Brian McCann talks Big Dumper, Shift sucks, HOF catcher shade

00:00:03
Speaker 1: Well, you've got seven time All Star and viral eagle Man at the pro Brian mccannon with us right now, so on TV's across the country and on YouTube, all over all of our platforms. For one minute, we were like, let's just turn around and look at one shot.

00:00:23
Speaker 2: The only shot we honestly, the one shot we looked at all day.

00:00:26
Speaker 3: I heard you, I was, I was teeing off and heard you said, let's see what be back? That was on eighteen and I bladed it. I didn't hit the shot I was. I was looking to him and I thought I was long, and then I must have. I called it a groove, a groove low, and I got lucky there.

00:00:39
Speaker 1: Were you were you like, oh man, eight day is annoying, and now I gotta hit this. It's in my head clearly. Whatever it was, it worked exactly. Devil on your shoulder was a positive vibe.

00:00:48
Speaker 3: I was looking to put it on the green and two putt. These greens are no joke fast, yeah, and you got to no down grain into the grain. I don't know any of that. So like I'm putting blonde.

00:00:57
Speaker 4: Oh.

00:00:57
Speaker 5: At the country clubs, you guys play in Atlanta with frenchie hero.

00:01:00
Speaker 2: They don't have they don't have grain. They have a butler that comes out and makes the green all the time. Uh, poor me. Yeah, what was you?

00:01:09
Speaker 4: B Mac and Jeff Frankcore putting to their heart's delight. They love it. Jeff, can you come out and play? No, I'm gonna stay inside and play my xbox.

00:01:20
Speaker 3: I haven't played with Jeff and and in two month three months.

00:01:23
Speaker 5: Well, he's been at thirty eight the whole time in his problem beach house in Pensacola.

00:01:27
Speaker 3: He's got he's got four kids under twelve. He's he's running around.

00:01:31
Speaker 2: Wow.

00:01:32
Speaker 6: So how's life for you?

00:01:34
Speaker 2: It's great.

00:01:35
Speaker 6: What are you up to?

00:01:36
Speaker 3: Playing a lot of golf? YEP, I could tell yeah, coaching my kids. I got a son and a daughter. My daughter does cheer, so I'm going to practice and uh, baseball ended, and now my son's into basketball, so we flip flipped h between baseball and basketball. I coached the baseball team, so it's Uh, I'm enjoying retirement.

00:01:54
Speaker 5: You have to go to the cheerleading events because people that I know that have had daughters that have been cheerleaders. Yeah, so you go to the cheerlead event all day for three minutes.

00:02:02
Speaker 2: You just sit there.

00:02:03
Speaker 5: You sit there from eight am to eight pm and they do three minutes like one pm, and then you have to stay.

00:02:07
Speaker 6: Yep, what do you do to kill time?

00:02:10
Speaker 3: Sit in my car?

00:02:13
Speaker 6: You're like, what, what's what's the kill time for? Brian Mcan?

00:02:16
Speaker 1: Is it like just doom scrolling on the phone, listen to a podcast, rip music, Take a nap.

00:02:20
Speaker 3: I take take a nap. I take my sprinter van. So we went to five locations outside of our city, Like we went to Louisville, Kentucky, Biloxi, Orlando, and I get in the sprinter van and take a nap in between. But it's it's crazy. I mean, it's a it's a huge, huge business. I didn't know it existed.

00:02:37
Speaker 6: Yeah, uh are you watching ball? Oh?

00:02:40
Speaker 4: Yeah?

00:02:40
Speaker 6: Do you hear it from Braves fans? Like what's going on this year?

00:02:44
Speaker 3: They got hit with the injury bugger really and and and they've had some guys go down in big, big spots and they just haven't really been able to to to stay consistent or get consistent.

00:02:54
Speaker 6: I've got one for you.

00:02:55
Speaker 1: So I've been on some radio shows in Atlanta and one time I guess I've some fans off because I'm like Braves fans, you're jaded lately. The teams in the playoffs every year. You keep your players for the most part. Freddy's different story, but you've kept a lot of your players. You won a World Series in the last five years. Now, they most fans would take that.

00:03:14
Speaker 3: But they have a great core stuff to build off of. I mean they you know, Michael Harris has gotten really hot. That gives them an extra bat to lengthen it out. I think that's kind of what they've been missing, is a couple of bats to lengthen the lineup out where Uh, you know, you got to have production from the bottom of your order.

