AJ Pierzynski

Baseball bad boy AJ Pierzynski remembers the days of waiting by the phone for important news, reveals how boos from the crowd actually made him play better, and gives his thoughts on the upcoming playoffs.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm about to blow your mind here, Aj. I used
to regularly watch you play baseball in Minnesota. I was
based in Minnesota. I'm blowing your mind until two thousand
and three. I was there. I was doing theater until
maybe you came to watch me if you tried to
get cultured once or twelve.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Now, the only the only theater I went to is
I went to a pink concert once in a theater there.
I don't know what theater it was.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
I don't think that's the kind of theater that I
was doing.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Hi, I'm Aj Berzinski, and I fucking hate the Georgia Bulldogs.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Howdy folks, and welcome to another episode of Off the Beat.
I'm glad you're here. This is your host, Brian Baumgartner. Now,
when people say that they've done something thousands of times,
usually they're exaggerating, right, Well, not my guest today. Baseball

(01:08):
legend AJ Prazinski. AJ retired from the major leagues back
in twenty seventeen with over two thousand games played, all
as a catcher. By the way, the stat he says
he is most proud of he got over two thousand hits.
So many hits and as a catcher. No less, He's

(01:31):
a World Series champion, a two time All Star Silver
Slugger winner, and this is a very special one. He
was voted most hated by his colleagues in MLB. That's right,
but he's proud of that as well. Now, he may
have caused a few stirs in his career, but if

(01:52):
he asked me, it speaks to his grit, his competitiveness,
and well just how seriously he takes the game. Yes,
I watched him, I hated him, but getting to know
him now I respect him all the more. Plus he's
got a very good sense of humor about the whole thing,
at least when he's off the field. We're going to
talk about that, his bad boy reputation, his very impressive stats,

(02:16):
and of course his thoughts on the upcoming baseball playoffs.
Playoff Baseball, there is nothing like it. You also can
see him doing his thing as a game analyst on
Fox or on his incredible new show, foul Territory, which
he hosts every single day of the week. Now for

(02:37):
your listening pleasure, everybody here, he is the most hated
man in the game. My pal aj Persinski, Burble and Squeak.
I love it burble and squeak, Ana, burble and squeak.
I cook it every mon lift over from the nine before.

(03:10):
What's up? Aja? What's up?

Speaker 2 (03:12):
Brian? How are you, buddy?

Speaker 1 (03:14):
I mean, I'm good. How are you?

Speaker 2 (03:16):
I mean I am just working my rear end off
and trying to keep up with you. That's about it.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
I was wondering if you were on suicide watch this
week after your little football game last weekend.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
I wiped it right from my memory banks already. See here,
here's the problem. I have like a Gator helmet, and
I have Gator duct tape, and I have all these
Gator jerseys. But you can't see me, so there's no
reason for me to have all these props hanging around.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Well, you see my shirt.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
I wore this, Thank god, I cannot see that.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
I wore this for you today. Bulldogs started out okay, yeah,
so is Florida. They're going to be terrible, right.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
I mean, I hope not. I mean I don't want
them to be terrible, but I would like for him
to be decent. You know, listen, I get it was
a tough way to in Utah and all that, but
I mean, first play of the game two defenders run
into each other and you give up a seventy five
yard bomb, It's usually not a good omen for a
good season.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
That was a great start. God, that was so good.
That was so good. Listen. I'm rooting for you guys
to at least be somewhat respectable so I can I
can get down there to Jacksonville again. That was That's
always entertaining.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Are you going to show your face this year at
the game?

Speaker 1 (04:25):
I mean it kind of depends right there, worth be
traveling across the country to see a fifty two to
seven drumming?

Speaker 2 (04:33):
Those are the best ones? Are you kidding me? I
remember for years that was the best part about going
to Florida Georgia. Florida fifty two Georgia seven.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
Right, well, listen, good luck the rest of the year.
I appreciate that. I do want to ask, are you
not a Tennessee fan?

Speaker 2 (04:48):
I am not a Tennessee fan. They're my second favorite team.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
You were recruited to go to Tennessee, as I understand,
and play baseball. You didn't do that, but you have
no allegiance there because of that.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah, I have no allegiance other than I mean my
claim to fame for my Tennessee allegiance is that I
went on a recruiting trip and Peyton Manning was there
the same weekend. I mean, other than that, there's really
nothing to my Tennessee fandom. I mean I got to
meet Peyton Manning when he was in high school. But
other than that, it was.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Oh, you were there the same weekend being recruited.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
Oh yeah, we were there on our official visits the
same exact weekend. I mean we kind of you know,
this is this is Peyton Manning. I'm like, who the
hell's Peyton Manning? And he's like, who the hell are you.
I'm like, yeah, we're on the same.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
Team, all right. Unbelievable. So let's go back to Little
AJ's early days. So you were born in New York,
which I did not know that, But then you you
went before high school down to Florida. What why Florida?
Why did you go down there?

Speaker 2 (05:49):
Well, my parents moved when I was two, so I mean,
I don't know, I don't even remember being in New York.
I consider myself from Orlando. Honestly. We moved because my
dad was a builder, and that was right when Disney
World hit and so it was a big building boom.
So we moved down there and then my parents end
up being divorced real young and they both still are around.
They're both still around the Orlando area where I live.

(06:11):
But i mean, yeah, people were like, oh, you were
born in the Hamptons, you must be rich. I'm like, no, dude.
My parents were Polish potato farmers that you know, had nothing,
and my dad was a contractor that had to move
to Orlando to make ends meet. My mom worked at
the phone company.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
Right. Were they into baseball? Were they into sports?

Speaker 2 (06:28):
My dad definitely is. My dad played rugby at a
very competitive level. He also played basketball, Like my dad,
you know it, played basketball and did a bunch of
stuff in high school. My mom, you know, was around it.
You know, back then, women's sports were a little different.
It wasn't as easy, but my dad definitely was involved.
And yeah, my dad was still. My dad's like seventy

(06:48):
seven years old now and he's still like, is fighting
to play rugby. I mean he's got two knee replacements
and all kinds of broken bones, and he's like, I
want to get out there again. I'm like, Dad, like
that's time.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
It sounds like you actually.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
Well, I don't think. I don't think I want to
play rugby anytime soon.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
But yeah, all right, well fair enough. Did you play
other sports besides baseball growing up?

Speaker 2 (07:10):
I did. I played basketball till my sophomore year high school.
I never played football, though, which is kind of weird.
I don't know why, but I played. I was on
like the golf team in middle school, and you know,
did some other flag football and stuff like that. Never
tackle football.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
I never did either. It's so funny because I feel like,
as a kid we played football all the time. But
I don't know if if organized football wasn't as big
then or something, I.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
Didn't either, So for me, it was more I always
liked baseball and so like when it came to tackle
football time. I mean, growing up in Florida, you played
baseball year round, so there was a fall season and
then we went right to basketball in the winter, and
then in the spring it kicked into baseball and you
played that till the end of the summer. So it
just never was an option. And then when I moved,

(07:57):
I lived in Orlando. Then I moved to a little
small town called Brooksville, which not a lot of people
have heard of and it's outside Tampa. And it was
a very tiny little town, which is great when you're
ten to fifteen years old to grow up in, right,
I mean, you know, everybody, everybody knows you, and so
it just never was a thing. And then when I
moved back to Orlando my sophomore year high school, I

(08:18):
was like, oh, I'm gonna try out for the basketball team.
And you know, in Brooksville, you know, I was six
foot one and I was like, okay, I'm pretty good.
And then we got to Orlando and I went to
a school with five thousand kids and they had these
six foot six dudes jumping over me. I'm like, yep,
time to focus on baseball.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
You know, my family is from Orlando too. My mom
grew I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
Where'd she go to high school?

Speaker 1 (08:42):
She I don't know, I don't, I mean, but like
Orlando proper, like she was from there and then went
to Florida State.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
Oh so she's like my wife. I'm so sorry.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
Well I don't know if my mom is like your wife,
but well no.

Speaker 2 (08:58):
I mean she went to my wife went to Florida State.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
In Florida State.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking, like I mean, I'm guessing
your mom is about my parents' age. My stepdad went
to like Boone High School or Clonal.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
I think that's it.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
The Boone Braves probably, I think that's it. That would
probably be like the main one that's been around here forever.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
Yeah, I honestly think that's it. I think she went
to Boone.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah, I need to get her name. I'll ask my stepdad.
Maybe they was, you know, they went to prom together
or something back and.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
Then maybe maybe they did. Yeah, I mean, my grandfather
was one of thirteen kids, you know. I mean he
was born in Georgia's so a bunch state in Georgia,
but a bunch actually migrated down with my great grandparents
to Orlando. Yeah, okay, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
My stepdad's family was all born in like Moultrie, from
South Georgia, and then they moved down. My stepdad's dad
owned a service station and down area called South Street,
which is like dead downtown now, but back then it
was kind of like the suburbs.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
Right, and they ran a motel, not a hotel, a
motel okay, and had a restaurant. Right, I'll look this up.
So you decide basketball is not your thing baseball. Now,
at what point, I like to ask people this. You know,
we all do activities as kids, sports or the arts

(10:19):
or whatever. At what point for you is there a
transition between like I'm a kid hitting a ball to like, oh,
this is what I really want to do or did
you just suddenly realize you were just better than everybody else?

