Behind the Book with Marshall Garvey Author of Interstate '85 The Show Me World Series

This week, we sit down with author Marshall Garvey to talk about his book on the 1985 World Series. Whether you’re a die-hard 80s baseball fan or simply love a good read, you won’t want to miss it. We’ll also have some fun with 80s pop culture as Marshall makes his case for why 1985 was the best year of the decade.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Welcome back to Children of the Eighties. I am one
of your hosts, Jim, and I am joined as always
by the lady who might be the biggest Dale Murphy fan.
I know it's my co host, Lindsay.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
That's not sure, that's saying a whole lot.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Uh. Do you know who was a big Dale Murphy fans?
My mom, Your mom was a was a Dale Murphy fan.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Listen. He was a time MVP in nineteen eighty two
nineteen eighty three. So everybody in the South should be
fans of Dale Murphy. Absolutely, But we're not here to
talk about Dale Murphy and the Braves. We're actually here
to talk about my favorite team, the Saint Louis Cardinals
and the nineteen eighty five season, in nineteen eighty five

(01:01):
World Series. And we are joined by author Marshall Garvey,
who wrote one of the best books that I've ever
read when it comes to sports, and it is called
Interstate eighty five The Royals, the Cardinals and the Show
Me World Series. Marshall, how are you doing.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
I am doing fantastic. I am absolutely thrilled to be
here and looking forward to a robust discussion of eighty
five and so happy that that you loved the book.
And as I've said in our our exchanges online, the
praise that you gave Fred, that just that put me
on cloud nine. I'm really appreciative of it.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
So I've always been a pretty voracious reader, and I
have really, as an adult, just sucked in all the
sports books that I could read. Right, So, I've read
great ones, I've read good ones, and i've read bad ones,
and I would put this in the great category. And
I'm talking about I've read David Halberstay, John Feinstein, and

(02:02):
then a bunch of other authors that I won't get
into because they weren't quite as good, but those were
fantastic writers. And I have to say that I enjoyed
this book just as much as I enjoyed their stuff.

Speaker 4 (02:14):
That's the kind of praise I've always dreamed of, and
just wow, I'm glad to hear it. And I definitely
put in the effort for the book to be on
that level.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yeah, that was obvious to me, the amount of work
that you put it. And we'll get into that in
a little bit, but I do need to mention that
I found your book online on Twitter or ex whatever
you want to call it now. But I have a
buddy that we follow each other, and his name is
Pete Scribner, and he runs the twitter feed Heck of
a Year, which is about the eighty five Cardinals, and

(02:49):
every few years he goes through each game game by
game and kind of gives some highlights in the lineup
and everything else. And that is how I discovered you.
And I told him that I was going to have
you on and then I said, because as I found
you through him, I would plug his Twitter feed. So
that's what I'm doing. Congratulations Pete.

Speaker 4 (03:06):
Oh, Pete is the best. He was one of my
biggest supporters throughout finishing the book, and yeah, he's a
great guy. And that, yeah, that account Heck of a Year.
Whether or not you're into the Cardinals, must follow account.
I love the passion of that.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
So I want to know what was the inspiration for
the book.

Speaker 4 (03:27):
Well, the inspiration for the book, I mean it was
basically set in motion by history itself. It was April fifteenth,
twenty twenty. It's a month into quarantine. I'm already a
full time remote writer, and now I know I've got
extra time for writing when I'm not playing tons of
video games. So It's like I recently self published my

(03:49):
first baseball book, and I thought, all right, let's get
going on the sophomore effort. And I figured, all right,
I want to My first book was about the history
of baseball and Sacramento. I think I want to do
a more specific subject for this, something you know, I
can focus on. And I'm on a train of thought
for my daily job. My buddy Jay Daniel, he wrote
the book sud Series about eighty two. He was working
on that at the time, and that was like the

(04:10):
beginning of the train, and you know, that's eighty two,
and as I'm running, like I just my mind goes
to eighty five and it's just like life changing epiphany,
Like wait a minute, eighty five, Like no one's really
touched that one, like you know, Dankener call. Of course.
I know that I've always known about the series since
I was a kid, because I've always been in a

(04:31):
baseball and World Series history. But I was like, this
thing has always felt buried to me. There was a
brief uptick in remembering it when the Royals finally won again,
but then it probably just went back down the memory hole,
and I was like, I got a feeling here. You know,
I as I was jogging, you know, I just started
to I even came up with the book's title during

(04:51):
that run. I was like, I can see this being
a definitive tone about eighty five. I've got a feeling
like it's just deep feeling there's more than just Ankinger's
call and long story short, boy, that assumption sure turned
out to be right.

Speaker 3 (05:08):
It's amazing to me when we talk to creative people,
other podcasters, writers, artists, what the quarantine at the beginning
of twenty twenty did for people. I mean, it was
obviously a horrible time, but it also kind of launched
people into what turned into really big projects.

Speaker 4 (05:30):
Yes, oh yeah, yeah, I've got I've got tons of
friends who conceived some and wrote some really great books
because of Quarantine. It was like, yeah, you don't want
to downplay what a horrible time it was, but like, yeah,
for me and a lot of other authors and creators.
My roommate Michael like, he's a musician. He made a
ton of music during that time, so we were just like, hey,
you know, let's make the most of it, right though.

Speaker 3 (05:52):
Well you did, because I got this book for Jim
for Father's day, he basically sat down in hibernated until
he was finished reading it.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
Every time I.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
Looked, and it's hard to do to for Jim to
pull away from his phone.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
So if he's got that phone down and a book up,
it's good. It's a good book. And at one point
he even commented.

Speaker 3 (06:18):
I made a comment like, oh, you're enjoying that book,
and he said, it's one of the best books I've
ever read.

Speaker 4 (06:24):
So just so you know, that's knowing all they went
through to hear that, like again, that's this music to
my ears.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
So I'm curious, and you kind of got into it
a little bit, but I'm curious it wasn't really just
a thought of the eighty five World series. I'm trying
to figure out why you chose eighty five in the
eighty five series, because if I'm not mistaken, you weren't
even born then, were you.

Speaker 4 (06:48):
I was not. I was born in nineteen eighty nine,
and I'm I'm a lifelong California and second generation Dodgers fan.
But I would say, I did you know I've always
liked the eighty five Royals. I thought I've always thought
that they were, you know, a likable team. And I
do a decent number of the players, and I like, well,

(07:09):
I should also add I love eighty even if it's
really before my time. The eighties is my favorite decade
for baseball, especially because a lot of the playoffs were
so exciting, a lot of great playoff games and series.
So it was when I had that epiphany about eighty
five specifically, I was like, oh, yeah, you know, it's
it just it hit that mark, especially knowing that I

(07:31):
would write about the League Championship Series, even though the
NLCS is not a good memory for US Dodger fans,
but I knew that that would be there, Like again,
there would be a lot of great stuff to delve into,
and and sure turned out that way.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
So Jim says, and he's really been stuck on this
now for several months. He says, nineteen eighty four was
the best year of the eighties.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
For pop culture and stuff like that, any for sports.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
I understand that you might argue it was eighty five.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
And you kind of get into that in the beginning
of your book too, write in your forward or your introduction.

