Jon Lester on SNAPPING at Anthony Rizzo, EPIC Cubs World Series stories, David Ross standing ovation

All right, ready, I'm nervous, Tony.
Do you know what to do with your hands?
Get to work, let's do it, ready and lock it in.
I'm ready.
I'm nervous.
Do you know how you can start this?
I'm nervous this.
For three months? John, shouldn't you.
Let the professional do the introduction?
No, he's he's he's put a lot of work into
this. This is be good?
All right, fair enough, thanks.
I'm like the arm camp. He's the talent and they
are the true Craig. Shut up, y'all.
Should have been rolling now.
Oh perfect, Okay, I'm nervous. That's this. Welcome this week's
episode of The Loveable Reunion. Three time World Series champion,
five time All Star, top five in the cy Young
three different times, two hundred career wins, and an insane
four and one world series record with a one seven
seven e r A and fell little cancer survivor, Johnny
fucking Leicester.
Yes, number thirty four in your programs, number one in
our hearts.
Just so, I appreciate that.
I appreciate the left hander.
We got so many we got so many nicknames for you,
but we got to set the scene.
All right, We're here.
At John's Farm Sanctuary Sanctuary thirty one thirty Boston days.
We think it should be thirty four, but.
Hey, there was a time and a place when it was.
He started making money early.
Yeah.
Actually, on that note, John, how rich are you?
Well, Rossie, I'm not rich.
I'm wealthy. I have rich people that work for me.
I've lived my life by that quote. I don't have
any rich people really working for me, so I don't
really know where I.
Can't fully take that.
I stole it from Josh Beckett, so I got to
give him credit for that saying.
I learned that a long time ago from him.
Yeah, your your cast of veterans that you played with
are so intimidating to me years later. Yea, And like
any time I ever see Tim Wakefield or Rest in
Peace Waki, but Beckett, who is a Josh Tomlin, Timlin,
Mike tim Mike Timlin, I'm just terrified of all those
guys because of the stories I heard from you. And
I walked into that clubhouse one time and Beckett was
on the table when I was when you're taking me around,
which we'll get into, and I was like so terrified
walking to that clubhouse. But do you think I felt, Noah,
I know, I've heard all the stories. Johnny. You signing
in Chicago in fifteen was it's the greatest signing in
Cubs history. And what that simplified for our team was
the most amazing feeling. As someone who was there, who
lost one hundred games and we stunk and we were
getting better, and then all of a sudden, we get
Joe Matt and that signs out of nowhere, and then
the biggest freege on the market, John Lester, comes and
signs with us, and we're like, what is going on?
Take us through that free agency process? Take us why
you believed in us? Because we stunk and you were
the best picture on the market, So why why did
you sound with us? How did that go?
Man?
I mean, it wasn't an easy process. It was a
fun process. Looking back on it, I wish I would
have kind of relished in it a little bit more.
It was you know, at the time, when you're going
through all of that, it's very stressful because you know,
I mean, at the end of the day, I got
traded to Oakland and I wanted to go back to Boston,
right like, hey, yeah, trade me, we stink. Make your
team better, hopefully, and then we'll come back in a
few months and make it, make it right right, Like
we'll go back to winning. And you know, it's kind
of like you break up with your first girlfriend. She
dumps you, and then she kind of gives you a
glimmer of hope that you might get back together and
then stabs you in the back again.
Oh you know, so been there right?
I mean, am I saying anyway? But during the whole process,
it was the Red Sox the whole time. And then
we went up to Chicago met with THEO and Tom
and Crane and you know, all the whole cast. And
as you guys know, THEO, I think can sell ice
to an Eskimo, you know, and sitting in there and
seeing what they were doing with Wrigley and Wrigleyville and
the team and the vision and all this stuff and
no offense to rendery I don't know the man. But
once they hired Joe, it was kind of like, all right,
this is real, you know what I'm saying. And I
mean THEO made it hard not to turn down.
I mean what made it hard? John? The was it
one hundred and eighty seven million?
It was fifty five.
Okay, sorry, was it the private jet hours that you
threw into your contract?
Okay, So I'll tell you funny story. What was what
was the I'll tell you a funny story about the
private jet deal. So we agreed to the deal. Me
and my family go out to dinner. We celebrate. You know,
it hasn't been announced yet. I think they've only told
or like we've only told THEO or whatever. Had too
much to drink at dinner, go to bed, wake up
the next morning, turn on MLB channel and they're you
know how the MLB channel. They scroll across the bottom,
like the details of the contract. So I'm sitting there
watching it, take kids to school, watching it, and I
see twenty five hours on NetJets. I'm like, huh wait
a second, pull a phone call my age and I'm like, dude,
I got twenty five hours on net jets.
He goes, yeah, we kind of got that in there.
I had no idea that was part of the deal
when it went down, but that was I mean, to
be honest with you, that was the best thing.
Well, you had a hard time. I remember coming to
the Christmas party you had. Yeah, and San Francisco you said,
pitched a really nice buster and Boach came in and
pitch it.
And then you were like, hey, what do you think Chicago.
Yeah, and like from then on you were just quiet
and it was all it was all working.
But like that was that was a really big decision.
I remember how much of weighing on you.
Yeah, and all your history, your kids growing up, being
born in Boston, and.
Haven't you had a house there.
Yes, we had a house there.
And you know, I mean, at the end of the day,
I don't want to say the Red Sox made it
easy just based on how they were operating at the time,
but they made it easier. The hard part of the
end is, you know, when you're at that point in
your career, you want you have a vision of kind
of how long you want to play for, right, and
mine was seven. I wanted seven years, however that looked whatever,
however structure you wanted. I thought, Okay, seven years gives
me the best opportunity in the city to hopefully win,
do some personal things kind of.
You know, get your.
Roots in that still legacy. Yeah, like you did get
your legacies in Boston and have legacies in Chicago, and
you have a small see in Oakland.
Small, very small, and DC and even a smaller one
in Saint Louis too, But you know, San Francisco comes
in and they they're at six years, six years, six years,
and all of a sudden they come they go, all right,
we'll give you the guaranteed seventh and you're like, hmmm,
I don't want to go back out to the West Coast,
even though I'm from there. My family's here, you know,
and it's like, how do you do this? How would
you navigate it? And all that, And then ultimately it
was like, you know, we'll just play the cards and
see how they fall, and hopefully I'm good enough at
the sixth year where my option gets picked up and
we right off into the sunset. You know, obviously that
didn't happen, but I mean I don't obviously don't regret
the decision of coming over.
So you go to Chicago, you have your signing, A
big group of you guys went out to celebrate that night.
Yeah, I know where you're going with this.
Can you walk me through what happened that night?
So we go.
I forgot even where we were.
I'm assuming you were overs bub.
City, bub City Bubs shout out bub City best fireball
in town.
It's to home made.
In case you guys didn't know, it's their own recipe.
Really yeah, it's it's pretty.
So we go to bub City.
It's THEO Jed me, my family, my agents, and we're
sitting there talking and we're going over like kind of
new place like what they need to kind of fill
the roster for the team. And I'm like, y'all got
a backup catcher and they're like, they go, no, I go,
you need to sign Rossie.
I forgot who said it.
They're like, well, you know his ops and this and
that has gone down over the last couple of years.
And I'm like, yeah, but you need you need a veteran,
veteran dude that knows what his role is when he comes,
when he walks through that door, there's no I'm competing
for the starting job.
I'm this is my job.
I'm here to pick up I think I think we
had traded for Meggy at that time. Yeah, yep, I'm
here to pick up Meggi when he needs a break.
And then he would obviously catch me. So I get
to I mean, I'm bugging the hell out of THEO
And finally he's.
Like, it's two in the morning.
We're the only people in Bob City, and he goes,
you get him on the phone. We'll work a deal out.
As a kid say bet all right, your culture prove it?
Like here, okay, here we go. Pull the phone up.
Three in the morning, Florida time.
Yeah, oh yeah, I forgot that. So two in the
morning and three in the morning. There I called his
phone seven times.
Now I'm waking up, going, oh John's drunk.
Yeah, yeah, like this is the this is I mean,
what are you doing? Fo call?
But so I'm like, I go, Fair, do you have
highless number? And she's like, yeah, I go call her
right now.
How it goes this is that's that's Era's calling me.
Because I was like, who is that? I was like,
it's John. He's hammered. She said it's fair. I was like, okay,
I should probably answer this.
What if you didn't answer, think about how history is yeah,
not written the way it looks.
Yeah, thank God for Pharaoh. We can pay her for
a long yeah damn.
So he answered. He highly gives him the phone. I'm like, hey, bro,
I'm sitting here with THEO. Do you want to come
to Chicago. And he's like, fuck yeah, let's do it.
So I'm sitting He's like, I'm all right, what would
it take to get here? He goes, man, if you
get me five and a half, that'd be great, or
six you started at six? He goes two for six,
So mind you, and I don't remember bub City having
these after the fact, but THEO had this mug, like
an october Fest mug of beer.
And I'm on the phone in one of those boosts.
And THEO standing there at two am at two am,
all right, and I go, hey, he wants two for six,
And THEO starts drinking his beer.
He just goes. He just keeps doing this over.
And wouldn't say a word, just keeps going two five
to five.
So I'm like, uh ROSSI He's saying two five.
He's like, all right, see you can get me five.
I'm like you can't. Real quick.
I'm like, I'm going with Leicester to Chicago. Let's go.
I was like, I was like, dude, deal he wants
to he wants five and a half. He just he's
still this beer.
What a what a g dude?
Two for five?
Just back and forth and I'm like, damn it, Rossi's
he's five.
This is one of the most established baseball executives of
all time, and this is how he's negotiating. Yeah, I'm
gonna start doing that for now on.
And he don't say a word, and he sits there
and he just keeps doing it, and I tell I
tell a Rossia, goo, man, he's two for five.
He's like, all right. It's like silence. I think.
I'm like, it's still good. You got the phone. He goes,
all right, I'll take it. See if you can get
me a suite on the road.
I will go to the next morning.
My agent was so, I said, I think I just
came I remember we had the same agent.
I think we just came to terms with Chicago two
for five. He's like, what what are you talking about?
You get on the phone, cust them out.
But bro, you that that is like, that's like, it's
so funny how that went down to me, like nobody
would ever. I don't think we've told that story.
You came in, though, and you completely shifted the culture there.
And we had great veterans before, I mean with Soriano,
Seln cashtro Edwin Jackson, Reed, Johnson, Jeff Baker, Dempster, great veterans,
but when you walked in that door, it changed. Yeah,
And I don't know if you ever knew that. I
don't think you ever got the actual proper respect and
runway that how much you changed that culture. But being
there for the time I was there beforehand and you
coming in was like, this is real and we're gonna
win now because you're a winner. And you bring in
h soon to be Grandpa Rossi with you and he's
a winner. And the respect to you guys, deem dude.
That first spring training, that first day in twenty fifteen,
I think you threw a live VP and it was
the most electric, intense live batting practice till this day
I've ever seen. And I was like, holy shit, Like
these two are legit.
I think I have a lot more than me.
I think that's part of you know, growing up in
Boston though too, right, Like you get to Boston and
the media microscope there and the fan microscope is I mean,
it's so honed on you that when you show up
to spring training, it's not like I tell this story
about demp Ryan Dempster twenty thirteen or two thousand yeah, thirteen.
So we're coming off twelve. It's my worst year of
my career and we got our asses kicked all year.
That was your boy, right, Yeah, that was the whole disaster.
Yeah.
And so we get to spring training and dude, I've
been throwing bullpens for like a month and a half.
And when I mean bullpens, like the last six bullpens
I faced hitters before I left home and got to
spring training. So first day of bullpens, you know, I'm
telling the pitching coach Juandi Avez at the time, I'm like, hey, dude,
I'm throwing a fifty or sixty pitch bullpen. Like I'm
we're getting locked in and demp said on the other
end of the six pack or whatever. And he hears
me say that, and he walks down. He goes, you're
throwing what. He goes, this is the first day of camp, Dude.
I go, yeah, what about it?
He goes, I haven't thrown off the mound yet. You
know what I'm saying, like, nothing against them. He was
a little bit older in his career.
He knew it worked for him and that's how he
did it.
But I was so upset about the way the year
went before and got you know, crushed and all that
stuff for my performance, which I deserve. But it was like,
all right, the accountability needs to be I need to
be ready. I need to be accountable for what happened
last year, and I need to get off to a
good start. The point I'm trying to make is Boston
makes you think that way. Even though it's day one
of spring. There's fifty So I'm on media people sitting
there and they're looking at you, seeing how you throw
your bullpen.
And how you do about It's another level.
Yeah.
And so coming to Chicago, you know, talking to him
and a few other people getting there, it's like, hey, dude,
just be yourself, dive into your routine, dive into what
you do.
Yeah.
I probably wasn't the most sociable person, but I disagree.
Yeah, you just got to get break down the barriers.
Yeah, you got to get past the resting bitch face.
But other than that, you're good.
But don't go I don't ever get any compliments.
Oh yeah, I was like, why is everybody like you?
