Cubs NUDE batting practice, EXPERT hitting tips & WS Game 7 | John Mallee, Eric Hinske, Ross & Rizzo

Anthony Rizzo, David Ross, John Maylee, Rik Kinsky Take one.
Welcome back to another episode of the Lovable Reunion podcast.
Me and My Patna David Ross joined by the best
duo I've ever had, He's ever had, John Maylee and
Eric Kinski are hitting coaches in twenty sixteen.
Welcome to the show's boys. Thank you, so pumped to
have you.
Guys.
This is this is the crew. This is the guys
that are in the batting cage.
The hitting coach life is on another level.
They're basically like, you're psychologist every single.
Day, every single day. And two good ones. Yeah, two
good ones.
Twenty sixteen, we had a two hundred and fifty two
run differential, which means we outscored our opponents by two
hundred and fifty two runs.
Good.
That was pretty good.
Guys were the masterminds behind it. This was before really
all the analytics really dove into the game. You guys
kept an old school, but news school. You were the
best duo at a time where really it was like
the first time there was actually two hitting coaches on
the teams.
That's true.
Why how did you guys work so long? Well?
His eyes are really close together.
And really hard, so that matches up good.
I looked like a skinny thing and he looks like
a whale in the head of.
Hammerhead Hamhead.
We went, I'll tell you you were go ahead.
Well we met and right away we knew. We love baseball,
We loved being in the cage, and we like to
drink a little bit. So that's a match, you know,
made He mainly now five years sober. Congratulations, very well done.
Well and now I've got it. Like the stories already
popping in. We're in Milwaukee and he's like, meet me
at what the bar. Mail is going to go up
real quick, come down, we go, we buy, you know,
everybody gets two beers and we're at the table. Males
comes down. I'm like halfway through with my other one
with my first one. Males comes down and he's down too,
and back to the bar before he got to him.
Yeah, we used to.
We used to be able to put him back. The boys. Uh,
we had a good time.
We had a good time.
We want to talk shout, we want we won the
day in the Night twenty sixteen Cobies with Joe Madden.
Letting you do your thing and being your own person,
and we went hard during the day.
We played hard. We worked hard than anybody, and you
were the.
First one there cleaned up in the cage like something
about well, it's a thing we talked. We just talked
to Addie about like some of the things you've learned.
It's about posting every single day and bringing your a
game every single day throughout the season, like you were
the probably the best I've ever been around. And from
a coaching standpoint of guys that show up and are
ready to work every single single day, you guys, I
guys did a lot.
For I don't think people understand how much Hitt and
coaches mean to you as a player every day, day
in and day out, because it was actually with YouTube.
This was before the day of every day Hitters meeting,
So we would just do a meeting a series if that.
But I would walk into the cage every single day
and I'd say, what do we got, whether it was
a males or ski and they knew exactly what I needed, exactly.
What I want.
Okay, this is where you're going to do off the sky,
this is what he's going to try to do, and
I DIBt, let's do it. And that was my skind
of report and then I would I would do my
own homework. But the routines that you guys helped me
learn as a big leader was especially you Ski you
were before malely.
But do you know anybody's routine? Can you can you
give me Ris routine?
Right? If?
Oh? Hard?
Well, it was real quick.
It's just on the dynamics of Eric and I. You know,
Eric stood in the box and I'm a big believer
and you had to stand in the box a little
bit too. I respect guys that that came before me.
I played professional baseball, but I really didn't stand in
the box and having that experience and the anxiety and
all those things that I never could experience as a player,
even though I played professional baseball, never at the level
you guys play that the things that he brought to
there were so it's just offset. What his strengths were
were my deficiencies. And one of them would be experienced.
I've experienced coaching, but I didn't have experience standing in
the box.
And I would always get with Eric.
If someone was out of line or something because he
had he has a lot of He's very confidently, very
positive guy, very respectful, but he'll come at you and
tell you the truth, and guys respect that. I mean,
there was one time David and I got into it.
One time.
You know, you tell David, I said, there was one time.
I remember this.
I come in and when David is the nicest human
being you'll ever meet and helps everybody.
He's so into the game funniest ship.
But when he played the days he played, you better
look out because he was on one and there was
no playing games. He was going out to win and
he's going to find a way to beat you no
matter what it took. And everybody knew it, and you
had to really be careful on how you address him.
So I would go over to David and tell him, Okay,
So and so's coming in, and I would tell him
he's got this, he got this, and he.
Goes, well, what the fuck is he gonna get me out?
I said, oh ho, look on, David, all right, So
the next time I go, he's gonna throw you a
bunch of slider? Well, how heart does he throw? Tell
me what he's got And I said, Okay, David, he's
got this and that because he would get and remember
he's catching right. So when he comes off the catching,
He's got John Lester in his ear about something right,
and him and Johnny are going and he's yelling at.
Johnny, do this, do that?
Because he really took control of that situation. He had
to come in. He's leading off, there's a new pitcher
coming in. He's sweating rockets, taking his shit off. He's
yelling at you Lester on the other end of the
dog out throw fucking strikes or.
Something like that.
Right, And then he's got it and I'm going to
try to talk to him before he goes up there
to hit in a big game. And you can see
where that goes where. And then Eric, that was such
a balance of the approach stuff, and he knew the
mechanics and I could get into a little more of
Kinemannic sequencing because I had to come up through that,
being through Houston and that was the new wave of
the hitting coaches.
He had to be able to talk that language. Of course,
what Eric was one of his strengths, I.
Thought was here and I couldn't hear that language, like
he couldn't hear hear that language.
Daven couldn't hear that.
And Tony said, just tell me, do I land square
to the play or you want me to ope my
hips first?
You know, that's what they wanted to hear. So I
could break it down, so I could talk to the
upstairs people digest it.
But Eric's one of his biggest strengths of the experience
was the ability to break it down in its simplest form,
to give it to a player, Hey, get your foot
down earlier, Hey start sooner.
You're late. You're not getting in a hitting position on time.