Speaker 4 (08:15):
Yes, the introduction of you to a call of course
nod to the James Bond movie and Duran Durand's song
really lays out that eighty five wasn't just a rich
year for popular culture. I argue eighty five is basically
the year where the modern world we live in today
began to emerge. I mean with eighty five, I don't
want to like just take too long, but like, where

(08:37):
do you begin and where do you end with all
that happened or start in eighty five? Pop culture wise, well,
Udio Ghibli, the Golden Girls, tons of great music from
pop hits like Madonna and Springsteen to indie rock like
The Replacements, great movies like Back to the Future, major

(08:58):
events like Live Aid just so so much. The Nintendo
Entertainment System, which was launched in the United States the
day before the World Series, started basically saving the video
game medium after it seemed to collapse. And now look
how big video games are now. And Sports Sports Illustrated

(09:21):
did a thirtieth anniversary long form series calling eighty five
the best year in sports, and I agree with that.
Eighty five Sports wise gives you Patrick Ewing selected in
the first NBA Draft lottery, Joe Feisman's leg breaking on
Monday Night Football, the Super Bowl shuffle Bears, Don Day,
Ginger's Call and that World Series, Mike Tyson's professional debut,

(09:43):
The Haggler, Hearns War, the first WrestleMania just so and
again that's just the SAYD Like I could go on
and on, like like eighty four is great. It's not
like it's too there's a case for either one, But
eighty five to me just feel like it's a rich
year pop culture and history wise, and it feels like

(10:05):
you can draw a straight line from eighty five to
where we are today.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
So, I mean, I've said eighty four because that's what
I've always believed, but you know, eighty five does hold
a special place in my heart. And all the things
that you brought up I forgot about. I didn't forget
about the Hagler Herns fight, but I forgot that it
was an eighty five And that is truly one of
the best, most exciting boxing matches I've ever seen. And

(10:30):
it only goes for about seven and a half eight minutes,
but it's like a video game.

Speaker 4 (10:35):
It's like a video yeah, and that's the thing. It
only went into the third round, but every moment is
just so explosive. It's you can make a case for
it being the best fight. Yeah, it's And that's the thing, like,
these are all moments that people remember, but everyone might
not remember. You know that that happened in eighty five,
And when you see it was all within that one

(10:57):
calendar calendar year, You're just like, wow, it's just yeah,
just a terrific year.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
I don't know, Jimmy's making a pretty good he is.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
We may have to go down this rabbit hole for
a series on Wick is the best for the eighties
when it comes to pop culture. But Marshall tell Lindsey,
who grew up in the South, what this World Series
meant to Saint Louis, meant to Kansas City, and meant
to really the whole state of Missouri because it was
almost like the Civil War again for the whole divide.

Speaker 4 (11:29):
This World Series was everything to the people of Missouri.
It's one of I mean, Missouri is a historic state
where so many crucial events have happened, both for American
history and even world history, and the eighty five World
Series is, no hyperbole, one of the greatest events in
Missouri history. I mean, baseball in the midwee I was saying,

(11:51):
baseball in the Midwest is like college football in the
Deep South. It's like religion, and uh, the fact that
it was all contained well to begain part of what
made it so special for Missouri is throughout the eighty
five seeds. Then there were multiple possibilities of provincial or
just unique settings for a World Series. There could have

(12:12):
been a Yankees Mets Subway Series, which we would get
later in two thousand. There could have been an Angels
Dodgers Southern California World Series, or the Blue Jays were
the winningest team in the American League, they could have
taken the World Series outside of the US and instead
for it to end up entirely in Missouri, I mean
that puts some people off outside of the show me state,

(12:34):
but within its borders, people were just loving it. I
mean even the smallest towns like the unincorporated community of
Braggadocio not making that up. It's a real place in
the southern boot heel. We're hanging on every pitch, even
if they could barely satellite dish to watch it. And
it was you know, the allegiances were pretty you know, strict.

(12:56):
It's you know, their generations of Cardinals fans the Royals.
By contrasts were younger, they'd only been around since nineteen
sixty nine, but their fans were just as loyal. You
get some interesting mixes of fan bases depending on which city,
but one thing was for sure, and people revert to this.
Whichever side you were on, Missouri was the winner. That's

(13:17):
what people would always say. And I thought, but that
was true, you know, I just thought that was really
really sweet.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
So Lindsay's always kind of, for whatever reason, been fascinated
with Kansas City. I'm not sure why, being a native
Saint Louis and Marshall you know this because you have
dug into the book. We don't like the other side
of the state, and they don't and they don't like us.

Speaker 3 (13:40):
That's why it fascinates me, because I'm like, it's the
same state.

Speaker 2 (13:43):
I don't understand.

Speaker 4 (13:44):
That, Like I love that. Yeah, No, it's it's I
feel like it tends to be more intense going from
Kansas City to Saint Louis, and I touch on that
like early on in the book. I think, especially because
Kansas City was established much later than Saint Louis, it's
gonna be kind of a I say this not in meanway,
it's kind of a little brother thing. Yeah, I've been

(14:04):
to Kansas City, love it. I want to go to
Saint Louis catch a Cardinals game there. I'm certain I'll
love that too. But yeah, I've always just been kind
of fascinated, like, yeah, the Western versus Eastern Kansas City
for Saint Louis, it's a really intense deal. I feel
if the Royals and Cardinals were in the same league
and division, it'd be like Dodgers and Giants.

Speaker 3 (14:22):
Oh yeah, like me being from Atlanta, if like we
were beefing with Savannah, Like I don't get it.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yeah, what does it matter.

Speaker 4 (14:30):
It's that it's it's that random. But in Missouri it's
like it's a battle line.

Speaker 2 (14:35):
Well it's real. No, it's real.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
Listen. I dislike Kansas City so much, and apologies too.
If we have any Kansas City listeners, I love you.

Speaker 3 (14:44):
I was gonna say, don't please, don't offend anyone.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
But I disliked them so much that on my seventeenth birthday,
we traveled from Saint Louis to Kansas City to watch
the Chiefs take on the Houston Oilers. The day that
Warren Moon threw for five hundred and twenty seven yards,
and I hate Kansas City so much that I wore
a Raiders jacket into their stadium. Oh I was not alive.

Speaker 4 (15:09):
Oh well, to be fair, that was probably at the
time when there was like three thousand fans at Arrowhead
Stadium on a given day, so you probably had an
easier way to escape.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
I don't think i'd make it out alive nowadays, No,
you would not. It's obvious to me that there was
a ton of effort put into this book through interviews.
How much work did you really put into this?

Speaker 4 (15:35):
Oh? Oh, my goodness, you, Like I said, this book
was basically a five year journey, because I conceived it
on April fifteenth, twenty twenty, and I was published on
March twenty seventh of this year. Oh, the amount of
effort was unbelievable. Like the interviews alone, Like I talked
to Dankinger, I talked to like family members, I talked

(15:56):
to Avn Fogelman, the co owner of the Royals at
that time, the networking to find them than to transcribe
their interviews. Parsed through the interviews because some of the
interviews were really long, and I had to sift through
that going through newspaper archives, newspapers dot com, which is
admittedly more convenient than going to a library, but I'd
still have to sift through a lot watching the game broadcasts,

(16:18):
Baseball reference dot com, going through play by plays and stats,
oh my goodness, going through magazines documentaries. Saying it out loud,
it sounds like overwhelming and there, I will be honest.
There were times where I was worried and unsure if
I could pull the whole thing together. I actually put

(16:39):
the book on hiatus for a year in twenty twenty two,
but when I got back to it, it clicked better
than ever. Yeah, it was a lot of work that
you could break down individually, and the cumulative challenge of
building a strong narrative. But ultimately, I once I really
found the book's thesis about roads using that theme in
twenty twenty three, that's when it came together and I

(17:02):
got better at just editing stuff out building the narrative
and that that was Yeah, that ultimately was how it
came together. It's yeah, we could do a multi part
series about each part of the research. It was a
lot of work, but it did. It was worth it.

Speaker 3 (17:18):
So how difficult was it to track these people down
and then how willing were they to sit down and
talk to you?

