Book of Joe: Legendary broadcaster Bob Costas

The Book of Joe Podcast with hosts Tom Verducci and Joe Maddon welcome Bob Costas! Bob talks about the rule changes in baseball this season and the permanent impact it's had on the game. We explore Bob's path from Syracuse to his first job in St. Louis including some of the greats he's worked with along the way.  Bob reveals some of his favorite broadcasts while sharing some of the advice he received along the way, including growing a beard!  We wrap up with Bob taking part in some of the most memorable moments in sports.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
The Book of Joe podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey there, welcome back to the latest episode of the
Book of Joe Podcast with Me, Tom Berducci, and Joe Madden.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Joe, how you doing.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
The baseball season has almost run its course. We're down
to the last couple of weeks.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
Yeah, this is playoff weather we're experiencing right now. Soci
and I used to stay beyond the batting cage where
we were at and get that kind of more brisk
automy kind of a feel, and I would say, Originally
I said this is a social I could smell football,
and here I said, no, no, no, this is playoff weather, Baseball,
playoff weather, and it is favorite time of the year
in the game. You work so hard to get to
that point where you're in position to get to the playoffs.

Speaker 4 (00:49):
But there's nothing like it. Man, did I love that?

Speaker 3 (00:52):
Every moment of that, everything's ramped up, amped up a
little bit more, and I love it.

Speaker 4 (00:58):
And that's what it smells like right now.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Well, there's no one better to put this season in
baseball in perspective. And our special guests, Joe, We've got
Bob Costas.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Here from MLB Network.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
I want to say that because he's my great colleague
and when we do games together on the MLB Showcase games.
We are in Boston doing games this week, Bob, is
a pleasure to have you on this show. And I
got to start with this since we're talking about this
season here. We've talked a lot about the pitch clock
on this podcast and how it's changed the game. I

(01:31):
want to get your overall take on where baseball stands
in what I think is the beginning maybe of a
new era in the way the rules have changed.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
The game this year and the popularity of the sport.

Speaker 5 (01:44):
Yeah, I think the rules changes have been an unmitigated success.
There may be a few people carping here and there,
a few little suggestions that might at least be plausible,
little tweaks, but by and large, this has been overwhelmingly successful.
The players have adjusted to it, the fans of adjusted
to it. You know, we did the game yesterday in

(02:07):
Boston two hours and forty six minutes, and that actually
seemed I turned to you at one point in the
sixth inning, I said, this seems long by today's standards,
but it still came in under three hours, and it
isn't just the average time of game. They virtually eliminated
the nine and in game that goes three and a
half hours, there are games that wind up ten to

(02:30):
nine and they go three hours and ten minutes. In fact,
we did one earlier this year in Saint Louis. I
forget the final score, but the Cardinals scored sixteen, so
it was sixteen to nine something like that, and it
came in at three oh three or three oh four.
No one's going to complain about that when there's that
much action and the pace within it is acceptable. It

(02:52):
isn't just time a game, as you've said many times, Tom,
it's pace of game, and the pace of game feels
so much better than it used to.

Speaker 3 (02:59):
Could I just ask something with that right there when
you talk about the real changes, Bob, and you know
I'm into it. I like the more expedient game in
the dugout. Obviously you're standing there watching guys interminable in
between pitches, batters getting out of the box, etc. For me,
the superstar of all the rule changes is the pitch clock.
That's the one thing that I think really has had

(03:22):
the greatest impact on the game because I kind of
bang on some of the other things. I don't like
the three batter minimum. I don't like to run around
second base. You guys mind, but all the different things
that have occurred in our game, I still, as a
manager like to be able to strategize and create and
edge over the other guy, because if I think more

(03:42):
deeply or intelligently or whatever you want to describe it,
in advance of the other guy, I have an advantage.
So I still don't like run around second I don't
like three battered minimum things like that.

Speaker 4 (03:51):
The bigger basis to me.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
It's kind of a push. I don't necessarily like minimum
max of like two throws over the third one baker
runner proceeds to the next bag. I think this kind
of mitigates strategy. That's the part I don't like. I
think in the beginning for me, I was kind of
my opinion was to change the or put the pitch
clock in effect first, Just put it out there first,

(04:14):
and then if, in fact, after that we need other
kind of changes, go for it. But I thought that
was the superstar that would eventually create the thoughts that
you just articulated upon. Yes, quicker and more paced game,
more interesting game, more action pack, but I don't like
where strategy has been her tail for the manager.

Speaker 4 (04:34):
That's where where I come from with that.

Speaker 5 (04:36):
Well, Joe, the two you mentioned just now, we're actually
put in place in response to the plotting pace of
the game, especially the three batter minimum that's a relic
of the pre pitch clock. They could get rid of that,
and then you could still have the in game strategy.
It doesn't matter anymore if there's a mid inning pitching change,
because the game's moving at a decent pace. And the

(04:58):
ghost runner came in during COVID partly because they were
trying to get people off the field and not mingling
with each other. Before there were vaccines and everything else,
and now that you a have that largely removed, I mean,
COVID is completely gone, but there's an entirely different response
to it now, and the ballparks are filled and people
are conducting themselves differently, so you don't have the COVID

(05:20):
reason to get a game over quickly in extra innings,
and if the game's moving at a decent pace, at
the very least, you could play the tenth and maybe
the eleventh before you put a ghost runner in. The
other objection to playing a long game is. As you know,
your fellow managers don't want to blow out their pitching staff,

(05:41):
so they don't want an eighteen any game. But I
don't want to see real baseball abandoned as soon as
you go to the tenth inning.

Speaker 3 (05:48):
Yeah, I feel the same way with these extra inning stuff.
I thought, if you want to do something like that,
play the tenth INNY normally put a run run first
in the eleventh and then put eventually the runner on
second in the twelve, if that is that important. But
like you just kind of suggest there, the pitch clock
in and of itself really kind of again mitigates all

(06:10):
the concerns.

Speaker 4 (06:10):
With these other role changes.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
I believe that from the beginning you may you probably
will see a little bit of an uptick if in fact,
you eliminate the three batter minimum. But I'm here to
tell you man, as a manager in the dugout and
the latter part of the game, you got to throw
out there and have to think of in blocks of three,
and it could be difficult because there's something there you
really don't like, but you got to eat it anyway.

Speaker 4 (06:32):
You got to eat it.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
You gotta let him pitture this guy, you don't like it,
and then all of a sudden, you know, Bob's runkle.

Speaker 4 (06:37):
Everything changes at that particular point.

Speaker 3 (06:39):
So that's the kind of stuff that I don't think
has been talked about enough. It's yeah, it's it's been great.
It's more athletic. Different teams have demonstrated that the teams
that have built been built athletically to demonstrate and actually
take advantage of these role changes. But overall, I would
love to see that. You know, if the manager still

(06:59):
is pertinent, if the manager is no longer pertinent, then
that this this is mood point. But manager's pertinent, you
got to permit him tools to strategize during the course
of the game and completely take it out of his hands.
Based on even run around second base, man, you lose
games in extraining. Say what was padres er and.