Guys like cause that's smile at him, Johnny.
I just bro We were in whenever we went back
to Boston. I was with uh he was a Cubs
employee at the time. Jeff McGee one of our good friends,
and we were in like a little dive bar with
all his friends and they're from like Lowell, Massachusetts. They
have the thick accents and we're boozing a little bit
is after a game and his boys are just like,
we're talking about you, and they're just pissed off that
the Red Sox in a sign you back. And they're like,
there's no fucking price for Johnny Lester. I should have
got him when he was on sale, referencing they signed
David Price and Chris Sales and they just kept the
whole There's no fucking price for Johnny Lester. You should
have got him on sale. And like bro, these thick
they're passionate fans. There's only so many fan bases like that.
You've played for two, I played for two, You've played
you know, it's just it's different.
It's different.
It's different. And Chicago was one of those places as well.
It very much is, and you know, it's it's a
little bit easier just because like the way I like
to talk about it is you got the Midwest people
a little more laid back kind of a little bit.
And then you got in the Northeast, which is you know,
you cross the street wrong and you're getting you know,
you're getting rid of culed about it.
Well, you guys had a Boston connection you should talk about.
Well did the dude you signing too? Was like full
circle moment for me because in eight when I was
diagnosed with cancer, John was my It was part of
my inspiration. It was Lance Armstrong and John Lester. Yeah,
and I was in Boston and there was a rain
delay at the stadium in THEO. I said, Hey, do
you want to go down and meet Lester and Tito
and see the clubhouse and stuff? And I was like
absolutely So little does John know that he's bringing some
minor leaguer in that's gonna pep them up, like probably
get word, Hey, this kid just got diagnosed with cancer.
And he brings me in and changed my life. He
tells me, hey, man, like you're gonna go through this,
You're gonna feel good, You're gonna feel bad on days
you feel good, Go out and be yourself. Go be
a kid. And like I still send that message every
single kid I ever talked to, because it's true.
Well, and especially with cancer, man, it's so hard because
you're going through the treatment and you know the feeling
of it where you know, some days after treatment you
wake up you're like, man, I could go do my
normal training and hit and run and do all that stuff.
And then some days you feel like you can't get.
Out of bed. Yeah, like you were just like to
go to the.
Bathroom is a damn I'm you know, spectacle.
So you you telling me that though, and you kind
of showing me that way.
Was this before or after you fainted exactly?
So I'm in We're in. Yeah, bro, it was because
I just had my first treatment like a day before,
but it does. Your first one doesn't kick in for
like two or three days. So we go to the game,
and I'm like trying to be strong, right, I'm eighteen
years old. I'm on top of the world, Like I've
got to show these executives that like I'm the guy
right like, and he's showing me around and then we're
talking and he's telling me all this stuff and it's
all hitting me like I have fucking cancer, Like I
didn't even know what cancer was. And all of a
sudden we're in like this little hallway. I just like
drop and John just goes, can we get this kidd
of water?
Bro?
I'm not kidding, like I'm so embarrassed right, and everything
hits me and I just fall down to my knees
and like thought I was gonna die. And he's like,
can we get him a water? And then fast forward
to spring training next year. John is it's a spring
training game. I don't know what the team must have
been on the road. He didn't feel like going or something,
so he's pitching on the back fields. So I was
back in camp and they called me over one of
the minor league, you know, slap dicks, to come over
and face him. And I was so excited. And I
got two at bats off John Lester. I was like, fuck, yeah,
I'm pumped, Like I wonder if he remembers me. There's
no way he remembered me. I get two at bats,
I see six pitches and I strike out twice, strike one,
strike two, strike three twice, and I got home. I
got home and I called my mom and dad and
I was so excited. I was like, guys, they picked
me to face John Lester, Like do you think he
remembered me.
Now that you say that, I actually no, I do
remember it.
But now that you say that it was the six pitches,
I think that's where where Tech invented the front hip cutter.
At that makes sense.
We've been Yeah, we've been working, you know, I've been.
Just for me.
I ever seen that in the minor league.
Never, And I think they called you over because you
were lefty, and it was like, all right, we're throwing
the front.
Please John, don't. This is why they say don't meet
your heroes, just give it to me. But then in
twenty fourteen, we're at the same All Star game and
another full circle moment for me. Right, this is a
guy I like leaned on hard through my cancer treatment
and process, and I like go up to him like, hey,
like kind of remember me, and he did or he
played it off like he did.
I did.
You still play it off and we're talking. I'm just hey, man, like,
Chicago's a great place, trying to recruit him that in Minnesota,
and then you sign it. It's just like it was
the best feeling ever, but I left out after I fainted.
His very next start was his arguably most special start
of your career. Which I take full credit for. He
threw a no hitter. You remind me he threw a
no hitter after he met with me and the Italian
family that I have. It's all numbers and signs, So
him throwing the no hitter was signs from the heavens.
It was all for me.
It felt bad for you. Yeah, yeah, a little vand
in front of that's so great?
All right, I want to fast forward to sixteen. All right, Yeah,
we talked a little bit about that. I'm going to
read off your stats nineteen and five a two O
two era thirty two games started, two hundred and two innings,
second in the cy Young lowest era, and whip of
your career two complete games, three and one in the playoffs,
six games five started, thirty five innings in the postseason
with a two to oh two.
What's your favorite stat in that?
Seriously, two hundred inings.
I knew you were going to say that you loved posting, bro.
Why, I know why.
If you would have read this starts, I probably would
have gone one one A starts and then one B
innings because it means you means that I'm accountable for
my teammates. The hardest part of a picture. So like
you guys, you know later in your career you didn't
play every day, but you had to post every day
right like you were there, something hits the fane. You
got to go in the game. You gotta be ready
my ass for four days, go team, I have no
I have If.
I don't know, I mean I saw your skip for
those four days and it was literally a dream golf
Come on now. The next day was some sort of
fast food in the clubhouse. The myth issue.
If it was a day game, yes, If it was
a night game, well probably feels golfing.
But definitely you know what you know you taught me,
which you never even talked about this. It was just
by example. And leading by example is you literally, as
a pitcher would stay out all night. You'd have fun
and enjoy. But the next day I saw you one
of the first guys in the weight room busting your ass,
and it's like you didn't need to do that, Like
your resume and your pedigree spoke for itself, but to
see you do that after the night out meant more
than just to see you do it after a good
start or something, because that's what it takes to be
a professional, and seeing you do that every day, weekend
and week out was like, it was so cool to
watch you.
And I mean they learned that in Boston with you know,
with Beckett, and you know, I kind of got thrown
under his his wing early in his in my career,
early in his career, and Beckett was that way. It
was just hey man, you got to out prepare the
other guy, you know. And I never looked I wasn't
like Sheill would always look at who he was facing
in five days and be like, all right, I'm gonna
he wasn't. He was big in the weight room, but
not big in the weight room. He was more of
a I'm gonna outstudy this guy. I'm going to have
a better game plan than him, I'm going to last
longer in the game than him, and I'm I'm just
going to outperform him. He was thinking, like I'm competing
against that guy. I never liked that analogy. I like
because I don't ever face that dude, right, Like, I'm
not I'm not going against him, he's pitching on the
other side. I'm going against the team, right And so
like I learned that if I'm prepared, and my teammates
know I'm prepared, they're going to play harder behind me.
Not to say that people take games off or plays
off or whatever, but we were ready.
Yeah, you took what I'm saying, like you knew that
I had ready.
We had you and we had him, so we knew
we were What was the line you said yesterday with
the three pound fishing pool.
Oh you couldn't put a three pound fishing line in
my ass.
That was That was all most of the defenders, like
everyone was on edge as far as like you better
be fucking ready and the same with life you you, Yeah,
like the Cowboys demanded that respect and it it was real.
Well when you guys, you we watched you prepare obviously
like I just caught you, but like you had a
you were the most routine oriented pitcher I've ever been around.
I could take it through your entire routine right now. Yeah,
it starts the day before you're doing your film, sometime
before the game, uh after the game, the night before
you start, you pour yourself a stiff crown in sprite,
right as a sleeper. As a sleeper, you get in,
you do your.
Flush day right. It's like you it was that the treadmill.
No, this is this is the start day, the start day.
You get in, you do your bobs. Tewksberry shout outs,
one of the greatest sports psychologists.
Put his headphones in.
Headphones, do your cards, go over your skinner report again,
take your little cat nap and then you throw on Well,
first off, I forgot the Superstition's boxers. Are you wearing
those today?
No, I'm not.
John had these boxers that he wore that two pair,
one pair.
I wore so much the crops got worn out of
them and I actually took them to a tailor had
new fabric put in them.
And then you're a lucky boxer.
Yeah, I hadn't heard that.
And then, uh, for Christmas one year, my wife got
tired of seeing these holy boxers, so she got me
a set. So normally I wear like the tight ones,
the briefs or whatever they're called.
Yeah, but on start Day they're like the loose the
loose ones.
Okay, And so one Christmas she gets me these this
box of three from Ralph Laurin or whatever, and gets
the Sanctuary logo put on them. And they're all three
different colors. So in spring training that year, I had
test runs, so like I wore.
This pair, Yeah, which one?
If I pitched good in this one, all right, we're
gonna give this one another run if it doesn't go
well to the next one. And then by the season
I had a pair and then I wore that pair
of the rest of the time.
And the end the Camo cam.
That was like I remember too, like you being one
of my guys. I looked up to the most and
I tried to get that and you had the lifts
cleats that one year. It was like we did that
a couple of years.
Yeah, it was cool.
But then you do that, then you then you just
start with the laser focusing in yeaheah.
But your superstition five o'clock, the five o'clock five o'clock
is I always had to go to you and do
the scouting report because he'd be getting rubbed down on
the table and we just go over the scouting part
again for like you had already done it and you
were if you had anything, it was it was like, hey,
we want to throw this guy cut her in.
He'd be like no, no, Back'd be like no, no, no, babies,
no babies.
Back the no babies, back door no babies. I was like, okay,
we're throwing the back door cutter. This guy it was
you were you were you? Weres a professional well of
a play.
But also too like I realized at an early age
with the routine. You know, I get kind of thrown
in to Game four of the World Series and seven.
You know, I'm twenty two years old and I'm in
the bullpen coming off cancer. The year before, Yeah, coming
off cancer. I had no eyebrows. I had less hair
than I have now when I showed up the spring
training and you know, go through the season, up and
down the season, like just physically mentally, get called up,
went down for a start, YadA, YadA, get to the playoffs,
and you know, luckily John Ferrell I heard this later on.
He fought for me to be on the roster. Fought
he wanted to be on the roster.
He thought that I could be, you know, some sort
of guy in the bullpen that could help out or whatever.
So I'm in the bullpen.
Way he pitches game I think it was Game four
in Cleveland and comes out because he's hurt. He hurt
his arm, and so I get called in the office
after we win, and they're like, hey, you're going to
get a start in this series at some point.
Well, now I'm back to being a starter.
So what do you do?
You immediately fall right back into your routine, right, And
I just remember being so nervous going out there. But
I'm like, all right, I have you know, lake kicks here,
I have this stretch or I have just kept falling
back to that, right, Like I'd get to the outfield
and I'd look around and start, you know, getting the jitters.
All right, what am I doing? What is my warm
up routine?
Coming back?
And then now you start throwing, and first throw you're like,
oh god, okay, all right, where do I go from here?
You know, I do ten throws here, and then I
go here, and then I then you get into the
bullpen and now, like my routine was so locked in
from my warm up that everything just went away. Now
it's like, all right, three fastballs, three fastballs, this.
This boom boom boom. Now you get in the game.
Now you're pitching.
And so at an early age, I learned like all
the routine actually calms you down, you know what I'm saying.
Like, So then from that moment on I was like,
this is what I'm doing.
Yeah, it prepares yes, way to handle it.
So what happened with what got lost? Between spring training
all the PFPS and backfield work. What happened? Where was
the routine on pickoffs?
There was an o routine?
No I know, but we did it. We nailed it. Yeah,
we did it. Took a very long time, we got it.
But what the fuck happened?
So I tell people this, if I knew, I would
fix it.
We fixed it, though, Well, it's.
Easy when it's just like when you go, you know,
I tell I have you know, playing golf and stuff
with people and you get to know new guys and
you know, they get a few beverages in them and
they think they could have liquid courage and ask whatever
they want. And they ask about that, and I go, hey,
with all due respect, with all due respect, I'm like, hey, dude,
have you ever stood over a chip and you're like,
I got this and then all of a sudden you
spas them and you can't hit it.
They go, oh yeah all the time. I go like,
it's the same thing.
What did it feel like?
Though?
When we picked off Tommy Famo that later the announcers
were talking shit too.
Oh Tommy fans just steal Timcarver.
I'm over there literally like John, I got you, just
throw it.
And I hate it when we started throwing over because
I'm like, I love throwing these guys out there trying
to He's like under a one to the plate, you know,
like yeah.
Well, and that's so good.
That's the other part. Yeah, like the reporters out throwing over.
