November 22, 2024 • 16 mins
On this episode of the Dougout, Doug revisits one of the most unforgettable chapters of his baseball career: representing Team USA at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
In part one of a hilarious and wild casino adventure, Doug recounts a night with legends Tommy Lasorda and Pat Borders that took an unexpected turn... This is one story you won't want to miss!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome back to the Dugout Podcast. I'm your host, Doug mccavig.
This week, we're gonna hit memory lane. We're gonna go
back to the two thousand Olympics, which was a huge
time in my life, huge event for my career moving forward,
probably the most influential two three weeks to a month
that I had as a player. I've been in a lot,
(00:27):
I've been in a right place at the right time
a lot of times, and this was definitely one of them.
Set the scene, We're in Sydney, Australia, obviously one of
the most beautiful places in the world. To start with,
we are in the Gold Coast, which is basically I
want to say, I'm not really one hundred percent sure
how far away it is, but we're away from Sydney
(00:48):
to start at the Olympics. We get there about a
month ahead of time. Basically, the team flies to San
Diego first, we play a couple of games, we do
some practices, we do some fluffy SeaWorld stuff, and then boom,
we're on a plane to Australia.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
We get to the Gold Coast.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
We're staying in this absolutely stunning casino, and the first
thing I think is, oh boy, this is gonna be bad.
So obviously we get there sixteen seventeen hour flight. We're
all our biological clocks are a mess because of the
time change. So now what's night is day? And what
(01:26):
day is night? If I remember correctly? Over there, so
we all have roommates, and my roommate's Pat Borders. Give
you a backstory. Pat Borders one the World Series MVP
in nineteen ninety one for the Toronto Blue Jays. Mind you,
this is two thousand, so this is you know, this
is quite some time later. Pat is now the Grizzly veteran. Obviously,
(01:49):
we all know who he is. We all know who
he was, we all know how great a player he was,
and we're just ecstatic to have him on the squad,
let alone be my roommate. Maybe it's because they thought
I was I was just as old as he was,
because the way I played, I wasn't quite sure how
we got matched up. But boom, here I am living
with Pat Borders in my mind is a legend with
(02:12):
in baseball. So now Pat is about as country as
country can be. He's got boots, he's got the boots,
he's got the chew. He's got wranglers, but he's always
dressed to the knives hair, I mean, just pimped out.
So he wakes up we can't sleep one night, and
he's like, you want to go downstairs and play blackjack?
(02:33):
I'm like, of course, absolutely, you know, for one one
I couldn't sleep either. Two, you know, for nothing else bonding,
and we're gonna go on and just try to make
ourselves tired so we can get some sleep.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
We roll down there. It's it's late.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
It's not I mean, I want to say it's not
super late, but it's I want to say, it's definitely
we shouldn't be down there, is what I'm getting at.
So we get down there and we start playing blackjack,
and he's killing it.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
He's doing great.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Now in Australia you can play behind people, meaning if
I'm playing and I'm doing well and you don't want
to play, you can bet with the person that's doing
well and you win what you bet well. Pat hated this,
so there was a little There was three Vietnamese guys
and one Vietnamese girl who were standing by us while
(03:23):
we were playing, and obviously they didn't speak too much English.
So the guy wants to keep playing behind Pat. Well,
Pat asked him nicely, please please don't, please, don't do that.
I really don't appreciate that. I don't like it. You're
welcome to sit down and play with us, No big deal.
So now set the stage. Here, here comes Tommy Thesorta,
(03:43):
Bless his heart. Tommy's had a few red wines in him,
so he's feeling pretty good. He's got, you know, he
got his two plays to pasta, you know, probably a
bottle of red wine, maybe a white wine in there.
So Tommy's coming down to talk to us, right, and
he's he's feeling he's feeling pretty good. So he sees
he sees us playing, so he stops and talks to us,
(04:03):
obviously because we're two of the older guys on the team.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
So he's we're having our little bonding moment. We're playing.