And that's really at this level most of these guys,
that's all they need. Our job is when they get
out of whack. Our job is to bring him back.
We got to bring him back physically and mentally. There
was a time one more scenario because I thought about this.
I don't know if it's a mere Garrett or let's
just tell you a little bit about who Tony was.
I don't know if it's a mere Garrett. Were playing
at Pittsburgh or Cincinnati.
And he had a home run. He threw a left
handed pitcher.
He threw Tony at fastball up and in right at
his neck, and he hit it over the fence down
the line. I don't know who it was, but for
two years, I've been telling him to stop swinging at
that pitch.
Stop so I can hit that pitch. I can hit
that pitch. And now two.
Minutes later he goes up there and hits it over
the fence.
He says, see, I told you I could hit that pitch.
But he always for it. But he's one for.
He said, hey, man, you you're one for forty off
at this pitch. You can't hit that pitch. Stop swinging
at it. I mean, it was those of the conversation
and Hinsy goes, what are you dumb ass?
Don't swing at that pitch. You can't hit that you dummy,
You know what I mean?
And that was the balance And and I think just
watching Tony and the way David played and how much
they cared in the character and Tony playing hurt and
David just concussions all over the place and just went
to his ability to lock in the game and take
over the game. Is I think one of the reasons
that after we won and seven, they picked up and
walked you off.
So we really appreciate yeah, yeah, yeah, well I appreciate that.
I I go back because you talk about your dynamic,
like just you're talking about your career. Eric Hensky is
the only one that has three rings. I think you
got Yankees as a player, one red Sox to the player,
and Chicago Cubs as a.
Coad so and he's Philly and he's loved in Philly too.
Why because I struck out the last start of the
World Series in two.
Thousands another ring for that.
But talking about a guy that knows approach, like exactly
what you said, he would tell me, roster you just
you're starting late, b you got to get started early.
Like little things like that helped me.
And there's never been a more awkward situation than playing
with a guy in Atlanta and being teammates and then
you get over to Chicago and he's flipping to the training.
Dynamics, play law or maybe you just didn't play at
the right time. Because I've had like fifteen yeah, yeah,
I played with my coaches, so now.
Yeah, maybe in one of them Ski Eric was here,
what was your first year thirteen or fourteen?
Fourteen fourteen is a first base.
Coach and I was still young and still trying to
find my way. And if there's honestly one person in
my career that I could put a stamp on as
erkin Ski because in twenty fourteen, Yeah, and I would
talk every single day every bat and he would be like, hey,
why'd you swing at that? I know why you swung
at that. And then he would say, okay, well think
about this scenario. They're not pitching you there, run around second.
He would run through all these scenarios, and then it
had me started thinking more of a hitter of when
I went up to the plate and what they were
going to throw me. And literally by halfway through that season,
it was like, hey, I know why he swung at that.
Nice. Nice.
It was more of like encouragement and also teaching. And
then in fourteen everyone always asked me, oh, why do
you stand so close to the plate. It's because he's
told me he's a left handed hitter. He's been in
the box.
He's like, dude, I used to always swing at the
pitch from the left and off the plate one hundred
percent of the time might swing at that. So he's like,
just move up. You won't hit it, you won't swing anymore.
Hit you or your move Yeah, and for I made
him a career off of hitting lefties or getting hit
by lefties.
True and that's because Eric, we's.
Put him on the plate because first of all, the
shift remember we had a lot of shift talk. He
would get in his dome and start growing up the
second a little too much, and it's like because he
was chasing either right handed cutters in or lefties that
were sinking it down and in on him right. So
if you put your dick on the plate, make the
outside pitch middle, and then just stay gap to the
app you won't swing at anything that starts in. But
I learned that from standing in the box. And when
I got to Anthony, I was like, Oh, he's a big, hairy,
left handed hitter that I relate to very well, let's
see what he does with this. And I don't know,
he's going to get hit forty times a year or
whatever it was, thirty forty times a year.
This isn't about me, but number one, number one left
handed hit by pitch of all time.
I bet can I jump in on that?
So Anthony got hit with thirty.
Sometimes that one you're yeah, oh yeah.
And we're in the playoffs and I said, Anthony, please
get off.
The plate, because you always wanted me off the Get
off the plate, because if you get hurt.
We're going to have trouble winning the World Series, buddy.
And they'll gladly being you right before, They'll let you
hit a double or a homer off them.
I promise you. That's why you get hit all the time.
And he looked at me and he said, Mals, I'm
not afraid to get hit. He said, I survived cancer.
Remember you telling me that I survived cancer. I'm not afraid.
You won't make it.
I'm not afraid of a five violence ball.
I'd beat cancer.
And ever since then, I said, my man, wow, And
that was really something that stuck with me for a
long while.
That was really cool.
Yeah, I mean with Ski there in twenty fourteen. So
on our team plane it was religiously it was Me Hinsky,
Tim Bust and Peter Chase.
Nate would sit with us.
Our video guy Nate home, and we'd all be kind
of in the front of the plane and we would
just be enjoying the plane ride.
The longer plane rides were better.
So we're flying out to San Diego and we're all
hanging and Brandon Hide as our bench coach at the time.
So Brandon Hike comes back and says, hey, skipper, who's
Rick Rennery at the time, wants to give you a
day off, and we're facing Eric Stoltz. I hated playing
in San Diego at the time because I got traded.
I stunk there, and.
I'm like, fuck, really, like, I don't want to offen
Eric's We've been probably a little over, sir.
You're like, fuck no, you play every fucking day and
you face every you fucking play. That's how you that's
how you're in respect this you post, you post, you
puft and I go to Hyder, I go, no, I'm playing.
Go tell Rick, I'm playing. I'm not no days off.
That's because nobody wants to see the backup first basement
in there. Everybody comes to see Anthony Rizzo play.
And you instilled that in it.
Yes, you got to play every day to be good
in this game. You have to.
I go out that game and hit two hormones.
