ROGER CLEMENS' SUCCESS STARTED WITH A SINGLE MOM'S SACRIFICE

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:04

I unkim Alexis. Today in Paris after Kelly has joined his collection of spring closer. I I'm Kim Alexis with your ticket to adventures. I'm Kim Alexis. And I'm here in New York City. Got a great show coming up for you, so stay tuned. Okay, so this man really needs no introduction. But I will tell you and teach you, he has seven Cy Young Awards. He was an all-star player with two world champions and just amazing guy, Roger Clemens. Thank you for being on the show.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

How are you doing, dear? Good to finally get this done here. We've been trying to get this on the calendar. So yeah, we've we're both so busy, but uh just slow down a little bit and meet in Sedona again.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Yeah, I know, I know at the She Cave.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Yeah. You're you're welcome there. And you don't have to ask, you can just show up. I uh uh the guys, Jeff and I and all of us, we have to we have to be invited.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Yeah, yeah. Well, sometimes that's just the way it is.

Growing Up In Houston With Grit

SPEAKER_00 1:06

All right. So let's start when you were young. Um, you grew up in Houston. I love that you're you stayed where you grew up, right? And uh yeah, you were not only a baseball player. What year did you start playing baseball?

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Well, um actually uh my mom said it best. Um I was complaining that um why I couldn't play baseball at seven years old. I was ready to go at seven, but the little league team, you had to be nine years old, and I was really chapped about that. So I I uh I I was ready to go at seven, but I started uh playing baseball when I was nine. Okay. Uh my my my pops passed away right about that same time, and I was raised by two strong-willed uh women, my mother and my grandmother.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Yeah, so she was into it. My mom actually had three jobs. She was an accountant by day. I helped her stock coolers when I was in high school at a convenience store, and then in the evenings we vacuumed and cleaned some big office buildings, and so every year I got a new pair of spikes, a new pair of cleats, and a brand new glove. And, you know, I thought we were rich. So, but you know, mom worked her tail off to make, you know, she raised six of us. So how I ended up in Texas was my oldest brother got stationed at Fort Hood, and uh he was in the Vietnam War. And so mom picked all picked us all up, and we ended up in uh Houston, and that's kind of where things took off.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Yeah, it's so amazing that you know your young career really does shape who you become. But not only uh baseball, you played also football and basketball.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Yeah, I played all sports. I try and encourage the kids now to quit being just uh one sport only, um uh to enjoy the other sports if they can play them, where they run track, play soccer, whatever it might be. Um, you know, sports and baseball in particular is a game of life. There's a lot of failures. Like you said, if you get if my youngest son plays for the twins, and they're uh and most of the like everybody knows, if he gets three hits out of ten times uh at bat, um he's gonna do very well. I mean, if you if you went to a doctor, Kim, if you went to a doctor that has three successful surgeries out of ten, I'm pretty sure you're not going back.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

That's how that's how difficult the game is. It's uh it's it teaches you life lessons. And um, you know, I have a you know, we I have a couple fun ones. Like one one of the coaches that um uh the winningest coach in college baseball, he's since passed, Augie Garrito. Augie had a sign in the dugout. He had a big sign right so where all the guys could see it, and he said, uh, it's just the way the world works, boys. He goes, the world treats winners a lot differently teach losers. Uh that's just the way it is.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

So was he a coach for uh your Texas Longhorns?

SPEAKER_01 3:56

He was. He actually came from Cal State Fullerton um and uh and uh took over the Longhorns when my two younger boys were there playing uh for him. So I loved it because he he's not only a be a great coach, uh again, your viewers um, you know, I I had three wonderful coaches. You know, like I said, I lost my dad. So my high school coach is almost like a father figure. Great, great baseball coach, better teacher of the game in life. My college coach was the winningest coach of all time. Same thing. Great coach, but more life lessons that he gave us that I could draw on after my, even after my playing days, after my 24 years in the major leagues.

SPEAKER_00 4:35

That's a blessing right there.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

Big time.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

Yeah, yeah.