00:03:31
Speaker 2: You can't.

00:03:32
Speaker 3: You can't rely on the same two or three four guys every night.

00:03:35
Speaker 2: Snick coming back, you play, you play, and both. Yeah.

00:03:40
Speaker 3: He was my double a manager and he's the one that told me I was getting called up, and he he told me to come to his room. And when when I was getting called up, no shirt on, Harry Chess and He's like, get over here, hug, just some just some shorts on. So it was like that's a memory that I that I take. I'll take to the grave and you know, you get the biggest news of your life from one of the best guys I know.

00:04:04
Speaker 2: So he's my favorite.

00:04:06
Speaker 6: That's cool. Have you been watching cal Riley this year?

00:04:09
Speaker 3: It's incredible.

00:04:09
Speaker 2: What the fifty, bro, he's got fifteen.

00:04:11
Speaker 3: I can't even wrap my head around it.

00:04:13
Speaker 2: And he you know, you had a lot of homers, but fifties way more.

00:04:16
Speaker 3: I hit twenty two. He's I mean, this is like he had that in April or May like it was. It's crazy what he's doing. I went to the All Star homer in Derby and he is so in sync. His whole body is just working perfectly together and like he's not missing. I can't fathom it. You ever do you fathom it?

00:04:36
Speaker 2: No?

00:04:36
Speaker 5: I mean, I know, fifty homers plus homers as a catchers because most of the time, first of all, catchers don't get that many of beasts to get to fifty, you know, he has d h a little bit, but to hit fifty in whatever, one hundred, he's hitting a homer in like almost every other game.

00:04:50
Speaker 2: It's it's crazy.

00:04:51
Speaker 3: Especially I told someone like, I'm anxious to see August in September because that's no I know, that's the crazy. I mean, that's when August like fifteenth would come around, I'd be like, uhh, I don't feel the same, you know, and then you just grind down through September.

00:05:04
Speaker 5: Look at Will Smith in LA right the last three years, his second half numbers have just plummeted.

00:05:09
Speaker 2: It's hard. It's hard. It's hard to keep yourself up.

00:05:11
Speaker 3: Yeahs do didn't get that get enough credit for how tough it is to carry a staff.

00:05:16
Speaker 2: And I think crowds will agree with us too, because obviously he called.

00:05:19
Speaker 5: But when they do, like the ops plus and the ops against the whole league, it should just be a catcher, big staff. For me, I agree, because you can't explain to people how hard it is what a catcher does compared to you know, you look out there and in French he's out there working on his batting stance and you're a backtor chasing balls around.

00:05:36
Speaker 2: Try hoping that you know, you don't have to chase balls at the backstop the whole time. Hitting came second.

00:05:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you if you could, if if John Smoltz, if you couldn't, couldn't work with him, you're not catching Game one in the playoffs and that, so you had to make sure that was locked down and then whatever you got offensively was was a bonus.

00:05:51
Speaker 4: Yeah, but how much is that heat in Atlanta? Bug?

00:05:53
Speaker 6: You too?

00:05:53
Speaker 4: You talk about August fifteenth. I remember one series in August we played against you and d Ross. David Ross was there and he caught the day game and you caught the previous three games, and I played the night game and then day game because Choos was out, and both of you said the same thing. David Roscos he goes, oh man, he goes, I'm too old to play these day games. They gotta let that young guy McCann play. And the night before you go, man, I can't be playing all these games in a row. It's too hot down here. So how bad is that?

00:06:25
Speaker 3: It was a grind? It was a grind. But when Dave Ross was there, he was my favorite backup neo that I ever had. He taught me so much about the game and we hung out late night all the time and talked about the game and how to maneuver pitchers through games, and he's one of my favorites.

00:06:46
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00:07:11
Speaker 6: See how we do.

00:07:13
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00:07:28
Speaker 2: You should give it to me, I'll.

00:07:30
Speaker 1: Keep good answer, Fine, I will give it to you.

00:07:33
Speaker 6: Since the Blue Jays didn't getto Tani, you can get.

00:07:35
Speaker 1: This fifty to fifty card instead. Use the code foul foul to get yourself twenty percent off your first slab pack or card purchase. Yes, you get to keep that card if you want it. They send it to you foul at Arena club dot com slash foul. Hey. So a lot of times we'll bring on a former player and be like, actually, we just did that recently with someone like, Oh, do you like the way this rule is now or this part of the game is now?