Hell yeah.
And I was like that just instilled that confidence in
myself of like, this is why you play.
I was at respect for guys. I played every day
because I couldn't hit lefties that well, and I'd be
in the lineup a lot against these nasty as lefties.
I'm over three and then here comes to left the
end of the bullpen, another slider, and the dirt fucked me.
I'm out again over four. And I always had that
respect for you, how you could handle left, the stay
behind the ball, hit it to both gaps, and I
was just like, damn, this guy's on another level and
we're gonna win the World Series.
You build these relationships with your coaches, and as a
position player, the hitting coaches are on their own level.
Like you have all the other coaches in the in
the locker room, in the clubhouse, but the hitting coaches
are literally two or three guys. Now sometimes teams are four,
but they're like on their own island.
Every day.
They're getting worn out by the front.
Office every day. Why the fuck is this guy not hitting?
What is going on with this guy?
Why not hitting? Why is ross he worn out? And
then they have to come from all.
The guys up top that are I think the game's
easy from the box, with all due respect.
And you guys need to filter that.
With all due respect, right, And the best hitting coaches
I are is YouTube and James Rowson, and James Rowse
was my first hitting coach, and I just had them
with the Yankees. You guys were so good at taking
all the noise that you're getting hit with on a
daily basis, because at some point someone's gonna be in
a slump. Right, No one's going, well, you're losing sleepover
a player every single day.
What do we say? No matter what, there's always got three,
three guys hurt.
And at the end of the night, we don't sleep
because we got to fig we got to get your back.
You're out of whack. We got to get your back.
Team you were And I came in fifteen because I
was with Houston.
I left Houston to come here to coach.
And THEO called me and I was going to bring
in a hitting guy and he says, hey, you have
a hitting guy in mine.
I said yeah, to help you.
And I said yeah, And he says, well, I got
a guy I want you to think about.
And I said, oh. He said Eric Hinsky.
I knew he as a player, and I like players
that coach especially, will be my assistance because again for
that same reason, Yeah, you know, I think it's huge
because I learned a ton from him too, right and
all along, even though I was the voice a lot
of times, and those things because he respected the chain
of command in a sense. But he always would tell
me things, always would talk to me, and always and
put things in my mind, and it made me just
keep moving. So when I interviewed them, I said, okay,
I said, I'll just talk to him.
I'll get back to it. And we went.
We met somewhere in Arizona, sat down, so had a drink,
and I talked for ten minutes. I didn't ask one
thing about the swing. Was it love at first sight?
It was?
It was we're at the Lion, I remember.
And then and I just talked and I said, are
you a good dude?
Man?
Are you good people? I need a good person with me.
I need somebody I can trust that's going to have
my back when chickles south, because they're not going to
give a fuck ups there sometimes. And we need to
stay at unified group. If we're wrong, we'll admit we're
wrong together, we're right, We're going to stick together. And
he said, of course, that's exactly who I am. And
he played and we just talked about everything else but
baseball after that, and I told a called THEO right after,
and so I'm in because I need the person. The
other stuff we can all learn.
He played.
If it's still in the box he hit, he knows sure,
you know, if he needs to say the kinematics weekends
and your torso's got to go, your pelvis gott to
go before your torso.
He can say that, which he's telling me. He's telling
me the stick him a lot. Like everything I know
about hitting co or biomechanics in general at all, I
learned all from this dude. How to run a meeting,
how to be a big league hitting coach, the entire
fucking thing. I swear I got the job in Anaheim.
I was like, where's mails.
I'm I want to be the head guy.
I need this dude, because I'm way better as the assistant.
When you're around you.
Whenever I was out of whack, I'm helping with what
the fuck's And I knew that this is the best
part about these two.
I knew when I was off.
I knew any time you came to me it was
from love and because you cared, because I knew you
were grinding. If I was off, the littlest bit, the
slightest bit you were grinding on video trying to figure
out what it was talking to Nate and talking with
the higher ups about Okay, this is what we need,
what's going on, this is what he's feeling. Let's try
to put this in words. And for me, it was like,
all right, I know you have my back. I know
I could talk to you about sequencing all that stuff.
And it's like at the end of the day when
you go up to the box, like that's what you want.
You want your hitting coaches up there with you, you
want your guys, your players up there with you.
And you guys were locked in on every at bat
like you're taking that at bat because Ice at the
bench a lot like heed to be struggling.
I'm like, Riz, imagine going up there with my swing.
I remember we were in the cage and I'm just like,
I'm down on myself and I'm just like, fuck, I
just can't I can't get my barrel in the zone
long enough or whatnot.
And Rossie looks at me. He goes, bro, he goes,
you're asking me for hitting advice. Hees, I'm a two
hundred hitter. Imagine I'm a backup catcher.
Imagine having my swing advice even just flex.
He hit the home run in game seven. He came
back and he said, nails he threw.
Then Daddy's looking.
But the fact that because I sat next to you
guys a lot and all the cheering in there, but
you're locked in. Well, you talked earlier about the one
O take, and I want to go back to that.
But like you knew it was like, Okay, here comes
a slider. They went ball under riz, here comes that
backput slider. He's going to take it now he's too
oh and locked in and like the league I think
caught on later on, but like that was one of
his routine that that started, like like have the a
bat you guys talking about like just that pitch, which
is kind of contradicting now because a lot of the
new school data is like swing early OPS is higher
on the first pitch.
But Ski you taught me passed down by Carlos Delgado.
I believe the one old auto take, and I'm not kidding.
For about ten years of my career, I would want
o auto take. And the thought behind it was, you
see another pitch. I'm hitting third or fourth usually in
the lineup, so if they throw me, say they throw
me a fastball first, they're probably not going to go
back to a fastball, so then you could see a
fastball in their spin. If they go spin early, was
going to see two pitches. Worst case, you're one to one.
Most of the time, I was too old because they
didn't want me to do damage, and I would look
like a genius, like they've they throw me a bastard
changeup or a bastard pitch and I'm taking it like
spitting on them, like yeah, like almost doing like a
little sodo on them.