The reporters ask you about it, and I'm like, listen,
you know, in life, if you're not good at something,
you try to get better at something else to basically
negate that.
Sure, right, So I knew I was not good at that.
Okay, Well, not good is probably not the right word
to say terrible at that, And I knew, okay. In
order to hopefully fix this, if some capacity also shout
out to Joe, Joe was great with it. If there
if there was any other manager, it would have been
way worse. We would have been an issue and it
wouldn't have been handled properly. Joe handled it great, and
he's the one that taught me. He's like, if you're
not good at something, get better at something else. So
I said, okay, I'm going to and you know in
today's game with the pitch clock, obviously it would be
Nolan Boyd. But I got better at holding the ball
bar in my look, slidestepping. We implemented the the modified
pitch out. You know you did things over at first base,
having hobby at second base with the tag.
Oh no, we may do. Yeah, yeah, we may do.
But like so twenty fifteenth, for example, I think gave
up like forty stolen bases led the league in that.
So I had to come to Jesus in the offseason,
all right, if I'm not good at this, what can
I do? And worked on those things. I think the
next year we gave up twelve.
Yeah, and I stunked to start it too, Like I
wasn't throwing good. I remember to start that season, had
had to do a lot of that was just you know, you.
Found your you.
We worked on it in spring training. Remember we started
like the bounce pass on some of the bunks and
different stuff like, but it was we knew they were going.
It was like and you were so fast.
It was funny. We had, like you said, we had
risen hobby.
It made it a lot of fun I want to
go back to we talked about those stats, and I
look back.
On twenty sixteen. Do you have a favorite start outside
the let's let's put the playoffs aside. Do you have
a favorite start that year?
Because you got off to a little you put so
much pressure on yourself. Yeah, you came in there. I
remember coming in the dugout once that was like a
third start, and you you were just okay, and you
came up in the dugout and you were like you.
Got anything, you see anything? And I was lost.
I was like, compete, just fucking I was losing my
mind because if if you got take another game, didn't
do good. I didn't get to play, Just so we know,
I didn't get my last at bat. If he came
out of the game, it wasn't any did you get to.
Play if it was the bus, or if it was
a hotel room, or if it was in the club.
I think it was in the clubhouse because I think
you kind of embarrassed me in front of everybody.
But he comes in and one of those mediocre starts.
And you know, I think we're all we ended up
winning the game, we're all high five and afterwards doing
the party thing. And he comes in and he goes,
damn it, John, He goes, if you would pitch better,
I could get more at bats.
He goes, if you stink, I don't get to hit.
I remember it well. But you said the story about
was it coming into thirteen being like accountable, And I
know you weren't happy with your twenty fifteen year, which
ended up being a really good year. It was just
it was a grind for you all year, right, like
peaks and valleys, but ended up being a solid year.
When we get swept by the Mets, Fucking Daniel Murphy
still have nightmares. But we come into spring training in
sixteen and everyone's like, we're we have already won the
World Series, and that really started with you. You're like,
we already won. Just press play like the script. He
had shirts for us made literally with buck boats.
On them, right, that's a Johnny Gomes thing. Yeah, to
go back before I answer that, To go back to
your question, there's two starts that stand out in my mind.
One ended up being a good start, didn't start out
very well. The other one was probably my favorite one
because I didn't expect to get the opportunity to finish
the game. But we had a late season game in Pittsburgh,
tight race, two to one game.
I get in.
A jam in the eighth, end up punching out the
dude that uh Coglin broke his leg the shortstop. Yeah yeah,
Kim South Korean Korean and struck him out. Big situation.
I'm out already at like I think I'm at like
that hundred mark fist pump fuck. Yeah, let's go give
it to the closing. Like I'm walking off the mountain
thinking because Joe usual didn't let you go, especially a
close game. I getting the DOUG and I sit down.
I'm like, somebody shake my hand.
I'm like Boss, Joe, nobody, all right, here we go.
And then Boss comes down with like one out or
two outs and he's like, hey you good. I said, yeah,
let's go. And we end up finishing that game, and
I like, not that I was happy he gave me
the opportunity, but I was happy he gave me the
opportunity to finish that game.
Then the other one September two September, it was a priority.
Clinched about it, No.
We were.
It was on the verge.
Yeah, it wasn't quite there, but it was a big
game against them, and you know, one of those deals,
the other one ended up being a good game. Uhnck
went seven, seven or eight? Day game in Atlanta home?
Was that the Freddie Freeman day? Oh my gosh.
So we're in the I'm in there getting rubbed down
before the game. ROSSI comes in. We're going over the thing,
and I'm like, hey, I like, I like.
First of all, he hometown, like, lives in Atlanta, wants
to beat him bad day game. I was a brave
You always want to beat your former team, right, Like,
it's just kind of natural.
So we're locked in day game. It's hot as heck,
and it's one hundred and sixty four agre.
Yeah yeah, you're seven feet from hell Ol Turner.
Oh yeah, so actually that wasn't sixteen, that was fifteeneen.
So anyway, sorry, I got me years wrong, but played.
Yes.
So we go over the.
Thing and I'm like, hey, I like two strike breaking
ball to Freddy like Chase. He goes, no, you cannot
throw a strike breaking ball to him?
You can?
He murders, well, yeah, vers is forty seven miles.
I mean you can't.
So it's not about man, It's not about so anyway.
So first inning, something happens. Guy gets on second base,
two outs, Freddy's up, and I'm shaking and shaking and shaking,
and you can see ROSSI. He's just sitting back there,
going and keeps throwing stuff down and he won't put
down curveball time.
He looks at me. He goes, curveball, yep, don't bury it.
Base it the right. We're down one nothing. We come
in the dugout. He yard sales his whole catcher's gear here.
He goes, fuck it.
Just throw it, just throw whatever you want.
I'm not putting down any more. Signs you throw it,
I'll catch it. And I'm like following him like a
lost puppy dog. Come on, bro, don't give up on me.
Don't give up.
Almost that I meant to bounce it. He goes, but
I told you no strike breaking both John.
We just went over it.
We just went Do you think I did it on purpose?
He goes, no, but throw whatever you want.
So we sit down. We're in the air conditioning, we're
all drinking our water. Three outs, go to run out.
He goes, all right, we're good.
You had to get off your chest.
Yeah, yeah, it was that was so mad.
It was I mean, it was hot, it was all this,
but you pitched, you did pitch. We we end up
winning the game.
We get off to historic twenty seven to nine start.
We're rolling, right what it was? Yeah, we were, we
were rolling, Yeah, and everyone, I mean spring training, we
already had the mindset of we're winning the World Series,
there's no one stopping us, and we get off to
this start. For me, there was a few games that
set out early on, but I want to know from
you what stood out on that team early that was like,
holy shit, we're gonna We're gonna do this.
I just feel like we were relentless early, you know
what I mean, And like when we had a chance
to step on somebody's throat, we stepped on it early
and we made a point and Joe Joel was harped
on it. I remember Joe spring training, He's like, all
I care about y'all get off to a fast start. Yeah,
that's all he talked about. Quick start, because if you
don't get off to that quick start, there's gonna be
a team that does. And now you're chasing and that's
hard to do. But I just remember we freaking we
came out and it was like, I mean we were
in LA and it was like.
And we just went dinner. How much did we spend
out that team dinner?
Well, we talked about last night. I thought it was more,
but I think we agreed it was fifteen.
It was it was over fifteen because I think THEO
had told us like, hey, we're going to give you
this much money.
We're coming from Vegas.
Let's losch So we have spring two spring training games
in Vegas, which we blow it out on. But they'd
only wanted us there for one or two nights, not
the third night. We had it off heay, so they're like,
all right, we're gonna like they're forcing us to go
to Anaheim. Whin whole team wanted to stay in Vegas
because we all wanted to enjoy. And so THEO and
mister Ricketts agreed that they would buy us a huge
team dinner, which once John came over, he was usually
the one him and Lackey would fight for who's paying
for the team dinners. And we have this beautiful team
dinner and then we go out we roll.
L Angels Angels. Yeah, it was the Angels.
We take I think two three I'm saying from the Diamondbacks.
Sure, we got hurt.
Shore, we got hurt. Lacky gave up like five.
Or six early, and we end up winning that game.
We ended up destroying them in that game.
A lead off homer, yeah, he was.
He never does that first fastball. Here it comes and
he nobody ever swings. Yeah, and he gave them a homer.
But what was were some things just being relentless.
Yeah.
And then because getting off to the good start was
key because I thought.
The messaging in spring training you're talking about, Joe, The
messaging in spring training was so like, expectations are good. Embrace, yeah, right,
embrace it embraced the targets, target which the targets on
our back because we went so far and everybody came
in hungry. So that was the most fun spring trade
decks came back.
We had a decks from that.
I was retiring. You guys make it fun.
We had all the skits with Bussy singing, the Kawasaki singing, Yeah,
the karaoke, the karaoke played drops of Jupiter on the
piano about me.
It was a good time. It was a good time.
I want to go back.
You brought up something that we're just thinking about stories here.
But you said Pittsburgh. Yeah, I want to hear I
want to hear the Pittsburgh story when you came in
yelling at Riz bro We so.
That was right before the All Star break, right, and
we said Sunday morning before the All Star break. Keep
in mind, now we have two birds, because there's twelve
of us going to the All Star Game or whatever.
We have two private planes waiting for us after the game.
The morning of the game we roll in. We lost
nine of ten. We're getting shelled. If the offense does well,
the pitching sucked. Pitching does well, offense sucked. I'm riding high.
I go into the All Star break raaking. I'm like fourteen.
I'm like twelve or fifteen in that series, like on
a high. The game before John gives up three or
four runs, we end up losing. I go four for
five in the game.
I think I give up six with a homer.
Yeah, homer, shy of the cycle. It's not about.
I have not.
Remember well.
I remember this because I'm in the weight room the
Sunday morning before they all staring, and I knew that
night when the quote came out, I was like fuck.
I texted our media relations guy, Peter Chase, and I
was like, hey, this came out wrong, Like, is it
that bad? He's talking me off the ledge because I
know what's what's coming. So you read the quote please, Yeah,
I have the quote here.
Well before you read the quote, do you know how
I found out about that?
Oh?
I know, fucking Travis Woods. I know. I know. This
game isn't easy, said Anthony Rizzo, who went four for
five and was a home run shy of the cycle.
Feel myself, it's impossible to boat race the whole season
like we were doing. We just have to clean up
our pitching a little. We're talking, we're walking too many guys,
and that's not the formula. We've had a formula playing
good baseball, and we don't have it right now. Maybe
we have to mix a few cocktails together and figure
it out. But that's what it comes down to. I
knew right away when I said the pitching.
Also, if you read the whole thing, it's not as bad.
But John comes in Wood. He showed me John comes
in the next day start before the all stream. He's
not pitching the all Stagram right, No, So he's had
a good night, And I'm in the weight room. We're
watching Me and Tim Buster are watching Joel Ostein. Right,
it was like our Sunday mornings. They have a small,
little small weight the tiny little screen and Joel Ostin's on,
or one of the shows are on. And I'm rolling
on the ground like socks, just shorts and like maybe
a shirt and foam, rolling in such a vulnerable position.
And John comes in after Travis wood runs John, look
what Anthony said, Look what Rizzo said, like your little brother.
And he comes in. I've never seen him, this mad face,
beat red, lip quivering, standing over me.
If you ever fucking talk about our pitching staff again,
I'll fucking kill you.
And I was like, I'm so vulnerable, Like.
It wasn't the best choice of words that I said,
but obviously the night before was my start, so I
was still pissed. Sure, Like I said, if you read
the whole when you just read that off, that's the
first time I've ever heard the whole thing, of course,
because what it doesn't sound as bad as when Woody
just shows you we need to clean up our pitching staff.
If you we need to clean up our fucking you
never fucking talked about and I'm just looking at him like,
and I just remember the only thing I said to him,
and he couldn't do anything about it, say I'm sorry, John, I.
Messed up, and he didn't know what to do, and
he just kept quivering and he just walked out and
like the whole Later on we hugged it out and
calmed down, but I.
Was so stift.
Part of that is when you bring over winning players
and re establishing culture, right, It's like, you know, we
used to get pissed if somebody had a is always
there in front of their locker in.
A good game. You got to be there in the
bad game, you know what I mean?
Like you got to talk to the media like that's
a thing you're establishing as winners. And that's basically as
a veteran, a guy with two World Series rings coming
in and going, hey man, we don't bash each other
and that we're don't bash each other, and to the
media like you got like, I no shit, I wasn't
any good, you know, But that's that's the standard you
were brought up with in the winning culture. And it's
like that's how I think, that's how winning basically you.
Taught me a lesson that day that I carried with
me for the rest of my exactly career. And by
doing that, I grew up and I became a better leader.
And when it was my turn to go talk to someone,
I didn't scream at him, because as I got older,
the culture changed and you can't get the old school cowboys.
But I also knew at that time in our in
our relationship and our friendship. I knew that by me
saying that to you, in five minutes, you would be
fine with it, and in five minutes I would be
fine with it.
If I did that to.