Speaker 4 (07:17):
Eleven this year?

Speaker 3 (07:18):
Something stupid like that earlier run around second base? Now,
I mean a lot of that could just be purely
some happenstance.

Speaker 4 (07:25):
Luck. I don't even know if he could strategize for that.
It's just a matter of your hitter gets a hit
or not. So these are the.

Speaker 3 (07:30):
Kind of things that I, as the game's gotten into
a better pace. I'd like to see this revisit it
possibly and maybe relax some of these are take these
away and just play a greater pace game, which was
the game we grew up with.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, just to give our listeners some numbers here about
the changes in the game this year. The average time
of game that Bob reference has gone from three to zero,
three to two thirty nine.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
It's shaving twenty four minutes off the game.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
The time between balls in play, that's the big one, right,
that's gone from three minutes forty two seconds to three twelve.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
That's a big change.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
As far as the shift goes, Batting average on ground
balls by left handed hitters, yeah, that's specific, but those
are the ones harmed the most by the shift went
from two twenty six to two forty. It's a lot
more singles in the game that came back. And stolen
base attempts went from point six to eight per game
to point nine to zero, with the highest percentage of

(08:28):
success rate eighty percent up from seventy five percent. So
it's had a meaningful effect on how the game is played. Bob,
my question for you is does this translate now into
a more attractive game where I don't want to say
baseball needs to come back, but games maybe some new

(08:48):
people following the game is specifically younger people. I mean,
we just saw a Monday night football game that drew
twenty two million viewers.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
I mean, the World Series would kill for that kind of.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
A number, right, right, And I'm not saying baseball can
get those kind numbers. But is this the start maybe
of baseball getting back some of the fans that it
had lost with that slower pace.

Speaker 5 (09:13):
Yeah, the early returns are good. I don't know if
they have definitive data yet, but the anecdotal stuff is
good and attendance is up. But of course some of
that is coming out of the COVID circumstance, and that's
always affected by how teams in certain markets are doing.
So you need more seasons really to evaluate it. Let's

(09:33):
say if you're a Cardinal fan and somebody says, do
you like the new rules?

Speaker 4 (09:36):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (09:37):
Are you as interested in baseball this year?

Speaker 4 (09:38):
No?

Speaker 5 (09:39):
Because the Cardinals are lousy this year? So that how
your own team is doing? Yankee fans, when as Jim Cott,
our old buddy used to put it, every game against
the Red Sox was four hours of drama and trauma.
Yankee fans would would trade a fast paced game in
twenty twenty three for Joe Torre's teams in the nineties

(10:00):
and in the early two thousands, even if the game
took five hours. So there's a lot of kind of
overlapping factors here, but I think generally speaking, the reaction
to this has been good. And here's something that will matter.
Postseason games used to be even longer than pre pitchclock
regular season games, and some of that meant that the

(10:21):
most important games were going past midnight on the East Coast,
and that might be the third of three games or
on television that day in the early rounds of the playoffs,
and the casual fan can't commit to that much. So
if the games are moving at a brisker pace, especially
in October, maybe the ratings will reflect that.

Speaker 4 (10:42):
Well.

Speaker 3 (10:42):
Another thing with that, I mean a part of that
is trips to the mound. Yeah, and you know that's
not given enough credit there to how they have curtailed
the trips to the mound. I mean that little PitchCom
device stealing of signs, that's where that's where the trips
to the mound came in when you thought somebody might
be onto you, and all of a sudden, Pasada's going
out there every other pitch. So that's that's another, not
necessarily a rule change, but in addition, technologically speaking, that

(11:05):
I think is a good one, the fact that that
is occurring, because I'll tell you one thing from a
this is kind of around this, but from a managerial perspective.
For me, one of the things I hate it most
was miss signs, miss signs.

Speaker 4 (11:19):
And normally that wouldn't occur.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
There to be a confusion or change up once in
a while regarding picture and catchers. But when you could
get signs transmitted more quickly and not be concerned about
people watching it, and feel comfortable that you know what
you're going to do that nobody knows in advance, that's
a good feeling. So I think that hasn't gotten enough credit.
The little device that accelerates the communication between the picture

(11:44):
and the catcher. To me, that that's as big as
anything else that's been done.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
Well said.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
Hey, listen, we love to talk about the struggle on
this podcast, right, not so much the success, but sometimes
you remember at least that the struggle can be even
more enjoyable.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
Than the success.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
When we get back after this quick break, I want
to ask Bob Costas about the struggle, because I'm sure
there must have been a time as successful as Bob
has been when there was a struggle.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
We'll dive into that right after this. All right, Joe,
There's probably.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
Been no broadcaster as successful as Bob Costas. He's the
only person who is when Emmy's both in well all
in sports, news and entertainment. He's been everywhere, done everything.
His voice is synonymous with big events, and I gotta believe,
as you talked about, Joe and your journey through the

(12:47):
minor leagues and some of the disappointments that you look
back on at least as with some fine memories and
the learning that came about then, that there's got to
be those points for Bob Costas. So, Bob, I don't
know where this goes back to the spirit of Saint
Louis or when you began, did you have any idea
that there was a question of whether you were forget

(13:09):
about being as successful as you are, but be able
to make this as a career.

Speaker 5 (13:14):
Yeah, at the very beginning. I've told this story before,
but not often being at Syracuse and in their already
acclaimed communications and journalism school. I wanted to be a broadcaster,
specifically a sports broadcaster. And it's nineteen seventy two. I'm
twenty years old. I'm in my junior year and I'm
listening to the World Series on the radio. The Reds

(13:37):
are in it, and Al Michaels is their young announcer,
and I'm hearing al Michaels and I'm saying, who is
this guy? And it wasn't as easy to check on
things then as now. You didn't have all the information
on your phone. And eventually I find out he's twenty
six years old, and I say to myself, I'm doomed.
How can I in six years be half as good

(13:57):
as this guy is. He's unbelievably good. So until you
do something and get some kind of positive of reinforcement,
then you always have doubt. When I was a senior
at Syracuse, I got a job for thirty bucks a
game doing minor league hockey in the old Eastern Hockey League,
the Slap Shot League, the league that the Paul Newman
movie was based on. And there was some good feedback

(14:21):
from that, and then almost immediately I land in St.
Louis doing the Spirits and there was good feedback from that.
And I'm at KMOX with Jack Buck and Dan Kelly,
the legendary hockey announcer and all the history there, and
I was pretty well accepted. So I had a pretty
easy ride early on. To be honest, it wasn't much
of a struggle, and I look back on it, I

(14:41):
was having the time of my life. I was learning
and getting better, but at least I was good enough
to be where I was at that time. I don't
know if you call it a struggle, but it was
a little bit of an obstacle. When I started doing TV,
I looked so young. I was twenty four when I
did my first game for CBS. I was twenty seven
when NBC hired me full time. And I remember occasionally