Like well, it came from me because in my career,
I played for twelve years.
I can the year for Toronto, by the way, shout out.
I can't tell you how many times I do a
one o pitch. It was a chaine up down and
away from a rity and I thought it was a
regular sinker or something. I was going to go deep
on it, and I rolled it over and I was
motherfucking myself the first base, jogging down the first baseline
or sprinting because I was so mad and there was
steam coming on my ears and I'm not gonna do
this ever again. And the next that bad I did
it again. So I gave it to you. I'm like
one a wattle take bro I swear eighty five percent
of the time, you're going to be two oh. And
if you're not, you're one one who cares.
And I made it my identity. Like literally, anyone who
played against me or her knew me, knew I was
one on it new everyone knew. When I got traded
in New York and Hyder was the manager of the Orioles,
our first game were in Yankee Stadium. No oh, no, no,
I take one oh. And he's from the dugout nice
auto take.
That's what I did.
He's the manager and he he knows me better than anyone,
and I just give him a little smirk. And then
eventually it's like you start playing games. Because I knew
the Orioles had to know that I took all the time,
and I took probably ninety five percent.
More like when I was at the Diamondbacks. You you'd
be in a one ozer count. I'd be coaching the diamondbackside.
You'd stare at snare right out and down am I taking?
And those are the games within the game that no
one knows. But that's from the relationships we built. And honestly,
if I didn't do that, if I didn't make that
part of my identity. I don't think him as good
as a player because I bought in fully to the
one to zero auto take, and I swear most of
the time it worked out. I mean, I don't know
what the numbers say, but the confidence in the psyche
part used.
To tell me all the time.
Stop telling that heat.
Three years, bases loaded and he's taken.
I don't know if this coincidence, but three years I
was his assistant hitting coach. I believe it was a
three time all start.
I believe you're right, sorry about it, about it, bro,
This is what on?
Well, the thing is, you could hit with two strikes.
Now you were one of the top players in baseball.
That's a whole game because the ops falls off the
map with two strikes, right, and the ops grows as
a count crow, So O two is whatever? Five eighty
one two two two, three two. If you can fight
get to another pitch in that at bat and did
to a three to two count, you're on offense again.
So we didn't consider three two.
Did you just have an.
It's like, this is why I went to ski. What
do you what do you guys? How do you guys?
Know before a game that guys were locking, especially in sixteen,
Like what made that group to you guys so special
because you guys are watching a different lens than the players.
The fact that we started twenty one and six you
guys were ready to go. In April it was freezing.
I was like, these these are killing baseballs. We had
no problem scoring runs. I mean from jump it was
we knew we were special.
The lineup was so deep that you knew you didn't
have to be the guy he.
Was hitting seven.
Yeah, so when you when you you know, when you're
on a team and you've got three or four horses,
and then you're sprinkling the young guys that are learning
and all of that. That group got to carry it
where We were good one through nine, you know what
I mean. And our catchers could hit He hit Meggie
hit Wilson. Right, you were an animal lefties.
KB because Jack's got it all started.
George, George Solaire, I mean, just think about it. So
you knew we were going to hurt you somewhere, and
we did two things. We pulled the ball in the
air so we had homers, and we walked. So that
was I was hired for coach and they then they
I don't want to get into the rest of that,
but yes, that's how. That was the recipe, and we
had the people to do that and swarps. So you
had guys that you didn't want. You walked, you didn't chase,
and then you couldn't strike out. You had to seventy
with two strikes.
That's crazy.
The league average was one eighty two at that time
or one seventy six.
Crazy.
You had to seventy with some juice.
It's not about me though. It's okay dropping, but I'm sad.
It's okay to to work and get behind in the
count because you know you're good, where other guys aren't
in that position, they get the two strikes with for
they got to go early. It is what it is,
especially the young guys until they learned themselves and learn
to tax their strengths in the zone.
You know what I mean?
And I want to get off, like I hate talking
about riz, so let's get off his topic.
It's not about you.
We do this every segment and every shows. Get on
Frizz who cares already you're retired, Nobody cares. It's not
about me. Joe talked about before sixteen about of the
b hack and all that. I want to know from
a coaching standpoint, what were Joe's strengths.
Like, how was he how did he manage?
No, No, Michael, let.
Us do everyone, everybody what's made it work?
You think about it and we can get into the
whole dynamics of the environment. But the environment, including Tim
Bus who's here today, absolutely and.
People don't realize what that what that takes. And we
really got into this.
This would be a twenty five hour show just to
go through forget what happened in the game, the prep
that went into the or the environment that was created
there they're to me.
There's the bus rides, the plays, so.
Much stress in between those lines. If we create stress
as a staff on this side of the lines, you
got a big problem Joe with Joe with the petting zoos.
And if you think you look hot, wear it all
of those things instead of we used to have to
wear suits and then.
Are you gonna get your suit Tailey cleaned?
And because we want to be better everybody because we
wear suits. No, you wear what makes you feel hot
and what you're comfortable with. Remember, on that note, you
had to get on the plane and.
Painting.
If you wear flip flops, you have to have your
toenails painted.
And I remember this story.
And then David said, so his daughter was painting his
toenails and your son said, Daddy, can I paint your tone?
Don't you ever ask me? I'm sorry to bring that
up too soon, but.
The environment on the other side had to be relaxed
and had everybody was their own dudes. But we were
a close screwed right and then but when we got
in between those lines, it was on it.
There were some dudes as a coach, never knew how
to shut up. I was always talking, right, and he's like,
step back, listen to that guy for a while. And
then the last thing he says, asking back that same
sentence in a question and let him keep talking. And
that talks so much. Dude taught me so much. The
guy's like, man, forever, you taught me how to listen.
Helped me all aspects of life for sure.
Well, you've guys had I mean, you've guys moved on
obviously had great hit. I mean, if you guys both
coached Otani.