Speaker 2 (10:39):
Honestly, it was kind of the fall of my junior year. Okay,
I mean I played JV freshman and sophomore year in
my high school. I say school was gigantic, so you
have to understand how big it was. And I was
on JV and I was there was a good chance
I was going to be on JV my junior year
again because we had a senior catcher and he ends
up getting hurt. And I also grew like four or

(11:02):
five inches and put on like thirty or forty pounds
between my sophomore and junior seasons. But I also was young, right,
So I didn't turn sixteen until the middle of my
junior year, So I'm December thirtieth. Wow, So I turned
sixteen December of my junior year, so I mean it
was already so I was actually a year ahead of
my parents liked me so much it made me start

(11:22):
school a year early, right, They couldn't wait to get
me out of the house. So like, I graduated just
having turned seventeen, as opposed to most people are eighteen,
some kids are nineteen now. And so I was a
little bit of a later bloomer. And then I put
on a bunch of way and grew between my sophomore
and junior year, and then the kid ended up getting
hurt and it was like whoa. When I came back

(11:43):
to school, the coaches were like, wait a minute, are
you the same kid that was here last year? And
so once I got the strength was when it kind
of started clicking a lot more. And I'll never forget
my junior year. We started playing a tournament and I
don't know, I do okay, Like I get like one
hit in like ten at bats or something, and my
best friend's dad, I'll never forget this to that day.

(12:06):
He comes up to me and kid I grew up
with forever and his dad comes up to me. His
son had just graduated from the school, and he comes
up to me and goes, man, you know what you know?
You need to use the phone? And I was like
for one, He's like, you need to call one hunter
get a hit, and I was like, oh okay. It
was like that right, And I've never forgotten this day
and that day. That day we had a game and

(12:27):
I hit my first high school home run and I
was like okay. I was like basically fuck off now
as I'm running around the bases and you know I now,
And then from that moment on, I was like, okay,
I can do this, like I can I belong now.
But it was like one of those things where he didn't.
I mean, he meant it as a joke, but I
was still like pissed because I was like, who are
you to say this to me?

Speaker 1 (12:48):
You were high school teammates with I did not know
this With Johnny Damon.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
Yeah, he was way better than me though, like I said,
he was a senior. I was a sophomore. I was
on JV, he was on he was number one prospect guy,
Johnny Damon and super good. And then you had me
on JV flailing along. But yes, we were at high
school the same time. We're still super close. And I
actually saw him yesterday you did, yeah, ran into him randomly,
saw him at sushi. I went in to get sushi

(13:14):
and he was sitting in there with his wife and
his seventeen kids.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
Seventeen kids, that's right. So at what point do you
start thinking about playing baseball beyond high school?

Speaker 2 (13:28):
Well, it's kind of after that, Like after the summer
after my junior year was when it like really got
crazy because then all of a sudden, you start hearing
from these schools. Right, And this was back when you
had to actually send mail. There was like no emails
and there were like cell phone I'm going to Instagram
you or DM you and Twitter or whatever, so you
had to get you got mail. And my high school

(13:49):
coach was like, hey, there's a lot of schools that
have seen you and they really are interested. What do
you think? And I was like, well, I don't know
anything about it. And I went to this thing that summer.
There's a company now called Perfect Game is like the
industry leader, I guess you'd say, in like recruiting in
youth baseball. There's a few of them, but Perfect Game
was kind of the first one. They used to be
called Team One, And I went to this thing in Cincinnati,

(14:10):
Ohio called Team One National Showcase, and they brought basically
like the top, like seventy sixty five players in and
we did a workout and then we played games. And
after that, I mean, every school is called, like they're
all like, you know, we want you to come here.
I want you to come here, and like we already
kind of talked about. My school I want to go
to was Florida, Like I mean, I was like, I

(14:32):
grew up a Gator fan. My family went there that
had lived in Florida. And I was like, you know,
I want to go to University of Florida. And the
coach calls me I'll never forget my junior year and
says summer in my junior year, says, hey, I can't
recruit you. And I was like what. He's like, yeah,
three kids in a row from your high school have
signed here and they all signed professional. I'm on the
hot seat. I can't take the chance of you not

(14:52):
coming here. And I was like, listen, there's only one
school that I promise you I will go to. It's
University of Florida, and will I'll give you my word.
He's like, I can't take chance. I've heard that from
Johnny Damon before and then he signed right and I
was like, well, I mean I respected that, but at
the same time, I was kind of pissed about it.
You know, I was like, well, if I can't go
to Florida, I'll go to their biggest rival, which is Tennessee.

(15:12):
And you know if I play them and we could
kick their ass?

Speaker 1 (15:16):
Did you mean it? Do you think? By the way,
spoiler alert, he signs a letter to go to Tennessee
and never goes because you get drafted in ninety four.
But with Florida, you would have gone.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
I really believe I would have gone. Yes. I mean
I can't say a million percent, but listen, if there were,
like I said, if there was one school that I
would have said yes to and I would have gone,
it would have been Florida. That was the only one.
Because once I signed with Tennessee, like my heart was
there kind of, but it wasn't like I'm invested. I
grew up as a fan of this team. I rooted
for this team. I go to football games for this team. Right,

(15:50):
it was like, Okay, I went there once on a
visit and they played University of Georgia and they killed
them by like fifty two points. So I mean I
rooted for him. Once, but other than that, I didn't
really care about him.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
Talk me through, how aware are you that you're going
to be drafted professionally? Like do you know this is it?
Is it a crab shoot? Like like where are you at?
Because you're you're like, okay, I'm going to Tennessee, but
you're going to enter the draft. What's that process like?

Speaker 2 (16:18):
So the process is you just play right and then
get through. You get through your senior year, and the
draft was different. It was like at the beginning of
June and you end your high school season in like
early May in Florida, mid May, and so you start
hearing from these teams and they're like, they're saying, we
think you're going to get drafted anywhere from this play
to this spot, and we're going to draft you in
this spot if you fall to us. And you're thinking,

(16:41):
all right, this is a real possibility. So I kind
of sat down my parents and said, Okay, what's the
number signing bonus wise that will accept And we kind
of remember this was almost thirty years ago now, and
and we kind of got to that number and they're like, well,
you know what about school, And I was like, well,
they pay for school. So they'll tell you, like they'll
give you four years of school that you can go

(17:02):
after you're done playing if you don't make it. Even
if you do make it, they'll pay for four years
of school. So it gets time to draft time. Back then,
you sat there literally with like a you just sat
at your house. There was no again, there was no internet,
there was no MLB network, there was no draft coverage.
It was just you got a phone call. And so
the draft, you know, the draft starts to like let's
say one PM, and you're sitting there waiting. You're trying

(17:23):
to guess like where they're at in the draft, and
you're thinking, okay, well this team said they're gonna draft me.
Here did they did it? The phone finally rings because
you're like, you know, please nobody call the house from
like one to five pm, right, because god, you call
waiting or the click team calls and I don't it
gets a busy sign, right, are they not gonna draft me?

Speaker 1 (17:40):
Right?