(15:04):
some of these games pop up on YouTube and you
don't even know it's you. You know, Eagles against Colts
nineteen eighty three, and you pop on it just to
see for five said, wait a minute, that's me with
Bob Trumpy, and I can hear that. I'm consciously trying
to sound more authoritative to counterbalance the fact that I
looked like such a kid. And Don Omeyer ran NBC

(15:27):
Sports when I got there. He is one of the
most charismatic figures at that time in sports television. Protege
of Ruine Aleje and he called me into his office
and he said, you know, we think you have a
future here. We like your work. How old are you again?
And I said, I'm twenty seven. He said, damn it,
you look like you're fourteen. How much older do you

(15:47):
think you would look if you grew a beard? That
was his actual idea. And I said five years easy,
and he said five years really. I said yeah, because
that's how long it would take to grow it. So
that went out the window. And later later I was
playing golf with him. We were in Hawaii to do
the Hula Bowl and I'm playing golf with him and

(16:08):
I'm telling them stories and I'm cracking jokes, and he
said something very insightful. He said, if you never change,
you'll have a career. But if you let your personality
come out like you're doing with me here on the
golf course, then you'll have a much better career. And
right after that, I made my first appearance on the
David Letterman Show. They were looking for Marv Albert to

(16:28):
do one of David's stunt things. It was elevator races,
and he had people from the audience take fake Olympic torches,
run down the hall, get on the elevator, go down
to the street at thirty rock, go around the building,
come back, send the elevator, get in the studio before
the show ended, and whoever had won would get like
a laurel wreath and a fake gold medal. And I

(16:50):
knew exactly what he wanted. He wanted like a mock
serious Olympian broadcast of this, and so I did it
and it got laughs, and Letterman says to me, you know,
he didn't even know who I was. He introduced me
as Bob Costasaw, but he liked it. And that was
such reinforcement what Olmira had said was correct, And you know,

(17:11):
I got a good response with Letterman. And after that
I hooked up with Tony Kubeck on the Game of
the Week and Tony and I were a good team.
So you know, you get that kind of reinforcement that
I don't know if the word is struggle, but it
was getting past that hurdle of not trying to sound
just like an authoritarian, generic announcer. But being yourself. Clearing

(17:34):
that hurdle was the big thing for me.

Speaker 4 (17:36):
That's exactly you know. I get a lot of times.

Speaker 3 (17:38):
Even this morning, you got a text from me, a
young coach wanting advice on different things, and almost one
hundred percent of the time, not almost one hundred percent
of the time, the first piece of advice I try
to give is, please be yourself. I think everybody tries
to be a contrived version of themselves. When your career
gets accelerated, you're doing something different or new. As a

(17:58):
major league manager, I mean even as a coach coming up,
I saw different guys end up in that seat and
all of a sudden, man, who.

Speaker 4 (18:04):
Is that guy?

Speaker 3 (18:05):
It's not the same guy I had known as a coach.
As an example, and that authentic self doesn't come forward.
I think what you're talking about cannot agree with you more.
Is that that authenticity that came out just by being
Bob Costas. And that's what I try to tell these
guys that are again, whether it's David Ross or Rock
Wobald Delli and now Brandon Hyde is doing a great job.

(18:26):
And of course David Martinez, like more than anything, man,
just just go out there, be yourself, bring you to
bear because you don't have to practice that, you don't
have to think about that. It's going to come through
all the time. And yeah, that's always the first piece
of advice I give to young coaches that.

Speaker 4 (18:42):
Are attempting to accelerate their career, move up on the
lad or whatever is.

Speaker 3 (18:47):
Please just be yourself and realize authenticity plays Bob.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
I'm guessing that's probably a similar advice you give to
young broadcasters, because I'm sure they reach out to you
all the time. And it brings me back to something
Vin Scully said, and I think it was Red Barber
who told him, you know, be yourself. Don't water your
own wine. In other words, don't try to copy someone else.
You can certainly learn from professionals who are established, but

(19:11):
to change or amend your style to be more like
someone else and less like yourself is a mistake. So
give us some kind of the ideas of what you
give young announcers college kids when they come to you
for advice.

Speaker 5 (19:28):
This is really old school, but one of the things
I tell him is learned as much about the world
as you can. And I'm not expecting everybody to read
the one hundred greatest books ever written. I regret to
say that I haven't read half of them. But we
grew up reading newspapers and magazines and listening to literate
broadcasters like Vin Scully, like Jack Whitaker. I think of

(19:52):
a guy like Jack Buck. His style was not flowery
or poetic, but he had lived an interesting life. He
was wounded during World War Two at the bridge at Remagen.
He grew up who worked for a WHI file on
ships in a shipyard in Ohio. He was one of
like eight kids, kind of a hard scrabble youth. He
had a little bit of a rat pack sensibility.

Speaker 4 (20:14):
He was a.

Speaker 5 (20:15):
Sentimental man, but he also had a little bit of
that Frank Sinatra kind of kind of let's have a
good time, wink wink sort of thing going on. And
so there was a texture to Jack Buck in his broadcasts.
A lot of guys master kind of the generic aspect
of it, but they don't have enough of a view
of the game of the world, rather beyond the game. Again,

(20:37):
I'm not saying you have to be alistair cook on PBS,
but some sort of frame of reference, some sort of
ability to turn a phrase or someone mentioned something yesterday
on our broadcast. JP Barrossi, who speaks five or six
different languages, fluently made a mention when John Schneider came
into the game, the word Schneider is a reference. Is

(21:01):
a writer means writer in German. And he related that
to you, and then it clicked in my head some
story about al Michaels who used a German phrase to
humorous effect when he was doing the San Francisco Giants.
Just having a slightly broader view of the world, which
comes with time, yes, but I think also young people
now are on their devices all the time and they're

(21:25):
just not grasping as much of what's out there in
the world as we grew up, not consciously doing it,
but it was just the world that we grew up
in that kind of gave us a little bit more
of a frame of reference than just the game, if
that makes any sense.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
Bob, it's so funny that, yes it does.

Speaker 5 (21:42):
You know.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
It's so funny you said that, and maybe not ironic
that I actually give the same advice when I hear
from aspiring writers and broadcasters, I tell them read as
much as you can, not just about the sport or
sports that you're so interested in make yourself a better
citizen of the world period, and actually will make you

(22:05):
a better writer and a broadcast.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
Right, Joe.

Speaker 1 (22:07):
It kind of reminds you of what we talk about
a lot here when it comes to diversity of the
game and diversity of knowledge. That liberal arts education if
you will, you don't have to go to Lafayette to
get it. But having that wider perspective I think serves
all in an age where, let's face it, people love
to specialize and sometimes you know, as good as that

(22:28):
is and as rewarding as it can be, I think
having that broader perspective no matter what you do, is valuable.