The guy bumps Pat to put his chips behind him again,
and Tommy saw it, and we explained what was going
on while Tommy just stands up and you know, I'm
gonna paralyze you with this left hook, and I'm like Tommy, dude,
you're like ninety and you know you're liquored up a
little bit. You're feeling pretty good. I get it.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
I got your back, Tommy, but we don't want to
cause World War three here, so we're just gonna let
it slide. Well, Tommy just is adamant about stand up
for his guy, that's all. Tom Tommy was a huge
stand up for your guys, Foxhole. I want my guys
to have each other's backs. And I don't know if
he was doing this on purpose, but you could tell
(04:48):
like things are getting escalated. So finally the guy bumps
Pat again. This is like bump number four, trying to
get his chips. So Pat literally stands up and I'm
sitting next to Pat pass to my left. Pat stands
up and it was kind of funny, was the other
the Vietnamese guy like when passed it up like barely
(05:10):
hit like the middle of his chest. And Pat wasn't
a tall, like super tall guy, but this this hits
him square and I'm like, I started, I literally giggled.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
I'm like, this is gonna be Pat.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
So anyway, Pat stands up and the guy like tries
to fight him Pat. And this is no BS because
we saw the surveillance tape to this Pat picks this
guy up and like throws him.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Behind the table behind us.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
So he went from the walkway in the air, over
the other blackjack table into the pit boss area. And
I'm I'm laughing at this point. I'm like, oh my god,
that's one of the best throws I've ever seen, and
like in my head and I'm thinking, like, oh shit,
I've got I remember there's another dude and a girl
(05:59):
behind me. So I feel this like like I got
hit in the back of the head with something and
I turn around and it's the guy's girlfriend with it
like a purse and she's smoking me like right in
the back of the head, and I, oh my gosh,
here we go. Like I'm like, why do I get
the I'm getting the chick right, So I literally like
hold her back. I hold her back, and all of
(06:21):
a sudden incomes Brent Abernathy in their second basement, who
he weighs like a Bucco five, dripping wet, and he
grabs the other guy and and long story short, out
of the corner of my eye, you can still see
Pat throwing this dude farther and farther down the pit
(06:43):
ball like a cartoon. So this is going on, I'm
getting hit in the head with a purse. Abby's holding
the other guy back, and then all of a sudden,
the guy turns on Abernathy and bites him in the chest.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
So now we have blood. Now we have a ripped shirt, blood, and.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Things kind of calmed down once pat like literally through
this guy like one hundred yards down the casino, which
is absolutely mind blowing, but it became like legendary. And
to back this up, this was right around the hockey
team and the Nagano situation where they had to destroyed
hotel rooms and they told us flat out like we're
gonna have no bs, like, no nonsense, no goofing around.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
We're not gonna take this. You're wearing your colors on
your chest.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
We're not gonna have any fun, any monkey business where
we want us to not be the hockey team, must
be the baseball team, rappresent your country's pride and all
that stuff which we were all for. Come to find out,
now the casino fight is somewhat under control. We get
the manager comes down, he looks at us and he goes,
you guys need to get to your rooms now, and
we're like, oh, okay, why And they're like, well, these
(07:52):
guys have a rap sheet that's like nine to ten
pages long.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
They're part of a gang.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
They're going outside get automatic weapons and they're gonna spray
the entire casino. And we're like, oh check please, Like
I'm like, you can have my chips, I'm sending to
the house. So uh we go upstairs. Now this is
where it gets good. Now, in the middle of the fight,
just like Kaiser Sosai tim and the sort of disappears
(08:21):
like a fart in the wind, like you don't even
know where he's at. So he starts to fight basically,
and then he just like he just disappears like a
kind of ghost.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
So we're looking.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Around, going okay, now we're on our own, like we
don't have as much backup as we thought we did,
not for the physical fight, but like to back us up.
So they don't send us home. They don't they we
don't want to be sent home. We just got there.
So fast forward now, I said. The manager comes up
to us, tells us, you know, this guy's got a
rap sheet ten pages long. They're part of a gang
(08:53):
that's in it's local. They're gonna go spray the whole casino.
They've already said they don't like Americans, so like here
we go, you know. So we bolt to our rooms
and I get the knocking on the door, and for
some reason, I am I have become the spokesperson for
not only the.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Team but the incident. I'm like, well, pasts like fifty
he should do this, right he you know? So?
Speaker 1 (09:18):
And then Bob Watson is there, rest in peace. One
of the best baseball minds in the history of the game.