Speaker 2 (17:40):
So I get a call and I pick it up
and it's the Minnesota Twins calling the GM and he says, hey,
you know, this is Terry Ryan and the GM of
the Twins. We draft you seventieth. I think it was
overall third round and a Scott will be in touch
and click, oh okay, that's it. I mean that was
literally it. That was the phone call like cool, that's
so amazing. Yeah, we'll be in touch in the next week. Wait,

(18:02):
what what do I do? And then so you know,
a couple of days later, the scout local scout calls me.
He would watch me and convince them to draft me.
He shows up my house and says, you know, I'm
the guy who drafted you, dad, dah, here's our contract offer.
And then you're like, well, okay, it's not exactly what
I wanted, but little negotiation and I think within two
days we had figured out. I mean, I wanted to

(18:24):
go play. At that point, I was like, I don't
want to waste time, you know, arguing over ten thousand dollars,
which is a lot of money. But back then I
was like, you know, I'm seventeen years old. I got
enough money, you know, I thought last I mean, I
got you know, six fakers. I was like, man, I
am rich for the rest of my life, right, you know.
And my parents were good and said, yeah, if you
want to go play, we support you. And they gave
me four years of school. They basically matched tuition at

(18:46):
Tennessee for four years and went away and signed and
went and played. But I tell you what, it was
a hard phone call to like the Tennessee coaches to say,
you know, I'm signing because they had recruited you. They
put their time and effort into their kind of counting
on you to show up. So that was a hard
phone call. But uh, you know, people always ask me,
do you wish you would have gone to college? The

(19:07):
answer is no. But would I tell other people to
go to college? Almost exclusively, I would say yes, because listen,
you have understayd. I was a lot different than most
kids at that age. I didn't drink, and I didn't
really go out, and I didn't party, and I didn't
do anything. I was just baseball, baseball, baseball. So I
was just ready to go. And then when you sign,
you go to the minor leagues. You know these guys

(19:28):
are you know you play with twenty kids out of college.
I'm seventeen. These kids are twenty one, twenty two. They're
going out and drinking, and I'm like, I'm not even eighteen.
I can't even vote yet. Like you guys, have you
guys have fun? Uh.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
We didn't talk about this before, but I'm curious because god,
it sucks to me. I you know, I played baseball
growing up. We've talked a little bit about that. I
played catcher for a very short period of time. I
don't know, how the hell are you doing? I mean no,
I mean like it it has to be physiological in

(20:02):
some way, right, I mean, have you ever talked to
any other catchers about that? I mean, it has to
be your thighs, you're growing, it's so difficult. Did you
just love that? Did you love being in the middle
of it? What was it about catching that made you
stay there? Or were you just that good at it? Well?

Speaker 2 (20:20):
I mean have you You've obviously met me, so you
know that I love like being in the middle of shit. Yeah, right,
So that's right when I was I think it was
about eight years old, right. Our catcher on our little
league team was hurt. They're like, hey, we need someone
to catch, and I literally was like, I'll do it,
I'll try it. And I fell in love with it
one because here's the thing, Like, as a catcher, you
are involved in every single play and you're the only

(20:42):
position where all the eyes are on you at all times. Right,
every every fielder is looking at me. I'm like the rooster. Right,
I'm like, let's go right plus plus back. Then you
got all the cool gear. I mean you got a
bigger bag because you had catcher's equipment. Right. Everyone else
had a bat and a glove. I had chest protect
in a mask. Right, I had to wear a cup.
I'm like, man, this is cool. And so I just

(21:05):
it just continued because I was in the middle of
every play. Like before that, I kind of played shortstop
and you know, you get like two balls a game,
but screw that, man, this is every pitch. And then
you know, the physical part of it is that. Honestly,
I mean, I'm very lucky genetically. I guess I need
to thank my parents. But like, I have no problems
like knees hips, anything, back arm I literally have no

(21:28):
problems at all. And people are like, there's no way
you caught two thousand games in the big ones. I'm like,
I promise you, I have no issues at all. Now,
if you ask people that know me, they'll say mentally,
I'm fucked up, but yeah, physically I can. I tell
people all the time, Like I could go catch a
game tomorrow. I mean I'd be sore, obviously, but I
could physically do it.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
No.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
Do I want to do it? No, because I know
what it takes to get there. But I mean I
physically could go tomorrow and be like I catch, I
catch nine innings tomorrow. I might not be able to
hit hit a baseball because I haven't done it so long,
but I could. I could catch it. Still.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
You get drafted by the Twins, you decide to go.
You go to the Gulf Coast League Twins, the Elizabethton Twins,
Fort Wayne Wizards, Fort Myers Miracle, New Britain rock Cats,
and the Salt Lake Buzz. Tell me a little bit
about that time. Is it difficult for you or did

(22:38):
you love it?

Speaker 2 (22:39):
The traveling down Listen, I loved it because I was,
like I said, I was like this baseball, baseball, baseball
all the time. Heck, my life is still like baseball.
It's like, jeez, even my kid plays baseball. My gosh,
can we play something else? But listen, when I signed,
I went to Golf Coast League, and I was, you
get these kids from all over the country, right, I
was from Florida, I went to Fort Myers. They're like
so hot, and I'm like, dude, this is great. I

(23:01):
played three games a day in this I'll play all
day long, right, and these other kids from up north
are dying. Then I went to Fort I went to
Fort Wayne to start the next year, which is my
first full season ninety five, and I was there for
about a month or and a half and I got mono. Right.
I got Mono in Appleton, Wisconsin. I'll never get it
hit me. We had like a thirteen hour bus ride
and I was like dying. I'm literally like I'm going

(23:23):
to die on this bus right here because I was
in so much pain from like, I guess your spleen
gets messed up. So I was just laying on this
bus and everyone's like, you know, quarantined away from me
because they're like, we don't want anyone else to get this, right.
So I ride thirteen hours on this bus, get back,
and then they're like, all right, well you have to
go home. So I went home for six weeks, right,

(23:43):
lost about forty five pounds because if you've ever had mono,
you can't do it. I couldn't walk to the end
of my driveway and it was a short driveway to
get the garbage cans out and wanting to go back
to sleep. So I come back after six weeks and
they send me to Elizabeth In which is in North Carolina, Tennessee.
It was a great old town and I show up
and I'll never forget because Fort Wayne was it was
a ball and we had the brace nice brand new

(24:05):
stadium and all these fans. He show up at elizabeth
and it's like this wreck park, and I never forget.
I drove out with my mom and I said, welcome
to the show on the on the side of the thing.
And my mom looks at me and goes, man, what
the hell did you do to deserve this? And I
was like all right? And so I went and played.
And the first day back I had to catch a

(24:26):
doubleheader and I hadn't played in six weeks. And they're like,
are you okay, And I'm like yeah, and I'm like, well,
the other catcher's flights delayed, so you're the only catcher
we got, so we need you to catch, you know,
both ends of the double And I'm like, man, no,
probably whatever did it? Boom? And the trainer at the time,
a guy named Dave Prumer, who ended up being a
big league trainer for the Twins. He's like, we need
you to put weight back on, so how are you
going to do it? And I'm like, I don't know.

(24:46):
He's like, I want you to go and eat fast food.
And there's a dairy queen. There was a dairy queen
across street. He's like, you get dairy queen every day
and you eat ice cream until you put the weight
back on. So literally, I come into the ballpark with
dairy Queen, a peanut buster park fane. I was like
shoveling in the cow because I was I mean I
was so skinny.

Speaker 1 (25:03):
Right, Baseball unlike any other sport, right, I mean that life,
those years leading up to making in the big leagues,
that's you feel that, right, It's unique to anything else.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
It's the best I tell people. Like people are like, oh,
the minor leagues are horrible. Yeah they were at the time,
but you look back on them and like, those guys
are like your guys. I mean those are still my friends.
I mean, big leag friends are big leag friends. But
once you make it and you kind of got some
money and you got some success, it changes you a
little bit. It haes. It just naturally does. Right. Everyone's like, oh,
I'm the same, but you change, You just naturally do

(25:38):
because you have money and you kind of like, well
I can afford better stuff, and I'm you know, like
this and that, right, But I mean think about this.
We're you know, you're twenty years old. Okay, I'm in
Fort Myers, twenty years old, making a thousand bucks a
month before taxes. Right, We're trying to find a place
to live. So we stuffed five of us into a

(25:58):
you know, three bedroom apart. One guy's on the couch,
one guy's on the air mattress, three of us get beds,
and you're trying to figure out, all right, well, how
we get seven dollars a day meal money on the road? Well,
what the hell can you? And you got to give
five of it to the clubhouse guys. You're really trying
to live off two dollars a day, which is impossible.
And so you just become tight with those guys because
you're all going through the same things. Everyone's struggling to

(26:20):
get by on a daily basis. How can we make
this more fun? And then again, now this is before
cell phones and all the stuff that happens. But I mean,
you know, you could go to a bar and you
could have fun and get away with a little bit
more than you can now because of no cell phones.
But you know, we were like, man, where can we
find like cheap drinks and where can we find cheap food?
And we bought an electric grill from like Costco or

(26:43):
Sam's Club, right, and we would get Omaha steaks at
the beginning of the year, like we would all split it,
like the four of us, five of us, we'd split
it and we'd get a thing and that would last
us all year. We grill on this little electric grill.
We get like a canopies from publics and that was
like dinner. It was like a canopies or velveta shells
and cheese with tuna fish and a cantatoon am. Like
that was just dinner lunch. I mean, that was just

(27:05):
how you did it. And it was it wasn't even
like a It was great because we were all eating
the same crap and doing the same crap, and we're
all together and it was all right, we're going to
get through this somehow. And that's the bond you get
in the minor leagues is as special, especially guys you
play with a bunch and kind of come up with
is where it's all about.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
I don't know if you've ever heard this, but Aj
and I we play in a few golf events together,
one on the corn Ferry Tour. I was once told
this that they intentionally pay the corn fairy players less
because they are trying to make them hungry to work

(27:47):
as hard as they can to move out of it.
That there is more money that they could siphon to
them based on the financial models, but they want to
keep them hungry. Do you think that there's a similarity
in minor leagues.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
It's changed now. It used to be I think like that,
but now MLB bought the minor league some mainztlam baseball,
and now it's a different model. Now it's they treat
them better, they feed them better, they house them better.
I mean we were on our own for housing. I
mean I remember I got to play in the Hawaii
Hawaii for winter ball for three months, so I lived
in Honolulu two thousand dollars a month. Okay in Honolulu.