Speaker 4 (17:27):
Getting these people it wasn't even necessarily hard to track
them down always, it was just a matter Some interviews
just happened at certain times and others just came later,
Like there were a bunch that I tried to get
in twenty twenty one, but they ended up not happening
until I got back to the book in twenty twenty three.
As far as willing, very willing. And this is actually

(17:50):
something that I figured from the day I conceived the book,
because this series has been so buried down the memory
hole and no one really gave it the love it deserved.
I was like, these people have I've got tons of
great stories they've been sitting on and oh boy, did
that turn out to be true. Yeah. I only got
four outright rejections, all of whom were totally cordial. But
like all twenty seven people who talked were really willing

(18:13):
to do it, really excited, and every interview was great.
I'm not just saying that to be nice. If any
interview was a disappointment, would I would let you know.
Like everyone had unique perspectives, they were candid, they were passionate. Yeah,
and like I said, I think they'd been waiting a
long time for a definitive chance to share these tales,
and it was an absolute joy. Those twenty seven interviews.

(18:36):
Are wouldn't trade it in for anything.

Speaker 3 (18:38):
So sometimes in an interview, you know, you're talking about
whatever subject you've agreed upon, but then other things will
come up in the conversation.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
Did that happen at any point?

Speaker 3 (18:50):
Did anybody share something with you that made you go,
oh wait, what I didn't know that? Or surprised you,
or just anything that stuck out to you that you
hadn't expected.

Speaker 4 (19:03):
Oh oh, yes, Well, there are plenty of examples, but
when people when when people ask you a question like
that about you know, surprise or jaw dropping interview moments.
I got many of those, but there is one that
really stands above them all, and I think it's honestly
the best interview tidbit in the book. I talked to
Royal's relief pitcher Joe Beckwith two weeks before he passed

(19:25):
away from colon cancer. And so Joe, uh before he
was with the Royals, he he actually came up with
the Dodgers, and I told him from the beginning of
the interview. I was a Dodgers fan, and well we
were talking about his nineteen eighty five seasons. So Joe
started the eighty five season great, but in the summer
he hit a big slump. It was just a really
rough season or season that kind of stalled out by then.

(19:49):
So he told me, and he prefaced them by going
like WHOA, well this will get you go, and like
he knew I would really love this. He he called
Sandy Kofax in this hotel hell room in Toronto before
the Royals played the Blue Jays, stood and and and
and again. Here's eighty's imagery like for especially for younger
viewers or listeners, this is ninet eighty five. No cell phones,

(20:12):
no zoom, no FaceTime. He's got a corded phone. Joe
Beckwith has a corded phone crouched against his neck and
for one hour while watches from the bed, Joe stands
in front of a mirror with Sandy Kofax guiding him
through his pitching mechanics. And then from that point on,
Joe turned his season around, helped the Royals win the division,

(20:34):
and pitch great in the World Series in Game four.
And this is especially worth noting, because a what a
gem of a story. And I firmly believe he never
told anyone that story and he really only shared it
because he knew he was going to die. Oh wow,
and that was it, you know, like if he doesn't
tell me that story dies with him, and so that

(20:57):
and I when he told me that story in particular,
and he died just two weeks later, that was a
big turning point for the book when I realized, like, wow,
you know the importance of disseminating these stories and keeping
them alive. I really realized the high stakes of that.
So there were many other great stories. Again, we could
do an episode just about like I could do a

(21:18):
top ten crazy you know, Intertate eighty five interview stories,
but that one will always stand as a as a
very special one and one that was again I was
lucky to even get.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
Now, I can tell you as a Saint Louis and
and Lindsey can probably agree with this. As a as
an Atlanta Braves baseball fan, they always kind of felt overlooked,
and when they were in the World Series all those years,
they felt like the announcers always talked about the other team,
and so as a Saint Louis, and we always kind
of feel like we get looked over. I'm sure Kansas
City probably feels the same way. But it seems to

(21:52):
me like you had more royals interviews than you did
cardinals interviews, and that may or may not be true.
I don't know, but if it was, was it because
the royals were more willing to talk about it, or
was it just those were the people you were able
to reach, or how did that come about?

Speaker 4 (22:10):
So, yes, I did have more royals interviews than cardinals,
but it is worth noting I still objectively got a lot.
Oh god, yes did I got seven of the eighty
five cardinals Ozzie Smith, Andy van slike Ricky Horton, Ken Day,
Jeff Lottie Kirk Kepshire and Brian Harper. I here's the
funny thing. I only got one outright rejection from a cardinal,

(22:34):
Mike Jorgensen. It's not like it was a slew of
like I won't talk. I think I targeted a lot
of other cardinals I tried to get, like Danny Cox,
Willie McGhee, Jack Clark, Tom Hurr. I either didn't hear
back or they were like Jack Clark was like on
the fence about it, and I just never heard back definitively.
So I did naturally, and and maybe that's just the

(22:56):
natural art. The royals one, so I just get more
of them. But it's not like I did that on purpose.
I yeah, I still got a lot. I guess I
just didn't get a few other big names. But overall,
I think it created the right mix, even if there
were more royals in the end, Jim, you're.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
Over here still trying to be with Kansas City.

Speaker 4 (23:14):
Let me go.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
No, it was just interesting to me, you know, who
you got and who you didn't get, right, Like, really,
the only two starters for the Cardinals were Ozzie and
Andy Vans, like, and then the rest were relief pictures
or what have you. I was curious, why you know
Tommy Hurr, Terry Pendleton or Jack Clark or Willie McGee.
Didn't you know Vince Coleman, even because him missing was

(23:39):
huge series?

Speaker 4 (23:41):
Oh yeah, well Vince Coleman. I knew that one wasn't
going to happen. I don't know if if you've read
The wax Pack by Brad Baluchin, great book, at one
of the big inspirations for my book and Brad even
did a blurb for mine, which another dream come true.
Brad tried to track down Vince Coleman to interview for
the wax Pack, but it's kind of a legend dairy
story of just about how hard to find and difficult.

(24:03):
Vince really is.

Speaker 1 (24:05):
So fast, so you might not be able to catch them.

Speaker 4 (24:08):
Exactly, well except when that Tart's coming for But but no,
like Vince is like pretty difficult. And yeah, like I
tried with Terry Pendleton actually through the Atlanta Braves Alumni chief.
I tried twice, never heard back again. Sometimes maybe it
just didn't get through or they forgot. And I also
know that eighty five is a source. But for a
lot of the players, you know, so maybe it's a

(24:30):
too deep a wound to talk about. And others are
okay with it, like Jeff Lottie is, you know, pretty
at peace with it, as is Ricky Horton, So you know,
maybe that was just kind of a factor too. But yeah,
at the end of the day, yeah, like you said it,
really I really got two starters for the Cardinals, but
the backup guys, Matt kirk Kepshire in particular, he was
left off the playoff roster as a whole. But he
had one of the best stories.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah, he gave you a lot of great information. I
was really impressed with that.

Speaker 4 (24:54):
I know.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
So Ozzie Smith was my favorite player growing up. I
mean I would say that most kids in the eighties,
Ozzie Smith was probably their favorite player. He's always seemed
really nice and cordial. I'm assuming he probably was. In
your interviews. Did he give you anything that maybe you
didn't put in the book?

Speaker 4 (25:13):
Uh, he did, well, every interviewer did. There were some
great stories or that just didn't make it in. It's
kind of like shooting a movie. You'll have great scenes,
but ultimately you have to have pacing and build a
certain narrative. So there's stuff from every interview that just
didn't make it in for whatever reason or for pacing.