Yeah, can I get into that when him and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
so he went with the Angels.
Well KB was k kbut Trout Stanton two, Carlo Stanton
and Mike was Mike Andi and Carlo.
Yeah, if you go down the tree, it's pretty cool. Well,
I'm almost proud of I think seven guys that were
hitting coaches for me became had coaches in the Big League.
Yeah, that's cool.
That came through my sister.
So I'm very no thank you, but I'm very proud
of that because they helped me get so much better
and I learned so much from them. And I always
tried to pick a guy that has a different experience
or things so I can.
Continue to grow.
And but by far O Tani so Otani, when he
first came over, he couldn't eit a heater right, the
left handed hitter had a huge lay kick, and Ski was,
you know, we're talking about centripetal force and ship and
I didn't have them yet.
And then Ski's like.
Just get your foot down, dude. If you get your
foot down, you hit the ball hard. Get your foot down,
and that's when he got rid of the lake kick
and he went to the early stride that came from Eric.
I remember that.
But then he.
Was terribly hit like one hundred, had a huge leg kick.
He couldn't get to anything. And I just told him, like, hey,
I referenced like Chris Bryant and Freddie Freddy Freeman six
five hitters that have leveraged and they don't need to
generate with a huge leg kick, right. So I'm like,
you have to be in the ground to be able to,
you know, make a decision on time to hit the baseball, right.
Is that what we're doing. We're trying to get on
time in the ground to make a good hitting chucks right,
to make a swing decision. So he's like, okay, let
me try it in batting practice. Was this between series
the Dodgers are playing the Angels and doesn't batting practice
he hits home wrapper homer and VP's like all right,
I'm in And that was it. And now he's do you.
Get any seven hundred mimbes getting that?
I should I should get just a show.
Come on, bro, come on, showy, showy, come on. That's like, well,
you guys resume like that is just so epic. And
I I bring that up because I'm just like, what
stands out You guys have had great hitters Like what
I wasn't a great hitter and I grinded, you know,
the way we talked about. But you guys have seen
a lot of good hitters. What stands out and the
good hitters that you've seen, like championship caliber at bats
and some of the best that you've been arounds or
any any anything that you would you're teaching your son.
Right right, minus timing, they're never off time, and if
they are off time, they have the ability to like
ride their front knee and keep their bear on the
zone forever because they're so mechanically sound, like they never
get off sequence and it's crazy, you'll be able to
stay behind a baseball when it's coming at you one
hundred and then it's you know, eighty two off of
that and the same arm speed. That they never get
off time very much, and if they do, it's rare,
and like my trout Anthony Rizzo, Chris Bryant, like not
David Ross.
That's not about me.
Yeah, it's just mechanically they're sound, and they're just on time,
and they're like I said before, in the ground and
they can make a decisions.
The guys they've been around them in the best, or
they don't have any fear to try to make adjustments.
But they're very they're very You got to tell them.
As a hitting coach, in my opinion, you have to tell.
If you can't tell the player what's happening, why it's happening,
and how to fix and feel it, you shouldn't say
shit anyway. And every time the guys are hitting, they
pop the ball up in the cage and you're underneath it.
No shit, what gave that away?
It's right there?
You know what I'm saying.
Now.
If I look back at you, males, and I say,
why am I underneath it?
Then tell me if you know you know what I mean?
And I think it all comes back to timing and
what the best guys they've been around, the confidence they
believe in their swings. They know they can fucking hit,
and it just comes down to approach and being on time,
and then they get that one hit and all of
a sudden they say I'm back and nothing's changed mechanically. Now,
we will as coaches occasionally say hey, when you were
going really good, your stance was two inches further I know,
or it would be this because sometimes and it was
maybe maybe true, but I don't think that was the answer.
If you tell me your hands are here or here,
come on, you know what I mean?
Are they dropping.
Lower right here? You know?
Invertency? So something small.
But if you tell them that sometimes like you're fine,
you're doing good?
Well, two ways to do that? Fuck that.
I need something to hold on to. Bro even tell
me I'm good at one for twenty eight I ain't.
I ain't good.
You can't lie to player. You gotta tell them too
that I ain't good. Right, So hey, when we look back.
And then we'll go do all the thing.
Now, they got ways to measure you were standing four
more inches off the plate.
It's all.
It's so much easier to be a hitting coach today
in the sense of knowing if you're right or wrong
about what's happening. Like Anthony, you're laid on the fastball,
like I remember what Bryce back in uh in eighteen
or nineteen. It was nineteen when you got there the
first he was struggling and we looked back and he
wasn't able to pull the ball, and I thought he
was late all the time, and he said he didn't
feel like he was late.
And we did a bird's Eyedea, where you take the all?
Who's this talking about?
Bryce Harper?
Okay?
And then we did over the top view and it
showed here and his contact points, and I said, well,
were you best?
And whatever year he won the Mvper was almost on
the MVP. I think he won it.
And then I showed him where he was making contact
on fastballs in relation on home plate. They were all
out in front and now they're all that back here,
and he goes, I'm late, And I'm thinking to myself, yeah,
no kidding, but it's okay, how you portray it, But.
I ain't making it up.
Now.
Why you're late? I don't know you're in the box.
Why are you late? And he said that he had
worked really hard on going the opposite way in the
off season, so he's backing balls up. He was blocking
his front side and he wasn't being able to release
the head. So everything was played back here, which you
know is a lot of ground balls and bad things
the game out here.
You're lift it naturally and you get it in the here.
The hardest thing to do is repeat.
It's so easy for a little bad habit to creep
over the time.
Right, So and our job is to pay attention to this.
We have like a nowadays, we have a two week
checkup where we look back in and see all your
measurements and say, okay, did you realize you were standing
further off the plate?
Did you realize sixteen? Yeah, we didn't need it.
We didn't need it.
We want ye. Well yeah, so on that.
Like when did you guys know we were loaded? Like
we were good fifteen. We go back to fifteen. It's
like that that San Francisco series that we swept San
Francisco they were to find world champs, Like was the
light bulb?