(28:23):
This is nineteen ninety seven, still twenty five years ago.
But if you've never been to Honolulu. Explain how you're
supposed to. That's before taxes now, so it's really only
one thousand bucks a month. You got to find a
place to live, you gotta find food, you got to everything. Car.
We had to rent a car, so two of five
of us lived in a two bedroom apartment in wan
Waikiki Beach. There was the cheapest department we could find,

(28:44):
and we all rented one car. So we all had
to go to the same places together. And you're like, okay,
well we'll make it work. We had a Jack in
the box like four times a week.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
In nineteen ninety eight, you finally make the big leagues
with the twins. What's it like walking on the field
for the first time.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
So on our show my podcast that I do foul Territory.
The other day, we had Mark McGuire on Okay. In
nineteen ninety eight, a year with all the home run record,
Chase went with him and Sosa. That's right, first day
I get called up from Salt Lake City to Anaheim
or playing the Angels. Okay, So never forget this first
date and the days easy. It was nine eight ninety eight,

(29:23):
so it's super easy to remember. Was the day, Mark
McGuire hit sixty two. So we walk out on the
field for batting practice and we're on the West coast
there in Saint Louis. Everyone stops and on the big
screen on Anaheim and they have the they show the
is it bad? And he hits the home run. The
place goes crazy. I'm like, damn, this Big League is
kind of cool, like they do it every day or
what and it was and Mark McGuire's like, damn, you know,

(29:45):
you know, I'm glad I could be a party in
your memories. And I was like, yeah, I mean, something
you'll never forget as a human being, right, And then
you know, And then I didn't play in that first game,
but I mean it was just you're taking everything in
and we were just staring at everything and watching everything
and trying to figure everything out. And I got to
actually get in the next day, which was my debut,

(30:08):
and they put me in like the fifth inning and
we were losing like seven nothing. They're like, yeah, don't
get go catch and I was like, oh shit. You know,
you're always a little bit nervous. I don't, but you're
just more excited because you're like, oh man, am, I
am I good for this? Right? I can I do
this on this look? And I run out there and
I remember I throw the ball to second base between
ings and I mean I launched it into center field.

(30:31):
And Ron Gardenhire was our third base coach and he
was the end up being our manager for the Twins.
After that, he just sicks at me and goes, nice
fucking throw and I was like, are you waiting? Saw that?
And it was kind of like a nice breaking moment.
And I'll and I remember my first at bat and
I walk up to the plate and we're in Anaheim
and I was facing Omar Oliveris and I'm just in

(30:54):
my head, I'm just like, I just don't want to
strike out. I don't care what I do. I'm just
I'm not striking out my first I'm gonna proved to
myself that I can hit a major league picture. And
I hit a ground balled a second and I was
so happy. I just ran to first ran off and
I was like, Okay, I can hit a major league picture.
And from I was just believed happy. And it's one
of the few times in life where you're making out
and you're you're super excited about it.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
Wow, with Tom Kelly still the manager.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
Then he was Yeah, okay, Crotchy the old bastard.

Speaker 1 (31:22):
Yeah, yeah, I'm about to blow your mind here, Aja.
I used to regularly watch you play baseball in Minnesota.
I was based in Minnesota. I'm blowing your mind until
two thousand and three. I was there. I was doing
theater in town. Maybe you came to watch me if

(31:44):
you tried to get cultured once or t what now?

Speaker 2 (31:46):
The only the only theater I went to is I
went to a pink concert once in a theater there.
I don't know what theater it was.

Speaker 1 (31:52):
I don't think that's the kind of theater that I
I was doing. Yep, I used to. I used to
go to Twins games, uh as a as a childhood
fan of the Atlanta Braves. I was not a Twins fan,
but I remember going.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
I was not either, by the way, because I was
a Braves fan. I I mean I growing up in Florida.
I was a Braves fan. Like Dale Murphy was my guy, right,
oh right, that was me. So they beat him in
ninety one, Yeah, and I was. And then I get
drafted by him, like I fucking hate you guys, Like
all the teams like, but yeah, I mean I was
a Braves fan. I mean I listen, I you know,

(32:28):
I got to finish my career with the Braves, so
it was great. But my favorite, you know, we're talking
about Murphy. Murph by the way, if you haven't met him,
he's like the greatest human being in the world. So
the first time I'm in spring training, I have my
son with me, right, and the Braves were notorious for
like not having kids in the clubhouse, not having kids around.
I'm just like, screw this. I'm thirty eight years old.
I'm breaking all the rules. So I had my kid

(32:50):
out there with me, and uh, Murph walks up and
he's he introduced himself to me. He's like, Hi, I'm
Del Murphy. And I'm just like, uh, my son's like
what he looks at me. He's like eight years old
at the time. He's like, dad, what's wrong with you?
And I'm like, dude, like this is my guy. Girl,
Like I don't know what to say to him. He's like,
who is it, you know, because he doesn't know I'm
like Dale Murphy. He's like, who the hell is Dale Murphy? Right,

(33:12):
and he starts talking to him whatever, But like that
was you know, when you grow when you meet the
guy and he's even nicer in person than you've heard,
especially like a guy you grew up rooting for, it
makes it really special.

Speaker 1 (33:22):
That's awesome. I love to hear that, and I love
to hear that there is a person that would do
that to you. I've never witnessed it, but I liked
that there's a person that would do it.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
He was the one. He's probably the one person I've
ever met where I was like, Okay, this is like
my favorite person of all time.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
Yeah again.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
And I had heard all these stories about what a
nice guy he was, and then when you talk I mean,
when you talk to him, I mean, it blows your
mind with just what a nice fella he is and
just all the great career and he should be in
the Hall of Fame. And I'll die on that hill.

Speaker 1 (33:51):
Yeah. For me, it was three of the guys that
played with you, Glavin, Smoltz and Maddox understood.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
I mean, you know, you're a fairweather. You didn't like
them when they sucked in the eighties, you liked him
in the nineties when they were good.

Speaker 1 (34:03):
Oh, Murphy was my guy. Early on. Murphy was my
guy early on. But yeah, those guys, I loved watching them.
You leave the Twin, you make the All Star Game
in two thousand and two, two thousand and three, you
have another solid year, You're traded to the Giants. You happy?

Speaker 2 (34:20):
No, No, not at all. Listen, as an athlete, you
always think you're going to be part of one organization
team that drafts you, develops, you get you to the
big leagues. You're there. I was there for almost ten years.
You're like, I'm gonna be this for life. And I
was doing well. It wasn't like I was sucking, right,
So you think, man, I'm gonna be here forever, and
then they trade me, And honestly, I was not happy

(34:40):
at all. And the only thing I was happy about
is that San Francisco at the time was very competitive
and Barry Bonds was the best player in the world.
So and I had known Barry from when I went
over to Japan with him in two thousand and two. Okay,
so I wasn't going in blind, but man I was.
It just kind of the first I can't really describe
it would I don't know how I can put this

(35:01):
in acting terms. It would be like, all right, you're
on the office and you're like, okay, I'm gonna be
in the office for the twenty years, okay. And then
they call you and like, oh, by the way, no
we treat You're on Seinfeld now right, And you're like, wait,
what this is weird? And you walk in the first
day and it's not that anything's different other than like
the uniform, but everything is different, like the clubhouse and
the where you go and what you do.

Speaker 1 (35:24):
And your routine yeah yeah, and the people so.