Speaker 3 (22:35):
We talked about the liberal arts version of baseball, right,
I mean today I think it's everybody wants to specialize
so much on one side. I mean, analytics to me
presents one side. Of course, if you want to use
the term old school, I like to be in school.
But when you get so polarized one side or the
other and you lose that balance between the two, you're

(22:56):
just going to be less than you need to. We
need to utilize all methods of educating ourselves and for
me as a liberal arts guy from Lafayete College. That's
what I used to tell my highs. I don't even
have to understood me, but I want a liberal arts
method of playing baseball. I want it all. I want power,
I want the ability to move a runner. I want
I want to accept your walk. I don't want you

(23:17):
to not to chase pitches as a pitch. I want
you to know to shape your pitches, how to you
know elevate in when it's necessary on basis, I want
you to take a great secondary lead.

Speaker 4 (23:25):
I want you to dance on balls in the dirt.

Speaker 3 (23:27):
I want I want you to do it all quite
frankly and in today's game.

Speaker 4 (23:31):
And I know this for a fact.

Speaker 3 (23:33):
And when I went to the Angels, I was told
bunny and base running were not taught in the minor
leagues for the couple three years prior to getting there,
and more time is spent on you know, launch, angle, exit, velocity,
spinning the ball to the top of the strike zone thanks
to that nature where the real game was not being taught.
And Tommy and I have talked about this often on

(23:53):
these podcasts and in the Book of Joe, where when
you watch a game. You'll see avoid in these certain
areas because guys just not have have not been schooled
on it. It's not been part of the liberal arts
process of getting there. So for me, I really as
a manager, a field instructor, field coordinator for so many years,

(24:14):
I believe that I believe you need to teach every
aspect of the game. Of course, some guys are better
at some part than others. We get that, and there's
the complementary component of a team.

Speaker 4 (24:23):
But I want.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
Everybody to be exposed, be exposed to this, understand this,
and then again you can understand the other guy's role
even a little bit better because of that. But I
am all about liberal arts and liberal arts in our game,
and that's my concern that it's getting too specialized at
the point that the entire game is not being taught.

Speaker 5 (24:42):
And you get a sameness out of that.

Speaker 4 (24:44):
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 5 (24:45):
We talked about the pace of play and everything else,
but when the game doesn't have a fuller texture to
it correct home runs are great, certain aspects of the
game are great, but the game at its best has
a texture to it where there's a place for a
singles hitter who can lay down a bond and plays
good defense and can run, and maybe, and maybe the

(25:05):
ops isn't the be all and end all if you
have other other elements to your lineup that take care
of that. But this guy plays a certain role. And
as you know better than anybody, Joe, or at least
as well as anybody, you get into big September games,
you get into the postseason against good pitching. If you
can't play small ball, even if you don't want to

(25:25):
play small ball for one sixty two. If you can't
play small ball, if you can't do the little things
that you just alluded to, that's not winning baseball. But
it's also even to the casual fan. If there's a
sameness to it, it gets monotonous. You think about the NBA.
I came out of the ABA, which is where the
three pointer started. I love the three pointer, but it

(25:48):
used to be a punctuation and an exclamation. When you
watch a game now and the teams combine no joke
for seventy three point attempts in a game. I know,
the analytics say, what's obvious, make forty percent of threes.
That's better than making fifty percent of time. Two people
get that, But the game has a certain sameness to it.

(26:09):
It misses all the elements that make it appealing. And
then a guy like Jokic comes along and he he's
like a bigger Larry Bird, and fans embrace that because
he brings other elements into the game and they're enjoyable elements.

Speaker 1 (26:23):
Hey, Bobby, you and I both remember Vince Scully talking
about when he was a kid sitting underneath or actually
laying on the floor a console radio and listening to
some of the great voices like Graham mcnamy and hearing
the rary of the crowd, and that's where his dream began.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
Where did your dream begin?

Speaker 5 (26:43):
I was lucky enough to grow up in New York,
on Long Island, actually in a golden age of sports broadcasters.
Red Barber had left the Brooklyn Dodgers, so he and
Mel Allen were the Yankee voices, and Marty Glickman was
calling the Knicks on the radio and the Giants as
well in football. And Marty was the first, actually the

(27:04):
first significant jock turned broadcaster, and not as an analyst
or color man, but as a top level play by playman.
He'd been on the nineteen thirty six Olympic team as
a sprinter with Jesse Owens, and he played basketball and
football at Syracuse. He was the guy who he was
Marv Albert's tutor. In effect, Marvus his apprentice, kept stats

(27:27):
and occasionally filled in when Marty had another assignment. So
I'm listening to the young Marv Albert, I'm listening to
Marty Glickman, and to me, those voices. Lindsey Nelson was
the primary voice of the Mets when they came into
existence in sixty two, and for a very short time
in the early sixties, we actually lived in Los Angeles
and I was a transistor radio kid listening to Vin Scully,

(27:50):
and to me, that's games had a melody to them.
It wasn't just reporting, however, accurately, they had a melody
to them. Scully personified that nobody was like Scully in
that respect, but in his own way, Red Barber and
Vin learned so much from Red and Mel Allen, those

(28:10):
old school broadcasters. There was a lilt to their voice.
They gave the game a sound track, and I didn't
know if I could become one of them, but to me,
their voices were inseparable from the games. So I'd be
playing whiffle ball, or throwing a tennis ball off a wall,
or shooting baskets, even by myself in a school yard,
and I would hear their voices, and I thought, well, maybe,

(28:32):
if I'm really lucky, I can become one of them.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
And what did your parents think, I mean, if did
you mention that to them, that hey, this is what
I want to do.

Speaker 1 (28:40):
Because you know, a lot of times a parent will
look at the odds of their child accomplishing something and say, well,
maybe you want to come up with a plan.

Speaker 5 (28:48):
B My father thought that it was kind of a
far fetched dream, and he encouraged me. He died when
he was only forty two. I was eighteen, but I'd
been accepted at Syracuse about a month before he had
a heart attack and died. And his advice was, yeah,
pursue that if you want, Robert, And when he was
being serious, he called me Robert instead of Bobby. Pursue

(29:10):
that if you want. But why don't you major in
something like And I don't know why he thought this
would be a good thing, something like criminal justice. Somehow,
I don't see myself as a g man putting the
pinch on some gangster. But he thought that was more
practical and I could practice broadcasting.

Speaker 4 (29:27):
On the side.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
You could have been the next elliot Ness instead of
the next Vin Scully.

Speaker 4 (29:31):
Right.

Speaker 5 (29:33):
Somehow, I don't think I fit the Robert sat mold.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
So we're gonna take a quick break.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
But you know, we were doing the game at Fenway
Park for MLB Network, and I'm thinking to myself, Man,
this is such a treat being in Fenway Park. And
then I looked to my left and I see Bob Costas,
who's been literally around the world in some of the
best places to call or watch a sporting event.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
So let's go around the world with Bob when.

Speaker 1 (29:58):
We get back right after this, Welcome back to the
Book of Joe podcast with I guess Bob Costas and Bobby.
You know I mentioned this, you've literally been around the world.
I mean you've done, of course, the Olympics, boxing, the NFL,

(30:22):
horse racing, the NBA, NFL golf.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
NASCAR, which I don't remember, but I'm told that you did.