Was like, oh, we're really good.
But there's there's some time we were like this, these
guys are a beast. I mean you said start in
the season, started season for sixteen, you're talking about sixty sixteen.
Yeah. I kind of knew instantly. Well I knew in
fifteen and at the end of fifteen, like like you said,
the Giant Series, but going into spring training, even the
guys that weren't in the big leagues, I was like,
these guys are really, really, really good fucking players. And
our team was so stacked and I really think I
remember we started off twenty one and six, and I
don't know if like one, we have one bad stretch
and we lose like seven games in a row Star
Break right before the yeah, and then nobody cares it
checked out. We came in after those games and I finished.
I finished that.
I finished sixteen All Star Break like like twelve or fifteen.
Okay, it wasn't my fault.
We told the story about lest story. He came in
and he said, we just got to get the pitching
going war. Oh but yeah, did you have fifteen fifteen?
You know what I do?
You remember in fifteen when we all said goodbye the
last game at home to Yeah, the old number of
the stealing fans, You remember, Like I should get into
that story about.
How we parted with the player of the game.
Jumped over the thing and I look up and there's
somebody's underwear going around.
After games, we would celebrate wins and we would turn
it into a club and music again, another Joe Matten thing,
bringing it in, embracing it, and we turned literally our
old locker room at Wrigley to a club, smoke machines, drinking,
and we carried that to the new one too. I
don't think it's there anymore.
So in fifteen, when we did that goodbye and I
looked around the room, we all knew something was up.
That was a good group.
Were all a lot of us had tears in our eyes,
and and Dexter we knew was going to leave. So
I'm thinking, we got to get a center field and now.
But this group's got it. We got and you look
down them, you look at Lester Area and all those
it's a joke what they got. And we got the
pitching and the position players are all young and all
you mixing with the veterans would experience. So it was
ultra talented. And then when Dexter came back. Remember in
spring training, THEO walks them out in the middle of
the spring training. We're on the fielding bumpings or some shit,
and he walks out. Here comes Dexter. We all thought
he was just coming to say goodbye. And Dexter comes,
runs out and says, boys, I'm black, you.
Know what I mean.
But and then I couldn't believe it. And then after
that it was like, okay, it's time roll man.
I know when it's a trade deadline. We're twenty two
games over five hundred and in walked the role this
chap yes, and I was like, yes, we're winning the
world shot right now.
I said this that every year when you are the
best team and you go get the best player game over.
Field, did it? Dude? He walked in. I was like, Oh,
that motherfucker's in here. It's good night, everybody.
Bad man walking in and we knew it too, and
he knew it, and he came in and he shot.
He takes his wallet out of his pocket.
Over So, going back to Anthony stories, we need, we
need a good story.
I want to tell well, I want to first before
we get into that, I want to talk about the
two strike approach that you're talking about earlier, because you know,
striking out is such a big part of the game.
Now people don't care. And for me, I hated striking
out and I always try to strike out looking more
because that means I take pictures. But with two strikes
out expanded, I would drive My hitting coach is crazy,
but I knew get into two strikes.
That I could fight off and I could.
If I could fight off that bastard pitch and get
to the next pitch, I could do damage.
So I was never scared to hit with two strikes.
But when things got real dark and tough, I knew
I had something in my back pocket.
At all times. A couple times a year, Male's ski.
You guys probably have seen this a little too much
over our time, but I would like to go into
the cage and hit.
Naked, commanding, fully naked, fully naked fully.
But shorts on first.
They start on they saw on.
Basically the process start going.
I would take my shirt off and then I would
do I would because Males was big on my stride
in length. So the shorts we had at the time
they had really tight elastic bands. They were almost like, uh,
I don't know what kind of they had, good, good waist,
So I pulled my shorts all the way down. I
was always commando on erneath before I hit, and I
would just work on my stride length off the tee
and mails his feet of me.
And it was so anybody walked down. Remember I remember
walking in Pittsburgh.
I got a photo on my phone. I'm like, well,
there's Anthony's ass again.
Well there's another time when Fount was throwing VPD.
You were in the tanking and he was a BT
pizzro you made him throw naked and I don't.
Know where we were at now, we were grind anyway.
I didn't see that.
So I told Tony. I said, Tony, you're overstriding again.
He says, all right, we'll work on it tomorrow. Guys
gets in it.
Look.
Next day he comes in the cage.
He's got no shirt on, his usual regular shorts, no
drawers on.
Comes in the cage, put the ball on the tee.
Put the ball on the tee.
He goes, drops his pants and he's standing there and
you know how he always goes like this. Now I'm
only using my peripheral vision. Thank god, I can't see
well the side of my eyes.
Thank god they're so close together.
Thank you so and he would do his little wiggle
and he would hit, and then you just use your
imagination and what that looked like.
And then it was.
It worked, It worked.
It drop percent success rate every time I kid, one
hundred percent success.
And you're this is full hacks. People at home have to.
Understand, this is a This is like I would I
would pretend I was like twenty fourteen hobby bias and
just try to swing as hard as I could, go.
Down to a knee.
Yeah, you drop a back name completely naked, like falling over,
getting back up barefoot like.
Yeah, but it worked.
Then he pulled his shorts up and you two would
hug and roll around on the ground and says, I
love this ship.
I love this ship.
Remember that.
And then we sit there and we lay all of
our heads, Hinsky's mine and Tony's head. We just laying
our back and we talk and we've been a little.
Star in the gy. These are the relationships that we had.
We had to slay the dragon, dude, we.
Had to say the dragon.
Was there anybody more quirky than Riz or like anybody
that stood out from that sixteen team that that you
guys got like Hobby and OKB was.
Pretty sobers dude, sober nuts fucking nuts. Dude, Shake wait,
shake wait, put in the two, put in the portal
and finish. What the fuck are you talking about? Dude.
I'd be like, yeah, that looks good, sick, We're as
good about that.
We would be in the shake the whole dugout.