Speaker 2 (35:28):
Yeah, so so, but it's still baseball. But you're like, gosh,
this is just weird. And plus, you know, I'm East
coast guy, Florida. You know, San Francisco's about as far
as way as you can get. My parents are like,
we can't watch the games. Then I'll start till ten o'clock.
And so, I mean, it's just little things like that.
And listen, San Francisco was a great city, great fans,
very passionate about the game. And listen, I got to

(35:49):
see the greatest baseball season I've ever seen two thousand
and four. If you haven't seen it, look up Barry
Bond's numbers that year. I mean, he walked two hundred
he walked two hundred and seventy times or some I
mean his numbers. You're just and I got to stand
there and have a front row seat to it, so
I would never change anything about it. But yeah, when
you get traded the first time, it hurts and it's hard.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
What about your move to the White Sox.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
H Well, I was released by the Giants after the year.
I had a good year, but they didn't want to
pay me more money. So I go to the White
Sox and people always question, like why the White Sox. Well, listen,
I had other offers for more money, but when I
spoke to the White Sox, they were like, we've got
this team and we think it's going to be pretty special.
And I actually signed there for less than I could
have gotten from other places, and we ended up winning

(36:33):
the World Series that year. But listen, I grew up
a twin, right, I'm a Minnesota twin, and we hated
the White Sox because they talked trash and we used
to just beat them, and every time we beat them,
they talked more trash. We're like, dude, we've beat yells
asked for three years and now four years we all
shut up and they would just keep talking. And so
I get I signed over there, and I go to
socks Fest, which is like their fan fest. And I
pull up in a car from the airport and we

(36:55):
go to this hotel and it's all white Sox people.
My wife was with me, and I looked at her
and she looks at me, and he's like, this is
really weird for you, isn't it. I'm like, this is
so fucking strange right now. And I walk in and
I'm like, gosh, it's because I mean not you know,
you brought up to take the teams in your division
and so but I was there and uh, listen, great
group of people there. It's obviously we won the World

(37:15):
Series eight year, so it just was a perfect fit.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
What do you consider yourself now, Wight suck Well? Is
that because you won?

Speaker 2 (37:23):
Absolutely? I mean I played at the major league level
there the longest, and I think if you ask most
people they would say that there's some some Twins fans
and hang on to some of that. I listen, I
love the people. All the organizations I played in I
played in seven had have special people. But listen, you win,
you win with an organization and especially eighty eight years

(37:45):
and nothing. You know, you win with that organization. You
have special bonds with guys, and there's a lot of
people that I put that I were there when I played.
They're still there, so the bonds are still alive. Right,
Plus they pay me, so you know, I have to
say nice things about them.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
But if they weren't, you would say the same thing.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
Yeah. Yeah, Like that's kind of home, right, Chicago's home.
I have to go there this weekend. It's it's just
it's just home.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
I gotta ask you about this. You the next year,
after two thousand and five, you win the whole thing.
You broke the American League record nine hundred and sixty
two errorless consecutive chances. You broke a record that was
fifty over fifty years old, Yogi bearra Is that the

(38:48):
stat that you're most proud of or is there something else? No?

Speaker 2 (38:52):
I never played another position. That's the one that people
are like, you never played first base or outfield? Nope,
fuck off, I played one. I was a catch. But
I can tell you what. I still remember the play
where I fucked that streak up, and I'm still pissed
about it. Really, yeah, it was a bunt. It was
a butt down the first baseline. I threw it and
I shorted it, and I was pissed at an Ergo
for not picking it. So I'm still mad at you, Paul.

(39:13):
If you listen to this. It was just a terrible throw,
but it was like a perfect bunt. Jerry Harrison hit it,
bunted it down the first baseline and I was full
sprint and I just shorted it and Paul missed it
and they gave me an air and I was just like, well,
I've been like a whole year without making an air.
I just fucked out one.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
Let's see, let's just say people didn't like you playing
against you. Ozzie Geean, your White Sox manager, once said
this quote. I'm sure you've heard it. If you play
against him, you hate him. If you play with him,
you hate him a little less. You love that reputation.

Speaker 2 (39:55):
I love it. You know what it did for me
got me into professional wrestling and got me a lot
of opportunities off the field, And I think I think
people that that don't know me off the field, like
it's like this is why, like professional wrestling is the
perfect analogy for this. You have a wrestling character. That's
your character when the camera's on sort of acting. Right,

(40:16):
you're acting, you're keV from the office, right, but then
when you talk to you, you're not that guy in
real life.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
Right.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
It's a it's an act, right, So when I played.

Speaker 1 (40:24):
You put on an act when you played I.

Speaker 2 (40:26):
Don't want to know. I had to hate the other
team to play well, to play well, that was my thing,
and I had to just I had to boil myself
up and I'd fake, I'd make it up, I'd make
shit up. This guy said this when he might not
have said that, but in my mind he said that
I'm coming and and that was just how I had
to do it. And it wasn't at listen, I don't
recommend that to anybody because it's really hard. That's when

(40:47):
I knew I was done. I couldn't do it anymore.
I was like being nice to people, and I'm like,
what the hell's wrong with me? Like, I get me
nice on the I'm like saying I do people on
the field, like, no, this.

Speaker 1 (40:55):
Doesn't work, you're the game.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
No. Yeah I never did that.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
No, No, like Magic and Isaiah Thomas, but yeah the thing, yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
Yeah, No, like it was just different. I couldn't I
couldn't get the hate I had to play with like
a hate And it sounds so dumb like to people
that haven't really played, like we all have a motivation
in our life, right, Well, my motivation was thinking the
other team hated me and I'm gonna show them, Like
That's why if somebody's like, you can't do this, I'm
like fuck you, like I'll kill myself trying to figure

(41:28):
this out. So that was how I played on the
daily baby, and that's why I also was able to
play every day because I could fake it, like I
mean when I'd mean fake it, like I could fake
the other team's mad at me or hate it. And
then so therefore it drove me to be like, all right,
we're gonna go and I'm gonna fight every ounce of
me to try to win this game. And I think
that's the one thing if you ask, like, yes, you
ask Guzzie, because I've talked to Ozzie all the time still,

(41:49):
like he'll tell you like he loved I mean, I
think I'll say this, but he has interviews like he
loved having me on the team because I would show
up every day and I'd get in people's asses and
I'd be like, let's go. I was ready to go always,
And that's why Ozzie and I got along because he
played me every day and I wanted to play every
day and he was. There was never a question like
can you play? He knew if I showed up, I
was ready to go.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
Well, let me tell you something. I like truly like you.
I think you're a great guy. You really make me laugh.
As a player, I hated you.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
That's funny.

Speaker 1 (42:22):
I mean I wanted to get that year with Bonds
that you're taught. I remember. I feel like I watched
every single pitch and I was like that mother like
oh yeah, like I want. I wanted nothing but for
you to fail.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
So it worked.

Speaker 1 (42:36):
Whatever you were doing, it worked.

Speaker 2 (42:38):
So it became a running a running theme right of
of my teammates. If we went to a away game
and I didn't get booed, they're like, he's gonna suck.
But if they stood up like it booed the shit
out of me, they're like, oh, he's going deep today.
And I was like, thank you, like because it got
me going, Like I mean, after the two thousand five playoffs,
you go to Anna and they bow the shit out

(42:59):
of me. Right. Teammates are like, oh no, I Reguly.
We go to Wrigley, They're like ooh, and they're like, oh,
they have no idea what they just did. I'm like,
oh yeah, I mean I live for it, like I live, live, live,
live for like the emotion. Because there's there's an old thing.
I don't know who said it. You know, they don't
boo you for no reason. They bow you because you
broke their heart usually right, and they don't boot nobody's

(43:21):
so to me. In my mind, I was like it
was a badge of honor, like the louder, the better
bring it on.

Speaker 1 (43:26):
Is there ever anything that you did to instigate that
you regret.

Speaker 2 (43:31):
There's always things you look back on and say, man,
I wish it wouldn't have done that. You know, I've
talked a lot of shit. I mean not. It wasn't
a personal thing. It was more to myself, like I
was talking. It would come out loud, but it was
more to myself, like it was a way I motivated myself. No,
you didn't have time, like Pete. That's always what people say,
Oh you talked to people. I'm like, dude, there's no way.

(43:51):
I don't have time. There's no time for that to
be like, oh, you know, like the major league scene,
or oh I have pictures of your mother or whatever
Bull Durham, like you don't have time for that. Plus
guy has a bat and I'm standing there with no bat,
like we're gonna I'm not gonna say them to a
dude that can whack me with a bat. But I mean,
like I would pop up and I'd be like you motherfucker,
like you know, or I'd say a bad word and

(44:12):
throw my bat like that was a minute. The picture
that was more mad at me, but the only one
I wish there was a There was a play when
in Minnesota. I stepped on Justin Moreno's foot. It was
an accident. It turned into a big deal and I
played with Moren and and he thought, you know, I
was like, look, man, I'm sorry. I apologized him to
do it right there, and it turned into a big
to do and I was That's the one thing. I mean,
I did a lot of others. There was one time

(44:33):
running off the field in San Francisco, fans were booing
the shit out. I mean, I was a giant at
the time. Two thousand and four and I kind of
gave the old scratch my face bird to a guy
and they caught it on camera and I got called
into the office the next day and by the GM
and he's like, did you do this? And I was
like what, I'm scratching my face and he's like, really,
like I'm smarter than that, and I was like, eh, well,

(44:55):
I like, you know, it's just all dumb shit do
you do over the course of my career and us,
So there's not a lot that I would change. I mean, listen,
when you get to a point when you have kids, right,
I have an eighteen year old and a sixteen year old.
They know how the internet, so everything is out there.
So there's things where like Dad, did you really do this?
Or did you do this? And yeah, I know, you know,

(45:15):
it's not your proudest moment when your kids see when
you're in the middle of it, you know, say whatever
you want about me. But when my kids have to
read it, that's when it kind of hits home.