Speaker 5 (30:31):
And neither do I. Sometimes Wikipedia just lists everything like
a checklist. I interviewed Dale Earnhardt once. That's it. That's
the extent of my connection to and knowledge of NASCAR.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
All right, so I mentioned Fenway Park.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
You know, it's just it might not be the most
comfortable venue to call an event, but just the atmosphere
there is just dripping with history and nostalgia and.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
It's so cool.

Speaker 1 (30:56):
So give me if you can some of your top
favorite places where you almost pinch yourself and as many
times as you might have been there that this is
a treat to be in this place doing what I'm doing.

Speaker 5 (31:10):
Well, Even though I'm not much of a tennis guy,
I was at Wimbledon in the early nineteen nineties and
the history of that can't be lost on you. The
Coliseum in Los Angeles, which was a terrible place for baseball,
part of the reason why people began bringing transistor radios
because their seats were so far removed and pointed away

(31:31):
from the diamond they needed a transistor. Then they discovered,
wait a second, this kid, Vincecully's fantastic, so they kept
the transistors even when they moved to Dodger Stadium. Notre
Dame with a touchdown Jesus behind one of the end
zones kind of looming over everything. That's a tremendous setting.
Basketball at Duke is a tremendous setting the old Boston Garden.

(31:56):
I know visitors hated it with the dents in the
floor and no hot water in the shower because rad
Auerbach was trying to torment them in the visitors locker room.
But the old Boston Garden had that feel. Wrigley and Fenway,
as you say, still do. And then when we did
the Olympics in Athens in two thousand and four, you

(32:18):
go to the Parthenon, all that history, and then we
did a few events. I was the host, so I
wasn't at these events, but they did a few events
the shot put and one or two others at Olympia,
the original Olympic Stadium BC, that was onspiring. I didn't

(32:40):
go to events there, but I visited it before the
Olympics started. The Coliseum in Rome, which still stands. And
you know people talk about, Hey, I'm standing in the
old Yankee Stadium and I say, Babe, Ruth hit a
home run here. Well, you stand in the coliseum in Rome.
You know Christians were devoured by lions. There's there's some

(33:04):
history there.

Speaker 1 (33:05):
Joe, I can't believe he didn't say the lehih Lafayette
the Big Game.

Speaker 3 (33:09):
Well, I was gonna go to Keill Auditorium because I
was a Saint Louis Hawks. I was a Hawks fan,
I mean before the Spirits, but the Hawks played there also, right,
Oh yeah, tell me about that. Yeah, Bob Pettitt, that
Richie Garn, Lenny Wilkins, Joe Caldwell, Bill Bridges, Wow, Dono yeah,
Walt Hazard. I could keep going on and on. That
was my group back then. That was those were my boys.

Speaker 5 (33:31):
Kill Auditorium still stands. There are concerts there and occasional
sports events. When I got to Saint Louis, the Hawks
had already left for Atlanta. The Spirits of Saint Louis
or the ABA that was my team, lasted for two
years and didn't get into the merger. But Saint Louis
University played games, some of which I attended at Kill Auditorium.

(33:51):
I saw the Rolling Stones play at Kill Auditorium. You know,
it's an old ornate structure and it still stands in
downtown Saint Louis.

Speaker 3 (34:01):
I used to get the annual from the sporting They
would have like those little books like on baseball and
the NBA. I can't remember what's exactly what they were called,
but it would just give you a run down of
each ballpark or each auditorium, like the Cow Palace in
San Francisco. Is always intrigued by the Cal Palace, Nate
Thurman and all those dudes. I mean, I mean, I

(34:23):
was a real NBA fan back in the sixties and seventies.
I'm not as into it as now as I had been.

Speaker 4 (34:28):
Back then.

Speaker 3 (34:28):
I could talk more about like Dave Bing and Bob
Lanier as I can with anybody playing today, But that
was there was a special time for me NBA wise,
And I know you're we're really connected to all that stuff.
But all the cathedral kind of auditoriums with basketball. You
mentioned the Boston Garden, Madison Square Garden, Keel cal Palace.
Did you visit Most of those those auditoriums are just

(34:50):
a couple.

Speaker 5 (34:51):
Everyone you mentioned, except for the Cow Palace, Okay, never there,
come to think of it. When I was at Syracuse,
Archbold Stadium, which opened in nineteen oh nine, was then
the old stadium in use in all of college football.
But it also proved the adage that just because something's
old doesn't mean it's charming. No one lamented the passage

(35:16):
of Archbowl stadium the way they would if God forbid
Fenway or Wrigley was ever torn down.

Speaker 4 (35:21):
That's awesome, man, Bob.

Speaker 1 (35:23):
You mentioned the old ABA and kind of cutting your
teeth there with the spirit of Saint Louis. You got
to tell the Marvin Barvin story about travel back then
between time zones. Yeah, and I'm assuming because it's so good.
I want to believe the story is true. Oh, it's true,
and I think you might have been there.

Speaker 5 (35:43):
Not only there. I'm the keeper of the flame on
this story because I was directly involved. Teams didn't travel
by charter then. Louisville is maybe a four hour drive
four and a half from Saint Louis, but it's in
the Eastern time zone. So the spirits play artist Gilmour
Danissel and the Kentucky Colonels QB. Brown is the coach,

(36:04):
and the next morning we gather at the airport for
an early flight back to Saint Louis. And the traveling
secretary who was also the trainer one assistant coach. You
didn't have a huge staff back then in the ABA.
The trainer hands out the itinerary and it says twa
flight three oh five depart Louisville eight AM arrived Saint

(36:25):
Louis seven fifty six and Marvin Barnes, who was the
star of the team All American and Providence, selected second
after Bill Walton in both the ABA and NBA drafts,
and Haddie fulfilled his potential no question, to be in
the Hall of Fame. He was very likable and very funny,
but very self destructive and passed away at the age

(36:45):
of sixty two or sixty three, unfortunately. And he and
I remained good friends right to the end. We were
in touch with each other. But in any case, I digress,
as I sometimes wanted to do anyway, So traveling secretary
slash trainer hands out the itinerary twa flight three oh
five apart Louisville eight A m or rich sling Lewis

(37:06):
seven fifty six, and Marvin Barnes walks up to me
holding the piece of paper, drapes an arm over my shoulder,
and from more than a foot above me, looks down
and says, bro, do you see this? And I said yes.
He says, well, I don't know about you, but as
for me, I am not getting on any time machine.

(37:27):
But here's the thing. People when they first hear this,
think that Marvin was dumb. He wasn't dumb, he was smart,
and he knew that that was funny. But he also
knew that maybe some of his teammates wouldn't get it,
but I would. That's why he's bringing the joke on me.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
The struggle, right, Joe, that's right.

Speaker 4 (37:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:47):
The characterist man, the guys with the senses of humor, man,
those are the ones that really make it all worthwhile.