Shake with Chile, shake nuts.
Speaking of celebrations, that was that was one of my
favorite parts we had, Like our dugout from I've never
been on a team where coaches celebrated as much as
we did in sixteen. We guys went deep and She's
like like jumping, yeah.
And it was like we start clapping and doing the
dance and stuff like we were. It was fun to be.
An other teams, yeah, because we when we would when
we came to play, they knew, like we rolled in
there like the fucking Motley Crew, bro, and we came in,
We beat your ass, and you've left.
A mess behind him, a mess. But we never like respectfully, yeah,
very respectfully.
There was no animosity on the other team. We were
just doing our thing. That's where I think Joe created.
We were so there was no outside noise.
Like if you'd roll into Chicago and you got area
at a Lester Lack Lack Yeah, Hendricks like good luck.
They were nasty as hell. Yeah, and we put up five.
So yeah, that's like.
We went out and it was us versus us. You know,
that's the old thing.
If we can not beat ourselves and just go out
play our game, well, any good team that's the way
it is, right. But we were able to do it
every day and I just remember losing in that that's
seven games or whatever, and Joe, you know, and I
just came from a place where, you know, everything was
like this. If you didn't win, everybody was all, Joe's
got the song on in his room. Don't worry, the
happy sitting there with his feet up, drinking wine. Yeah,
seven games in a row, he said, you win hard,
you lose hard. You got twenty minutes. After twenty minutes,
that's over, with time to go move on memory. Yeah,
So with twenty minutes, that music would go on with
Joe and he would drink that wine and play that song.
Everybody said, oh, okay, we're good exactly. That's leadership in
my opinion, one oh one. When when your head guy,
you see him not cavin everyone else. Okay, I can relax,
especially in today's game where it is males. You were
kind of a pioneer of your industry of not having
the big leading experience. Now it's almost like a prerequisite
if you played, you're like almost black balls from being
a coach. They want no experience, which doesn't make sense
to me because the information is great, but the experience
paired with the information is electric. There's nothing better than it.
So that's why you guys were so dynamic, and it
felt like you had two hitting coaches that could relate
to two.
Different mentalities of hitters, right.
And you guys did such a good job of balancing
that and having fun in our work and the workout
that you guys like the hitting coaches and like usually
the strength guy. They're like the boys, right, you know,
they're usually part of the boys.
And we're done in the cage all day.
You hear anything from everybody, right, and we're all trying
to figure out what do you see anything with him?
And you guys did a really good job of talking
to each other too. And I think some of the
best instruction you remember as playing is coming from your peers,
guys that stand in the box, right, for sure. And
we had a really good group where everybody worked together.
And then I would make males. He would slip to
me behind the L screen.
But he's righty, so if you're lefty with the righty arm,
you get blocked by the big pull on the L screen,
so I would never really see his arm action. So
for me, my timing was big. You know, I'm humping,
I get the leg kick and all that stuff. So
if I couldn't see the arm at all my timing
and the cages mess up. If my timing is messed
up off soft toss, I was a zoo. So I'd
make a move out from the l screen to the
side so I could see his arm flip and then
he'd like run back in and now ten years later
he's blaming me for his knee issues.
Tournament tournaments. So I would have to stand there and picture.
You're in front of a screen, so only thing here's
our arms. You know, my whole body had to be
out and he's only eighteen feet away. So as I
flip it, I've got to release it and get back
there as it's hitting it.
One hundred and ten.
I think what I learned from him too was routine
players are routine based. I was like crazy, right, but
I wanted to be the face you saw when you
walked into the cage, no matters what time it was.
You taught me that you can't not be in the cage.
So they walk in there and they have to look
for the hitting coaches. Their routines fucked up. Wow, So
I made it a point to always be there. And
that might have been, you know, nine hours a day
in the cage. But for sure I was there for you.
I was always there. Hey, absence makes the heart grow fonder,
but too much absence makes the heart wander.
What knowledge? Straight?
Now we want to talk about relationships. Yeah, I'm gonna
test you here. What what are our two songs? What
are our two favorite songs?
Every Rose has a Storm?
That's all right now?
Three? Okay? Adele? Which one though?
Olivia Rodrigo.
Drivers and Lady Gaga shallow shallo?
Yeah, very yeah.
Piano that we got We got into New York. I
think it was at sixteen. We got real late.
It wasn't a dell. You loved the dell. You love
to hit to her?
I loved it still. I walked up to him the
gym two days ago. I'm like, is Z. He's like, sorry,
what what bumping?
So we got into New York one night late, real late,
and we and you went to a karaoke bar and
we're just crazy singing every roll. Just shut the bar down.
Five six o'clock. I go to AA Bagel their clothes.
I walk in.
I'm like, tipsy, no, we're closed. I just hand them
one hundred dollars bell. I'm like, give me something, Okay.
Thank you. They give me like three bagels. They were
so they loved me.
There. Did you get any hits the next day?
I did, because you got a post.
How along you werout last night?
Doesn't you can't? For me?
I loved I really enjoyed going out, and I knew
the balance of playing every day. But when you did
go out and you had those iconic nights, you knew
the next day like, you've got to be accountable to
your teammates and you're cure and you better turn it on.
There's no like, ah, I'm tired.
Like that's the days you need to post the most,
and those are some of my favorite days.
Look, those are usually some of the better days guys
do because they don't think so much, right, they get
out of all of this and that I'm just trying
to see this ball. I'm just trying to hit the
one in the middle. Males, I'm gonna hit off his forehead. Totally,
very simple plan. You're looking for a ball in the
middle and you're going right back there, and that usually
lines your back up to where you.
Need to be for two three weeks. The lines you you.
Look at guys that come back from injuries and they're
always hot when they come back, and they think they're
not going to have any timing because they just they
don't expect anything, right.
I just want to compete here. I'm not supposed to
get it hit. I haven't played in two weeks.
And then you're not thinking and you're just hitting. And
then when you stop and you start raking, and then
you go bad a little bit, and all of a.