Speaker 1 (45:22):
Right. My favorite was, which I had forgotten about, but
looking through the research on you that you successfully. By
the way, had a campaign in two thousand and six
to make the All Star Game, and the slogan was
punch aj because you used to have to punch the

(45:43):
ballots and people wanting to punch you. That makes me laugh.
But the WW, did you ever consider doing more with that?

Speaker 2 (45:53):
I did as much as I could. I mean, listen,
I I've been in there. I did. WW was kind
of like the Holy The only thing I got to
do with them is I got to do a couple
like standings. And then I got to do a thing
with Bob Barker, God Rest his soul, where they called
me out of the crowd and I got to run
around and do some dumb shit with him, which is great.
I got to get in the ring, like I mean, listen,

(46:16):
I hit dudes with chairs, I hit dudes with home plates.
I've hit dudes with all kinds of stuff, right, And
anyone that sells me wrestling's fake is listen. I know
how hard I hit those sons of bitches with chairs
and stuff. It ain't fake like I'm hitting them now.
The endings might be scripted, well, listen, the action and
the moves and all the stuff they do that's junk
is real, man, and I respect the hell out of

(46:38):
those dudes.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
The end of your career, you go to the Rangers,
you go to the other Socks, the Red Sox, Cardinals,
you finish with the Braves, and in twenty fifteen you
reach over two thousand games played. You mentioned it before,
You're clearly proud of that, and had your tooth thousandth

(47:00):
career hit, something only thirteen other catchers in the history
of the game is done. By the way, are you
aware of that milestone in the moment? Are you? Are you?
Are you gunning for it?

Speaker 2 (47:10):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (47:11):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
So in twenty six twenty fifteen, I finished like fifteen
hits short or something, and then so I'm like, well,
I'm gonna play one more year to twenty sixteen. So
I come out and I get off to an awful start, right,
and I get to like thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine,
and we have like a two games left in the
home stand. My family all flew in and they all
wanted to be there, and of course I go like,
oh for eight with like seven strikeouts because I am

(47:34):
trying my ass off right right to get this hit
in front of my family. And then we ended up
going to Boston and I got it the next day.
But it was like, I was kind of anti climactic
because I did it, and I didn't do it in Atlanta.
I did it in Boston. They didn't really give a
shit because I just played there and they you know,
they didn't even like put it on the scoreboard or anything.
Would have been cool if they could have at least
have been like congratulations, you know, but they didn't do anything. Well,

(47:55):
my teammates obviously new but yeah, I was chasing it then.
And the one that I'm I'm probably more proud of
is that I have four hundred doubles, which is only
four catchers I think have ever done at the time.
And I did that actually at the White Sox and
that was so that was kind of cool my last
year to do that at the against the White Sox
in Chicago. That one was kind of the thing that
I was like, Okay, the two thousand hits is great,

(48:16):
but the four hundred doubles, And like I said at
the time, I think I was the fourth catcher to
ever do it.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
That's awesome. You retire in twenty seventeen, What made you
know it was time to go?

Speaker 2 (48:28):
I would we talked to me. I couldn't fake it.

Speaker 1 (48:29):
Anymore.

Speaker 2 (48:30):
I couldn't fake the I couldn't fake the hate. And
my kids, Listen, my kids were old when I retired.
I mean I was thirty nine going on forty, right,
so I was forty years old to turn forty in
the offseason, and I knew I had a I was
fortunate enough. I have a still worked for Fox and
calling games, and they're kind of were like, hey, if
you retire, we'll give you a job. And I was like, Okay,
it means more time at home, but it also means

(48:51):
more time at home, right, Right, it's a hard thing.
And you know, as in your profession of acting, like
if somebody came to you with the wife or somebody
was like, I need you to retire, and you in
your heart you didn't believe that it was time, you
would probably regret them for the rest of your life. Right.
My wife would always say, I'm never going to tell
you when it's time, because if I do that, you'll
regret me for the rest of my life, because you

(49:13):
would always think, man, you know, I should have kept playing,
or I should have done this. And after twenty sixteen,
it was just a hard I didn't have very good
I had my worst year by far, and I was
just I just wasn't in it. Just kind of was like,
all right, I'm dead. My kids were older, my kids
were starting to do a bunch of stuff, like you know,
getting at the age where they're traveling a lot for
their sports, and it was just time, right, And I

(49:34):
remember looking at my wife and I was like, you know,
it's time, and she's like, you sure is? You know,
if you all support you, if you want to go
try it again, and I was like, no, it's time.
And I've never regretted my decision at all, and it
was time. Do I wish I could have played more?
Of course, you'll you'll always say, man, I wish I
could step in the batter's box one more time, or
I wish I could do this one more time, But

(49:55):
you can't, and so you have to be okay and
you have to walk away with a conscious And I
was listen my last game. I actually knew when my
last game. The Braves came to me and said, hey,
it's middle September. We're gonna start you in this game
and then we're probably either we're gonna put you on
the d L or release you. And I was like
just put me on the DL we'll fake something. And
so they said, okay, we're gonna start you in this
Saturday game, so make sure all your family and friends

(50:16):
are I'm like, okay, it's probably gonna be my last
game ninety nine percent, right, So my last game, my
last about came an extra innings and on it was
a There was a Dansby Swanson was a great player, right,
he was on second base, and he's a September call up.
Brian Snicker the manager still the manager there, run around second,
no out, tie, extra innings, tie game, right, but Snicker

(50:40):
gives me the bunt. I'm like, you gotta be he
knows this is my last game, right, I'm I'm thinking
to myself, I'm like, you gotta be fucking kidding or no, sorry,
Swanson was on first, Like you gotta be fucking kidding me.
So I bunt and goes foul by like inches, and
I'm like, oh my gosh. Right, So next pitch, wild pitch.
So now Danzy's on second and I look over and
I'm like, there's no way he's gonna have me again,

(51:00):
like he knows, and he gives me bunt. Whatever. It
gets to three two, and I'm like, all right, now,
I'll have the bunt with two strikes to end up
get three two. I get a hit right when I
get this hit, like kind of left center ish, and
Cessmades is in left field and Swanson doesn't score, and
I'm like running the first, like, dude, this is my
Derek Jeter moment. I just my last game nobody because

(51:21):
nobody knew was my last game except for my teammates.
Nobody else had any idea of the media and nobody,
And I'm like running the first, like, yeah, man, I
just freaking walked him off in my last game. Derek
Jeter blah blah blah, Swanson unscore. I'm like, son of
a bitch. Then Stick or Pinch runs for me at first,
and I'm like, well, if we don't score this winning
run with Noel, it's like I'm done and that sound's
gonna end like so anyways, we end up scoring the

(51:43):
run and whatever, the celebration breaks out, you know, walk
off Land and Freddie Freeman dumps me with gatorade and
I have my son out on the field with me
and he's running around and the whole deal, and I
know Dave O'Brien, I'll never get tweeted out. At the time,
is still a beat writer for Lanta, and he says,
I think Perzinski is retired right now, but nobody knows
about it. And he had it and he had it

(52:04):
and he had no And then after the game they
started asking me all these questions and I was like,
I don't know, you know, I don't know what's happening.
You know, No, just a big win. We're happy we
beat the Mets and they're in the playoff race and yeah.
And then the next day my ship was cleared out
and I was gone. But it was like one of
those just nobody knew except my teammates and my family,
and you know, it was it was an emotional day,
but you know it was it was it was a

(52:26):
cool way to go out. And they were like, you know,
we can do we can announce this and we can
do a big thing. And I said, you know what,
I was never like a big pro It was never
like a top hundred prospect. I came in kind of
with no fanfair. I just kind of want to go
out and only have my family know. And that was
kind of how they let me go out. And it
was it was awesome.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
Wow, that's awesome. Speaking of your son, I know he
plays ball now, I know you've been coaching a little bit.
Does he have aspirations?

Speaker 2 (52:51):
He does? He does? He you know what, he's first
of all, first and part, let me say this about
both my children. They're amazing kids, which I care about
way more than the sports side of it. My daughter,
she's a senior. She's going to Mississippi State to play
volleyball next year.