Choosing Education Over Early Draft Pressure

SPEAKER_00 4:39

So when you were a senior in high school, you turned down two MLB teams to go to a community college? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

I did, I did. Uh actually, my mom was a stickler on education. I took ex I took classes in high school, graduated at 17, extremely young, and had an opportunity to, if I didn't get a full ride scholarship back then, you know, I wasn't gonna be able to go to school. Uh, you know, we just didn't have the money.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

But uh I was able to do that. And and once the scouts came calling, I was, you know, I was like I said, I was 17 turning 18. And uh one of them kind of was like rude and said, basically, if you don't uh if you don't sign this contract, you're probably never gonna get a chance to play Major League Baseball ever. And so I spent two, I spent uh a day and a half in my room with tears in my eyes, thinking, man, I blew it. And mom basically told the guy, don't let the door hit you in the backside on the way out because he's going to school. I want him to get an education. So um that's that's kind of how that worked out. And uh she was right, because um uh a couple years at the University of Texas, uh two trips to the College World Series, 1983, they just did a documentary out the summer of '83, our '83 team. We I beat Alabama for the final game in the championship.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

And I was and I got drafted number one by Boston. So it was I was I was pretty fortunate.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Well, and so before you got drafted by Boston, two years before that, you were drafted what in the ninth round or nineteenth?

SPEAKER_01 6:12

I think the nineteenth round. It was the Phillies or the Mets. It was the New York. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

According to Wikipedia.

unknown 6:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

I see. You've been doing your homework. You're going to be my pitching coach here if you keep this up.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Oh, there you go. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

I'm giving me you give me some advice on how to hold the grips on my pitches.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

No, no. I was actually seeing some of those. I'm like, the splitter was like this.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Nasty.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

You have to tell me more about all that later. And I want to know what a beanball is later.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Beanball, sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Um, so but to be 19 and to be in a 19th round draft pick, most guys would take that and you didn't. So what was that inner drive in yourself? Do you you either weren't ready or you knew that you were gonna do something different or yeah, my you know, my after my uh freshman year in college, my body matured.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Uh obviously, uh, you know, to going from 17 years old to 19 years old. Uh I learned a lot. And again, it was basically my mom saying that you I want you to go get your education. I was in the business school at Texas. My boys went through uh McCombs Business School, graduated with honors from that. You know, I I tell my boys, I love it that they played professionally, um, but uh I'm more grateful that they graduated from McCombs Business School because that was super important and it's a it's a great stepping stone for what they're doing now. Uh and of course the young one is still playing in in the major leagues, but um it was yeah, it was basically uh listen to mom's advice. I mean, listen to her wisdom. Um, same thing again with my grandmother. Uh, you know, when I lost my dad, my grandmother said it perfectly. You're gonna have to be uh much of a man at an early age. And so um, you know, that's what happened. So high school was great. We still, like you said, we're still we're in Houston and we still live probably. Debbie and I live probably five miles from our high school. And uh yeah, so we're right here. Our boys went to a different high school, but yeah, this is our this is our roots. I do my work, uh uh some work with the Astros and stuff like that and other major league teams when the Yankees or Red Sox asked me to come visit with some younger pitchers, we do so.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Yeah. Okay, so now we'll we'll what happened between the draft in 81 and then the draft in 83? How come you weren't drafted in 82?

SPEAKER_01 8:34

You because you're not allowed to. That's why I went to a junior college. Ah. When you came out of high school, if you went to a four-year school, you had you could not be drafted until your junior after your junior year. If you go to a junior college, so that's why, and I stayed closer to home. It was, you know, the University of Texas, when I came out of high school, I went up there and they were offering me books and tuition. And uh it was a huge campus, very intimidating for me. Even though it was only two, two and a half hours away. Uh, I had a local, a San Jacinto, right down the road, about 40 minutes, so I could get, you know, come home, bring my dirty laundry home and do my laundry at the house. And, you know, I was close to everybody still. I grew two inches to 6'4. I put some weight on. My fastball jumped from about 92 to 95 miles an hour, 96 miles an hour. And uh Texas came calling again. So I went to the University of Texas on a full ride. And um uh I had to stay there for my sophomore and junior year. My sophomore year, uh, we lost to Miami, University of Miami. And then uh uh, like I said earlier, my junior year, we came back, won the College World Series, and I was drafted number one by Boston, and kind of the rest is history, as they say.

Boston Lessons And The Focus Switch

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Yeah, for you, and you have a big history. So it must be tough to be a Texas boy and to go live in Boston.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Man, I learned how to drive. I learned how not to use my blinker and let people know that I'm getting over. They they you don't do that too. But I too crazy up there. Yeah, oh yeah. I think Deb and the boys think Poppy's uh uh Poppy Rocket's an aggressive driver because I learned in Boston how to drive. So uh it was great. You know, I got to play, I mean, what a I yeah, it was shocking. I was like Boston, because you know, being here in Texas, the Astros, the Houston Astros, my hometown team, and the Texas Rangers were all they were scouting me every time I took the mound. Right. And so I thought I was gonna get drafted by one of those two. The Red Sox took me. And uh, you know, once I got to Boston, man, the the history there, Fenway Park and the history that they've had there, and the great players before me that came through there, Cy Young, Babe Ruth, you know, and uh Ted Williams, Yaz, you know, uh and all the guys that I played with my first couple years, it was tremendous. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

But you didn't like the stadium. The stadium didn't didn't you do some quote saying something about Fenway Park not being up to par or something?