Another player, yeah, it would be a long thing for
the whole you know, like I knew. And also too,
I knew if I did it loud enough that somebody
out here might hear it and be like, what did
Anthony say and look at it and go, oh, okay,
I need to pay attention to what I'm saying now, right.
I hate the fact that you were the guinea pig
on it, but no.
I love it.
You know, it is what it is.
I was. I was so it was like that your career.
I was eating dog. After that, I was so scared.
But again and then after we go to the All
Star Game and we have a great time.
I mean ten minutes later, we're fine.
Yeah, because that's what that team was. That was the
bond we had. And then we go into the All
Star Game, and then we go into the end of July.
We're playing the Mariners Sunday Night Baseball. We have a
huge i mean, I'm talking the biggest road trip of
the year coming up right, that's been playing out for
numerous reasons, for numerous reasons that we're going to get
to after the this play, and THEO calls you guys
into the office with Joe and they they're playing Seattle
Sunday Night Baseball and they want to give the starters
a rest, right.
And I think we had won the first two games.
We're going for the sweet.
Oh bro, we were rolling.
We're rolling.
We were rolling, we were rolling. So we bring up
a starter to a spot start.
And also, nothing against Brian Matis. It's not Brian Madis's fault.
No, it's just our team. Read our team was so solidified, right,
there's nothing that can break us. Well, we bring up
us for a spot start to give the guys a arrest,
and everyone's like, why fuck with why fuck with us?
Like this is working, and he ends up giving up
a bunch of runs early and we come back, and
that comeback was like probably the biggest moment I think
of the season for us, of like nothing can stop
us because I know this. The starters were all kind
of pissed off, like you're skipping my turn, like you're
messing with our routine. You guys are creatures of habit.
When it wasn't only that, it's the fact that it's
almost like when you're rolling and Joe's like, hey, I'm
gonna give you a day.
No, no, no, it didn't happen.
It didn't happen.
You know what I'm saying, Like, no, now, it's not
when I'm rolling, you roll me out there until I
don't have it anymore. And that's kind of the starter
because we had pitched so bad leading up to the
break and we all came back and it was like
we're back.
They were pissed. Yeah, well I remember the starting staff
and it wasn't like legit, man.
Yeah, it's because we were we were back. We were rolling.
Everybody was.
It was we were feeding off each other, it was going,
it was it was good vibe, and we all knew
we had that off day coming up. And then every
you just follow the off day, right, everybody just gets
that extra day. Well, they wanted to give us two
extra days. Yep, because go ahead, Sorry.
No, no, it's And so we come back in this
game on Sunday Night baseball, which at the time was
the biggest deal to have Sunday Night baseball. And we're rallying, right,
and the old school away. When you're rallying, the starters
are in the clubhouse, throwing back some pops, having some
rally beers. So not only did you have a suicide squeeze,
but I want to know, a.
Suicide squeeze to win the game. I've still got my shirt.
I shud broad day bunt to win?
Johnny, we bring Lester in. It was like the tenth
or eleventh, isn't extra inning, Well, we'll check the tap.
Suicide squeezed, walk off wind Like big comeback had to
be a few pops deep because you were always for
the boys. But it was such a significant moment for
us looking back because of the unity that we all
came afterwards. What happened afterwards is something you never see
and you probably will never see again with walking into
the clubhouse with THEO.
Yeah, I got so much respect for THEO to that.
I mean I had respect for him, you know before
and in any profession, you're gonna have disagreements with your bosses, right,
like total nature, that's life.
But for him to come down and be like, hey,
that's on me.
He was apologizing to our team, to the whole team. Yeah,
and it wasn't anything against Brian mattis great dude. Yeah,
it was just what our team was building. And then
you just he kind of they claimed off waivers and
he came up for just a spot start, and it
was like him saying that to us was like wow,
like this is this is another reason why we're so special,
another reason why we're going to win the last game
of the year.
Yeah, his accountability in that moment.
Was which you just don't see. He's stele Epstein, he's
you know prom Yeah, he's a Hall of Famer and
he's incredible. So come to find out the next trip,
which we all knew was going on, mister Lester, the
most generous player I've ever played with in my entire career.
The greatest road trip of all time.
Of all time. We're going out west. We're going to Oakland.
We have an off day in Oakland, Thursday off day.
So we fly out Wednesday, Wednesday night we land or
Wednesday day game. We land Thursday. At San Francisco Airport.
John has a private plane for all the boys, the
eight of us to fly to Pebble Beach to play
Bebble Beach two nights day.
Right, Yeah, we got in that night, played the next day. No.
Yeah, because I that's that was the whole point of
the of the of the why I got mad of.
The pitching change. Okay, yes, we were rolling.
Personally, I was mad because I was supposed to pitch
the following day, I think the second day in Oakland,
but because of the pitching change, my day got No,
that doesn't make sense. I was supposed to pitch the
Wednesday day game, That's what it was, and because of
the start on Sunday, I get pushed back to the
Friday game in Oakland. So THEO tells us this, this
is before the whole Sunday night baseball game, and I
go I just I raised my hand. He's telling us,
I'm like eighth grader. Hey, THEO, I have a question. Listen,
I have set up around at Pebble Beats for eight dudes. Okay,
we have hotel rooms for staying there. I've got the
rounds taken care of, and I got a plane picking
us up and off and dropping us off.
Mind you, it's a twenty seven second flight.
And he looks at me and he goes, so you're
playing golf on Thursday. I said, well, that's my question.
I'm supposed to pitch on Friday now because you's fucked
with the rotation.
You fuck with my golf.
You fuck with not my balhap you fucked with Pebble right, yeah.
So and all the boys and all the boys, and
I'm like, THEO, I can't possibly sit on the plane
and watch seven guys get off a plane and walk
onto a plane and fly down.
There with that. I'm paying for it.
And he goes, Tom was.
The flight he was?
And I go theel dude, like, what do you got?
He goes, well, are you good to play? Your body?
Fine? I said, yeah, he goes go play.
I love him.
I was like all right.
He goes, when are you guys getting back? I go,
we'll be back as soon as we're done. We're flying back,
we'll be in. We got back for dinner.
We went on. Yeah, John paid, We're all together, We're
all this is this is now August like we're together forever.
And we go to Pebble Beach. We play. We hang
out all night there like till the wee hours of
the morning. There we play golf, fly in on the
on the patio, fly in that night, and we still
go to dinner. That's how much we wanted to be together.
And we were there. John as great as he was,
he's sometimes cut some corners, and he not only did
he buy us all eight rooms, but I was the
guy who kept him in check. He got us partial
view rooms. And it was like, John, if we're gonna
do this, you got the plane, You're gonna give me
a partial view, like a partial view suite. It was
a sweet but before partial view. So I'm just wearing
them out right, partial view, partial view. And we get there.
The partial view is like there's a little parking lot
and then it's all ocean and cliffs.
It was a view of a parking lot with a
little bit of ocean over the top of it.
No, it was more ocean than but I panned and
like made it look like John this partial fuse bullshit,
like look at these rooms and he wore me out
and I wore them out about having to walk. But
that trip, I still have that picture of all of
us in the sand in.
The house. Everybody's posing, skis posing. It was me us three,
Maggie kb hen Ski Area, Lackie right, and I three. Unbelievable.
And we left there, went go to dinner, go to dinner, win,
beat the ship out of Oakland.
Friday night day game sevendy.
While we're in the middle right now of what turned
out to be thirteen out of fourteen, and this was
we were on eleven row, and this is all the
stuff that's going on off the field.
Saturday, we have a day game, we beat Oakland.
John's got a boat race, and we got a sprinter
van that sends us down to San Francisco.
Forty nine ers, big up, the VJ police.
Escort, escort, Kenny Chesney concert.
Chesney concert, met the head coach, walks around the facilities,
party with Chesney.
Sammy Hagar's. There were hanging out back stage.
Go back sweep Oakland on Sunday and head home Like
that was like literally the best road trip.
That was a good one.
It was a street that was the best one.
Bro.
I think what people don't understand is how much we
enjoyed life that year off the field. Like it was
like we would got to the field and we were
excited to play together and we were equally excited for
what was about to happen. Yeah.
Well, I don't think Joe gets enough credit for the
mindset of which he created of be yours have fun
off the field, and you're going to be better at
your job when you come to work. Like that was
such a different kind of mindset than a lot of managers.
Like living and breathing Baseball twenty four to seven, it's
nice like coming to work every single day knowing it's like, yeah,
we've done a lot of fun stuff and off the
field that when we come we still want to hang
out and now we were a tighter knit group when
you come together and want to get to work and
play hard.
Focus for and to your point to that, I think
Joe did a really good job with the schedule and
the times of which we got to the field. Sure right,
Like it's on a random Tuesday and we've got a
seventy eight seven pm game, and he's like, all right,
Little League Week show.
Yeah yeah, American Legion Week.
Shout out to Davey Martinez too. Yeah, Joe handled the
media so well in US, But Davey ran that asylum
of communicating.
You love the asylum.
Prisoners run the asylum. I've said it my whole career.
If they don't, it's not a good team. If the
team's not controlled from within, it's not a great team.
But Joe, but I remember coming in one day. I
think I was at your house or something, and we
were just pounding wine. I think, what was the screaming.
With this?
You opened up a screaming eagle for us or something,
a crazy bottle of wine, and I thought, I thought
it could have been the potatoes or the steak that
we had that night that made me a little fuzzy
the next morning.
But it's always the steak.
Yeah, it could have been the wine. I go into
Joe's office and I'm able to have a conversation with
him like a friend, and I'm like, Joe, last night
we were at Lester's I believe it was there, and
we drank so much wine as oh brother, He's like,
how do you feeling it. I'm like, I'm good, Like,
just get through it, You'll be fine. I go out
and have a great game. But how can you say
that to your manager, because that's the environment he created. Sure,
you know what I mean. It was like, there's nothing
better than that.
I want to get to one of my favorite games.
Because I've never asked you the story that the last
game of the season, Sunday Night Baseball Saint Louis, we're
going on the postseason and Joe takes me out of
the game.
Joe comes out. You're carving.
We're up and three to one, like the seventh, right,
it was late and you still had your pitches were
down Joe. I think we got one out and Joe,
here comes Joe out of the dugout. I look over,
I'm like, we got two, we got two out, we
got two out.
I'm like, what the fuck's he doing out here?
Like Johnny's rolling like so I'm like on one of
my pissed, like I played mad right, like I was
definitely all we know, we know, I know, I know,
I get this reputation.
Of like, oh, Rossie's so nice, grandpa blah blahah. These
guys hated me, so everybody knows I love you. It's it.
He's coming out and I'm on one of my my
rants to the mound and you're just you're staring at me,
and I'm thinking, what's he doing?
What's Joe doing? And You're like, uh, he's taking you
out of the game. Or Joe grabs me.
He's like, hey, I've never done this before. You went
in his office and told him to take me out
of the game. I want to know how that whole
thing went down.
So night.
I appreciate I appreciate that, but I've never heard how.
I can imagine a player coming into my office and going, hey,
we're gonna take this wen, take this guy out of
the game.
So night before.
I send it home, you know, we're fair and I
are just talking or whatever, and I look at her
and I go, hey, what do you think about this?
I said, if everything goes well tomorrow, having Joe taken
Rossi out of the game before he takes me out,
I was like, but it's got to go perfect.
It can't be.
It can't be the fourth inning when I've got eighty
seven pitches and we're losing six to three or whatever.
I said, it's got to go perfect. And she's like, yeah,
go talk to Joe. See what he says.
Said Okay.
So I get there early the next day, planning on
having to talk to Joe for like thirty forty minutes
right like give him the whole spiel. He's gonna talk
me down off this ledge and analytics say you can't
do this or whatever, and I go into jug Hey, Joe,
I got an idea, he said, yeah.
I said, now, same thing.
If everything goes perfect tonight, what do you think about
taking ROSSI out for his last game before you take
me up?
Let him get let him walk off the field, get
his love, because I love it.
That's all he said.
And I said, any idea you ever brought to Joe? Yeah,
he was like.
And I sat there.
I was like, I just can't imagine how that's it,
and he goes, yeah, love.
I remember starting to pulling the mask down, starting to
cry right in front of you, guys.
You had a home of that game.
Joe's like this, it's like in your face and you
got your mask off and you're like looking at me
and looking at him, and he goes you taking it
out of the game, and you didn't know what to do,
and I'm like waiting for like a hug or like
a bro dap or something, and you just go, I
love you, guys.
I was about to melt down, like I like, I
saw all the look in you guy's face and you
were just like staring through me, and I'm like.
About I almost forgot to hug Joe and everything.
It's another example of the things that John did for
us that no one knew about. Exactly, no one knew
that John did that, Like no one knew that you
went to Joe's office and pulled him out, and nor
did you want the credit for that afterwards too. But
these are all the things behind the scene that make
a championship team that it doesn't you can't quantify it.