But he's like Darth Vader, okay, Like Bob Watson's a
very large man with a bigger persona and player, general manager,
architect of this squad, and it's I think it was
(09:39):
one of our I think it was Dave Finuccier. Somebody
came and got got me and it was like, Bob
wants to see you, and I'm like, oh shit. Like
add to the fact that I'm hitting like shit in
the preliminary round and like the exhibition games, I've gotten
like one hit and now I'm fighting, you know, foreigners.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
On the casino floor. I'm like, this isn't going to go.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
So I walk into Bob Watson's room and if you
can picture like like a scene from like either The
Godfather or Scarface. So you got like this dark ass
hotel room and all you see is like the the
top of Bob's face. It's like a He's in the
back corner and like, to make it even, it felt
(10:21):
like he was smoking a cigar because it was smoking
the room, and Tommy's sitting on the other side, and
I'm like, oh god, this is how it ends. So
Bob's like trying to talk to me, like, Doug, just
what happened?
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Now?
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Tommy's still bent up, right, He's still he still had
some cocktails in him. So he starts I love these guys.
These guys fight for each other. These are the best.
And I'm like I'm looking over. I'm like, dude, you're
not helping us right now, Like you're like stop talking.
And he's like, Bob, don't you dare send these guys home,
And Bob looks at him. He's like, I'm trying to
get the actual story from what a guy that was there.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
He's like, these guys fight. They average o fox hole guys.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
And I look at time and go, will you shut
up and let the grownups handle this? Like I'm trying
to get out of this, and you're making it worse,
like you've been in this moment, like well, you just
shut up and go to bed. And so finally, like
Bob and I talk about it now, in the middle
of it, I'm kind of talking Bob off the ledge
because he was like, I'm about to send you guys
home knocked.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Here comes the trainer.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
The trainer walks in and goes, yeah, Abernathy had to
go to the hospital because he had to go get
a technis shot and like six stitches. And I'm just like,
you know, just when you feel like you're making a headway,
like I'm getting I feel like I'm getting out of
this right like you just got you snuck out of
your parents' house, you're past curfew, you're talking to dad
or mom, and you're like, you feel like you're smoothing
(11:41):
it out, and then all of a sudden, you know,
you know, boom, you get busted something, you leave a
detail out that screws you.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Right, That's how I feel. I'm like, I think I'm
gonna make this like I'm I'm gonna beat I might
have a.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Chance to, you know, get myself kicked off the team,
because how I play, not from what I've done it
after the game, so and then sure enough, and he
just looks at us to go, I don't know if
I can do this, And I'm like, well, He's like, well,
I'm gonna have to go down and see the video, like,
oh boy, what's on the surveillance tape. And the funny
part is, like the best part of it was Pat
throwing this poor guy down.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
The casino floor.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
And all you see is it was like it was
like a scene out of out of Hangover, like when
you know, when they steal the tiger at Mike Tyson's house,
and like they're doing the guy. You know, one guy's
peeing in the pool, like it's black and white, like
you just see feet and dude just little like it
looks like a like a stuffed animal getting thrown down
the casino floor. The casino people, the managers and the
(12:36):
and the security heads come down and they show the
video tape to I guess people in the USA Baseball
front office, and from the description of the video, we
see I guess Pats throwing this guy like a stuffed
animal down down, which is what I said, and I
saw with my own eyes. I looked over my shoulder,
(12:56):
and just like you expect people to be walking, you
don't expect people to be throwing, like throwing things, so
like it goes above your eyesight, so you're seeing feet
and head and shoulders getting thrown. So I knew it,
but the Cape kind of supposedly confirmed it. But the
USA Baseball people, once they realized that we weren't at
fault and the casino people agreed with us that we
(13:18):
weren't at fault, like, the story kind of went away
and they kept it under wraps, which I'm still amazed
that it didn't get It didn't get the USA today,
it didn't get to any local paper. I don't know,
maybe that thing happens all the time in Australia, but
you know, when a foreign guy throws a little guy
down the street, usually that makes the news somewhere. So
(13:39):
I was actually kind of shocked. But thankfully, you know,
like I said, with the whole USA hockey team at
the time, it would have been really bad if we'd
have been over there acting a fool. So I'm grateful
for the fact that they let us stay. I'm grateful
for the fact that I wasn't the cause of this.