(25:33):
But Ozzie was an absolute blast to talk to. His agent,
Debbie Dendler set it up. He was just running errands,
just talking to me in his car, which is just
really wild, Like Ozzie Smith's is out running errands, He's
got kids in the back seat, He's talking to me.
That just kind of can't come down from that. How
surreal that is. But Yeah, Ozzie's a gem and yeah,

(25:54):
always been a favorite of mine too.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
That's cool.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
Yeah, you know, if you mentioned Terry Pendleton earlier, if
you can get Terry Pendleton, eighty five is a sore
spot for him, eighty seven is a sore spot for him.
Ninety one. Yeah, he was a fantastic player, but on
a lot of teams, it just barely fell short for
one reason or another. And I feel like three of

(26:16):
those seasons his team was the better team. And we've
got buddies up in Minnesota that are going to argue
with me big time because they're Twins fans. But I
still feel like the eighty seven Cardinals were better than
the eighty seven Twins. We're missing Jack Clark and Terry
Pendleton in that series. And then the ninety one Braves.
I felt like, we're better than the ninety one Twins,

(26:39):
but you know, they weren't better for those seven games,
and that happens in sports a lot.

Speaker 4 (26:45):
I know, it's that was the thing, like, Yeah, I
didn't get to talk to Terry Pendleton, and you know,
he just kind of comes up at certain moments in
the book, especially his clutch hitting Game two of the
eighty five series. But I always kind of had that,
like he always came up so short. You wish you'd
just get over the hump once, you know. But like
baseball can be cruel like that.

Speaker 3 (27:08):
So I gotta know now again, my baseball knowledge is
not very good, So bear with me. All I really
know about baseball it's just the Atlanta Braves.

Speaker 2 (27:22):
So is it okay if I ask?

Speaker 3 (27:24):
Yeah, if I take it to the Atlanta.

Speaker 4 (27:27):
It's okay. I talked about the ninety one series in
chapter elevens. You know it's not completely irrelevant. No, go ahead.

Speaker 3 (27:33):
So do you think that Dale Murphy deserves to be
in the Hall of Fame?

Speaker 4 (27:38):
Oh? Oh, this, I'm not I'm not trying to be pithy.
It's it's that there's kind of a cliche on baseball
Twitter that like guys will always be like, oh, Dale
Murphy belongs in the Hall of Fame. Oh Atlanta, Oh Atlanta.
Don't don't torch you for saying this. I'm not sure
I can bide on that. I get the case for

(28:01):
it because he had a Hall of Fame peak, and
it's not what I sometimes wonder with Dale Murphy is
because you know, he moved between his If I'm right,
he moved between positions, right, I feel like if he
just settled in at one position the whole career. Maybe
that because you could draw a similarity to someone I
talked to for the book, Brian Harper, Like for a

(28:21):
lot of time he was moving between first base, catcher, outfield,
but once he was full time catcher, he blossomed. Dale Murphy. Yeah,
it's it's a Hall of Fame peak. I'm not sure
it's a Hall of Fame per I love Murphy, He's great.
I mean, who doesn't love Dale Murphy and the Certainly
every just about if not every kid in the eighties,
every one and three had to have the glowing batposter.

(28:43):
You know. He he's I mean, but if he, if
he gets in, I'm not going to have a problem
with it, you know, will Yeah, I'm not sure. I mean,
Dave Parker, Dave Parker, rest his soul. He got in there.
That's kind of I think a similar echelon statistically, So yeah,
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (29:01):
I think he will eventually. I think the Hall of
Fame start and open up. I've always kind of been
a small hall guy, so I struggle with guys like
Murphy and Parker, who were, you know, arguably one of
the five best players in baseball for a few years
during their time. But I think if Parker got in,
I think they o Murphy eventually gets in.

Speaker 4 (29:18):
That's what I'm thinking too, And I tend to be
it's weird because I'm especially as I show in the book,
I'm a big picture guy who likes to appreciate everyone
from the big stars of all smalls. I tend to
be a small hall stickler myself. But maybe that norm's
just changing and that's just how it is.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
So I love the fact that you got somebody like
Brian Harper in here, right. Brian Harper was essentially the
twenty fourth man on the roster for the eighty five
Cardinals and then would get cut the next year. He'd
get his release right and then go on to be
a I don't want to say a star, but certainly
a solid player for the Minnesota Twins as a catcher.
And I remember in ninety one going, man, we had

(29:56):
that guy like why do we get rid of them?
You know, why do we get rid of Lavalure?

Speaker 3 (29:59):
Why?

Speaker 1 (30:00):
I mean, I know why we got riddle of Labauer?
And Andy Vans. Like you know, it was for Tony Panya,
who was absolutely my favorite capture during the eighties. It
wasn't on the Cardinals, but man it was. It did
not turn out to be a good trade for the
Cardinals on that end.

Speaker 4 (30:12):
Yeah, I know well Brian Harper that he was one
of the interviews I got in twenty twenty three. When
I got back to the book, I'll be honest with you,
twenty twenty two, I nearly gave up on the book,
and I'm glad I didn't, because in twenty twenty three
the book not only turned out a lot better, it
was because I got eight interviews, and Brian Harper was
one of the earliest from that final batch. Brian is

(30:34):
such a great guy, super cool. I'd actually met him
in person at a ninety one Twins reunion in twenty eleven,
and he was just a blast to talk to. Yeah,
in eighty five, you rarely saw him when he came up,
and this is something I didn't even know until I
started researching the book. He would have been the hero
of the eighty five world series. He got the For

(30:55):
those who don't know, everyone knows the Dankner call all
the Cardinals are leading one nothing going to the bottom
the ninth of G six. But for twenty years, if
you had walked up to me like Marshall, who was
responsible for that one run in Game six before the
Royals came back, I'd be like, Oh, would be like
Jack Clark, Tom Herb, you know, Willie McGee. It has
to know Brian Harper. Before he was everyone's favorite mulleted

(31:15):
catcher for the Twins, he was well rarely seen moulded
utility player for the Cardinals. He when he came up
in Game six against Charlie Leebrant, he hadn't had a
hit since September third, but he got this just perfectly
annoying broken bat hit to score Terry Pendleton. And then
I talk about how in ninety one it's not just

(31:36):
that he got closure, some closure with a ring with
the Twins, but who was the umpire home played umpire
for the ninety one World Series in Game seven, Don
Denkinger Terry Pendleton on the other And in the ninety
one series was a semi reunion of eighty five guys.
You also had Lonnie Smith, Charlie Lee Brandt, John Cherholds,

(31:58):
of course his GM in Atlanta. So we've yet to
get the I seventy sequel, But I like the fact
that the ninety one series, so it's another big favorite
series of mine, was kind of a semi reunion and
a little echo a resolution to the Dankinger Harper tandem
in eighty five.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
So I'll you covered in the book. So I'm not
really going off the book, but just to make Lindsay happy.
I still go down as the ninety one World series
being one of the three best world series that I've
ever seen, in probably top four that I know about.
Like I would say, you know, seventy five Red Sox

(32:35):
and Reds, which I didn't see, right, but I've read
a ton about. But then for my from my perspective,
it was ninety one, two thousand and one, and twenty eleven.
Those are the world series that just were fantastic, went
down to the wire and just amazing games.