Speaker 4 (37:52):
That's good stuff.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
Hey, Bob, here, when I'm doing a game with you,
I wonder about this sometimes. Do you still get a
moment before these events wherever it is where maybe nervousness
is not the right word, but you know, it's still
a certain anxiety excitement. You can use whatever word you want.
I mean, you've done so many events, and so many

(38:13):
big events, it.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
Would be easy to think, oh, well, he's used to it.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
Yeah, but is there still a little bit something and
you can describe it as you wish obviously that you
feel before you go on air.

Speaker 5 (38:26):
Yeah. Nervousness came into play at the beginning, especially my
first few broadcasts on KMOX and then my first few
television broadcasts, especially at NBC. When they hired me full time.
Then after that, once you know, you hear athletes say this, Yeah,
I was nervous in the World Series, but once the
first ball was hit to me, then I was just

(38:47):
playing baseball. Once the first hit in a football game,
that we're just playing the game that we that we
grew up with and know how to play. So after
a while, it wasn't a matter of nervousness. But you
do get more keyed up when they're counting down for
the opening ceremony of an Olympics or when it's a
World Series or an NBA final. You're moral alert. You

(39:10):
feel a certain excitement and at least in my case,
always appreciation. Wow, I'm here. You know. The first World
Series I hosted a lot of them when Vin and
Joe were doing the games at NBC, But when the
nineties rolled around. The first World Series I did play
by playoff was in ninety five and I'm standing there

(39:31):
with Joe Morgan and Bob Buker and it was Game
three in Cleveland, the Braves and the then Indians and
my son Keith, who you work with at the Major
League Baseball now Major League Baseball Network now in his thirties.
He was nine years old. My dad never saw or

(39:54):
heard one thing I ever did. Nine year old Keith
Costas on a Friday night, his mom put him on
a plane from Saint Louis to Cleveland right after school.
It was easier to have somebody meet you at the gate.
Then it was pre nine to eleven, so we had
someone from NBC meet him at the gate. He'd already
traveled a lot as a kid, so it wasn't that

(40:15):
daunting to be on a plane. And they got him
to the booth just as we were about to do
the opening stand up, just before the national anthem, and
he already knew a lot about baseball. He's wide eyed
he's there.

Speaker 4 (40:27):
In the booth.

Speaker 5 (40:29):
You can't help but feel tremendous appreciation. I'm doing the
World Series. My dad never got to see me do anything.
Here's my nine year old kid. He's experienced so much
of it with me. So you do feel that appreciation
and a little bit more keyed up for a World
Series or an NBA Final or a Super Bowl than

(40:49):
you would for a regular season game.

Speaker 4 (40:51):
Could I just ask one question?

Speaker 3 (40:52):
With all that You've done so many different things, and
I think I might know the answer to this, but
you got to have a favorite sport or event to broadcast.
Do you have one favorite sport to do well?

Speaker 5 (41:06):
Baseball's always been my favorite sport and basketball was second.
Maybe the most iconic, and that word is thrown around
a lot, but maybe the most iconic event that I
specifically called rather than host it was Michael Jordan's last
game with the Bulls in ninety eight, when he made
the shot that turned the one point deficit into the

(41:27):
one point victory sealed his sixth NBA championship. And it
wasn't just that it was a winning play. It was
so classic. You know, if you were making a movie,
that's the way the shot would look. And he even
held the pose at the end of the release of
the shot, almost like he was posing for a statue.
And when the Last Dance came around more than twenty

(41:47):
years after, I didn't remember specifically some of the stuff
during that season that led up to it, but most
of it was on NBC. And the fact that the
way we covered it held up well more than two
decades later is a small source of pride in the
Dodger dugout. Vin Scully was calling the game magnificently. But

(42:08):
I was in the Dodger dugout when Kirk Gibson hit
the home run off Dennis Acresley. I was waiting to
jump out on the field and do a postgame interview.
And to this day, it's the most theatrical thing imaginable.
You know, I likened it to Robert Redford's at bat
as Roy Hobbs in the Natural. And in fact, when

(42:30):
I mentioned that to one of our producers after the game,
I said, you know that he was like Roy Hobbs.
He actually went back. He David Neil, the great producer,
went to NBC and Burbank, and overnight he intercut Redford's
last at bat as Roy Hobbs from the Natural with
Barry Levinson's direction, and why am I forgetting the name

(42:51):
of oh, Randy Newman. Randy Newman did the score and
he intercut Gibson's at bat with Redford's at bat, and
it was almost eerie the way that two of them matched.
If you were making a movie, you wouldn't change a
single frame. And the difference was that as great a
director as Barry Levinson is, he had multiple takes if

(43:12):
he needed them. Harry Coyle the legendary director for NBC,
and Mike Weisman and John Philippelli, the producers in the truck.
They had one shot at it, and they completely nailed
every aspect of it. And Kirk Gibson himself says he's
at the center of it. Part of the way he
remembers it is the way it was televised. And you

(43:33):
have on the same play two of the greatest calls
in baseball history, Vin Scully on television and Jack Buck
I don't believe what I just saw on the radio.
So I was kind of a tangential part of that.
But even in the moment, you could tell it wasn't
just a game winning home run. There was something about
it that was so dramatic and so theatrical that it

(43:57):
would always resonate, and it still does more than thirty
years later.

Speaker 1 (44:00):
Bob, you're underestimating your role in that World Series, and
because first of all, you were right there listening to
Kirk Gibson warm up when none of us thought he
was even available to play. Yeah, and then Tommy Lasorda,
the late Tommy Losorta, credits you with inspiring his team.

Speaker 5 (44:17):
Correct, Well, Tommy can be delightfully full of it. You know,
he was delightfully full of it when he wanted to be.
So the first part is this, they send me down.
I'm going to interview somebody after the game, and I've
got the Dodgers and Marv Albert has the age, so
I think I'm going to be doing a losing interview
because Eckersley's almost untouchable even though it's a one run game.

(44:39):
And I'm in the tunnel between the clubhouse and the dugout,
and all of a sudden, I hear thwack, uh thwack,
and I walk down to investigate, and there's the batting
cage and here's Gibson and bat boy's putting balls on
a tee for him, and he's taking swings and with
every swing he's grunting in pain and discomfort. So I

(44:59):
get on the telex and I tell Mike Weisman, Gibson
put his uniform on. He's taking swings. Maybe he can
pinch hit. And he alerted Vin and Joe in the booth,
and Vin had already asked Harry Coyle to now and
then pan the dugout looking for Gibson. No Gibson. So
that's the idea of drama building drama, not fake hype,

(45:20):
which is everywhere. Fake hype is everywhere in sports TV today.
That was legitimate storytelling and legitimate drama. And it wasn't
just what happened when Gibson connected, It was everything that
led up to it and surrounded it. So masterfully done
in the truck by the producers and directors and in
the booth by Vin. So yeah, so I played that

(45:44):
part in it. And then we get to Game four
and that was Gibson's only at bat in the whole
World Series. And then Mike Marshall, their secondary power source,
went out. So the Dodgers send out a lineup for
Game four that looks like a B game in World
Series in a spring training Rather, guys who were good
players passed the prime, like Rick Dempsey and Alfredo Griffin,

(46:06):
and guys who had been reserves their entire careers Dave Anderson,
Franklin Stubbs, John Shelby, Mickey Hatcher, who hit one home
run during that season and two in the World Series.
They called themselves the Bomb Squad. So I survey this lineup,
and I'm hosting the pregame show. The series stands two
to one and Hirsheiser is going to pitch Game five,

(46:30):
and we know if it goes seven, he's gonna throw
at least some innings on two days rest in Game seven,
so I know the Dodgers have a chance here. And
they're up two games to one because Hirsheiser had followed
up Gibson's miracle with a great performance in Game two.
So they went to Oakland up two games to none.
So I say, pitching a side, and this is the
key thing. Pitching aside, and Dodger pitching is excellent. This

(46:53):
may be the weakest lineup ever to take the field
for a World Series game. That was a considered statement.
So the pregame is on in the Dodgers clubhouse in Oakland.
Lesorta sees it and says, see that even Costas doesn't
give us a chance, and apparently by his own testimony,
he then leads a chant of kill Costas, Kill Costas.