Speaker 1 (53:06):
Awesome.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
So and then my son is a junior. He's kind
of going through the recruiting stuff right now. But listen,
their first and foremost, they're good kids, which is way, way,
way better if they If my son wants to try
to follow in my footsteps or try to make himself
a professional baseball player, then I'll support him. I just
you know, I always tell them and it's really really hard,

(53:29):
and it's a hard life. And it is. Yes, the
rewards are fantastic, off the charts, but getting there and
what you have to go through is really hard. So
just know that you better enjoy the grind to get
to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
Well, I think that's true for for everything. I think
you know, you got to you got to really love something,
not focus on the end, but be willing to go
through what you what you have to to get there.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
Right, Well, no, I think I tell like I help
coach my son's high school team. I'm like, you have
to love the grind, and the grind is every day
showing up, putting in the work, lifting the weights, running
the sprints, hitting off a tee. You have to love
that part of it because anyone loves the hits with
the fans and the admiration you get for that. But
when no one's looking, that's when you're, like, you find

(54:15):
out who really loves whatever you do. Like, I'm sure
for you. I mean, how many times have you read
in the mirror, like the lines right when no one's
paying attention, just to get try to get apart right
and then all of a sudden, boom you get the
part and you're, oh, man, this is all worth it. Right,
But let's say that never happens. But you got to
figure out a way to keep going after it. Well,
that's the way the sports are, right. It's like you
have to figure out a way to keep going until

(54:38):
that moment comes where everything comes together and it works out.
It doesn't always work out.

Speaker 1 (54:42):
Do you think your son would need to self motivate
as you do? Do you see yourself and him that way?

Speaker 2 (54:51):
No? No, oh god, my son is complete. He is
like superni kid is like the night. Like he's the
kids that when they have new kids at school, they're
always like, we're gonna put him with him because he's
nice and he'll be nice to him. Oh no, that
was not me. Trust me. I don't know him, and
we always My wife and I joked that, like my
both my kids have all of our personality traits, you know,

(55:11):
divided up, and my son got like my daughter is
by far and I was called she's not mean at all,
but she definitely has the meaner traits to her than
my fight. Oh definitely. And my son is just very
He's very nice, very polite, very respectful. Not not that
I wasn't, but he definitely doesn't have like the I'm
gonna I'm gonna rip your fucking head off, you know,

(55:32):
like I mean, he he has it more. It's quieter,
it's not like out there in.

Speaker 1 (55:35):
The right now. You're working for Fox Sports full time.

(55:58):
You started doing postseason back in twenty eleven, when you
were still playing. What made you want to do that
while you're still playing?

Speaker 2 (56:06):
It actually started, which is gonna sound funny, in two
thousand so there was an old show on Fox called
Best Damn Sports Show, Yeah, which with like Tom Arnold,
right yeah, and Chris Rose and John Sally. So every
time I go to LA they call me and say, hey,
will you come on Best Damn Sports Show? And I
was like, sure, it's fun. It's an hour, you know,
go down there and hang out with those guys. And

(56:27):
so we do that when I was still playing. And
then in two thousand and four they called me and say, hey,
will you do our postseason for us? And I was like,
what do you mean. They're like, come here for three
weeks and run us from the lcs's all the way
to the World Series. I'm like sure, So I did.
I was there for three weeks, right. Well, then all
the people that worked on that show are now like
all the heads of Fox. I mean, they have all

(56:47):
like up the ladder, and so through time, you know,
I became obviously you know, I don't want to say
friends with them, but like we knew each other. And
in two thousand and six, they called me and say, hey,
will you help us from around in the postseason. So
I did it thousand and six we had won the
year before, and I do it a round with him.
And then in twenty eleven they called me and say, hey,
we want you to to do pre and post and

(57:07):
run through it. And I was like, yeah, this sounds awesome,
Like this'ould be a great opportunity. You get to go
to the World Series, you get to go to the
you know, the Alcs and do all this fun stuff.
And it was Chris Rose who had known for you know, forever,
and Eric Carros and and show up this You'll love
this your first day, never done this before. Live. We're
in Texas. Two hour raind lay. Okay, good two hour raindler.

(57:30):
So it's Chris Rose eye and they take Eric Carros,
who was our third guy, and they put him in
the dugout in case a player walks out so we
can get an interview during the rain delay. So Chris
Rose and I filled for two hours, just the first
day I've ever done this job. And I'm like, man,
this is this is how it goes. Every time they
were laughing, joking like this isn't always like this, but
you know, it was just it was fun and I

(57:52):
liked it, and you know people, you know people, when
that light comes on, people can either talk or they
can't talk. And it was just like I was just
acting normal and they they liked it and I did it,
but then they can Once I retired, they came in
and said, hey, do you want to do this full time?
And I was like sure, and listen. The first game
I ever did was Yankees or Yankees Raised in Tampa

(58:12):
with Kenny Albert and it was awful. Dude. There's no training.
I'm sitting there and they're like talk and You're like
about what, right, Like what do I talk about? I
mean not that I was like, not that I was nervous,
but three hours is a long time to fill, right,
even with the game in front of you. And because
it's not like you do a game. It's not like

(58:34):
you practice, not like use a school to go to.
It's literally like the light comes on, right talk Okay,
but yeah, I mean it's a learning it's still learning process.

Speaker 1 (58:44):
Your new show is so fun, so such a such
a different kind of show than we've uh than really
we've seen in baseball before. With Todd Frazier, Adam Jones,
Lorenzo Caine, brock Hold, Jason Kipnis, Eric Krat, Scott Braun
Foul Territory? Are you having fun doing it?

Speaker 2 (59:08):
I am. The problem is, man, it's a lot of work.
I didn't realize these podcastings are so much work.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 2 (59:13):
See, I'm not big time like you, Brian. I can't
show up and someone has these notes written down for me.
And I just asked the questions right, Like I have
to actually have to do research. I mean, we have
guests on every day. This is I do it Monday
to Thursday and listen. Foul Territories is awesome and I
and the thing that we just talked about, like me
working for Fox, but this has helped me so much
in my broadcast because I am talking to guys every

(59:35):
single day about baseball, so I know so much more.
Like I always watched baseball, but I didn't dig into
like what was happening not only in the game I'm
covering that week, but around the league well every day.
Now I have to know everything that's happening.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
That's what I was going to ask you. Yeah, are
you watching games? Are you watching highlights? What are you
What are you doing to prepare?

Speaker 2 (59:54):
I mean I have games on right now. I'm watching
the afternoon games on the TV in the room i'm in.
I watched the games and then after you kind of just,
you know, luckily with it with social media, you can
go on Twitter and Instagram and kind of see like
the cool moments or they're not so cool, or people
screw up, and I kind of know, like, Okay, we're
gonna hit on this, or but I have to watch
games and I love baseball, So for me, it's not

(01:00:15):
it's not really work, but it is work. My wife's say,
let's watch a show. I'm like, sorry, how they gotta work,
gotta watch a games night. But it's just such a
cool thing. And I work with just such great people
behind the scenes to do things and get it all
together and are so open to talking about whatever and
the and it's unscripted. I mean, yes, there's like a
rundown that it lists what you're supposed to talk about,
but you know, you can talk about it. We can

(01:00:37):
talk about anything and whatever we feel like talking about
that day. We can go way off script and talk
about this. Today we had Ken rosenthal On and Stanton
John Carlos Stanton hit his four hundred homer, and I'm like,
is John Carlos stan a Hall of Famer with Ken Rosenthal,
who's the best insider in the business, And he's I
don't know, you know, if he gets the five hundred
is five hundred home runs? Is?

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
It's not. But if you think you know, it's not
as easy of a question as you think. You're like, oh,
five hundred, it's automatic, But then you look at some
other stuff you're like, it is he though, So I
don't know. It's just fun to talk about this with
other players. And then we get the players on, and
we get players on because we played, we're able to
get them to open up and give us more than
the normal interview. And it's just been so fun getting

(01:01:19):
to know these people and letting fans see these people
as human beings.

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
It's perfect. I love it. It's so great. And and
going live as you do five days a week has
got to help you also, you know, with your broadcasting of.

Speaker 2 (01:01:37):
Course, I mean it's just practice. It's like with you
in acting, right, the more roles you get, the more
chance you get to be a character, the better you become.

Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
It that's right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
By the way. Are your Dodgers going to win the
World Series this year?

Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
Well that was my last question for you. What do
you think?

Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
Well, because you said you're a bravesman, but every time
I see you now you have a Dodger's hat on.
You're Clayton Kershaw's ping pong tournament. You know you're over
there with Magic Johnson Huggin.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
I mean, are your Braves or your Dodgers?