I'm also extremely grateful that I was a part of
it because it's still well. I don't think my words
(14:01):
or my painting of this picture is doing it enough
justice to the comedy show that was going on for
at least twenty minutes. I'll get some guys to confirm
this story, but it was seriously like one of the
funniest episodes.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
It would have been a movie inside of a movie.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
And it's one of those stories that never I'm sure
USA Baseball sorry, they probably don't want me telling this story,
but hang with them.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
It's twenty five years later. We're good. Like I said,
we kept it low. We kept it.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Low long enough, and we're getting older and we're gonna
we're gonna we're gonna spill some beans here.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
But that was one of the best bonding moments.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
And you know what, it made me feel like Tommy
had our back at all seriousness, Our skipper had our back.
He wasn't just gonna let us, you know, hang out
there by ourselves the team. It bonded us together. It
really did.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
It. Kind of WoT that we needed anything like that, but.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Like you could start to feel when you look back
at everything that happened to us. You realize like everything
happened for a reason. There's a couple other there's a
second part of this that we'll get into later. But
there's a second part of this that happens the next
night that pretty much wraps this whole thing up and
ties it all together. And from this fight to the
(15:16):
next night, I think twenty four guys.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Knew we were winning the gold medal.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
That wraps it up here for this episode, look for
part two of this story moving forward, looking forward to
doing more of these of these behind the scenes looks
at you know, whether it was the Red Sox four team,
the two thousand Olympic team, or any other minor league,
major league story. These are great. I think fans really
need to see these for educational purposes that you might
(15:45):
have a kid that's coming up. Whatever it is, these
stories are are magical, and to me, it's more about
the stories than it is about the numbers you put
up as a major leaguer or as a baseball player.
So it's about the people you meet, it's about the
the friendships you make, and this type of platform allows
us to get into depth and have you people understand
(16:08):
what goes on behind the scenes.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
So wherever you find.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Your favorite podcast, iHeartRadio, Apple, Spotify, Subscribe, download, check us
out the Dugout Podcast Until next time. You can find
me at d M e as Recruiting on x and
Doug Man Cabridge sixteen on Insta and I'll see you
next episode.
Welcome back to the Dugout Podcast. I'm your host, Doug mccavig.
This week, we're gonna hit memory lane. We're gonna go
back to the two thousand Olympics, which was a huge
time in my life, huge event for my career moving forward,
probably the most influential two three weeks to a month
that I had as a player. I've been in a lot,
(00:27):
I've been in a right place at the right time
a lot of times, and this was definitely one of them.
Set the scene, We're in Sydney, Australia, obviously one of
the most beautiful places in the world. To start with,
we are in the Gold Coast, which is basically I
want to say, I'm not really one hundred percent sure
how far away it is, but we're away from Sydney
(00:48):
to start at the Olympics. We get there about a
month ahead of time. Basically, the team flies to San
Diego first, we play a couple of games, we do
some practices, we do some fluffy SeaWorld stuff, and then boom,
we're on a plane to Australia.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
We get to the Gold Coast.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
We're staying in this absolutely stunning casino, and the first
thing I think is, oh boy, this is gonna be bad.
So obviously we get there sixteen seventeen hour flight. We're
all our biological clocks are a mess because of the
time change. So now what's night is day? And what
(01:26):
day is night? If I remember correctly? Over there, so
we all have roommates, and my roommate's Pat Borders. Give
you a backstory. Pat Borders one the World Series MVP
in nineteen ninety one for the Toronto Blue Jays. Mind you,
this is two thousand, so this is you know, this
is quite some time later. Pat is now the Grizzly veteran. Obviously,
(01:49):
we all know who he is. We all know who
he was, we all know how great a player he was,
and we're just ecstatic to have him on the squad,
let alone be my roommate. Maybe it's because they thought
I was I was just as old as he was,
because the way I played, I wasn't quite sure how
we got matched up. But boom, here I am living
with Pat Borders in my mind is a legend with
(02:12):
in baseball. So now Pat is about as country as
country can be. He's got boots, he's got the boots,
he's got the chew. He's got wranglers, but he's always
dressed to the knives hair, I mean, just pimped out.