(47:18):
So now the pregame ends and they're about to do
the anthem, and I don't want to be disrespectful, so
I fall at the end of the line. The Dodgers
are there, and Herschei's is at the end of the
line with his cap over his heart, and he looks
down at me and kind of into the corner of
his mouth, he goes, boy, he really got the boys
riled up, and I don't even know what he's talking about.
And then he explains to me when the anthem is over.

(47:40):
And then Lesorta puts on a virtuoso performance. It's like
he pulled every rabbit out of the hat. He gave
Mike Davis the hit sign on three and zero, and
Davis homerd I think he hit three homers the whole year.
He pulled a squeeze hit everything he did. He won
Game four, Lasorda won Game four, and then hirsheis are
predictably one Game five. But before Game five, I had

(48:03):
to go to Tony Russ's office because he had gotten
a third and fourth hand and Tony and I were
always friendly. He thought that Lesoda and I had orchestrated it,
that it was a setup, and I had to go
a sure, Tony, no, no, no, you know, Tommy, it's
just Tommy. And of course Tony wasn't in the best
possible mood because he's down three to one at that point.

(48:23):
So I was inadvertently in the middle of it and
some years later. You know, I actually was in Saint
Louis at a Saint Louis Brown's fan club luncheon. Wow,
there are three surviving Saint Louis Brown's, but there are
dozens and dozens of people who remember them. I guess
they were fans when they were kids. So they have
this annual luncheon. And Rick Dempsey the connection to the

(48:47):
Browns being that he played for the Baltimore Orioles and
the Browns left Saint Louis and became the Orioles. Rick
Dempsey was the keynote speaker. So I'm sitting there having
lunch with Rick, and he still thought that I said
that the Dodgers of eighty eight were the worst team
in World Series history. He wasn't angry, he was smiling.
I said, no, Rick, that's not what I said. But Tom,

(49:09):
you know, in this business, things get distorted pretty easily.

Speaker 4 (49:13):
Never let the truth get in away of a good story, ever, correct.
That's right.

Speaker 2 (49:16):
I love that story.

Speaker 1 (49:17):
And then, by the way, Tony LaRussa, I don't know
whether it was before or after, allowed you to manage
a spring training game.

Speaker 5 (49:24):
Oh yeah, that was on my fortieth birthday, and as
a surprise birthday present. I managed the A's against the
Mariners in nineteen ninety two and spring training of ninety two,
and also as part of it, I had to hit fungos,
took some batting practice. I told Canseco, I was gonna
make him hit and run stuffing was never asked to do.

(49:45):
And they're all laughing and stuff. But then when it
got to the point where Ron Darling was getting knocked around,
and I said to Larusa, I think I should go
get him, and he said, yeah, you should. And then
I thought, wait a minute, not everybody is in on
the joke. And Ron Darling, who is a great guy
in a long time friends and colleague, I wasn't one

(50:06):
hundred percent sure that he'd be that amused to have
me go out there wearing Mike Diego's uniform because he
was the smallest guy on the age, the closest to
a fit that have me go out there. He's trying
to make the team, he's getting knocked around, and me
as a prank, here give me the ball. So I said, Tony,
I'm out, you.

Speaker 4 (50:23):
Go get him.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
Did you win the game? Did you retire and defeated?

Speaker 5 (50:26):
No? We lost. We lost. I ken Seko missed the
steel sign at one point and I reamed him out
for that. I forget the rest. It's all kind of
a blur.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
Whenever you miss his sign, man managers get upset. There
you go nothing perfect example.

Speaker 1 (50:47):
Well, Bob, this has been an absolute pleasure. We could
go on and on. We're gonna have to bring you
back another episode. Just so many places we want to go,
and the stories are awesome. But listen, it's I want
to say personally, it's always a treat to be sitting
next to you in the booth.

Speaker 2 (51:01):
It's always just a.

Speaker 1 (51:03):
First class experience, and it's something I never take for
granted as many times as I'm lucky enough to do that.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
So thank you for everything.

Speaker 5 (51:10):
Well, Tom, I've said this before. You are as a
tuned to the modern game as anybody in that respect
as a reporter, but you're one of the few that's
carrying the flame at Sports Illustrated and elsewhere for the
kind of stuff that we enjoyed and appreciated as readers
and as viewers. You are connected to Frank to Ford.

(51:31):
You're connected to the very best whoever did it. At
Sports Illustrated and at least a few of you guys
are still out there doing it that way the way
that I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (51:41):
Appreciate that, Joe. Well done boys, Joe and Bob.

Speaker 1 (51:45):
I really appreciate that. And as I said, we'd love
to have you back another time. This has been a
lot of fun.

Speaker 5 (51:50):
Thanks again, Thanks guys, see you Joe, Thanks Bob.

Speaker 4 (51:53):
Appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (51:53):
Well, that was fun, Joe.

Speaker 1 (51:55):
As I said, I mean with Bob Costas man, he's
a great storyteller. He's done it all, he's seen it all,
and you still here what I love the enthusiasm for
what he does.

Speaker 3 (52:07):
It's just so awesome, another version of Google. He's got
everything down, man. All the facts are had his fingertips.
His ability to recreate moments and situations and time are
impeccable and as good as it gets. I've always we've
always enjoyed listening to his broadcasts.

Speaker 4 (52:25):
He really stands out in the Olympics. For me, I
was just curious.

Speaker 3 (52:27):
I thought baseball would be his favorite sport to broadcast,
but I can see the basketball side of it too.

Speaker 4 (52:33):
It's a bright man.

Speaker 3 (52:35):
And again, just like I'm so happy he pointed out
the component of reading, just like you do. I've been
a voracious reader in my whole life, where recently I
have been slowed down, just based on the speed of
information and the fact that we get too quick all
the time. You need a slower pace to sit down
and really devour a novel, which I heck in the seventies, eighties,

(52:55):
and nineties that did one every two weeks practically. So
I really love the idea of promoting reading to kids
these days. I don't know if it's gonna literally fall
on deaf fears, but to get kids to read more again,
not just people that want to become involved in the
industry doing what you and Bob do, but just in
general terms, reading is so important.