Sudden, I'm doing this.
I'm doing this, I'm doing that.
And that's why I think having that time away from
the park where you can get and it don't have
to be drinking all night or whatever, just getting away
from the game and spending with your family and the
guys that have the kids.
And now you go home and take care of the family.
You care about the guys you're around.
You disrespect, right, If I respect you, I'm gonna I'm not.
I'm gonna take a good secondary and lead at second
base because I'm trying to win the fucking game and
you're dogging it out there.
When I respect.
When I remember walking down the tunnel in Game seven
right to the cage in Cleveland, the cage is like
it feels like a half a mile away, it's a
long it's through the whole concourse underneath the tunnel and
through that concourse. Yet all the media, I saw David
Ortiz walking by Game seven, like saying what's up, and
I'm like zoned in and I'm going down there and
I know that you two are there, and it's like
just this calm presence of like looking at I just
remember looking at you guys and just being like yep,
like not more than five words were said, was just like, well,
that's that's the fucking did my routine, did my flips,
hit a little bit off the arm off and looked
at you guys, and just like one, let's go.
That was my like without getting all emotional, because this
is what I do. But like I remember going down
and males we it was super quiet and he got
done flipping and he like walks towards me as I'm
about to leave, He's like Rossie, Rossie, I'm like, what's
up and he just starts you started in on telling
me like what you know, like the nice things that
you said a little earlier.
I was I'll never forget that.
I was like, I was like, bro, we got I
can get rid of a game I'm getting I'm like
emotional right now, but it was like it meant a
lot to me. I'll never forget, like how you talked
about like the year and and me and and you know,
the respect you had for me and what I brought
to the team.
All that stuff was was really cool.
So thank you for that and that, but it was
it was cool to uh write for game seven, I'm
trying to get locked in and freaking males and got
me trying leaving the cage pretty game.
It's what it took, and hopefully throughout as we interview everyone,
Like I'm saying this again, I feel like, but without
you too, in my life, in my career, there's I
don't accomplish any I'm not a world champion. I don't
play for as long as I do because because of
your guidance. And I feel very lucky, blessed because seriously,
without you telling me what a lot of take getting
on the plate you us.
I know it sounds weird, but doing the shrine work
and believe in me.
I'm not the player I was in twenty sixteen, and
maybe we're not the team we were and we're not.
The player you were, but well, I wish you guys
would to help me on the two twenty batting appage,
I mean my career.
Some people you can't right.
Some people were just stunted.
It's just another really testament to the Puzzle of twenty sixteen,
where we said it in an episode before this, but
it was like without every single player in personnel, we
don't win. There's no way without males. There's no Ski
without Ski, there's no males. You guys fist pumping each other,
We're cock bumping in the dugout doing all this stuff, henn.
Screaming. If pictures even hinted at looking at our dugout
being ski would be wearing them the fuck out and
I would play with guys later on my career. Garrett
Cole is one of them, Like, Bro, I heard.
You all the time because we would just wear guys
out and scream at them. And it wasn't a disrespect thing,
it was just it was already heard.
We heard so much about winning, and here locked in
on other people who talking about carring.
You're locked in on other people's at bats because we're
all invested in one of those.
When the decks let off with that home run, you
see decks running down the first they show him and
the dug up going like this, Oh yeah, man, he goes,
fuck you Klueber, We're gonna be here all fucking nuts.
Sorry, but that's what it is. Respect all due respect.
But that's why what we felt that, you know what
I mean, because we knew we stuck together. And then
you guys, I'm sure we'll get into what happened when
the rain came, you know what I mean?
And yeah, why do you guys remember about that?
We've asked everybody about, Like I know the coaches weren't
in the room, but like we were almost dead.
And then coming.
Out of that, what did you guys feel when we
got back in and out of the rain away?
Well, I poured a drink, we all did, being honest, Yeah,
I was like, fuck, I got it.
People don't know about as.
When who's dude that hit the home er off Chatman?
Still to this day that allowed us I have ever
heard of stadium in my life. The momentum was gone.
We were like, oh God, like this.
Is city was shaken. You could feel the ground.
Movie and I was just like having a good meeting
down there in that weight room because we got to
win this thing and I can't go home and whatever.
I still do this day. I were coaches. I don't
even know what happened about it. Yeah, I have no idea.
It's it's all.
That's how tight the boys were when we were in there.
It was like, we're gonna fucking do this. We're Jays
say it in full.
But it couldn't have happened though without you too, and we
thank you for being on.
Do you have a you have a favorite moment from
two sixteen season or postseason?
You have anything that comes to mind.
I like the Giant Series and the pimped the home
run and almost him doing that was the Giant Series.
Contro hit the ball up the middle. That was a
rage fast in our dugout, we were going nuts. And
then that flight home, everybody banged up. Yeah that was
flight too.
Yeah that was a good yeah, because well we won
Game four in San Francisco, which clinch go.
Back to the face Quato if we if we didn't win.
We had Quato and Cuto nasty.
He had a great career, but he was like his
best then and we barely beat him one nothing in
Game one and we were on what four or five runs,
and we came back in the ninth and that was
kind of the Giants Achilles Heels their bullpen and it
was the even year. All this ship was like, oh fuck,
we got to play them in game five. So when
we won that game, it was like you said a
rage fast on the way home and coming back. Those
are the moments though, that made us closer. I say
this all the time to team, to our teams. When
I made the playoffs after it's like, you think we're close.
Now every single playoff game you win, we're about to
get closer. Every series we're about to get closer. And
winning at all it's like this, it's been ten years.
We haven't been together in years, hanging out like we
love you guys, like yesterday that we were all together
in this bubble of just happiness and the grind.
Yeah, its are sober now what they all happened? Yes
five years?
Thanks for having coming on man, what We're so thankful
obviously we love you and can't wait a party tonight.
Let's do it. You know, we'll do anything for you guys.
Anything I didn't have to wrap. Thanks boy,