was, you know, I wasn't at the game. He knew I was pitching, and he kind of split the sea and I get there and get through the clubhouse door at about seven seven to ten. And when I came through the clubhouse door, all the vet you know, Jim Rice, Dwight Evans hers, Yeah, they're looking at me like you know, you rookie. You know, they're they're ready to light into me. And my pitching coach brought me in the manager's office and they said, we've already scratched ship from the start. We got a long man warming up. I said, no, no, no, no, no, no, we're not doing this. I'm not answering to that. And so I went and dressed in a phone booth.

00:24:09
Speaker 1: Hold on one second, just hang on one second. You as a as a kid, the authority to say no, no, no, we're not doing that.

00:24:19
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. I don't know that. You know, obviously didn't have any clout, but uh I just I just don't have anything to do with it. And uh, I said, this is not going to work. So I've never seen my fish had to be in the sixties and and you know it's a pretty good joint from the boat. The Red Sox dugout to the bullpen, so we hauled booty all the way out there. Running out there, I warmed up. It was terrible warm up on bouncing balls and everything got a temple headache. The only piece the two minutes to breathe was during the anthem. And then I went out there against the Mariners and and they kept the guy warming up down there. The long Fish said, he ain't he hasn't thrown a strike yet. He's not getting out of the first in. And we'll just leave this guy, uh, you know, keep our long man hot, and the rest is history. Man. I started turning it loose and it was jumping, and the Red Sox said it was the most I had no idea about a strikeout record either until they on the board they put the Red Sox record.

00:25:14
Speaker 1: Yes, Billy Monboquette, you never knew that until that night.

00:25:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, deep in the books. Yeah. Yeah.

00:25:25
Speaker 4: So then I want to ask you on this.

00:25:30
Speaker 3: I want to ask you on this. This is one of my like the biggest questions I have of all that. You know, it's it's such a routine practice for pictures right especially nowadays, to have everything that they do to line up to make sure that they are ready to go, right, I mean, and that's that's just the way it is.

00:25:49
Speaker 4: What what gave you the mindset? Man?

00:25:51
Speaker 3: What what brought you to this mental point of having that sort of elite mindset where you can flush all that behind you? Man, go have a terrible bullpen, probably not even fully warmed up, and go out there and do that. What what do you attribute that to you? And what can you pass along from that knowledge?

00:26:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, having a routine. It was the three or four days before, so I did everything that I needed to do to get ready for that start. So that's that, that's the easiest part. I tell you one of my one of my great lines, and it holds true. It's true, and they actually have it in our our pitching Clint Pitching Lab, whatever you want to call it at the University of Texas and a couple of the other stadiums have it underneath the stadium. One of my saying is my only day off was the day I pitched, And that that held true because, uh, you know, all the work that I've done before, I know leading up that I'm ready to go at that point, and I might not have my best stuff but once I get on the main mound, the crowd gets into it. You know. Then then you get times and again, being a power pitcher, I feel I can win if my arm is quote underwater where I'm throwing ninety one ninety two, which I had some of my best games where I just wound up and played pitch and catch with the with with my pitch with my catcher. Had some wonderful catchers. Man. I hear from them all the time during these They'll text me or call me during these these uh you know record games that I had over my career and uh oh a lot of them. And my pitching coaches for watching my hot points on the mound, so you know, they would whistle from the dugout. They didn't have to come out to me, and when they would stay they would they would say something like, hey, your chin, you're drifting. I had hot points where I wanted to you know, the first half of my career in the major leagues, we had, uh there was no really height requirements on the mound. You could have fifteen, sixteen, eighteen inch mounds. I mean we'd go on to Baltimore and that mountd was giant because they had a bunch of breaking ball, guys, Palmer, H yeah, well yeah, and a bunch of breaking ball. But now there's supposed to be about eleven inches, so the drop and drive days are over. You want to feel tall, whether you're five five or six five, you want to feel tall, and you want to create angles, work downhill. I would love the current strike zone right now where they do it. They pinch you east and west, but north and south is beautiful because you can feature the high fastball and then of course a devastating split down in the bottom of the zone that would make it really nice. But you know, you just rocket.