So he wakes up we can't sleep one night, and
he's like, you want to go downstairs and play blackjack?
(02:33):
I'm like, of course, absolutely, you know, for one one
I couldn't sleep either. Two, you know, for nothing else bonding,
and we're gonna go on and just try to make
ourselves tired so we can get some sleep.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
We roll down there. It's it's late.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
It's not I mean, I want to say it's not
super late, but it's I want to say, it's definitely
we shouldn't be down there, is what I'm getting at.
So we get down there and we start playing blackjack,
and he's killing it.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
He's doing great.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Now in Australia you can play behind people, meaning if
I'm playing and I'm doing well and you don't want
to play, you can bet with the person that's doing
well and you win what you bet well. Pat hated this,
so there was a little There was three Vietnamese guys
and one Vietnamese girl who were standing by us while
(03:23):
we were playing, and obviously they didn't speak too much English.
So the guy wants to keep playing behind Pat. Well,
Pat asked him nicely, please please don't, please, don't do that.
I really don't appreciate that. I don't like it. You're
welcome to sit down and play with us, No big deal.
So now set the stage. Here, here comes Tommy Thesorta,
(03:43):
Bless his heart. Tommy's had a few red wines in him,
so he's feeling pretty good. He's got, you know, he
got his two plays to pasta, you know, probably a
bottle of red wine, maybe a white wine in there.
So Tommy's coming down to talk to us, right, and
he's he's feeling he's feeling pretty good. So he sees
he sees us playing, so he stops and talks to us,
(04:03):
obviously because we're two of the older guys on the team.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
So he's we're having our little bonding moment. We're playing.
The guy bumps Pat to put his chips behind him again,
and Tommy saw it, and we explained what was going
on while Tommy just stands up and you know, I'm
gonna paralyze you with this left hook, and I'm like Tommy, dude,
you're like ninety and you know you're liquored up a
little bit. You're feeling pretty good. I get it.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
I got your back, Tommy, but we don't want to
cause World War three here, so we're just gonna let
it slide. Well, Tommy just is adamant about stand up
for his guy, that's all. Tom Tommy was a huge
stand up for your guys, Foxhole. I want my guys
to have each other's backs. And I don't know if
he was doing this on purpose, but you could tell
(04:48):
like things are getting escalated. So finally the guy bumps
Pat again. This is like bump number four, trying to
get his chips. So Pat literally stands up and I'm
sitting next to Pat pass to my left. Pat stands
up and it was kind of funny, was the other
the Vietnamese guy like when passed it up like barely
(05:10):
hit like the middle of his chest. And Pat wasn't
a tall, like super tall guy, but this this hits
him square and I'm like, I started, I literally giggled.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
I'm like, this is gonna be Pat.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
So anyway, Pat stands up and the guy like tries
to fight him Pat. And this is no BS because
we saw the surveillance tape to this Pat picks this
guy up and like throws him.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Behind the table behind us.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
So he went from the walkway in the air, over
the other blackjack table into the pit boss area. And
I'm I'm laughing at this point. I'm like, oh my god,
that's one of the best throws I've ever seen, and
like in my head and I'm thinking, like, oh shit,
I've got I remember there's another dude and a girl
(05:59):
behind me. So I feel this like like I got
hit in the back of the head with something and
I turn around and it's the guy's girlfriend with it
like a purse and she's smoking me like right in
the back of the head, and I, oh my gosh,
here we go. Like I'm like, why do I get
the I'm getting the chick right, So I literally like
hold her back. I hold her back, and all of
(06:21):
a sudden incomes Brent Abernathy in their second basement, who
he weighs like a Bucco five, dripping wet, and he
grabs the other guy and and long story short, out
of the corner of my eye, you can still see
Pat throwing this dude farther and farther down the pit
(06:43):