Speaker 4 (32:53):
Oh absolutely, well, two thousand and one was my first season.
That one's high up there. That could be number two.
I think ninety one will always be the best if
and that's you know, if I if we ever see
something that's somehow tops ninety one, I think that would
send people in a cardiac arrest, because oh my god,
what was ninety one? Like five games like at you know,
four so X rating down to the wire, Walk Ox

(33:13):
Galore twenty eleven and you know, singing to the chorus.
Here as a Cardinals fan, I can say this to
a neutral party. I believe Game six twenty eleven, which
I also talk about in my book in chapter eleven.
It's kind of a the danum, you know for the Cardinals.
They didn't win eighty five, but they got twenty six
and twenty eleven. Game six and twenty eleven. I think
it's the best game of World Series history. How do

(33:35):
you come down to your survive It's like a it's
like a backyard baseball fantasy and it happened in real time.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
Yeah twice twice. Like it's just like, god, yeah, fantastic.
So with the eighty five season, you know, obviously some
things that I remember because I was eleven years old.
I remember Ozzie hitting the left handed home run right

(34:03):
and they I love the fact that they put the
graphic up on the up on the screen as is
at bat. Ozzie Smith has not homered in the major
leagues left handed in twenty nine hundred and sixty seven
career at bats. And then next thing, you know, you know,
Smith Quarts wanted to write down the line go crazy,
folks go crazy, and I'm really holding myself back here

(34:24):
from doing my best jack book but U And then
after that, I remember, so it was in sixth grade.
Pe was the last class of the day, and we
go in and there's a note in the locker room saying,
don't get dressed, just go upstairs to the auditorium to
the stage, and we go up there and they roll

(34:45):
out the TV to show the beginning of the Cardinals
Dodgers Game six. So I'm watching it there and then
school lets out. I run home. I'm only like two
blocks from home. I run home, you know, run into
my parents' bedroom because my mom with my mom had
like her own little babysitting business, so in the living
room with the TV, she had all these little kids
watching Sesame Street or whatever, right, And so I run

(35:07):
into my parents' bedroom, turn on the TV, and me
and my brother watch it as Tommy Lasorda you know,
is talking to his bench and says, do I walk
him and pitch to that? Sob Andy Van slike, yep,
and I can't tell you as a kid, I wasn't

(35:28):
thinking about how foolish it was for him to pick
to Jack Clark. And I also know that Bill James
has made an argument that it was the right thing
to picture to Jack Clark. I disagree, But as a kid,
I was just thinking Clark Clark can come through for us,
like he's been our hero all year long. And I

(35:50):
mean as soon as he hit the ball, like me
and my brother start yelling and jumping up and down
and hugging each other and cheering and it. You know,
I don't know what better as a kid, what was
better the Ozzie Smith home run of the Jack Clark
home run. But you know, the Ozzie home run ended
the game. The Jack Clark homerun just put us ahead
in the ninth, but for all intents and purposes, ended

(36:11):
the game. Oh yeah, and well remember Pedro Guerrero throwing
down his glove and left field and yeah.

Speaker 4 (36:18):
Yoh yes, well, well yeah, that that was a wild
one for me to delve into, because that is for
Dodger fans, that is one of the all time Dodger traumas.
My dad had to live through that. He actually told
us he was in grad school. He told us, professor,
I'm gonna be late for class. I got to watch
the game, and boy, he probably would have rather gone
to class. I mean the true I went and deepen that.

(36:41):
There is absolutely no doubt. And I love Tommy and
I think he was actually a pretty great in game strategist.
With respect to Bill James, I don't know how anyone
could deny it. That was just not a good move,
Like you've got Anivans like on deck. Now, it's worth
noting this circles back. Brian Harper actually would have penned
hit because Jerry Royce would have come in from the pen,

(37:03):
and Brian Harper actually had some prior success off of Royce,
I think, even including a home run. But come on,
Jack Clark is like the premier slugger of his time.
He's due. He's a first pitch slugger and need and
fewer had pitched at length, like even by eighty standards,
he had thrown a lot of pitches, and he he
was vulnerable like Ozzie had already gotten him in game five,

(37:24):
got him for a triple or in that game six.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
And that's what a lot of people forget I'm glad
you brought that up because we thought Ozzie went deep
again left handed in Game six off need and fewer
and it hit the base of the wall.

Speaker 4 (37:37):
Yeah, it was amazing. That to me is probably the
most underrated moment for the eighty five Cardinals, And though
another reason Ozzie got in LCS MVP. But yeah, and
this is another one of my favorite interview stories from
the book. You see it on TV. Tommy's like, I'm
not pitching a blankety blank, Van slike, and there's all
that deliberation, Well, that wasn't the only area where there

(37:57):
was some strategy going on. And the Cardinals bulk and
you know, the visitors bullpen and Dodger Stadium is out
in right field. Ricky Horton, you know, rick is innocently
Ricky knows that Jack Clark liked to bunt to get
out of a slump. So Ricky kind of innocently suggested
out loud, like, oh, you know, maybe Jack should just
laid down a butunt here and Bob Forsche looked at

(38:19):
Ricky and he was like, what are you an idiot?
And the moment the word idiot got out of Forsche's mouth,
Damn Clark hits the home run and it's just that
that synergy. That was from Ricky's interview. He was the
first Pardinal I talked to for the book. Oh my god,
that that is such a I love that so much.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
I think if Jack Clark lays down a butt there,
it's more shocking than when Tom Barringer lays down the
butt in Major League to win the division against the Yankees.

Speaker 4 (38:50):
Exactly exactly. It would be like that.

Speaker 1 (38:54):
Oh boy, yeah, So those were you know, those were
two huge moments in my my childhood. And then I
was lucky enough to go see in ninety six, when
the Cardinals were fighting for their first division titles since
eighty seven, got to go see Ozzie's you know, Ozzie's
last season. Ozzie hits another left handed home run at

(39:15):
the game I'm at against the Astros. I think there
were battling the Astros over Labor Day weekend and they
were fighting for first place, and I think that's when
the Cardinals finally took control of the division. But Ozzie
hit another left handed home run, and then I believe
Willie drove in Ozzie or Ozzie drove in Willie for
the game winning run I think in the tenth inning.
So a lot of fun Ozzie Smith and Willie McGee memories,

(39:39):
who were probably the two favorites. If you ask eighties
Cardinals fans, the two favorite players are probably Ozzie and Willie.

Speaker 4 (39:46):
Oh absolutely, And even decades later, like I followed plenty
of cool Cardinal accounts like Aggie and Ash great Cardinal
historian and like it's always it's all it's Ozzie, and
lots of Willie McGee appreciation posts especi Actually, Willie McGee,
he's a great player, not like a Hall of Famer,
He's not like Stan Usual or Albert Pouholz or what
have you. But like, Willie was just so fun and

(40:08):
like earnest and hard working. He just had such a
lovable persona. And I love that he's still so celebrated
in Saint Louis.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
Yes, yeah, absolutely he was. Just you know, Saint Louis
loves their humble stars, right. They don't like their braggadi
They don't like the braggadoc just you know, Reggie Jackson type. Right.
They want somebody who just shows up with their lunch pail,
puts on their hard hat and goes out and works hard.
And that was what Willie McGhee was. Uh, but he
did it. It was so effortless. He was just so

(40:37):
talented that it just looks so effortless.

Speaker 4 (40:41):
Absolutely loves love you t McGee.

Speaker 1 (40:43):
Yeah, absolutely, call me TIKSI had a long neck, Lindsey.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
Oh, that's funny.

Speaker 1 (40:48):
Yeah, call him Willie E. T McGee, No offense, Willie.
We still love you.

Speaker 4 (40:53):
Yeah, I know. I think I've heard he doesn't like
that nickname, and I'm sorry, Yeah, I bet he doesn't,
but it's it's just sticks.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
Sorry, I'm sure he doesn't like Yeah, who would like
that with nickname? I mean that's terrible, but you know,
better than better than what they called Jeffrey Leonard. So yeah,
so bad. Yeah, definitely so was white. He's still around
when you started doing interviews for this book. I don't

(41:22):
think he passed away before twenty twenty did he?