Speaker 4 (53:16):
I love to see a resurgence in that.

Speaker 1 (53:18):
That's a great point, and especially your point about sometimes
even though those of us who'd love to read, you
get caught up in the speed of things of life.
Now everything has sped up, there's no question about it,
and you almost need to force yourself to call a
time out. For me, it's usually what a good airplane
flight is for. It's a great place to read. You're

(53:39):
forced to slow down at that point. So that's a
great reminder that you almost have to find the time
now to slow yourself down, because it's easy to get
caught up in the current, and the current moves quickly.

Speaker 3 (53:50):
I find myself I just don't read any more. I
can read a newspaper anything in general, I skim, I'll
read a paragraph. If I'm really interested, I slow down
and I'll read the whole thing. That if I'm just
trying to accumulate more and for me about anything, I
must speed reader.

Speaker 4 (54:06):
And I don't like it. I don't like it.

Speaker 3 (54:08):
I'd love to be able to, you know, put the
brakes on a little bit, pump them a little bit,
slow it down, because it's so it's a difference maker
your ability to weave like you do and and with
Bob same way. A lot of it has to do
with that, the fact that you guys have read so much,
and you have varied interest and you have this wide

(54:29):
base a liberal arts bace. And again, if there's one
thing I try to get across the kids whenever I
do have opportunities to speak with them, is to me,
the most one of the most important things to do
in school would be to read. And also I like
the idea of speech and debate. I've always thought that
that would be should be required, I should be required
courses within schools, is a speech class or part of

(54:52):
a class, and also debate those two things I think
would be so beneficial.

Speaker 4 (54:58):
And the last one would be yoga and meditation.

Speaker 3 (55:00):
I you know that might be a tough sell, but
with the way we're medicating children today, give them tools
and abilities to possibly avoid that. And these are the
things to me that avoid the necessity to have to
be eventually medicated in a situation, to be able to
slow things down. Breathe really understand what's going on in

(55:23):
front of you. So if we get educationally provide the tools,
we're all going to be better off.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
My great advice.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
We're always in such a hurry, and it seems like
our idols get faster and faster because of the information
and technology and entertainment come at us faster and faster.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
It's important to slow ourselves down.

Speaker 1 (55:43):
Well, Joe, you always have great words of wisdom coming
out of these podcasts, and typically from some great writers
or statesman.

Speaker 2 (55:52):
Who do you got on tap today?

Speaker 4 (55:54):
Well?

Speaker 3 (55:54):
I chose this fella and Abasam before. But the fact
that Bob was on any is such a great historian
for the game as you are, and the idea of
all the things that are occurring in the game today
of baseball.

Speaker 4 (56:07):
I thought this might be appropriate.

Speaker 3 (56:09):
Baseball people, and that includes myself, are slow to change
and accept new ideas. I remember that it took years
to persuade them to put numbers on uniforms. That's from
mister branch Rickey. So that was like even back then.
The the change the in the in the game of baseball.
And I was started trying to think of like different

(56:30):
changes that are occurring, and he was talking about numbers.
I think about logos on the uniform, colored bats, spikes,
mascots in the dugout. That's one form of change. And
the other form of changes run around second three better minimum.

Speaker 4 (56:43):
Pitch clock outlawing the shift.

Speaker 3 (56:45):
I mean, there's there's different ways to change, and I
guess I'm trying to qualify that the fact that there
are some that to me are easy to accept, as
I e. Logos, numbers, colored bats, spikes, mascots.

Speaker 4 (57:00):
The ones that.

Speaker 3 (57:01):
Require more time for me to really chep on board
with is like I talked about strategy of the game.

Speaker 4 (57:07):
Run around second base in the extra innings, three.

Speaker 3 (57:09):
Batter, minimum, pitch clock outlong the ship where strategy is
impacted and mitigates the ability to think on your feet
during in the course of a baseball game. So these
are the things that there's examples of change. And mister
Ricky was talking about numbers on uniform. So I'm trying
to wrap my mind around the whole thing as I
guess what I'm saying to you right now. And I'm trying,

(57:32):
I'm trying to really understand why these other things are
so pertinent and important. Like I said, the one to me,
the pitch clock absolutely is the superstar with all of this.
The other stuff I'm not so sure about.

Speaker 1 (57:45):
I'm a little more optimistic because the change I see here, Joe,
I think the game is heading in the right direction.
Let's see where it takes us. But I watched the
Baltimore Orioles play, I watched the Chicago Cubs play. I'm
now seeing teams play a version of baseball that had
disappeared in the line decade in the search for power

(58:06):
at the cost of strikeouts, that passive aggressive, you know,
walk strikeout, home run game. And I see athletes defending
the field, running the bases, hitting the ball the other way.
We're not back to the nineteen eighties quite yet, Joe,
but I am seeing teams. It'll be interesting to see
what plays out in the postseason. But I think the

(58:29):
groundwork is being set here with a better version of baseball.

Speaker 4 (58:34):
I've listened.

Speaker 3 (58:35):
I'm into all of that, and again, but what is
the what is the motivating factor behind that change?

Speaker 4 (58:41):
I think it really comes down to the pitch clock.

Speaker 2 (58:43):
Well, yeah, it's a pitch clock, yes, but that's okay.
If that's the instigator here, sure.

Speaker 1 (58:48):
But I think if you have one of these teams
break through, it actually win the World Series.

Speaker 2 (58:53):
Okay, yeah, we'll see more of it.

Speaker 3 (58:55):
I'll listen, you know me. I'm all about that. That's
that's exactly what we're looking for in the game. That's
that's why I have been tuning in more this year.
Is exactly what you're talking about. And I do tune
into the teams that play that style of game. I do,
and I have been watching the Cubs when I like
what they're doing a lot. But yeah, all this stuff again,

(59:16):
I'm just going back to the quote by mister Ricky
slow baseball people slow to embrace change, and I don't
want to be, because I was really at the forefront
of a lot of the change like ten or fifteen
years ago, just with defenses and analytics, etc. But again,
I'm still concerned about the manager, I guess, and I
guess I'm talking about myself. But the fact that if
you have enough strategy left in the game to be

(59:39):
ahead of the curve during the course of nine innings,
that it might benefit you. But if that playing field
has leveled so much, it really again mitigates the importance
of the manager.

Speaker 4 (59:50):
However, it is all about players.

Speaker 3 (59:52):
I get that it is a player's game, and I
do love the pace, and I think that's the most important.

Speaker 4 (59:58):
Part of it.

Speaker 2 (59:59):
Exciting time of year.

Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
As you mentioned with Mike Sosha, you can feel it
in the air.

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
It's common. Down the stretch we come.

Speaker 3 (01:00:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm spelling it.

Speaker 4 (01:00:08):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
Hey, great job. Well, we'll see you again next time.
I have The Book of Joe.

Speaker 4 (01:00:11):
Thank you man, appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
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