It just happens. And for Joe to do that, for
you to be able to have the confidence to go
tell Joe this right, it's just all of these things
come together to make it where the reason you want
to do that for him is because you guys were
brothers on the field and you care about him, and
you got your runway of your hundredth home run, the
Grandpa Rossi, the whole retirement tour, it's no, it's not
about you. But let's get back to no one gives
the stanting ovation to a backup catcher. Great point, you
know what I mean? Point that doesn't even get to
get all of that bats right exactly because of John.
So we go into the playoffs and playoffs and you
put us on your back, bro, Like I mean, we
had obviously our whole pitch staff was really good and
the areata was on a two year run that like
I've never seen. And you you're different in the playoffs, right,
Like what is that?
Like?
I think people need to learn from your mentality and
you're talking about routine, You're talking about your experiences.
I always have a lot of lot to do with that.
But Bro, you're dominant in the postseason.
Looking back on it, I think a little bit of
it is like I said, I'm
not I never look to see who I was pitching against.
I didn't care, right like Adam Wainwright, Annabelle Sanchez, Joe
Shitt the barber, It doesn't matter, right, Like I'm not competing.
I'm competing against him, but I'm not pitching against him,
So that in my mind never scared me. You know
what I'm saying, and then I just I loved when
it mattered, right, Like, the season gets so long. Beginning
of the season, you're so hyped, you're ready to go,
you're amped, you feel good.
You should be somewhat locked in with your stuff.
You get to the middle of the season, it's kind
of dictating which way the year is going for you.
Whatever you get to August, you hate everybody.
Sure, angry August say angry August.
You hate everybody. You hate your family, you hate your
your teammates, you hate to say whatever you want, and
it's you hate everybody. September comes around, you get that
little boost where you call up the young fellas. They're there,
they're getting to especially in our situation to sixteen. Those
young guys got to experience some first for them, which
is cool. You're in a playoff hunt. You're in a
playoff hunt. We clinch early. When you clinch early, it's
good and bad because then you're like, all right, I'm preparing.
I'm still trying to win the games, but I'm also
not trying to get hurt, you know, So you're kind
of dodging and weaving your way through September. Now, those
lights come on, and the weather changes. It's getting dark early.
You have flyovers all of a sudden. You know, you
got the big flag for the anthem. People are there.
The stadiums filled before the Yeah, the stadiums feel before
the first pitch. Everybody's asses in their seat before the
first pitch because they want to see playoff baseball.
The crowd is into it.
First inning, two outs, three to two, right, like now
you your senses are amps romantic.
It is right, you're really they're getting me gone on.
That's why I love baseball though, especially like I got
spoiled early in my career to go to playoffs so
much and be a part of it and have responsibility.
You know, I wasn't a fourth I wasn't you know.
The you're you're the guy.
Yeah, yeah, it was here. Here's game one, Go get
them kid.
Let's talk about game one because it it was cold,
it was windy. Which Game one in NLDS twenty.
Sixteen, Oh at Wrigley, at Wrigley.
We're playing the Giants. The Giants are coming off their
even year. Was it three years in a row? Three
even years in a row. So we're now sixteen. This
is gonna be their fourth they won in fourteen, and
that's real, and it's real that we have one hundred
and eight year curse over us too, which we handled
really well. But that shit was real because we didn't win,
and you get asked about all the time, and you
just add a little bit of extra juice. So we
go into game one and John shoves where do you go?
You go eight innings, five strikeouts, We end up winning
the game one nothing on Hobbiesbby.
Hit a six mile homer that hit the basket.
Hit the basket, barely got in.
I mean, he's the fuck out and I still don't
think he's touched first base.
Still he's still standing at home.
We all knew it was a homer too, and it
barely got over and we win one nothing. But the
tone that you set for that game set the tone
for the rest of the playoff us because we do.
We we boat race pretty much all season. We have
a little hiccup in July, we have a great second half,
we kind of start amping up for the playoffs, and
then Game one, boom, we get hit in the face
of quato and we win one nothing. But that game
set the tone that the energy there. We had a
backpick there game one that no one knows, like, this
is how fearless we were, and this is how amazing
Joe was that he trusted us. We do a back
pick in game one where a guy's bunting. I come
up in the guy's face. The guy at first takes
a big lead. Hobby comes around on the.
Back and you trust Hobby, You trust Hobby, you trust John,
you trust.
You're trusting four guys there to do their job, and
we get a huge backpick there. That just another example
of us playing fearless, us being too young, we're too
dumb or what did you always.
Say about saying young and young and dumb.
That was John's favorite line, because we were all I
think twenty six or twenty five and under. We did
second youngest team. But that sets the tone. We win, then,
i'ds we go into game one of the NLC US
Dodgers and you set the tone again. There, you remember
what you did there.
I remember Game five more than I remember Game one.
Let's see Game one of the NLCS six innings, one run,
we went eight four, Maggie Montero, grand Slam, Joelton, Joe.
Joe Blain chess match between Joe and Dave Roberts, Jiggy Miggie,
and we'll get to this when we talked to Miggie,
But Maggie was for the whole team.
If you weren't playing, you had a mission, and that
was to get runs. And how do we get runs?
John a little some we like to call rally beers.
Rally beers or shots or because in sixteen I believe
it started in fifteen when we swept a series, the
boys would take shots. And if we ever got to
a little rut and we were kind of grinding, those
shots became instead of after the game, sometimes they were
before the game on occasion, on.
Occasion, not very often, but it happened.
It did happen when we needed it. You can't go
to the well too much or it doesn't work.
And the crazy thing about Mickie is, I think earlier
in that day he couldn't walk.
He just got a courtizone shot.
Yeah, hey, it was that day, right, yeah, And he.
Was still rallying for the boys. So he comes in
and it's that grand slam. I don't even think he
really knew his name at the time.
Joe, Joe should have thrown the heater.
Yeah, he hung but that was electric.
Yeah.
I mean, dude, the whole playoff scene like whether and
and don't take this wrong way. But whatever side you're on,
whether you win or you lose, you will never forget
being in the playoffs, right, it never. And the further
you go, the more electric and the more your senses
are away, like you're you're you're hyped. You get to
the field, You're hyped as soon as you get there.
The closer you get with your teammates, yeah, close to
the families get because all the families are rallying together too.
And the fans. You're getting out of your car, the
fans are there. What's that in the playoffs? Like you're
getting out of your car.
Like the That's what I'm saying, Like, I'll never forget.
I'll never forget Game five. I'm jumping ahead of the
of the CS. But Game five of the World Series.
You know, not very often at Wrigley do you walk
out of the of the dugout to go warm up,
which was if I think when we played seven o'clock
games during the play Yeah, because Chicago's seven behind some seven,
so I'd be out there at six twenty walking out
of the dugout right, you couldn't see a seat in
that place, Wrigley Special and they were I mean, bro,
that and I see everybody was standing, but you couldn't
see seats.
What I'm saying, I guess for warm ups.
We hadn't been to the World Series and sixty No,
I get that. I know it's a series and what
I'm saying, and then I'll see, yes, you haven't at
that point, have gone. So when we win, you win
Game five, right, and then game six we win, we'd
beat Kershaw double play and the game to.
Go back to Game five, I think probably one of
the best postseason games I've ever thrown.
Bro, you dominate it.
That's that was like I knew going into that game.
I was lost.
I want to talk about let's let's walk the I
think like you got a four to one record in
World Series games and the one loss in Cleveland Game one,
we went, I went us together, so heavy scouting report
and what did we say after that game? Like you
were having to throw it in a dixie cup by
the second time through the lineup because we're sinking away.
We're change up back door, trying to cut it in off.
They were giving up on the end, and your bread
and butter was I'm going to establish I rememb We
got an argument in Boston about it. I'm going to
establish my four seamer in that's when I'm at my best.
That locks me in mechanically, and that gets everything everybody
looking in for my and then I can go cutter
off that I can sink away. Everything works after that,
and I learned that over time, and then got to
the World Series in game one and we went so
heavy scour report. Remember everybody, everybody was like, sink down
the way, no strike breaking balls, change up, different things
like that.
And we had you had to grow. He grinded through
that game. You grinded.
But you say, we just said something. It reminded me.
And I don't know if you remember this. The reason
I said that to you is because the very first
time you caught me in twenty thirteen, Yeah, I know,
you came back. He was on a Hawaiian vacation all
year with his I had a good cushion, had scrambled brow.
He had both of us there for years.
He didn't know what planet he was on, and went
to Hawaii, came back all tan, you know, and the
gonna lie. The tan line was a little weird when
we got in the shower, That's all I'm saying.
It was a little awkward. I didn't know what kind
of bathing suit he had.
So thirteen started out really good for me, and then
I hit a lull, kind of like we're talking about
in sixteen for us. In July whatever struggled beginnings of Timber.
We're facing Detroit. Do you remember this? Facing Detroit. I
know I'm getting off topic. We'll get right back there.
Never caught me except for spring training comes in.
This is.
When this is when Detroit is rolling.
They got Sanchez, they got Prince Torry hunterlin Uh, Victor Martinez, miggi.
Omarvion Vonte, a really good player.
Like murders Row.
Okay, no disrespect to the Yankees. But so we get
in there and I'm dude, I'm like, I don't know
what I'm gonna do. Like these guys plus Victor Martinez,
Tory Hunter, and Miguel Cabres ops against me is a
combined seven million love when you pitched seven million. Okay,
So we sit down and I've got all my fucking
notes and I look at Rossi and he goes, hey,
this is what we're gonna do. He goes every every
bit of film I watched, everybody kind of dicking off
with these guys. They're going back door breaking ball, this, this, this, this,
they fall behind two to one, two oh three to one.
Then guess what happens, Pakaye Right like, now that's where
the damage comes. He goes, We're gonna come out and
we're gonna throw the ball as hard as we can,
and we're gonna throw it right at their hands till
they make an adjustment.
Cool.
The only left in the lineup was Prince Fielder. All right,
here we go, Rossie, step back there.
Peterran until over and over again, and.
Just the first three innings, and like I was pissed,
like I was still trying to figure it out. I
was blowing like ninety six, ninety five, ninety six, just
Miguel's jumping out of the way. Next thing you know,
got curveball under Chase. We end up winning the game.
And at the cutter.
What that did in thirteen was then all right to go.
Back about statish, establishing your fastball, stamaging your cutter, which
made everything else.
And it locked you in mechanically and you learned later
on too.
It's like, just so we roll up game six at
Wrigley for the NLCS, right, you just win game five,
you go seven innings, I think one run. We have
a chance to go to the World Series and we
fell short the year before. We have first ballot Hall
of Famer Clinton Kershaw on the mound and we roll
him right and.
Wow, Hendricks deal.
Yeah, the professor went deal. Our whole staff, he dealt
two games. He got the loss in the in game two. Yeah,
well we were down to one of that series. Right,
so we win off Kershaw the double play, and I
just remember Wriggly being so loud and that's celebration and
you winning the MVP, call m MVP of that series,
and it's like, what does that mean to you? You
sign there, you have this massive deal. You put so
much pressure on yourself. In fifteen, we exceed all expectations.
We're going to the World Series. Job's not finished. One
hundred and eight year curse. You're the guy you just
went MVP. Like, what are you feeling?
I feel like I'm feeling at the time, like I'm
doing my job, you know what I'm saying, like, not
to downplay it, but I feel like I'm.
Doing what I was supposed to be doing.
You know, I think in fifteen, I know we're jumping
around a lot, but in fifteen I felt like I
needed to win the World Series in April.
Yeah I remember that.
Yeah, make sense, like you're trying to live up to
that contract.
Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to make I'm trying to make.
You're still new. You're also grumpy and unapproachable and all these.
Things allegedly, but yeah, I mean all those things. Thanks Ris,
But yeah, I mean I feel like at the time,
you're like, all right, I'm on a personal level, You're like,
all right, I'm doing.
What I'm supposed to be doing, right, Like the.
Pieces are falling now at the end of the day,
I'm just throwing this out there.
I'm three for three on World Series.
Okay, I've never gone to the World I just wanted
Black's famous line.
Black famous line.
Remember he said when we got to the World Series,
he said, hey, Tony, I ain't never been to a
World Series.
I hadn't won, so I have how's that second place ring?
Anyway?
So one of that.
So anyway, I just feel like at the time, I'm like,
all right, we've accomplished half of the goal. We've got
to the World series, right, that's sometimes that's half the
battle total is getting there. All jokes aside, but we've
got there. Okay, we've accomplished goal one of getting there. Now,
goal too is to win the motherfucker right, Like, like,
we didn't come here for to lose, right, we came
here to win.
Right.
Probably in my obviously I'm bias to this, but I
think one of the greatest World series in the history
of the game.
Oh, hands down, hands down. There's not even the ups
and downs, the droughts, both teams, both.
Teams, the cat and mouse game, two great managers going
at each other, as far as game planning, pitching, matchups,
you know, all this stuff starting pitching, offense, stolen bases, everything.
Like then it ends up at game seven, which is
my first Game seven, it was incredible. Oh, roller coaster
of emotions.
That's not skip out. You win the MVP of the
NLCS that night. That party at John's house was elite. Okay, basically,
the whole team's there, the whole city's rioting. Everyone's just
happy to be back in the World Series. We still
know we have a job to do, but we celebrate,
celebrated everything.