Speaker 4 (41:25):
Oh? Oh no, he was still alive, because he passed
away just last year, twenty twenty four. He was alive,
but I did not interview him well. For one, I
knew from other research that he didn't really like to
talk about eighty five. After a certain point the Sports
Illustrated long form article I mentioned by Dan Green about
the call he tried to get a hold of Herzog,

(41:47):
but the director of Herzog's youth Foundation says he just
didn't like to talk about it for fear of like
sour grapes, right, And also, I you know, when I
conceived it in twenty twenty, he was closing in on
his nineties, and I just even if I didn't have
that prior that prior knowledge from Dan Green, I was like,
I don't want to bug him. I was honestly even
hesitant to bug Dankinger. But that turned out to be

(42:09):
just great. You know, he was Yeah, and obviously I
had to talk to him. It's if I'm gonna write
the ultimate book about eighty five out to talk to Don.
So I did not talk to Whitey Herzog, but I
used his nineteen eighty seven book White Rat. My used
copy is signed to what Luck and yeah, and so
I used that as a secondary source. So Whitey is
super prominent. I did a lot of research on him.

(42:30):
I've found great newspaper quotes full of expletives, and plenty
of drinking Budweiser. So even if I didn't interview Whitey.
He is a lively character through.

Speaker 1 (42:41):
He's also a Saint Louis favorite. But boy, he was salty.
He was salty after that game. He was salty for
Game seven, and he was salty for many years after that.
And yeah, I believe, and I think you may have
alluded to this in the book that he put Andrew
Harran after it was out of hand, just for the theatrics.

Speaker 4 (43:03):
Oh, absolutely, there's I allude to that. And there's no
question about that. I mean, come on, it's like the
games out of reach. You could just go to Bob
Forsch or Ken Daily to just quietly mop it up.
We all know Andu Harr has had a rough walking
on to Horr one of those interesting subplots. Great first

(43:23):
half of eighty five, but then he cratered in that
second half and he was bad in the playoffs too,
and culminating with that walking down dow Harr colorful guy,
could be a great pitcher when he was all locked in,
but man, oh man, paper thin temper there, yea, And
what do you think is gonna happen? He's coming in.
It's funny because I noted it was actually a double

(43:45):
switch Keto landrim out and left is replaced with Mike
Jorgensen hardened back up in what would be the last
game of his career. But bringing an andw Harr that
is that was just for petulance. Yeah, that that that
blew up accordingly and got both onu Har and Herzoga jectives.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
Yeah, I believe that that the series was over as
soon as Dane Orge got the hit to win the
game in Game six. But do you believe that the
Cardinals had a shot at all? Like it seems to
me like they just showed up and just rolled over. Now.
I know saber Hagen was on the mound and he

(44:24):
was dominant Cy Young Award winner that year, but it
just seems to me like they they just they would
have rather been I feel like they would have rather
been impurgatory than had to show up for Game seven.

Speaker 4 (44:35):
I think you're absolutely right, and I described that in
the book. Whenever I talk about that that that high
to low for the Cardinals for Game six rolling into
Game seven. I never ever want to sound like piffy,
like I'm never going to be a professional athlete. I
don't know what it's like to be at the highest level,
especially the World Series. I consider the World Series not
just the height of baseball but all sports. So it's like,

(44:59):
I can't image how devastating a loss like that is.
But I think the Cardinals, you know, they just they
didn't respond to the call well in real time in
Game six, and they really had plenty of chances after that,
and they just didn't get it done. And I think
the shock of that paired with Whitey Herzog just being

(45:19):
so bitter and defeat us, like even so we got
no chance with thinking or behind don't play for Game seven.
I think the Cardinals really did just quit. On paper,
there's a chance this is a Game seven between two
twenty game winners, which is as rare as it gets
in the World Series. That was the first time it
had happened then in twenty three years.

Speaker 1 (45:37):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (45:38):
So it's like and Tutor, you know, he was a
short rest master craftsman. It's not like he was necessarily
worn down, but he just didn't have it. And I
think the whole team didn't have it. So yeah, I
think they just No, I don't mean, like I said,
I don't mean to be like pithy or like mocking,
but like I really think the Cardinals had just quit.

Speaker 1 (45:58):
Honestly, yeah, I understand being upset. I totally get it.
But you can't have that almost what I call like
a loser attitude after the game where we don't have
a chance tomorrow because we got screwed tonight.

Speaker 4 (46:09):
Right, you really you have to be able to compartmentalize
and rebound, you know, like you can even go to
earlier in the series when the Cardinals had that shocking
comeback winning Game two to go up two to nothing,
and that had to be sky as falling for a
lot of Royals partisans. You know, you've lost the first
two games at home. No one's rebounded from that specific

(46:30):
deficit to win a World Series. But like the Royals
were able to compartmentalize then win Game three. So it's like,
no matter how tough a loss is, there just has
to be again easy for me to say for my
soft armchair not playing, but like, yeah, you have to
be able to flip the switch I think, and yeah,
the Cardinals just did not do that prior to Game seven.

Speaker 1 (46:52):
Yeah, it was, it was. It was pretty bad. I
also love the fact that you pointed out when John
Tutor gets knocked out and he goes in and they
hear he punches a fan and cut and he's on
his way to the hospital because he cut his hand open.
That somebody thought he actually punched a fan in the stands,

(47:14):
but it was a metal fan that was in the
thing because he was so mad. So I thought that
was funny that you brought that up.

Speaker 4 (47:22):
Oh yeah, that was one of my And that was
from a newspaper article in twenty fourteen, when both the
Royals and Cardinals were finally in the playoffs again together
sold like eighty five nostalgias picking up. And yeah, there
was like the word got out in the news in
the press box like Tutor punched a fan, and there
was just like a bum rush of reporters straight to
the elevator like oh, it's gonna be such a salacious story.

(47:42):
And it's like, yeah, he just slices his hand on
a metal fan, Like, oh, that's funny.

Speaker 3 (47:47):
Because I thought when you said he punched a fan,
like he punched somebody in the stands.

Speaker 4 (47:55):
Well, and it would have been wouldn't have been surprising
because I mentioned how after four when the car John Tuodor,
how funny he'd be the spinner John Tudor just spun
a complete game masterpiece of the Cardinals or one went
away from the championship. Tutor actually threatened to punch a
reporter in the clubhouse. Then he was just annoyed with
the mediing. I was like, what shall I take a
swing at you? Will that make your story better? So

(48:16):
would not have been surprising you? But no, it was
but an inanimate metal fan. So no funny, but not
as not as salacious as he'd liked.

Speaker 1 (48:25):
I don't get what he was so surly about. I mean,
he had just gone on one of the greatest runs
in pitching history, in all of Major League Baseball history. Lindsay,
he started out the season one and seven, and then
over the rest of the season he goes twenty and
one Wow, twenty wins one loss, Wow, gets into the
World Series, wins Game one, wins Game four. I don't

(48:46):
know what he was so surly about.