00:07:58
Speaker 6: Can't shift anymore? I go, do you watch baseball now?

00:08:02
Speaker 2: Like?

00:08:03
Speaker 6: Are you kidding me?

00:08:04
Speaker 3: I mean my average went from two eighty five to two forty two thirty five quick And then it was hard to change your what you've done your whole life and the cutter. I felt like I had to cover that first and I couldn't go the other way with it. And if I had that approach, I was going to hit twelve to fifteen home runs. Chipper pulled me in his room one night and goes, hey, look what type of hitter do you want to be? You want to try to hit three hundred with fifteen or you want to try to do to eighty with like twenty five. And I was like, I'll try to eighty with twenty five. I couldn't. I couldn't leave to the opposite field left center. My best ball would go to the track. So I had to figure out and I was like, I could take that same pitch and pull that for a homer.

00:08:42
Speaker 2: So I sacrificed average for power.

00:08:45
Speaker 6: They would just create this vacuum.

00:08:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, when that first started, I was not pretty for the fan experience.

00:08:50
Speaker 3: And then in New York it's so short and right field it looks like there's four out infielders over there, so there was no there was not many hits over there.

00:08:58
Speaker 6: For me, it was crazy.

00:09:01
Speaker 4: So would you So do you think Royce Lewis just said the other day, he was like, ah, I don't want to I don't want to change mid season because I'm giving up thirty games of arbitration numbers. And it was kind of, you know, kind of a moment where he said the truth, but it was hard to hear a player say that. Would you have had to have change? Would you have been able to change if the shift was implemented early in your career, say year two before you had a contract.

00:09:28
Speaker 6: Yeah.

00:09:28
Speaker 3: When I first came up, my first two three years, I was left center, left center, left center, and my average was was better. And then as I as I tried to, you know, leave the Dopps away, it wasn't happening. And I would have just stayed to left center, and it probably would I probably would have been a better player if I would have done that.

00:09:47
Speaker 2: I got I got to pool happy.

00:09:50
Speaker 3: And if I could go back, I tell people, if I could go back, I would I would do it. Freddie Freeman does, I would have hit every ball in VP and in the cage to left center field and then try to pull in the game. But it would have kept my front shoulder tucked in a little better. But when I was in New York, I was literally I tried to hit a home run on the upper deck every every.

00:10:09
Speaker 1: Bud in May Right, you get all right, Hey, the Braves are split and playing time with their catchers pretty evenly. Do you think that's the future in the sport? Related to what you're saying, a lot of guys can't hang through the whole season, and then the playoff numbers recently post catchers are brutal.

00:10:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd like to see them go back to our days of one hundred and thirty games. If you're an elite guy, when you look around the league, I mean, it's the position is you know, it's in a good spot at the top, and it's it's a tough one, you know. And I think that the framing has become such a big, a big part of the game, and you know, so split in time, Like I'd like to see guys catch catch more. If you're a frontline guy.

00:10:58
Speaker 6: Can most of them handle it? Though?

00:11:00
Speaker 2: I don't know.

00:11:02
Speaker 1: Anyone, So, yeah, you guys did it, but a JD. I mean you're around the clubhouse every week. You think most guys can handle it and want to.

00:11:09
Speaker 5: And most guys haven't been brought up to do it, right the cross shacking it said, they haven't been brought.

00:11:13
Speaker 2: Up to do it.

00:11:14
Speaker 3: I think one hundred and twenty twenty games of years is a good number for for a frontline guy.

00:11:20
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's just hard. Now it's one hundred. Now that you get you guys can say, oh it's a hundred, you're gonna get tired.

00:11:24
Speaker 3: But I just and if you can really hit now that now that we didn't have a DH, so like I was always coming to pinch it on the eighth. But if they had a if they had a if we had the d H, I would have probably I would probably played one hundred and sixty two games, I think, I mean I would have caught it.

00:11:37
Speaker 2: I was, eh, how bad was it?

00:11:39
Speaker 5: When was there anything worse than you know? You you caught a lot, I caught a lot. You'd be losing and in the manager be like, b Mac, I need you to come in an eight, try to get it, and then you got to catch the night.

00:11:52
Speaker 2: You're just like, oh whatever.

00:11:53
Speaker 6: My day off.