ball like a cartoon. So this is going on, I'm
getting hit in the head with a purse. Abby's holding
the other guy back, and then all of a sudden,
the guy turns on Abernathy and bites him in the chest.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
So now we have blood. Now we have a ripped shirt, blood, and.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Things kind of calmed down once pat like literally through
this guy like one hundred yards down the casino, which
is absolutely mind blowing, but it became like legendary. And
to back this up, this was right around the hockey
team and the Nagano situation where they had to destroyed
hotel rooms and they told us flat out like we're
gonna have no bs, like, no nonsense, no goofing around.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
We're not gonna take this. You're wearing your colors on
your chest.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
We're not gonna have any fun, any monkey business where
we want us to not be the hockey team, must
be the baseball team, rappresent your country's pride and all
that stuff which we were all for. Come to find out,
now the casino fight is somewhat under control. We get
the manager comes down, he looks at us and he goes,
you guys need to get to your rooms now, and
we're like, oh, okay, why And they're like, well, these
(07:52):
guys have a rap sheet that's like nine to ten
pages long.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
They're part of a gang.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
They're going outside get automatic weapons and they're gonna spray
the entire casino. And we're like, oh check please, Like
I'm like, you can have my chips, I'm sending to
the house. So uh we go upstairs. Now this is
where it gets good. Now, in the middle of the fight,
just like Kaiser Sosai tim and the sort of disappears
(08:21):
like a fart in the wind, like you don't even
know where he's at. So he starts to fight basically,
and then he just like he just disappears like a
kind of ghost.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
So we're looking.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Around, going okay, now we're on our own, like we
don't have as much backup as we thought we did,
not for the physical fight, but like to back us up.
So they don't send us home. They don't they we
don't want to be sent home. We just got there.
So fast forward now, I said. The manager comes up
to us, tells us, you know, this guy's got a
rap sheet ten pages long. They're part of a gang
(08:53):
that's in it's local. They're gonna go spray the whole casino.
They've already said they don't like Americans, so like here
we go, you know. So we bolt to our rooms
and I get the knocking on the door, and for
some reason, I am I have become the spokesperson for
not only the.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Team but the incident. I'm like, well, pasts like fifty
he should do this, right he you know? So?
Speaker 1 (09:18):
And then Bob Watson is there, rest in peace. One
of the best baseball minds in the history of the game.
But he's like Darth Vader, okay, Like Bob Watson's a
very large man with a bigger persona and player, general manager,
architect of this squad, and it's I think it was
(09:39):
one of our I think it was Dave Finuccier. Somebody
came and got got me and it was like, Bob
wants to see you, and I'm like, oh shit. Like
add to the fact that I'm hitting like shit in
the preliminary round and like the exhibition games, I've gotten
like one hit and now I'm fighting, you know, foreigners.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
On the casino floor. I'm like, this isn't going to go.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
So I walk into Bob Watson's room and if you
can picture like like a scene from like either The
Godfather or Scarface. So you got like this dark ass
hotel room and all you see is like the the
top of Bob's face. It's like a He's in the
back corner and like, to make it even, it felt
(10:21):
like he was smoking a cigar because it was smoking
the room, and Tommy's sitting on the other side, and
I'm like, oh god, this is how it ends. So
Bob's like trying to talk to me, like, Doug, just
what happened?
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Now?
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Tommy's still bent up, right, He's still he still had
some cocktails in him. So he starts I love these guys.
These guys fight for each other. These are the best.
And I'm like I'm looking over. I'm like, dude, you're
not helping us right now, Like you're like stop talking.