Speaker 4 (48:48):
Oh yeah, it's well, Ricky told me. I did. That's
John Tudor is another big name I tried to get.
I never ultimately got through to him, and I'm not
sure if you would have even really wanted to have heard.
He's a bit tighter. Ricky Horton effectually described John Tutor
to me as a grouch and he really even looks
like it even just like every shot and and John,
you know, in addition, eighty five John was on My

(49:10):
Miracle Man eighty eight Dodgers. I love John Tudor to pieces,
but he does seem like that's kind of a crabby
looking guy and seem to just be that way period. Yeah.
So yeah, I don't know why you just yeah, you
just pitched this masterpiece. You're one one way and you're
you're not happy to talk to media. It's like you
could be World Series MVP. Dude, just roll with it.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
So here here's a story that Lindsey was a part of.
She saw it happen live. But I can tell you
as a as a Cardinal fan and then as a
baseball coach, I've always had that when is the other
shoe gonna drop attitude? And that is because I I

(49:50):
don't have the stats on this, but I would think
the Cardinals are the team that have blown more three
to one series leads than any other team in Major
League history. They did it in sixty e to the Tigers.
They did it in eighty five with the Royals. They
did it to the Braves in ninety six they were
up three to one, and then again to the Giants,

(50:11):
and so as somebody who has that wins, the other
shoe going to drop. I actually coach the travel baseball
team that's playing in the worldwood Bat National Championship game,
and we're you know, it's one of those card to
Royals games where it's zero zero going into the seventh
and we score a run to go up one nothing,

(50:32):
and our pictures just he's like Tutor. He's throwing everything
off speed and keeping everybody off balance. And the first
guy fists the ball over the third baseman's head in
the bottom of the seventh to get and I go
into my greatest Fred Samford, like I'm gonna go see Elizabeth, no, no, no, no, no,
because I can't believe this is gonna happen to me.

(50:53):
They're gonna pull the rug out from under me in
the in the last inning. But luckily, my my picture
threw two more picts for the rest of the inning.
The first one was a pop out to the right
fielder and the second one was a six four to
three double play to end it. And we want it
all but and Lindsey was there, but she probably heard
me yelling from the dugout no no, no, no no
when the guy fisted the ball at the beginning of

(51:15):
the seventh inning.

Speaker 4 (51:17):
Oh that's funny. I mean, I think every fan base,
especially when it's all about winning a World Series, you
develop a fatalistic it's such a such a superstitious sport
to begin with. First off, you're right, I'm certain that
it's true that the Cardinals. I didn't even fully realize
that that you have more three to one blown leads
than anyone else. But yeah, it's a Dodgers fan. All

(51:37):
the playoff heartbreaks we have had, like like all that
superstition piles up. You're waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I mean, you're not gonna win the World Series. Every year.
Every team goes through ups and downs or heartbreaks. But
when you have a certain degree of playoff heartbreak, you
cannot help it be like, oh God, what's gonna happen.
What's the next trick, what's the next you know, I
know what you mean.

Speaker 1 (51:58):
Yeah, we watched well the twenty Like, let's just bring
up the twenty eight to three Super Bowl with the Falcons.
When I was for sure we were gonna win, and
the and the comeback, and Lindsey just looked at me
and goes, what are you so upset about? How did
you not know? This is what's gonna happen. This happens
to Atlanta all the.

Speaker 4 (52:16):
Time, all that all the time, all the time. Oh yeah, Oh,
my my heart going out to you, especially the Atlanta
sports First. Well, I mean, I guess you broke it
with twenty twenty one, so at least you got that
with the Braves. But yeah, oh that Super Bowl is
just like everyone was pulling outside of New England's pulling
for the Falcons. Yeah, but like you said, as an

(52:37):
Atlanta sports fan, you just know.

Speaker 3 (52:40):
As a Braves fan, like we came so close in
the nineties so many times.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
Yeah, we just kept falling short.

Speaker 1 (52:48):
And the one year they wanted, nobody cared about it
because it was coming off to strike you over the
canceled the World Series.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
We went through the strike.

Speaker 3 (52:54):
Then I think coming out of this strike, we were
all just kind of still pissy over the strike.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
And what had gone on.

Speaker 3 (53:02):
And so then I feel like ninety five, I mean,
it felt like it didn't count.

Speaker 4 (53:06):
I know it did, but No, it definitely did. If
I may say, I've heard similar things with my eighty
one Dodgers that was a strike shortened season. I count
that championship just fine. I think ninety five is totally legitimate.
But I think emotionally, you're act. You're right. People were
still bitter about the strike, and so it's not that
the ring didn't count, but people just weren't as celebratory

(53:29):
about baseball. And yeah, but when you won in a
ninety five, you had to think, oh, beginning of a dynasty.
And yeah, it just didn't Yeah, it did quite happen.

Speaker 3 (53:38):
So when did you realize that you had something special
with this book?

Speaker 4 (53:43):
Oh? The day of when I it's like, it's hard
to describe, Like, the day I conceived the book was
more than just conceiving a good idea, like and it's
especially you know, it takes on an even more emotional
bent to it because of all I went through after

(54:04):
and now that the book is out and doing great,
but just the day of it was, I, just as
I came up with that idea, conceive the title should
note I conceived that the interstatey fid the title while
listening to thunder Road by Bruce Springsteen, Oh baseball writer
taking Springsteen inspiration. Wow, daring, I know, but like I
just had this feeling. It seemed like right then and there.

(54:28):
But like like I said, as I kept researching and
interviewing and I went through so many ups and downs
and then ultimately saved the book in twenty twenty three,
that I always knew that I had something special from
the start. And I feel like as it just kept
growing and becoming clear how I would put it together,
that just kept evolving. And yeah, but from day one,

(54:52):
you know, in the midst of a turbulent time, I
knew that there was that something had changed. When I
came home from that job and told my roommate that
I had this new idea for my next baseball book.
You know, couldn't have known exactly what I had signed
myself up for at that moment. But yeah, from the answer, sorry,
I just got all emotional and just like it's yeah,

(55:13):
from from day one, I knew things had changed, and
I'm glad I took that journey down I seventy so
to speak, so real.

Speaker 1 (55:22):
Quick walk us through that process. So you come up
with the idea, right, because you know, I think Lindsey
would love to write a book. At some point, she's
she's got the idea, she just hasn't gone through it yet.
But what just what does the process look like? Right,
you came home and you had that idea, and you
told your roommate, and then what happens do you start
jotting down ideas or do you make an outline or

(55:42):
do you you know, put stuff on paper. Who can
I interview or how does that look?

Speaker 4 (55:47):
Well that's a great, great question. So for twenty twenty,
what it looked like was just brainstorming for the next
fews going into the summer of twenty twenty, it's just brainstorming.
So I wrote down a list of like cardinals and royals,
and like I brainstormed. I looked up like key points
about each person and stuff that could go into the book.

(56:08):
So like, I want to focus on the overlook stories
beyond Dankinger, so I like, just look up facts for
each guy that could be pertinent and interesting. But yeah,
to start, it's just lots of brainstorming, gathering sources, gathering newspapers,
dot com clips, just brainstorming ideas both in those quote
unquote character profiles and just notes in general, and then

(56:30):
in August of twenty twenty, I took a brief jaunt
to Fort Bragg here in northern California, seaside town, and
I just started writing fittingly, you know, just start with
the most famous game game six. I started writing the
rough draft of that chapter, and then end of the
year I knew definitively I was all in on this,

(56:54):
and I actually started got a pub a publisher then
for early twenty twenty one, and started the interviews. Buddy Beyoncalana,
Mark Gubaza, and Dohn Dankinger were actually the first three
within February of twenty twenty one. So yeah, just lots
of brainstorm making sure I had something solid, and then
just got the needle moving with the interviews in early

(57:15):
twenty twenty one, and it more or less went from there.

Speaker 2 (57:18):
It's the book coming out in paperback soon.

Speaker 4 (57:21):
Well, I'm glad you asked, because that is exactly what
I'm doing gunning for right now. I am all in.
I've announced this on social media. I am all in
on a push for paperbacks awesome, and I'm confident it's
going to happen. So I actually will take this moment.
Everyone definitely buy the book and if you like, to
leave a good review on Amazon and tell all your

(57:44):
friends about it. I'm pushing for paperback, and after the
paperback is secured, I then want to pivot to getting
an audio book for it. Oh wow, which is what
a lot of people ask for. I don't plan on
doing the narration.