Then it felt I don't know how you guys felt
when we won the CS, because we had lost it
the year before. I felt like boom, like that was
that was a sense of relief for me. It was like, Okay,
now we're going to the World Series. Just roll it
all out there.
Whatever.
But getting further than we did in fifteen to me
was so important because of the steps we had taken so.
Fast growing and especially for the young guys, it's like
confidence right, Like you feel like and I know there's
guys that have done this where it's like I.
Can't get past the DS. You know what I'm saying.
There's a roadblock there, and maybe that's why that roadblock.
It's like, oh, oh well here it is still the
same game.
We're good. It's a funny story. After a game six
we win, celebrate all that stuff. Drive back to that.
I mean, you know, I lived a mile from Rapley.
Wife calls me and says, hey, there's a group of
people in the front yard tepeeing our tree.
I remember this.
Pulled around.
We've got a alley way that you pulled into the garage.
Berteaux that we lived on was a one way street
going that way. Pull around, go down the one way
street this.
Way, pull up.
I'm like, hey, what are y'all doing?
Oh, we just wanted to celebrate, and I go by
t peeing my tree.
Didn't you invite him in for a beer? Yeah?
I go.
If you guys want to celebrate, I go.
You guys want to celebrate and knock on my damn door,
I'll come have a beer with you.
And the one lady goes, we are so sorry, we'll
start cleaning up. They cleaned up all the.
Well. I parked and came out and we cheers and
had a drink and then when went.
Well, that party was. First off, I have to tell
you set the scene on John's house. John bought. Not
only did John buy a house, he bought the lot
next door. It was a house as well. He knocked
it down till his dog famously quoted and I quote,
I knocked it down so my dog had a yard
to shit it. Okay, that's the type of I may
have just told you that, but okay, well.
I'm not anymore.
This is what the this is what the people get John.
But John has this party and we're all there and
we're all celebrating, and next thing you know, we're on
the back patio. Rossi's playing the guitar. My dad's there
playing the guitar. Eddie Vetty Eddie Vedder is there, starts
jamming out for us in the backyard, like I think
he's saying, what the Cubs go all the way right?
Someday we'll go all the way? Yes, And he's just
doing an acoustic Rossi's playing, my Dad's playing. This one
of my greatest memories because my dad loves playing the
guitar too, and all of us coming together there and
just knowing that the job's not finished, but we're we
we got this like we were sew together.
And then we roll into game one, well because I
because me and your dad were playing our thing. Now
is we open for Eddie Vedder? Just so everybody did
you did? I opened?
You're an opener, I'm an o and we go we
go into game one of the World Series. You're setting
the tone for us.
Didn't do a very good job.
We don't. We said the tone.
That was my fault. I take the responsible Me and
me and Borsello Mike Borsello. Yeah, and we went so
scouting report.
But then in game five you came out and we
you fucking punched out the side going I'm being.
Me, I'm being Game five was the hardest game of
the series, hands down. Game seven was its own fairy tale,
but game five. But let's go back to game three.
At the first game at Wrigley in what sixty plus years,
the atmosphere there was so like dead coming off the
NLCS at everyone party in Suburn, and it was like,
we get there. In game three, we're tied one to one,
and the atmosphere was almost like everyone was just so nervous,
Like I don't know if it was just me and
I was projecting on the fans, but like the energy
in the stadium was flat. We didn't really give them
a lot to cheer for, granted, but we go down.
We lose Game three, we lose Game four, and we're like, fuck,
like we just got swept the year before. Ain't doing this.
And you come out in game five and we get
I think we gave you an early early lead.
How could you at home?
Well, you got us through the first An early lead
is the first three innings. John oh, man, I thought
hit a homer.
No, it wasn't until the fourth or fifth inning.
Third base hit a hit a homer.
Second inning.
Remember, we went in so much and finally I was like, okay,
we've established in when Ramirez hit hit a solo home run,
went heat her in second one heater in homer.
I was like, okay, now we've established that.
Game was now we go. That game was a gauntlet.
We won three two, You go six innings, one run,
Chappie comes in, I think goes two plus.
Yeah, I'll tell you this, h I don't want to
say it's the only game but I think it's one
of the only games that I have looked at the
pitching coach and taken.
Myself out of the game. Your guest was really stick
with Yeah. It was realistic with myself.
Thank god. Yeah, because six innings, one run, we're right
at your ball.
I just giving up the second run. I grind it
in the sixth and somebody hit a base hit up
the middle. They scored, and I want to say it
was no, Yeah, Lindor got the base hit up the middle,
and then you threw him out a second to get
out of the inning, and we got down there and
Boss came to check on me. I was at like
ninety something pitches and I go Boss. I said, I'm
I can give you as much as you want next inning,
but also don't put me in there. And if I
give a base hit, take me out and and have
that reliever come with somebody on.
I said, if if, if.
You guys are questioning it, give that guy clean inning.
And he's like, all right, fair enough, and so he went.
And they so much emotions leading up to that game.
That was, well, we knew, we knew. We win game five,
we're going to roll in game six. That was our
mentality because we saw Tomlin. He kind of diced us
up a little bit and game remember the win was
going out and it was him and Hendricks, and.
I was like, oh, take the over in this game. Yeah, yeah,
game games. Yeah, it was like two to one one
game six.
In game six, after we won Game five was a
huge exit, like, oh funk, we're gonna roll game six.
Game seven is a crap shoot, right, And we did.
We came out, We came out in game six and
we popped off and we're all celebrating early and I
remember ROSSI being so pissed off that like we're all
like happy games, pacing up and down the doug Ount
even though I don't even think you were playing. I was, yeah, exactly,
and we go up all the way to go was
the seventh or eighth and eighth in and I think,
and again, this podcast is not about me. It's about
the reunion. But I had a home run World Series
home run and we go up like five, five or
six runs and Joe left champion. And that was like
the first real time, first time where like you know,
during the year, you get a lot of bicker and
everyone questions the manager at some point, but that was
the first time where like the whole dugout came together
and was like, Joe, get this fucking guy out of
the game, Like we this game's over, Chappie's still in,
Like let's get him out. Get Travis Wood up.
Like your homer made it over when you hit the
homer boom, got it.
Mike dropped and I dropped a bat too. Again, it's
really not about me, but I did drop. It's it's
a good picture I have in the office. But that's
like the first time where we were like, get him
out of the game. Right, because Chappie was our dog,
he was our he came over at the deadline and
just what he did for us, the respect I have
for him. Yeah, and then we go into game seven.
We're all ready to go, right.
Like baskets of emotions, game bro.
That game was. But what was your what was your
mindset like mine because you just pitched, so you're kind
of on short rest.
Me you lackey in area to go down.
Well before that hold on game six we win, Joe
calls me in the office, Hey, how are you fine?
Wow?
What do you need?
We're this is what we're doing tomorrow.
Kyle's gonna go five and you're gonna either four or
five and you're going to bridge to Chappie and then
hopefully we got the trophy. Right, That was Joke's what
Joe said. I said, Cool, Skip, I'll be ready and
I'll be ready whenever you need me.
Cool.
So now I'm going to bed knowing I'm pitching, which
I think, looking back on it was a blessing because
now your nerves go down.
There's no question, there's no wedding.
Yeah, Like I'm not walking down there and going when
the phone rings, you know, So like that helped, so
go ahead.
Sorry, no, but well going down there and I went
down there with you guys, and I remember.
You were like the actual He was like, they really
the decision making.
Because yeah, bought.
You got down there and just started like throwing a
little bit. You want to take a while to warm up.
And I remember catching you and getting ready, and then
I was going down early and you were still going
to be warmed up, and Noble was catching you and
I'm watching you pitch. I'm like, he's throwing bebies. Like
if this goes too long, he's gonna be gassed. It's
with in my mind right like.
He is down a boom boom. No.
I went in at the end of the inning and
Joe and Boz came up to me. It was like,
how's he look I'm like, he looks great. But I
wouldn't just extend this was my advice. I was like,
I wouldn't have him sit down there and throw bullets,
like the bullets are coming out good.
Whenever you're ready to bring him in, he's ready, like,
don't wait two innings.
Well, you're supposed to come in on a clean inning,
supposed to come on a clean come in with what
running around.
We're all went first, first, We're all went to ry
was the third inning where Kyle kind of gave up
a little bit of hard contact and they scored the run.
So it was one one.
And the next they called down then and they're like,
go get ready, mind you before all of this started,
before the game, I told Travis wood I said, Woodie,
I don't know what the fuck I'm doing down there. Okay,
I said one, I said, one's the World Series.
Two, I'm in the bullpen. I have.
I have my routine that I'm going to try to
stick to, but you can't because it's it's a it's
a damn.
And now could go the season.
And then once the phone rings are grenade goes off
and everybody goes everywhere, and you're like, what do I do?
Right?
And so I told Woody before the game, I said,
if you you watch how many pitches I'm throwing. If
I get to a point where I've thrown too many pitches,
I want you to stand directly in front of me
where I can't throw another pitch.
So you imagine that I do. On the broadcast what
he's saying, wish like John.
I wish I wish they would have got it. But
there was a point where when you left and I
was down there and it was just aimless throwing.
Then I was just throwing to throw.
You were loose.
When I left Wood, he came over and literally stood
not like not like face three face, but like he
kind of stood off to my side where I knew, okay,
I'm done, damn. And he stood there and then like
I went to throw, he would be like, nope, uh huh.
He's like when that phone rings and they say that
you're coming in, you fire three or four as hard
as you can.
And then you go in. And that's what we did.
And then you came in and I fucked it all
and you you died.
Bro, he died twice. He died was killed me, bro kipness,
what was it a swinging bar or did he swinging.
Button swinging to strike cutter away and pulls off.
But it went like this, I bust out, I blew
a handy and then and the and the process spin
row air mail.
He kiveness runs into him. I'm like, I just got give.
This a bowling ball.
Bro.
He's short in compact, yeah, like and I always said
too as a first baseman because when balls go up
the line, like when it really matters, I'll.
Stay in there.
I'll stay in there.
Yeah, you hung in.
And I felt so proud afterwards because I actually did.
But that bro, he ran me over.
Yeah, and I'm feeling great.
I just got in this thing. Then no strike breaking ball?
Who got a theme here? No strike breaking ball? Still
indoor and you shake to the breaking ball and I'm like.
All right, he's gonna bounce forty seven feet and literally
kill you.
You died all.
Of the mass, roll, roll my ankle, go to get up.
Doc Adams saying, I'm concuss I'm stumbling everywhere.
Two runs scored.
Two runs score on a pass ball probably never happened
in world serious history before.
And I'm thinking, I just got in stand I'm the
defensive guy, and I just fucked.
This all up. Like what happened?
Then you let off the next inning? Right? Was that
your last?
About second second? I think I hit second the next inning?
Okay, yeah, Andrew Miller, Andrew Miller and Miller and.
I was why did you show emotions? I'm like, thank
god I got one back. It's let into so bro.
You fucking threw what three and the third what was it?
And the third to bridge the gap? To bridge the gap?
Happy, ye, And I wish he wouldn't have taken me
out because because Jose Ramiers does have good numbers. Off me,
I think he's only got the one homer, but he's
got some hits. But we had two outs in that
inning and we're up six to two or three at
the time, yeah, six or three.
Well yeah, so I would coming in after.
The crazy inning we came in.
I had to hit him taking off my stuff, and
you looked at me, it's like look.
I was like, bro, you're fine, your ship's great. I
fucked that up like he's like, looked. I was like, bro,
you're throwing great, just like.
Other than the forty seven foot curve ball that killed him.
But he had nasty So you were loved.
You were loved. It was good, I mean.
And then and then we went We went right, Chappie
comes in, Raja Davis, HiT's the homer. We go down,
let's go before we heard that story. Have I told
you that story when Rocher Davis at Homer? Oh god, no,
but I do know that what you no one knows.
Sorry to cut you short. You Grandpa that that feels aggressive.
I'm attacking you or the trust trate. You didn't call
a slider? Yeah, all well, playoffs twelve years or all this, Chapman.
Well, so, like going back, one of my things that
I held was I got taken out a lot when
Chapie came in and he would do Miggy or Wilson,
and so I didn't The scouting report for Raj was
the slider coming into him was bad and change.
Us for good.
Well, I had never caught Chappy splitty, and I didn't
trust to throw it myself right, especially with runners of
scoring position. So I was just like and in San
Francisco it worked great. I just threw heaters down and
it was punchy, punchy punt or whatever it was. And
so I'm just like, guy a second r I look
at his bat. He's choked up, this fall, this far
up on the bat, and I'm like, he's got to
pop one of these heaters up right, it's one hundred
and three like back then, not nobody threw on it right,
And I'm.
Like he's got two people.
Yeah, And I'm like, so I'm just keep throwing down
heaters and I'm like I remember getting in. I was
like to Mike Borsellar catching guys, I was like, fuck,
it should don't slider.
He's a slider. What the pitch? Don't splitty. I'm like,
I was bar.
