Remembering my interview with U.L. Washington | Ep. 004

Former MLB player U.L. Washington passed away on Mar. 3, 2024. In 2001 I had the chance to intervew Washington, while he was a roving hitting instructor for the Minnesota Twins organization. Here is that interview.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hi, everybody, and welcome tobaseball discourse. I am Dan Lavallo.
Recently we had the passing of UWell Washington, who played in the major
leagues for eight full seasons and partsof three others, mostly with the Kansas
City Royals, but he also playedbriefly with the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Montreal
Expos I had the opportunity to havea brief interview with you Well back in

(00:25):
two thousand and one. At thetime, I was broadcasting games for the
New Britain Rockets. They were theDoba affiliate of the Minnesota Twins, and
you Well was a roving hitting instructorthroughout the Minnesota Twins minor league organization.
Andy happened to pass through New Britainand he was kind enough to give me
an interview for about three three anda half minutes. That's about all the

(00:47):
time we had, but he wasterrific. Talked about a number of things,
including his famous toothpick. So let'srewind the clock back to August of
two thousand and one in my interviewwith U. Wel Washington. For U
Well Washington, you al the lasttwo games the ball club has been in

(01:08):
double digits as far as bass hits. As the team starting to come around
hitting wise, do you think,well, you know, it's funny they
always seem to do that when thehitting coach comes to town, the ROVN
hitting coordinator, I don't know whatit is. When I was with Kansas
City and I was the hitting coordinatorover there, every time I came to
town, they swung the bat.I just a lot of times it's just

(01:30):
hearing a new voice and and andand getting back to the roots. And
you know, it's, Uh,it's funny that the way this game is
a lot of times you can saythings, and you say things and uh,
finally it clicks, and uh,I think these guys are starting to
feel like they can they can playand be competitive in this league. Jeff

(01:51):
Smith, of course, is startingto come around, and he says,
you've been doing a lot of workwith him. Talk about Jeff, well,
Jeff is, uh is a guywho does a few things. He's
pretty meticulous about everything he does.And uh, we we've done a lot
of early stuff and and worked withlower body stuff and upper body stuff and
just tried to get him a littlein a bit more control when he's at

(02:13):
the bat. And and use hishands, and uh, he's he's coming
around. It's just gonna take alittle while. He came into the year
a little frustrated about knowing that goingto a higher level, and it's kind
of hampered him. So we justgot to get him backgrounded again and getting
him to think about taking care ofh this game day to day. You
well, you played over nine hundredgames in the big leagues, mostly with

(02:35):
Kansas City. What do you rememberabout your big league career. Well,
I remember playing with some pretty solidball clubs. Of course, back during
that time, team stayed together alot longer. I was telling some of
the younger guys out here today thatwhen I broke in, three guys broke
in that year, Willie Wilson,myself, and Clint Hurdle, and uh,
the only guy who played every daywas Willy Wilson and Clint Hurland.

(02:57):
And I kind of had to stayin the background for a couple of years
and learned the roast because at thattime you didn't want to bring a young
guy up there and for him tofail and and get down on himself.
So a lot of times that's goodfor people, but I remember just being
on real solid ball clubs with goodpitching, good defense, and uh,
a lot of guys who tried todo a little extra, get extra bases,

(03:20):
doubles, triples, with whatever wecould do to win the ball game,
we tried to do it. I'msure you've been asked a million times,
so I'll ask you what about thetoothpick. Well, the toothpick is
just something I kind of picked up. I guess I picked it up.
My father always had one in hismouth when I was a kid, and
uh, I couldn't I was Icouldn't stand the chew tobacco or dip snuff.

(03:40):
It made me sick. So Ithrew the toothpick in my mouth.
And I'm not sure it was alot safer than the tobacco to chew.
You know, you get sick onthe chew or the dip, but uh
to swallowing swallowing on those toothpicks,you can be in a lot more serious
trouble. But uh, you know, it's just something I did and it
really never affected me anything. It'sjust kind of I guess it brought the

(04:02):
hot dog out in me. That'swhat they call guys back in my day,
when you did little extra things.You have to find ways to give
yourself confidence, and that was oneof the ways I found you. Well,
thanks for joining us. You betwell. There you have in my
interview with the ul Washington. Asalways, thanks for watching. I'm also
as a podcast in all the podcastdirectories now. Baseball Discourse is in the

(04:28):
Apple podcast directory and several other podcastdirectories. If you'd like to follow the
audio portion of the podcast, andbe sure to subscribe to this channel or
go to baseballdiscourse dot com. Again, thanks for your support. I'm Dan Levallo.