00:28:31
Speaker 1: Your point is so is so valuable, especially to parents and these kids, is that you know, look, if you're in school, you don't begin to preare for the test the morning of the test. You have to prepare for the test days in advance. You were prepared for that twenty strikeout night because of what you did four and five days before, and you talked about the routine. And sometimes you have to be able to deal with things that you don't anticipate, like that night. Along those lines for parents of kids when things don't go right as a team. We get a question from Adam one of our teammates who says, and you remember this really well, and Chris Burke remember it really well. But yourzer five Astro's team started twenty three and thirty five made it to the series. So how do the clubhouse stay invested despite the slow start? Little leaguers, high school players, college players. As you said, you're gonna suck. Your team's gonna suck. How do you keep everybody together, you know, pulling in the same direction. What'd you notice about that awesome question?

00:29:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's you. It's definitely your teammates. I mean, when it comes down to it, it's not your managers and coaches. They're putting you in pretty good situation to succeed. You know, your roles as relievers when you're going to come in. I think anything in baseball, you know, when you talk about even in football NFL defense, they say, winsampionships, you got to catch the ball and you got to throw the ball. In the major leagues, like I tell them right now, are our relievers are getting taxed already because the starters are only going four or five innings. I think you know better than I would. You could look at we could look it up when we when we get down the nitty gritty. But I think the last four or five World Series teams on twenty six man roster, I think these over fifty lot of starting pitchers, but even more so relievers came up and down. You have do guys.

00:30:32
Speaker 1: Dodgers right away at the team that the Dodgers are doing it again this year. Rocket, the Dodgers.

00:30:36
Speaker 2: There, there's there's there's guys in triple A right now that don't know it, but they're going to be in a World Series game in a massive moment and they're they're sitting in triple A somewhere right now. So you you gotta stay ready. You got to stay ready.

00:30:50
Speaker 1: Somebody told me Rocket because you were a power pitcher. But they also told me that you used to have a case for your glove that you would have a softball in so you could blow up your gloves so no one would know whether you're throwing a fastball or a split finger. Is that true? Uh? And and what led you to a decision like that? What should the kids be doing so they're not giving stuff away?

00:31:12
Speaker 2: Yeah? So I make it real simple with prayer position, where you go where your hands are in prayer positions. Some guys. The reason why we went over our head a guy like Nolan orceivers because your chin comes down you you don't drift and you're not a myth. If you're a mit looker, you can't drift with your chin's you'll have a power outage. So it's really important and i would look down in the dirt, but I'm setting myself to deliver that pitch. As far as my gloves go, Yes, I went through about four gloves every season, and they were big glove obviously where I had my hand back in the day before they some of the some of the guys had gloves and you would know them. They'd have a on the outside of the glove. They would have another piece of leather where they could hide their yeah pointer finger in there. And the reason they did that because we would catch guys. Now in Boston, I had two of the best sign if you if you gave your pitches up on the mound. I had two guys, Marty Barrett and Dwight Evans, studied pitchers and it got me to really to the point where I really started studying pictures and watching them closely. And when we talked about practicing perfect. When you get in a high pressure situation, you're going to go to your bad habits. Now, we had two or three pitchers that would come set, and they had to come set to get their fast fay, they would about their nose, but to get their breaking ball, they would come and they would touch the bill of their hat almost it was like a two or three inch difference. And if you're doing that in the majors, we got you, it's going to make a two eighty hitter a three eighty hitter. The other thing I was talking about, we had a guy that on opposing team and very famous pitcher. You guys would know him. And when he threw his fastball, he went over his head and he has nothing happened with his fingers, his finger, his pointer fingers outside of his glove. When he threw his curveball, for some reason, that point finger would go up. And so we got we got we got you. So once he found that out, that's where those leather pieces came to hide your glove.

00:33:17
Speaker 1: Now, you you wanted no one to know anything.

00:33:22
Speaker 2: And the reason and the reason and the reason, man, is because when I had that glove wide open, we had other guys on other teams that had real flimsy, almost kind of cheek gloves, and when they would throw fastball would be here, and when they're going to get their change up, they'd go way in their glove. It would fan like a jellyfish, and so you'd see their glove open up. So there's a lot of things going on, right I mean, if you even seasoned coaches when we sit down have round table talks like we're having right now on your show. Uh, they're they're like, oh my gosh, I didn't even think about that. I did. I can't believe that you're even saying that. So so yeah.