00:11:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then it's a mental like when you go in and you go you know, you don't get the knock.

00:11:58
Speaker 2: You're like, all right, They're like, but you got to get.

00:12:01
Speaker 3: Your your mind. It's more for your mind. Yeah, all days are more for like us just sitting back. But that was David Ross.

00:12:07
Speaker 2: He's like that.

00:12:08
Speaker 3: He said it all the time. My goal is to make sure you get a full off day. And he was the best. He was the best.

00:12:14
Speaker 4: I'm impressed that your beard still looks exactly the same and you haven't put on a pound since you've been done playing. That's all I have to say. And I've just been watching. I've just been looking at the screen. Some people age. You haven't aged a bit. I thought you looked like you were forty years old when you were twenty six.

00:12:32
Speaker 6: Yeah.

00:12:33
Speaker 3: And you know what the crazy part if you go back and look when I was in New York when I had to shave, I looked like I was fifteen. So I got an ace in the hole when I get older, when this comes off. I look like I'm twenty five, twenty three. Yeah, you like we get older, But I got a little gray, I got some gray.

00:12:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all great.

00:12:47
Speaker 1: I'm holder for a while and then you blitz everyone with the clean shave, like, hey, I just went backwards ten fifteen years you got.

00:12:53
Speaker 3: I got ace in the hole for m Yeah, down the road.

00:12:54
Speaker 2: All right, I got two more questions for you. One Hall of Fame.

00:12:58
Speaker 5: You were on the ballot last year, right, yeah, how many votes did you get?

00:13:02
Speaker 2: I know he wasn't five us. Yeah, it wasn't enough to I don't understand.

00:13:06
Speaker 5: For a catcher and you played in the same air, close to the same area, you're a little bit behind me.

00:13:09
Speaker 2: But seven All.

00:13:11
Speaker 5: Stars, six Silver Sluggers, World Series champion. And this is kind of a personal thing too. Why are catchers so undervalued? Like you look at Jorge Basadi, you look at you, you look at some of the great catchers that we played against in or around. Yeah, and they get two percent pen votes, twelve votes? Why why is that a thing? Why don't they they to me they need to compare catchers to catchers in every era, right, yes, because they'd say, oh, well, dada da, he didn't do this and his ops plus was this.

00:13:39
Speaker 2: But also you only you played less games.

00:13:41
Speaker 5: You were getting the crap beat out of you behind the play all these things that they look at your wars down, your wars down because you don't play as many games.

00:13:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, for me, I think what we did thirty years down the road is going to look way better than it does now because of what you just said.

00:13:57
Speaker 2: There's not a lot of guys that are playing the games.

00:14:00
Speaker 3: It up the numbers that were put that we put, you know that we were able to put up. So I think down the road, when guys look at the game, I think it'll change the way they look at it. But I think right now, uh, you know, you're just in that era of you know, there's not there's how many how many catchers are in the Hall of Fame.

00:14:17
Speaker 2: Not many. There's like what, I don't that third basement like yeah.

00:14:21
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's just it, it doesn't get the uh, I don't know.

00:14:25
Speaker 6: I'm with you.

00:14:26
Speaker 3: Every they should all it should all be just compared to us, to the catching position, not not first base.

00:14:32
Speaker 1: And twenty twenty twenty game has been around a long time, twenty it's the second fewest third base third base.

00:14:43
Speaker 6: It's crazy crazy. What was your other one? Oh?

00:14:45
Speaker 2: Mine's on golf? Can I ask a golf question?

00:14:48
Speaker 6: Yeah?

00:14:48
Speaker 5: Okay, First of all, they want to know easier to catch small Tutson Tanaka.

00:14:53
Speaker 2: Who was the easiest? See who was the easiest guy? The easiest? Yeah, not the toughest. We can name a million guys are tough.

00:14:59
Speaker 3: Out of those, as you just mentioned. I never caught man.

00:15:03
Speaker 2: He never came, never was he was.

00:15:08
Speaker 3: He didn't leave your glove. Yeah, he literally, Like the sinker ballers were tough. The lefties for me were the hardest. The cutters in and holding that I don't I did. I worked better to the right than the left. So like to hold that cutter, you know, anything coming this way, I did well, But anything going that way, like my hiffs didn't work. To block that slider down this way. Cec was hard for me to catch. But I just those sinker ballers when you don't get that bottom of the zone, you don't stick it, and you get that look and you're like, all right, dude, my bad, I'll get it. But you know, Honey would get that thing. He threw a one seamer that just you'd have to get under it and and.