Speaker 2 (57:56):
For the Who's going to do the narration?

Speaker 4 (58:00):
Yeah? I would love if we could get like a
Missouri personality to do it. That'd be fun. But yeah,
so I'm but that's so. I'm glad you brought up
the paperback. That is my all consuming like I wake
up every day like push for paperback. I am gunning
for it like crazy. So yeah, all support is appreciated.
And uh, I'm confident we'll get the paperback and uh,

(58:20):
I can't wait for that to happen.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
I'll start putting feelers out to John Hamm and see
if we can't get it.

Speaker 4 (58:25):
You go, oh, well, I know John is like any good,
any good cardinal fan. He is traumatized by Dankinger. But
John Hamm narrating my book would be.

Speaker 1 (58:34):
Uh would yeah, it would be would be that would
be awesome?

Speaker 4 (58:37):
Or John Goodman, he's a good Cardinals fan soon get him.

Speaker 2 (58:41):
Oh he's got a good voice, he really does.

Speaker 4 (58:44):
He's a great actor too, so but yeah, well uh
well but yeah, I'm I'm The book has just been
doing great, so I'm confident paperback audiobook that that's all coming.
This book is gotta gotta, so to speak, a long
road ahead, and I'm excited to travel it.

Speaker 1 (58:58):
Well, that is so awesome, Marshall. I'm so happy for you.
I'm so thankful that you wrote this book because I
really did enjoy it. It's very rare that we turn
off the TV here and for like a week straight,
I just come home after dinner and after we put
our daughter to bed. It was it was just open
the book and read it until I get done, because
I could not get enough of it. I'm hoping that

(59:19):
you'll tackle eighty seven next because even though it's a heartbreak,
the eighty seven season is still great memories for me
and for most Cardinal fans.

Speaker 4 (59:27):
Well, I'm glad you brought that up. So the great
Cardinal historian Doug Feldman, he actually just did a book
on the eighty seven Cardinals, so he might have covered
that territory. I have flirted with the idea of an
eighty seven you know, but like this, it would be
equal part Twins and Cardinals. Eighty five is just so
perfect because it was all Missouri, and the teams began

(59:50):
to mirror each other in such eerie ways that it
was almost like magic. I'm taking a bit of this
was actually, to be clear to everyone, this is actually
my third book. These all three were basically written in
rapid successions, so I'm on a bit of an author hiatus,
chief chiefly to focus on this one promoted get paperback
and you know, go all the way with it and
all that. But I'm glad that you'd love more eighties

(01:00:12):
baseball for me. I'll i'll, I'll see what the idea
factory has next. I can tease a potential idea. I
book number four might be about a specific Super Bowl. Okay,
I won't say which one, but but yeah, eighty seven,
who knows, maybe that could still happen. We'll see.

Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
So listen, I'm you know, if you ever need any
help or any any promotion or anything like that, I'm
always happy to do it. I really did enjoy this book,
and I look forward to hoping that you get the
paperback out and then look forward to your next work.

Speaker 4 (01:00:44):
Yeah, well, I appreciate that. And like I said from
the beginning, and I mean this in the most authentic way,
hearing this enthusiasm, you know, I always knew the book
would would turn out. I mean, the book honestly turned
out way better than I and originally vision, which is
saying something, But hearing this kind of praise, I couldn't
put it down, and like it brought back such good memories.

(01:01:05):
Whenever I hear that, I just I'm happy, and it's
it's not even like, you know, I'm happy on a
personal sense, but in a bigger sense. I always emphasize
the book is about the people of eighty five and
I'm glad that their stories are reaching a wide audience.
And you know, there are a lot of overlooked tales
that that deserved more love, and I'm glad it's getting

(01:01:25):
out there.

Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
And yeah, so I I obviously, because I'm from Saint Louis,
I've been very Cardinal centric on this podcast, on this interview.
So you know, have you gotten any feedback from Royals
fans like they have to love it too? Right?

Speaker 4 (01:01:41):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, no, Royals fans have been loving it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:44):
Too.

Speaker 4 (01:01:44):
I mean, and even people just in general, whether whether
or not they're Royals and Cardinals fans, have been absolutely
loving it. It's it just even a bookstore in Oklahoma
went on public TV and announced it as one of
their six must read books of the Spring. I really
wrote this in a way that like, even if you're
not a like Cardinals fans and Royal fans have been

(01:02:06):
loving it an equal measure. But yeah, like just baseball
fans in general are enjoying it, and that's how it's
meant to be. It's a definitive humanistic, you know, and
compelling story regardless of whether you're Royal, cardinal or that's
just not your Maine to you. So it's yeah, it's
doing well all around.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
All right. Thank you so much for joining us, Marshall.
We've enjoyed having you here. Lindsey, thank you for putting
up with me just geeking out. You know, I talk
a lot more than she did because this was kind
of in my area. But you know, she's always a
willing and great partner, so I appreciate that.

Speaker 3 (01:02:44):
Yeah. I love even if I don't know a lot
about the topic, I love to listen to people who
are passionate about things, and this you' all shared back
and forth, some great info and some great stories.

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
It's been fun. I'm enjoyed every minute of it.

Speaker 4 (01:02:59):
This honestly, I've I've been on so many podcasts, radio
shows so far, and I plan on many, many more.
H this has been one of my favorite discussions. This
has been like the especially rooted in the pop culture
stuff and it's just the sheer enthusiasm. Oh, this has
been like really fun and spirited. And it's again especially

(01:03:19):
because you have such a specific not just knowledge but
passion for eighty five and that Cardinals team. This made
for a terrific talk and I'm so grateful you had me.

Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
I got one more question for you before we let
you go. With all the research ship you've that you've done,
have you heard the Saint Louis Radio Station's CAGs TR
version of the Heat is on with the eighty five
Cardinal Highlights.

Speaker 4 (01:03:42):
It is singed into my brain. I mentioned I mentioned
it in the book I Listen, I Listen to the
regular I made a nineteen you'll you'll like this I
on Apple Music. I made a nineteen eighty five music
playlist like from the Big Hits to the stuff no
one remembers. I put the original Heat is On on
that so it would pop up Walt during my writing sessions.
But you better believe I've heard that that that version

(01:04:04):
with all the Cardinal calls just edited in. I love that.
I mean, what a what a perfect synergy of eighties culture.
I the Heat is on just yeah, I love that.

Speaker 1 (01:04:14):
That is that that shows the true passion of Cardinal
baseball in Saint Louis.

Speaker 4 (01:04:20):
It's sure.

Speaker 1 (01:04:22):
All right, Marshall, Thank you once again. The book is
called Interstate eighty five, The Royals, the Cardinals and the
Show Me World Series. You can get it on Amazon,
you can get it pretty much anywhere you can find books.
I can't recommend it higher. Go out and get it.
Even if you're not a Missouri baseball fan. If you're
just a baseball fan in general or a Phanto pop

(01:04:43):
culture you will enjoy this. The writing is tremendous, the
research is fantastic, and it's just an all around excellent book.
Thanks again, Marshall, Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:04:54):
You are welcome back anytime.

Speaker 1 (01:04:56):
Absolutely, you've got it.

Speaker 4 (01:04:58):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
Well, if you haven't, we would appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (01:05:02):
If you would go ahead and hit that subscribe button
so that you never miss an episode and.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
You could leave us a five star review.

Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
More important than that, tell somebody. You can reach us
on social media at Children of Underscore Eighties, or if
you prefer to send an email, like some of us
older Gen X and boomers do, you can send it
to Children of the nineteen Eighties at gmail dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:05:34):
Until next time, I'm Jim and I'm Lindsay, and we
are Children of the eighties.