00:34:02
Speaker 1: Here's a good one. Here's the thing I know about Rocket. Rocket was pitching for the Astros and somebody fouled a splitter off. He would tell Pettit get over here. I need you down here right now. You explain what I'm doing. What am I tippic? Because there's no way anybody should know that a splitter is coming, and they should never put a bat on it is that right ro.

00:34:23
Speaker 2: You know, and you a hundred percent and you know what it was. I had a long sleep, I had a long sleeve shirt on. Yeah, and it was covered right here, and this would be the one I had with the baseball in my hand, long sleeve shirt with this, well, when I had my glove on and I had to throw a fastball, you wouldn't see it again. You wouldn't see any skin. And then when I get my what you would see more skin. And so that's why I didn't care. From that point on, I didn't care how cold it was. I pitched and cut off sleep. I cut my sleeves off about at my elbow. Now we know what you those skins.

00:35:00
Speaker 4: So in man, interesting, I like it.

00:35:03
Speaker 2: Somebody, Yeah, somebody makes an adjustment. You have to make an adjustment, and they're going to take away in the big leagues, they're going to take away what you do best. So like the young kid, a young kid, if you've got two fastballs, use it, you use it. And I like I tell the kid when on your way on your journey up, when you get to the big leagues, you've seen ninety seven ninety eight mile and everybody throws one hundred, by the way, but you've seen ninety eight mile and hour fastballs. You've seen devastating two seemers, you've seen great curveballs, you've seen now what they call a sweeper, which is a which is basically a slur. The only thing that you're going to see in the big leagues that you haven't seen on your way up. You're going to face a couple of guys like myself or Pedro that can throw a change up anytime they want, or I can throw my split at any time. The guy's on third, he's a big time in. I mean, I think pools one time I threw him. I might have thrown him to get him out. Man on third, one out, I think I might have thrown him six straight split fingered fastballs. I was this guy is either going to hit it or he's not. I'm not giving into this guy at all. Right now, he's a professional hitter. So, and you've been back then, that's when they were jail. That's you back.

00:36:15
Speaker 1: That's the hours Roger. Everybody throws a hundred. There's another question here, and you, I mean, I know you saw this. So the miss Jacob Mizerowski's throwing one hundred and three miles an hour. Do you ever think we'd see somebody do that like what he did the other night? Does it surprise you how far we've come. Is it good that he's doing that?

00:36:35
Speaker 2: When I see somebody throwing one hundred miles an hour or better, rightbe I look at their mechanics, and their mechanics are beautiful. Last year when they asked ros are talking about trades or possibly be ginning some people? Griff my two guys that I told them to look at that I loved. And obviously I got to see Griffin Jacks because he was pitching in Minnesota for Cody just fantastic mechanics. Would be a guy that might not knock on wood, you know, have an elbow issues, shoulder issue because he has such great mechanics. And then my favorite is Mason Miller. He's one hundred and two. He's one hundred and one hundred and two, looks like he could go to one hundred and six with his mechanics, with his fastball and just a devastating slider. Their mechanics are so important. Now you have schemes and a couple of these big boys. He has a lower half that can hopefully save his shoulder and arm as he gets older. There's been other guys the same size to him that when they came set on the mound. They came set fifty to fifty on their lower half. You never want to be fifty to fifty when you come set, because then you have to rock back to deliver, and when you come out, you lead with your elbow. For instance, I was probably I pitched. I was probably towards the end of my career. I gained about a pound a year through my twenty four years, so I was probably six four to two thirty five, two thirty eight something like that. When I came set in the stretch position, or when I turned in the wind up position throw, I probably had eighty percent of my weight on my back leg, twenty percent on my front. That way that leg comes up, the quad comes up super easy. I can deliver ball home plate when I come set eighty twenty. I can. Even as big as I am, I can still turn and be athletic trying to pick a guy off first again. And I don't know if he's listening or for you, I'll ever see this, but he knows one of the best closers, of the best closer in the history of the game. Mariano watched Mo When he came set, he was almost ninety ten. His front foot would tap coming back to get set. It almost looked like he had a piece of glass in his shoe or something. And he was an athlete. I mean he could cover first base. He would come set ninety ten on his leg, quad comes up and boom, boom.