But I'm like, well, I have never even caught I
didn't catch him that much. So it was like an
insecurity of mine of coming out in that moment of
not not knowing what to what to.
Do, and all the credit to Rajer.
Like yeah, I was to say, also, let's let's call
spade a spade here, Like Chappy threw the perfect pitch
with him choked up down to his bat path that
he hit perfectly for a home run.
Sure you know what I'm saying, Like.
But you're right, I called I think it's twelve. We
should go back county twelve. Heaters around. But then when
Miggie came in, he threw almost all sliders. Remember that
Chappy stayed in another inning and threw it on the sliders.
The fact that Chappy got through, that's is the unsung
hero of the entire game.
Imagine, imagine your your emotional baggage. Bro, you just gave
up the game, tying homer and now you've got to
go out for another inning and try to get three out.
Bro.
Every every time as a kid watching that, ten out
of ten times the guy comes back out, he's gonna
give it up ten out of ten. So the fact
that he was able to do.
That, And that's what I don't like though, is everybody
wants to talk about about Chappie giving up that homer
to tie the game. Let's let no forget that. Let's
talk about him coming out and going one, two, three
the next inning. Yeah, because that takes the freaking cohonents.
Bro We rode like they him, I mean.
He out more a tagging up are the two biggest
Yeah moment you talk.
About baseball people, that was the wrong thing to do
is bringing back out.
No, no, no, I'm more taken out.
Yeah, it's in the baseball like if you talk like no,
you don't tag up on that.
And I'm more tagged up and got the second.
And more tagged up on a deep fly ball by
KB which earlier in the game the win turned around,
which would have been a home run that and al Mora,
who was a rookie, had the wits about him to
read where that ball was going, understand that it's either
a homer and out or probably homer and out.
How high body contributed on that.
It goes and tags up and gets the second base
and then the rest of most.
Coaches are going to tell you halfway yeah, and he
went back and tagged out.
Yeah, which is the baseball with the base open, walk
me and then goes over us and the rest is history.
But the fact that Chappie can get through that, then
we have a seventeen minute rain delay. But when Raja
hit that home run?
What do you think before Raja hit the homer after?
You know, because kind of the rule of thumb is
if you as a as a pitcher, if you get
taken out of the inning and you have a runner on,
that's yours you stay. You have to stay in the
dugout till that run scores or they get out of
the inny.
So I gave up the hit to Jose Ramirez.
Uh, who's their damn guy or Brandy Geyer. He could
hit a damn cannon ball for as long as that
cannonball is coming from the left side, he could hit it.
Hits the ball in the gap, hose Airmera scores, So
it's six to four now right, he had a two
run homer, right, yes, yep, so he hit the double.
So I'm I'm like, all right, I'm good. I'm going
to the clubhouse. Well, I go into the clubhouse. You know,
Cleveland's clubhouse. You got to go down five stairs and
up three hundred and forty two stairs to get up there.
Welly get up there. They've got the damn champagne. Oh
my god, I fuck, they got the signs World Series champs.
They've got they walk to the clubhouse too. They've got
the damn what you mud call it, the saran wrap
overall lockers, the whole thing.
Right.
So I kind of come in and I'm like, this
is weird.
You know, how are you going in there?
I'm just curious because I was done and I was
gonna go get out of my stuff and then come
back down really well, and I have a pop too.
Okay, I'm done for the day, dude. I'm it's it's.
It's literally, your job is season's over.
My season's over.
I cannot re enter and there's no game eight. Okay,
So I get in there and I'm taking my I
take one cleat off, I get my ankle tape off,
and you know, Raja's got pitch thirty seven from Chapman
that he keeps filing off or whatever. And I go
to untie my second shoe, and I hear the crack
and I look up and I just see the ball
going over the fence.
Oh, I take my shoe off.
What was the cluby's name, Willie? I take my shoe off, and.
I they had the entrance right there. I didn't know
he was coming around the corner. I throw my shoe
as hard as I can the entrance. I go, wille
what he comes around the corner. The cleat missed him
by this far.
That's great.
I go get this fucking ship down. There was people
that came out of places in that clubhouse I've never
seen before. Champagne gets put up saran wrap over the top,
signs down the whole thing. And then so I changed
and I come back down to the to the dugout.
But he was not happy with me. I apologize to
him after the fact.
But what what do you remember when we had the
rein delay? Where were you at first? Were you?
Were you in the dugout?
So when you came into the weight room, was it
after the fact, when everyone's coming in or like, what
what's your biggest.
I followed everybody in there, so we all went in there,
and I remember it kind of being at first a
little somber, you know. Everybody kind of got in there.
It was almost like a simultaneous deep breath, you know, sorry,
And I remember sitting there for a second kind of
you know, one of these like all right, like you're
kind of you went back in your corner as a fighter,
you know what I'm saying, Like I got my breath,
I'm gonn get a drink of water, maybe Miller light.
And I just remember Jay, Hey, I remember Jay start talking,
And at first it really surprised me because Jay doesn't
talk right, Like Jay's not a vocal guy. And I
kind of sat up and I looked at him, and
I don't remember I think him speaking surprised me, you know, like,
holy shit, what's he saying? What's he saying? But I
don't remember the words of what he said. I just
remember him saying, all right, fuck it, guys, we have
a restart were zero zero. It's kind of what I remember.
I don't know if that's exactly what he said. You
guys can correct me and then the best part of
the whole meeting was they're like, hey, they're pulling on
the tart and Schwarver's.
Leading off and he walks out and he goes, I'm
gonna get a hit.
You drive me, you you fucking drive me in to
whoever he was talking to.
He got the lead off single.
Yeah, he came by me. I was selling the bench.
He had his bank gloves on, and Shawl was pitching
me the cutter guy, and he goes, this guy.
Throws me and fucking cut her in.
I'm want to knocked off the buck got at.
It right in my face.
His fucking second year Kyle Schwarmer broken knee, just came
back the third game of the season. Came back as
like the fact that they let him come back, I
think speaks volumes to us too, because our belief in him. Yeah, right,
Like if we didn't, I think if the boys didn't
believe that.
There's no other young guy, no way that would have
come back and been allowed in that clubhouse like Swarber was.
And he hit the ball so hard.
Kimnus was in the grass with a shift and I
swear it's like a foot to his right or left
and didn't been time to get it.
Yeah, so we reset. I remember in the dugout in
the ninth when we were hitting in the ninth, everyone
was fucking white as a ghost, bro, because I was like,
even me, I was, bro, I'm sitting there at first,
I'm like, this curse is fucking real. I'm just playing
with dirt like I couldn't feeling. I couldn't even hear myself.
I couldn't hear anything. I was literally numb. And we
get into dugout and everyone's white as a ghost. And
then Chaddie gets us through it and we give this
the rain delay and then we ended up going out
scoring winning.
Another one that Miggie doesn't get enough love that second
base hit never of.
Course, yeah, because they ended up scoring a run in
the ninth one. Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean.
Er was on first and I'm like he's fixing the
steel and going back to that. I remember that home
run like usually I could turn the page really fast
and like okay, on to the next thing, like I
was legit. Could not get that out of my head
catching for the rest of that inning, like it was
just like.
The rest of my life.
Bro, Damn.
I mean, I know we won, but I still see
Rajer was a special assistant for MLB, and I saw
him a lot, especially when I was at the Yankees
bro Every time I saw him, I got like, you
know what I mean? We won, Like, so we win again,
let's go back. KB gets the round, ber I got,
I catch the last out. Where are you? What are
you thinking? This is now your third World Series championship,
one hundred and eight year curse.
I was not well in the dugout. Was not well.
You hate side note, you hate sitting the bench.
He like he can't handle the nerves, all right, you'd
go to your routine during the game.
It's one of the greatest left handed pictures of all time.
Just does not on an actual serious note, dealing with
his own demons of like nerves routine to get him
in the one of the greatest left handed pitchers of
all time Hall of Fame pitcher, and everyone goes through that, you.
Know, like, I didn't like so.
I played in two incredibly historic stadiums, Okay for the
majority of my career, even when Rick redid their dugouts,
two of the worst places to sit in the dugout
and watch the fucking the game.
You're we're in Cleveland, John, Well.
I'm just saying, well, hold on, normally, I'm talking about normally.
Wrigley is four and a half miles from home plate. Okay,
Fenway is twenty seven feet from home plate, and you
can't see anything.
All right. Yah.
I know it looked as if I wasn't a great teammate,
but I liked being able to see what was actually happening,
because you know how it is. You sit on the bench,
guy gets wrung up on a call. The guy goes, oh,
that's not a strike. Now, everybody in the dugouts like that.
Get your shit together, right. Well, when you're sitting in
downstairs and you watch the TV like, no, that's a good pitch.
So you were downstairs when we wanted them.
No, hold on, I was just saying, I gotta know, John,
this is why I was not well. I was up there.
We bring in Carl Edwards Junior to finish the game. Okay,
I'm going back. The only way to call my nerves
is I'm going to boresy, and I'm looking at the
scouting report with boresy like, all right, I know this
dude only throws cut or curveball. What do we got
And he'd be like, all right, we've got X, Y
and Z.
Mike Borzello was our like our scouting report coordinator, but
such good game call.
So so that, yeah, that's I should have said that first.
But so anyway, I'm going to him to where I'm
like trying to call the game, trying to take my
mind off of what's going on, and I'm literally pacing
from him to the end of Doug, him to the
end of Dougah. So Carl gets two quick outs and
I'm like, let's go, we got to get one more
infield pop up. Let's just make it simple. Okay, I
think he walks. Somebody walks. Now we bringing Mike Montgomery.
No offense to Mike Montgomery. Okay, but I look at
Borsy and I go, what are we doing.
I'm like, we got no fend.
Like I said, no fense.
We're in the tree trope, roundant and closed for us
for three quarters of the year until we got Chappie, we.
Got Woody, we got other area and lack here down there.
Yeah, Arieta, like we got these people once again, Mike,
no offense, But well.
I love you.
We've got, We've got.
He was one of their bench players.
Michael Martinez. Ye.
First the Battle World series.
World series, mind you.
Because they made a switch when he brought on the left.
Remind me to go back to that hold on.
Who was it, Coca Coca Chris.
That's right, he took Coco out. We did something I
can't remember what we did. We made a pitching change.
They brought Coco in for that guy. Coco only was
hitting left handed, and then we brought in Mike Martinez,
so they took Coco out. And so anyway, I literally
take one step, I come off the rail. I take
one step to boards. eCos, don't worry, we have spin.
And I'm like that sounds. I go, oh, Montgomery is
a badass.
Curveball. We're good.
Let's go first pitch curveball, roll over to KB. I
did everything I could to hurdle that thing. I went
to jump and I was like nope, and put my
foot down and then jumped. And then as I did
that and landed, Jason Hammill face plants right next to me,
and I'm like, I am so glad I put my
foot on the rail because that would have been me.
Oh bro, that's celebration. The celebration that night was special.
We party, we pop champagne, we fly back to Wrigley,
we get we're all blitzed, right, And I remember getting
off the bus at Wrigley. Well, I remember on the
field giving you this big hung bro, like it felt
so good, Like you win the World Series and first
off your gas run a two year run for me
at least, like I just learned how to win fifteen.
All my energy now is winning the World Series this year.
It's like a lot make or break so game sen
of the World Shiti. I actually remember talking to this
at second base at some point during the same seven
I'm like, bro, thank god, the season's over tomorrow. Like
win or lose, right, We're still at the heat of
the battle, but like to be able to just turn
off for a second and talk to him. Giving you
guys a hug, right, is the best feeling in the world.
We party with our families the plane ride, have great
pictures of my parents and Emily, my girlfriend then soon
to be fiance, and my wife baby Mama love her.
But just the celebration of the families. And then we
get home to Wrigley and I have the trophy. So
I walk off the bus with the trophy and like
there's fans outside of Wrigley and it's great. And I
look at VJ Air traveling secretary. I'm like, hey, like,
what do I do with this now? I don't know?
So I just took it home. I took the trophy home. Well, bro,
what's so mad? I not only going to make it
so mad. I get home at like six thirty. We
lay down for like, I don't know, an hour and
a half, like that's the only sea behalf for like
four days. Get text phone, I'm up and Vj's like, hey,
John's pissed off. He took the trophy home. And I'm like,
how the fuck? First off, how the fuck does John
know I have the trophy? It's thirty in the morning,
and I'm like, I don't really care, Like the trophies
in my bed overlooking the Chicago River and Lake Michigan. Right,
So I'm like, fuck, John's mad at me. Right, I'm like,
all right, So I get up, which was a great
reason to get up.
It was love mad. It was yeah, no, I know,
it wasn't bring.
The trophy back to Wrigley. And then I think it
was like nine thirty or ten am. Emily and I
got to the bar Bottle blonde O. Our guy Eric
Farron opened up. I texted him, hey, you opened up.
He's big Cubs fan. And we sat at the bar
from like ten am to like two am, and then
from two am we went to underground and just went
till like the next morning, and like throughout the day
everyone started coming and partying. But for me, it was
like it was just I was in heaven.