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
Just like just like you, I changed. Just like you,
I changed. You've outed me now on the program. I
was a huge Braves fan growing up and still was
a Braves fan through my entire time in Minnesota and
other places. As I was doing theater around the country,
I moved to Los Angeles and I realized very quickly

(01:02:27):
that I'm never leaving Southern California. I became a season
ticket holder my first year in LA and remained that
for many many years. And so I just changed. I changed.
I love baseball and I wanted to be able to
go and watch baseball, and so for me, that made
me have to go all in. So now I'm all in.

(01:02:48):
I really love the team this year. I love the
team chemistry that they have, But I'm more curious what
you think, do we have enough pitching to keep it going.

Speaker 2 (01:02:58):
Listen, those two teams are probably the best two teams
in baseball. I mean that series they played last weekend
was sick. It was such a good game. Every game
was like great game. Right, the Stars came out to
play Mookie Pacuna, Freddy like, the Stars are out right
to play in those games. And I listen, I hope
they that's the NLCS. I mean, I listen to Braves Dodgers.

(01:03:19):
You could not beat that NLCS. I mean, the travel sucks.
But other than that, I mean the two teams, the
two best teams playing each other. I think the Braves
are better team one through twenty six. But I think
that it's man with the Dodgers. It's always like they
figure it out right. It's like they figure out the
way Mookie's gonna get a hit or Freddie's gonna get
a month, he's gonna they got J. D. Martinez coming back.

(01:03:41):
It's like, gosh, you never want to get rid of
the that. You listen anytime Kershaw's on the mow Man,
you you've got a root hard for that guy, no
matter who he's pitching against So I think I think
ares the Areus thing is really that that that's a sting.
But if they get Bueller back, I mean, listen, Kershaw Bueller,
whoever else they can run. It's like the Dodgers always
have pitching and young guys, old guys. Whatever it is.

(01:04:03):
Lanceln my boy out there, you know, looking like a
cloud in that all white uniform.

Speaker 1 (01:04:08):
He looks great. He looks he.

Speaker 2 (01:04:12):
Looks like a big fat cloud out there pitching.

Speaker 1 (01:04:14):
He looks great. Bueller is he going to be back.

Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
He's supposed to be back. I don't know what his
role is going to be, but he's supposed to be back. Yeah. Listen,
if you can have that guy as a weapon for
a couple of innings every other game, that's a monster
to half end that bullpen.

Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
Who do you like out of the American League?

Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
Yeah, I mean Houston always until someone beats him. I
love Baltimore as a team. I absolutely love Baltimore. This
the youth. If they had Bautista, if they hadn't lost him,
I would say I think they they can walk through
the American League because the back in their bullpen him.
Losing him hurts because their starters aren't great, but their youth,
they're the way they play, the energy they play with.

(01:04:53):
I love watching them. And my big prediction is I
think the Twins are actually going to win a playoff
game for the first time since two thousand and four.

Speaker 1 (01:05:00):
Are they going to win a playoff series?

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
I said a playoff game depends on who they play
in the series, but I mean, listen, if they got
to play Houston or if they got to play Seattle,
I mean, nobody wants to play those two teams, and
especially in the wild card three game series, that's stuff. Draw.

Speaker 1 (01:05:14):
What do you think of my buddy Bruce Bochie's Texas Rangers.

Speaker 2 (01:05:18):
Listen, I love Bruce Bochie. He's one of my all
time favorite guys I've ever met. And but gosh, it's
like they're out of gas and they're just no energy.
There's no and listen, it's not because they're not trying.
And I don't want people to think, oh, they're not trying,
but it's just like they've they've hit a wall and
there's how do you get it back? And Boach has
tried everything. Just what do you do? I don't know,

(01:05:40):
is sometimes just isn't meant to be and they're ahead
of where they thought they were supposed to be too,
don't forget like they weren't supposed to be in this
situation and right as the free fall. It's just so
hard to watch because I love Mike Maddox, our pitching coach,
Bruce Bochie, A lot of their guys were there when
I played there, and it just feel for him.

Speaker 1 (01:05:56):
Yeah, it will be great.

Speaker 2 (01:05:59):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:05:59):
Last quest question? Do you agree that there's no adjustment
to the pitching clock for the playoffs?

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
Ugh? I love it as a broadcaster because the games
are so much faster. I absolutely worry. I don't want
to say I don't like it. I worry that the
big moments are are going to get ruined because there's
no drama build up because you don't have time. I
look back one year ago the Bryce Harper home run

(01:06:29):
right in the playoffs, forty five seconds between pitches, he
stepped out, he fixed his batting loves, he got to
breathe the pitcher gun, and it kind of gave the
crowd a chance to from like a low roar to
like deafening because it's like the drama's building as he's
waiting to get in the box. I worry we're going
to miss some of that. But listen, anything that can

(01:06:50):
get the games under three hours. And you know you're
on the West coast, right, so it's a little different.
The World Series starts at five out there, gets done
about eight, right. Well, the East Coast, they were getting
done in mid night one am. That's too late. Kids
can't stay up and watch that. So I'm all for
getting done. You know, they start at eight, they're maybe
done by ten forty five. Cool. I think parents can
talk themselves into letting kids stay up that late. You know,

(01:07:12):
you get into midnight one am. It's a little tougher. Poll.

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
Yeah, in my opinion, this is solely my opinion. Fox
Sports is great. They do football really well. To me,
they do nothing better than how they have done postseason
baseball the last however many years. And you just I

(01:07:37):
mean it's like their directors are great. But I being
someone who sees what they're doing, it's like, I mean,
the moments you're talking about, go to Bryce Harper, go
to a fan, go to a fan you know, covering
her eyes, Go to a fan with his hat on backwards,

(01:07:57):
go to a you know, and that and all of
those shots that's all of those shots are building drama.
Well it's happening, and there's no time for that. Now
those shots aren't can't happen.

Speaker 2 (01:08:12):
No, it's got to be quick. Yeah, it'll be quick,
it'll be cool. You know what what I learned now
doing games right, because I do every games every week,
is the innings are short, right, so story's got to
be short or whatever your animal rise to be short.
And two, there's not a lot of time for replays,
so there's unless something like you know, when you're doing

(01:08:34):
a game, you have a headset on and there's people
in your ear saying like what we're gonna we're what
they're going to show possibly, or you know, do we
want to replay? And you can talk back to the
producer and the director or you can say, hey, can
you give me a shot of this, or can you
give me this or whatever, But now they're like, replay
if we have time, and you're like, well what you know,
Oh crap, it's already two outs and spend two and
a half minutes and the inning's over, So there's no

(01:08:56):
time for like saying, a guy hits a ball and
it's it's hitting. The guy dies and catches it when
it was the second out. Boom, twenty seconds later, it's
the next pitch, they can't cut it and get back
and it's the third out, and you're like, all right,
we'll have to show it next half. And then the
moment passes and you're like, well, we can't show it anymore.
So that's that is the biggest difference for me at
watching games and broadcasting games now is how quick it
goes and how much less time you have.

Speaker 1 (01:09:18):
Yeah, I can't wait. It's always the best time of
the year. Football starts, the Georgia Bulldogs beat up on Florida.
There's baseball, it's going to be amazing. The NFL is
getting going, always a pleasure. Foul Territory continues success with that,
And I can't wait to text you while you're broadcasting

(01:09:39):
important Dodgers games coming down the stretch.

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
Well, Fox has al this year, so you're safe. You
don't have to bother me. You don't have to bother
me like Seattle, Minnesota, you know, Baltimore, Tampa, something like that.
Feel free to text me because it's always fun when
I hear from you and I'm waiting for the text,
like can you say like some random word on the air.

Speaker 1 (01:09:59):
I don't ever do that, I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
I know people do, though, can you say like super
calus fragilestic? Thanks AJ, Thanks Brian, hopefully I see you
in Jacksonville.

Speaker 1 (01:10:12):
I'll see you, sin Aj. Thanks so much for coming on.
I know that you're a busy man. I appreciate it
very much. And uh, I'm sorry. I hope you don't mind.

(01:10:34):
I'm gonna go ahead and tell everyone that that you're
actually a nice guy. I hope that doesn't ruin your reputation.
Check AJ out listeners on foul Territory on YouTube or
on your on your favorite podcast app. And as long
as you're there, well there's there's another podcast. It's called

(01:10:56):
Off the Beat. Leave it a rating, give it a review.
I for one would love to hear from you. So
until next time, have a great week. Off the Beat

(01:11:18):
is hosted and executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside
our executive producer, Lang Lee. Our senior producer is Diego Tapia.
Our producers are Liz Hayes, Hannah Harris, and Emily Carr.
Our talent producer is Ryan Papa Zachary, and our intern
is Ali Amir sahim Our theme song Bubble and Squeak,

(01:11:39):
performed by the one and only Creed prat