00:15:45
Speaker 2: Really really fight. Hey here, I got a question for you.

00:15:48
Speaker 3: Do you think if you caught on a knee your whole career you would have played longer?

00:15:51
Speaker 2: I mean, I played nineteen. I don't know, I know, do you think? But I think I think it would have been different. I don't know. If people ask.

00:15:56
Speaker 3: Body would have heard him, I think I would have I could have played a couple more years.

00:15:59
Speaker 2: If I probably could have stole a couple more years at the end. Yeah, you know, but I don't know. I don't know. You never know. It's easy to say that.

00:16:05
Speaker 5: But also, dude, they're so exposed, Like the lower there's so much more body exposed. Like I always tried to like hide behind my shine guards too, right, I was always like, all right, let me seek it. So I'm trying to hide behind my chest protector, my shine guards, so the ball would hit something that was protected.

00:16:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, nowadays everything is out.

00:16:21
Speaker 3: My last year in Atlanta, I work with South Asano all spring training, so like to do the knee. And then I was calling a game in spring training and I'm like, I'm more worried about my setup than like, yeah, getting the reaction of the hitter, and you know, so I was just like, I can't do it.

00:16:34
Speaker 2: All right, can you win this thing golf? You make the eagle? No, I can't win it. How many points twenty eight? That's good.

00:16:41
Speaker 3: I'm looking to get top twenty five. That was my goal, top twenty finished with all these great golfers, like, I'll be very happy.

00:16:46
Speaker 2: With how much have you improved? Okay?

00:16:48
Speaker 5: Because yeah, we played together golf. What it's been almost it had been ten years, but it's been seven or eight years.

00:16:53
Speaker 2: And I played with you and it was yeah, it wasn't great. It wasn't great.

00:16:57
Speaker 5: Okay, Yeah, the big you played, the big high was Skippy your cat.

00:17:01
Speaker 2: You remember, Oh yeah?

00:17:02
Speaker 6: Yeah?

00:17:03
Speaker 2: And now now I look and I see you making eagles on eighteen.

00:17:07
Speaker 3: My driver's gotten better every You never hit driver, You always hit three one. I know. So I'm hitting my driver now, that's like my best club in my back. I don't hit it far, but I it's I love it. My kids go to school and I go, ready, is it true?

00:17:19
Speaker 5: Frenchy told me that you just go as soon as your kids leave. You have a simulator in your house. You just go downstairs and you just hit balls in the simulator all day long.

00:17:26
Speaker 3: No, I go to the court, but yeah, I'm on the simulator when i'm I go on the similar when when I'm struggling, Oh, like when I when I'm but I'm at the course a lot.

00:17:34
Speaker 6: Simulator at night, right is that more of a night bench?

00:17:36
Speaker 2: She said, he goes there any anytime he has two minutes. B Max down there whacking balls in the simulator.

00:17:42
Speaker 6: I am, oh, that's it's one minute. You can go down there and you.

00:17:45
Speaker 2: Can turn it on and let's go exactly.

00:17:47
Speaker 1: Well, be Max, thanks for joining us, Thanks for being part of the experience for us here calling one.

00:17:53
Speaker 2: I can't, we can't another shot.

00:17:57
Speaker 6: Did you get it on?

00:17:58
Speaker 3: Did you get it on the camera?

00:17:59
Speaker 2: I don't know if we have care. So there was a drone watch.

00:18:01
Speaker 1: There was a drone too. Yeah, there were cameras on you. It's almost like you were back in the big leagues, like ninth. They didn't clutch moment. Everyone's watching for one second and I worked out I had looked put it together like it's it.

00:18:12
Speaker 2: I was like, no, it rolled night. It was nice. It was nice. One hop little was perfect right right.

00:18:17
Speaker 1: It took some time yeah, you didn't think it was going in and then it dropped down.

00:18:20
Speaker 6: It was nice.

00:18:21
Speaker 2: I know it was gonna be closed, I just didn't know how closed.

00:18:23
Speaker 6: Yeah.

00:18:23
Speaker 2: Beautiful, beautiful, Thanks Fratzy, good seeing

00:18:26
Speaker 4: You, Good seeing you too, Kate,