And he's like, Bob, don't you dare send these guys home,
And Bob looks at him. He's like, I'm trying to
get the actual story from what a guy that was there.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
He's like, these guys fight. They average o fox hole guys.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
And I look at time and go, will you shut
up and let the grownups handle this? Like I'm trying
to get out of this, and you're making it worse,
like you've been in this moment, like well, you just
shut up and go to bed. And so finally, like
Bob and I talk about it now, in the middle
of it, I'm kind of talking Bob off the ledge
because he was like, I'm about to send you guys
home knocked.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Here comes the trainer.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
The trainer walks in and goes, yeah, Abernathy had to
go to the hospital because he had to go get
a technis shot and like six stitches. And I'm just like,
you know, just when you feel like you're making a headway,
like I'm getting I feel like I'm getting out of
this right like you just got you snuck out of
your parents' house, you're past curfew, you're talking to dad
or mom, and you're like, you feel like you're smoothing
(11:41):
it out, and then all of a sudden, you know,
you know, boom, you get busted something, you leave a
detail out that screws you.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Right, That's how I feel. I'm like, I think I'm
gonna make this like I'm I'm gonna beat I might
have a.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Chance to, you know, get myself kicked off the team,
because how I play, not from what I've done it
after the game, so and then sure enough, and he
just looks at us to go, I don't know if
I can do this, And I'm like, well, He's like, well,
I'm gonna have to go down and see the video, like,
oh boy, what's on the surveillance tape. And the funny
part is, like the best part of it was Pat
throwing this poor guy down.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
The casino floor.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
And all you see is it was like it was
like a scene out of out of Hangover, like when
you know, when they steal the tiger at Mike Tyson's house,
and like they're doing the guy. You know, one guy's
peeing in the pool, like it's black and white, like
you just see feet and dude just little like it
looks like a like a stuffed animal getting thrown down
the casino floor. The casino people, the managers and the
(12:36):
and the security heads come down and they show the
video tape to I guess people in the USA Baseball
front office, and from the description of the video, we
see I guess Pats throwing this guy like a stuffed
animal down down, which is what I said, and I
saw with my own eyes. I looked over my shoulder,
(12:56):
and just like you expect people to be walking, you
don't expect people to be throwing, like throwing things, so
like it goes above your eyesight, so you're seeing feet
and head and shoulders getting thrown. So I knew it,
but the Cape kind of supposedly confirmed it. But the
USA Baseball people, once they realized that we weren't at
fault and the casino people agreed with us that we
(13:18):
weren't at fault, like, the story kind of went away
and they kept it under wraps, which I'm still amazed
that it didn't get It didn't get the USA today,
it didn't get to any local paper. I don't know,
maybe that thing happens all the time in Australia, but
you know, when a foreign guy throws a little guy
down the street, usually that makes the news somewhere. So
(13:39):
I was actually kind of shocked. But thankfully, you know,
like I said, with the whole USA hockey team at
the time, it would have been really bad if we'd
have been over there acting a fool. So I'm grateful
for the fact that they let us stay. I'm grateful
for the fact that I wasn't the cause of this.
I'm also extremely grateful that I was a part of
it because it's still well. I don't think my words
(14:01):
or my painting of this picture is doing it enough
justice to the comedy show that was going on for
at least twenty minutes. I'll get some guys to confirm
this story, but it was seriously like one of the
funniest episodes.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
It would have been a movie inside of a movie.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
And it's one of those stories that never I'm sure
USA Baseball sorry, they probably don't want me telling this story,
but hang with them.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
It's twenty five years later. We're good. Like I said,
we kept it low. We kept it.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Low long enough, and we're getting older and we're gonna
we're gonna we're gonna spill some beans here.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
But that was one of the best bonding moments.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
And you know what, it made me feel like Tommy
had our back at all seriousness, Our skipper had our back.
He wasn't just gonna let us, you know, hang out
there by ourselves the team. It bonded us together. It
really did.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
It. Kind of WoT that we needed anything like that, but.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Like you could start to feel when you look back
at everything that happened to us. You realize like everything
happened for a reason. There's a couple other there's a
second part of this that we'll get into later. But
there's a second part of this that happens the next
night that pretty much wraps this whole thing up and
ties it all together. And from this fight to the
(15:16):
next night, I think twenty four guys.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Knew we were winning the gold medal.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
That wraps it up here for this episode, look for
part two of this story moving forward, looking forward to
doing more of these of these behind the scenes looks
at you know, whether it was the Red Sox four team,
the two thousand Olympic team, or any other minor league,
major league story. These are great. I think fans really
need to see these for educational purposes that you might
(15:45):
have a kid that's coming up. Whatever it is, these
stories are are magical, and to me, it's more about
the stories than it is about the numbers you put
up as a major leaguer or as a baseball player.
So it's about the people you meet, it's about the
the friendships you make, and this type of platform allows
us to get into depth and have you people understand
(16:08):
what goes on behind the scenes.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
So wherever you find.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Your favorite podcast, iHeartRadio, Apple, Spotify, Subscribe, download, check us
out the Dugout Podcast Until next time. You can find
me at d M e as Recruiting on x and
Doug Man Cabridge sixteen on Insta and I'll see you
next episode.
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