00:38:55
Speaker 1: He's gone a couple of quick things before I let you go here. All right, so on dirt from the dugout, we throw the kitchen sink at our guests, which means four random questions that don't have much to do with baseball, but they can be connected to it. So I'm going to fire off the kitchen sink. First question, is your favorite teammate you ever played with?

00:39:19
Speaker 2: Too many? I couldn't even I couldn't even tell you too many. But when you asked the question, the main reason why I wanted to make it to the big leagues once I got drafted so fast, I wanted to pitch against it and face Reggie Jackson, and I was able to do that. He was a California Angel.

00:39:35
Speaker 4: Awesome.

00:39:35
Speaker 1: All right, there you go. I was going to ask you the most difficult hitter that you had to face.

00:39:41
Speaker 2: Great question, and it's the contact the big, big power guys swinging for the fences. I just got to keep it out of their little honey hole, the little contact. Guys, I don't want to get in a twelve pitch at bat with you, or then I'm not making it to the eighth inning.

00:39:54
Speaker 1: We'll use Melanie, who was another teammate of ours. She said, this is an easy one as a DJ. Most annoying walk up music that you ever heard.

00:40:05
Speaker 2: Well after the seven hundred and eightieth time and Finnway listened to Sweet Carolina. No, No, that was a tough one. I will tell you this, I will DJ. I closed with three songs. I closed with one of a great singing song, dancing Queen. Yet believe it or not, show myself side. I played dancing, but I always announce while I get ready to play it. Guys, it's a couple skate only. Please clear the ring. Couple skate only. And my second one to give everybody a hint to get out of my music room and go home. I play closing time that you ain't got to go home, but you got to get the you know what out of here, So that's kind of a hint to some people. And then I always end with the King I am in with suspicious Minds by Elvis Presley. You always in the King. I start my evenings, I start my evenings off with one of my favorite friends, had been a pal of mine for her and I'm missing dearly, the great Toby Keith, Big dog Dad. Here.

00:41:00
Speaker 1: You got the last kitchen question, the last kitchen sink question. Who gave you the nickname Rocket? Where did that come from?

00:41:09
Speaker 2: Got it the night of the twenty strikeout game. After the game was over and I was sitting with my pitching coach, Bill Fisher, he said, I love that you struck out twenty, but I'm more impressed that you didn't walk a single batter and the same and on the way out the door, my teammate bruce Hurst, left handed pitcher. Bruce Hurst looked at me and said, I don't think that you understand that your life just changed tonight. And Hursty's the one that gave me the nickname the Rocket, And I answered to the Rocket more than I do.

00:41:38
Speaker 4: My name's the Celtics.

00:41:41
Speaker 1: By the way, you mentioned the Celtics on that night that you struck out twenty. And of course Danny Ainge and bruce Hurst, as you know, very good friends. So that's sort of that tie in, go ahead, justin.

00:41:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well we ask everybody this question MVP. We often think most valuable player, but we like to ask people a most valuable person.

00:41:59
Speaker 4: Who is the most valuable person in your life?

00:42:02
Speaker 2: Growing up, my mother and my grandmother, no contest, valuable people, no contests, no contest. They gave me my work ethic and they taught me how to treat people and on the way up, and so it was, you know, it was thrill in my lifetime that I was able to change the dynamics of my family. I had two brothers, three sisters, and I was able to pay my mom's town home off and get her a new vehicle so she get to work, so she didn't have to worry on that. So all the moms out there, we love you and thank you for what you've done for all of us. Is young ballplayers are on our way up. And if you don't make it professionally or to college, you've still learned some great life lessons to take with you to your workplace.

00:42:52
Speaker 1: Well, you've taught us a lot of great life lessons. Tonight we had Roger Clement's MLB legend. This was a legendary class for those that were part of it. We really appreciate it. Rocket Week. We could talk to you for weeks, but I look forward to seeing you down the road. Thanks so much for being here. Man, you were outstanding.

00:43:07
Speaker 2: We really thanks boys. I appreciate it.

00:43:11
Speaker 1: Appreciate good Roger, thank you, care buddy, Thank you very much. That's Roger Clemens on dirt from the dugout.