Bro.
It was like my dream came true, right and I'm
with all my friends and family. But where what were
you doing after? What were you doing that you texted
at eight thirty in the morning saying you're mad at
me for taking a trophy?
And I don't know if I went to sleep at
that particular time.
Air was pregnant. It was now sy Sy Elizabeth soon
to be nine, soon to be nine, which is crazy,
So I.
Don't, I don't.
There's a little bit of a blur there one sleep
deprivation to some beverages were in involved there. I I
just remember, I don't know how I even came to
about it. I was like where somebody might have said
something to me, and I was like, where's the trophy?
BJ?
And he goes Riz took it home and I got mad.
Fucking right, I took it home. Bro, I was there
with the one hundred lost team.
Well that's not my him, it really is all. It's
not my fault. I had you got to pick better.
Timy agreed, agreed, whatever, John.
Anyway, let's get let's get to the parade.
What what happened?
Rossie almost died? We're on the We're on the bus
so well, Rossi lack and Woody almost died.
I'm on the second last bus with KB and the
country cowboys.
Get right here, didn't you?
I had my nose almost.
We're pulling out a Wrigley and we're getting like these
look granted. Meanwhile, this is the first time the Cubs
have ever done a parade, right, Like, no one knows
what the last parade was like. So we have we
have the buses, the double decker buses, and we have
like our guides on.
There not getting rupty. But do you remember when we
got to the clubhouse and I had that whiskey. I
never told you this. I had somebody date that whiskey.
It was from nineteen oh eight.
No shit, really. I had a whiskey too from nineteen
o eight that I took a shower of my dad
after we won.
So that remember that and my locker I had the
old bottle that had the messed up thing. It was
from nineteen oh eight and you'r me, you your dad
my Oh yeah yes, And we all took like the
cork was like dissolved in it, and we're like, well,
we're either gonna that.
That moment at Wrigley where we were all there, yeah, yeah,
that was cool.
Everybody's family.
I have a I had a guitar signed by all
the boys with the World Series patch.
That's what I've got. He gave that to me. He
gave me. We had my favorite thing I've got.
Everyone was there and it was just so special. And
we get on the buses and we have like our
like almost tour guide on the bus basically giving us
like a tutorial, like, hey, when we get out of Wrigley,
the power lines are really low, so there's gonna be
a few times we have to dock on.
We didn't get that message.
We had camera cruit on ours, okay, and these these
wires that pulled a sheet so we could walk from
the parking lot to the to the States. So there
was these these steel wires that held the curtain up. Well,
everybody had forgotten. They didn't tell us this, but everybody
for gotten.
Everybody's excited, Yeah, how are we doing it?
Comes we go to that and the camera guy was
facing us, having a camera shooting us on the back
of the bus.
There's footage of this, and I've never seen it.
I hadn't seen it.
I han't seen it, but I know the camera guy
got hit first. His camera caught and the thing pulled
really taut right as we're driving, and so his camera
goes boom and falls and then whips the line right
across Lackey's hat.
Sunglasses went off. He got hit across the face. I
got hit right in the nose, nose bleeding, Thank god,
if it would hit me. Here we go off the
back back dead. Probably I probably got a statue.
And I don't know what happened, but I kind of
went like this, like I don't know why you escaped.
Had I had a damn gouge in the top of
my head right here for like.
Six I remember seeing you guys bleeding because I was
in the bus and front of you.
Yeah, that was I had my wife at the time
breaking out tampons and stick up my nose.
It stopped bleeding. I could wave to the fans.
I was five million people.
Five million people stage was crazy.
I'm sure the Boston parades were insane, the duck boats,
the passion, but it wasn't It wasn't bro that. Our
parade was like it went forever and the fans and
then we get on stage, what like, what's your what
do you take away from all that?
So I say this when we were on stage and
they were like calling people up there to like say something.
When you're standing there and you're with your boys and
you're like kind of away from you. You know you're there,
but you're removed, you know what I'm saying, Like you're
not having a microphone in front of you and having
to talk.
You're like, damn, that's a lot of people. You're kind
of like, that's a lot of people.
There's people in fucking trees.
That's all I remember was heads and then the tree top.
But deep remember crossing the Chicago River that it was blue.
They died of the river blue.
So Big Gem's like, hey, John, you're next I'm like, yeah,
cool man, I've got enough liquid courage.
We're good. I don't like talking in front of people.
And five million people, five million people have a million
and he calls me like somebody talks.
I think it was you. I think it went after you.
And he's like, you're up, let's go, well, stumble up there,
get up to the podium and you look up and
I was like, uh, I don't know what to say.
There's a lot there's a lot of damn people out here.
From five feet right, you're staying with your boys like
you're good, you no problem. You're like, damn, that's a
lot of people. You get up and you're like, holy fuck,
what is this? And then all I said was how
about this shit? That's what came out of my mouth.
That was that was my how about this ship? And
of course as soon as I say it, I look
right there and there's like a nine year old kid
just looking at me like.
That, I'm.
Once again the asshole.
Sorry, we want when you win, you can do anything.
Yeah, you should have said.
I mean you used to always tell me though, winning
solves everything. It's all when you win. And I tell
us all young players that I play with, especially now
in the social media air days, like winning solves all
your problems and you said that where it's like you
can come up and have this whole social media following
and do all this stuff. But when you win, that's
how you make the real money, like, because when you win,
you can do whatever you want.
That was my saying being a backup catcher. It's like
everybody wants a winner. Everybody wants a winner. You're on
a winning team, you're just gonna you know, solves everything.
And the guys so they had to keep playing, you know,
Like you're looking at sures Er Verlander right now, like
they're forty two, forty whatever, forty one forty two still pitching.
Well, they're pitching because they've won right right right. And
I'm not saying they don't have good stuff and they
shouldn't be pitching. They still have good stuff.
But teams want those jokers around because they've won right
right right right. Like you, if you win, people want you.
And there's a lot of knowledge in winning and experience
and having that no doubt.
I want to know because we're going down that road
looking back at everything. Right, you're retired, you've been home
raising kids, enjoying your life, Like looking back ten years ago, Now,
what would you tell John Lester than that, you know,
now enjoy it more.
Yeah, you fucking enjoyed it though.
Man, I did enjoy it, but I didn't. I didn't
relish in it.
You know.
Like I had this conversation with ROSSI one day, and
I'm kind of envious of like the relationships that he has,
which obviously little different personalities.
Okay, like lately more vivacious.
Like Dancing with the Stars. Yeah, yeah, you know, Dancing
with the Stars lives in the middle of nowhere.
Yeah, I mean, but my thing is is like and
I'll never forget this. So it's Game one of the
twenty thirteen World Series. Okay, Fenway Park, Me and you
were getting ready to go out, and their weight room
is upstairs, and where the lounge cherry to hang out
was upstairs. Well, I walk through, and I come up
the stairs and I hear music playing. It sounds like
radios is playing in the or the you know, speakers
playing in the weight room. And I get up there
and fucking Kenny Chesney has like ten dudes around him
just jamming big Green tractor, And I look at those guys,
and I'm like, man, that sure looks fun. I had
to go hop my ass on the bike and get
ready for game one.
Right.
Point of what I'm trying to make is I'm not
saying that's the time to relish in it, but the
times that Dabbo comes into the clubhouse, or Brett Eldris
comes in the clubhouse or eighty Vet or Bill Murray
or whateva, taking ten minutes and going over there and
talking to him, stopping what I'm doing and going and
talking to him. But also too, I know in the
back of my head, if I stop what I'm doing,
I'm not going to go back and finish it.
Yeah, you know so, but that's what made you great too.
So it's like I definitely, I definitely.
Get that, but I do.
Wish I would have put just to tick more effort
into some relationships in my when I was playing.
That's what's all about, right, We're talking about all these
stories we're going to tell throughout this series. Is like
it takes a group of special men to come together
and you create it. We're brothers for life, right, and
so those are racist ships are special and I think
they grow.
But when you're in the middle of it. You're just
in the middle of it. You're doing you bro, You're
doing You're You're you.
You were brought in at a high price tag to
establish what winning is and this is how we go
about our ship. And THEO recognized that because he had
been around you, and you had been around great players,
and that's the great thing about being a veteran and
passing that stuff down. So the reason why you get
the ball in game seven and we are all i mean,
going game one of each freaking series. It's like, this
is the writer, die dude, that's putting us on our back.
This is a motherfucker that here we come right and
after him, we got another good one, you know, and
we got another good one.
John, you single handedly, I said at the beginning, you're
the best freeing and signing in Cups history. You brought
winning single handedly to an organization, from your leadership on
how you went about your business, from how you treated
everyone else, from how you were like a giant teddy
bear at times but also a prick as well.
So generous every team dinner, like all.
My cowboy boots are from John. On John's dime, I
have two pairs of these have a Rolex two hundred,
und win rolelegs, private jet hours, you flew me an
Emily home on your dime, blew Grandma passed away. Like
all of these things just created so much love and
within and brow through one sixty.
Two also to man like.
You're my boys, Like you know what I'm saying, Like
E like yeah, but like everybody's my Like if you're
on my team and we're doing it like we're we're
we're supposed to be in this together. I spend more
time with you than my family, right, So I didn't
care if it were in the tree, no offense. I
didn't care if it was your grandmother or if it
was the twenty sixth man on the roster's grandmother.
If you need to get home, I've.
Been blessed with this perk, right, Yeah, I put in
the work and I got it and whatever. But at
the end of the day, that's not like you should
go home and if you got to go home at
midnight and get on you go. Like That's the way
I look at things. And I didn't do it because
I wanted the fucking story on ESPN. Never because I
loved every I loved you guys. I showed my love
in different ways. Wasn't the nicest person sometimes, but I
cared about what I did, and I cared about you guys,
and I cared about fucking winning, dude, Like you play
fucking sports to win. He said, that's right, bro, played
to just go participate.
In an air of In an air of social media,
all the things you and Pharah and your family have
done are It's like Instagram versus reality.
Right.
You have people who put stuff on Instagram and think
they're living this lavish life. You lived it behind the scenes,
and you have done the coolest things that nobody's ever
heard of doing and literally changed my life on that
because when I was younger, it was like, you know,
you want to flaunt a little bit, like I'm in
the big leagues, I'm young, I'm single. It different, and
then I see you and fifteen come over and it
was like from that day on, like I rarely ever
post anything I'm really doing because of how you went
about it and like how you shape my life as
a twenty five year old. Now I'm thirty six, you
know what I mean. So it's like I don't think
you really understand how much, John, I don't think you
understand how what you mean to me? All right? I
got one one question too, because he asked about the
ten years. If you can go back to that season,
playoffs or regular season, what's one moment you go back
to that stands out, that's like, you'll never forget.
The whole season, the whole.
Season, spring training, regular season, postseason, whatever.
I think the feeling I had walking out of the
dugout with Rossy in Game five of the World Series, damn,
and like stepping on that top step. It was the
old dugout. I always went on the left side and
stepping out. I always tried to make it a point
when I stepped out to look around. And I got
out and I started in left field, and I looked.
I didn't go behind me, but I looked all the
way as I'm walking, I looked as far as I
could look this way, and I was like, there is
not an empty fucking seat in this place.
Wow, like that feeling, that's a badass feeling.
Your fucking song came on. I was so emotional.
I was singing, Jason Alden, you no, We're here at
the top of my fucking lugs.
For hide my mask just so you could a go wreck.
Because I was just like my heart was on another
level and you're out there just like here we freaking go.
So I think I was on like pitch three and
it's like a point where like the drums come in
or whatever, and you know, I had my little routine
that I did.
I looked down or I do this look down. I
never put the ball on my glove and then I'd
lift my leg.
Tap the ball or tapped the glove and then look
home and ROSSI is back there before I throw the ball.
And he'said, I had to get out on the Uh.
We've got a couple that.
Was like that. We were talking about this last night.
That moment, like I'll that moment is like ingrained in
my head. And then the other moment was we were
talking about last night the thirteen World Series for Game
one and national anthem plays and the flyover was late
and you know, I'm getting ready to throw a pitch
and all of a sudden, you just hear you know,
it's it's pitch black.
You can before the game, yeah, Mary J. Blige whales, Yeah,
And then this flyover while all you see.
Is the after burners as they passed Fenway and just
do this and it's loud and you just like you
could feel them. And I was getting ready to throw
a pitch and I put my foot back down and
I love planes. I love flyovers, and so I'm like
looking for him, just trying to see what kind of
planes they were or whatever, and I, you know, kind
of dig back in and I looked down and Rossie
and ROSSI squatted down. He's like yeah, but like at
the same time, it's like, you know, like you're having fun.
You're having fun. It's a grind, but it's it's the
best man like, when you're in that moment. I wouldn't
I wouldn't trade that, yeah for anything.
Cheers for ten years, ten years? How about that? Hey?
By the way, this is John's famous line. Hangovers or
ten hangovers are temporary legends last forever, and for us winning,
we last forever.
Fuck yeah, Johnny Man, that's a wrap.
I think that's all you guys are gonna.
How long are you talking? Seven hours