SPEAKER_01 10:57

I don't know, I don't know about that, but I just remember the big green monster. I remember driving there, you know. I we'd I if I don't know if we had cell phones in '83. The first time they brought me to see Fenway Park, the Red Sox, um, after I was going through the minor leagues. And uh anyway, I think I had my head, I landed at the airport, jumped in a cab to go to Fenway Park, and I had um my face in a newspaper or magazine, and the cab driver stopped. He goes, Here you go, kid. And I looked out the window and it was a red brick building. It looked like a warehouse. And I was like, Hey, Cabby, I'm a professional ball player, professional athlete. I'm going to Fenway Park. It's a baseball stadium. He goes, This is it. This is it, kid. Get your, you know what, out of my out of my cab. And so I walked around, they greet me, and they walk me up the tunnel, and uh, there's the big green monster, the field and the grass as green as can be. It was it was a really cool sight. And then uh, of course, my mom loving history, uh, she wrote me a cool little poem about uh Finway Park and and the city of Boston. So it was wonderful, yeah. But so it was what it was a wonderful 13 years.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, that was amazing. I would love to ask you about the the inner cement. I don't even know what you call it. Like you you to be the the the intensity and I can't say it, I'm a girl, but just to pitch and to just have all this pressure on you to still be able to perform. Did you ever realize, like, oh, if I screw this pitch up or if I did you ever Yeah, no, it would be, I mean, I could relate it to your career.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

When you're doing you're you're all in, you're prepared, you do your homework before any do your photo shoots or whatever you were doing, you know, to get ready for um your work, you're prepared. I I again peep pressure, as they say, burst pipes or whatever you want to say, you know, all these cliches. But it's true. If you're prepared, I know going into a game that, you know, when I get up and I'm washing my hair that morning, I'm already going through the lineup of the guys I'm gonna face. Right. And I know at some point in that game I'm gonna have a little issue, like men on second and third and one out. If we're in the opposing ballpark, the fans are gonna be really coming down on you can 55,000 people. And so, but you're prepared for it. It's like um, you know, the Kentucky Derby's coming up, you know, it's like putting blinders on. Okay. And you got your blinders on and and you're really focused. Uh in spring training. So let me let me back up. When you're in spring training getting ready, you show up in spring training and you get about six starts in spring training. My first couple starts, I might pitch three or four innings, and I always um your your concentration or in your focus, like my first couple um spring training starts, Cam, I'll I will hear the popcorn vendor selling and I can hear the beer guy yelling, sell them beer, and I can hear people, I can see dugout the dugout. Right by my by my fourth or fifth start, my sixth start, when we're getting ready to break camp to start the season, I don't hear any of that. I mean, it's like it's like one of those movies where you know you just zoom in, right? You know, your focus zooms in on everything. So but I I did the work behind the scenes, you know. I had it, I have a saying and it holds true. I said my only day off was the day I pitched, and that held true because the work I had to do that nobody else sees, you don't see me running at the stadium and putting the miles in in between uh all the stuff that you're doing. Right. So, but I was all in, you know. You you you know me a little more personally than maybe some of your viewers. When when I'm on the mound and I'm behind that stare and that glove, I'm all in. My mom, you know, again, that's something a trait that my mother and grandmother, I mean, I watched them work their tails off.

unknown 14:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

So it kind of does piss me off sometimes when I hear people say, Well, you silver spoon to athletes, this. I said, wait a second, hold up. I said, We we I my mom raised six of us. We had nothing. I said, I was in high school twice. I saw my mom with her hands in her head on the kitchen table because our electricity was gonna get turned off. Oh so when you so when you so somebody makes an asinine comment that really doesn't take the time to get to know you or know your background, it it it does fire me up a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Well, and so I think what fires me up is when we see these young kids who don't even want to go to college anymore. They just want to be an influencer and they're gonna make more money than you know their parents ever did or whatever. And I'm like, where is your skill? Where is the time you're putting into learning a craft? Something.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

Some of them have a knack. I mean, you will see guys that will, I mean, the thing I can correlate that to would be, you know, a guy coming through the minor leagues at a young age very fast and he gets to the big leagues where the lights are very bright. You know, they talk about the lights being really bright, and uh and they're not prepared for that. They're not seasoned or prepared for it. They really hadn't put the work in that some things kind of came easy for them. And uh, you know, I have to tell the nine-year-old grandboys, I make them look at when they get upset at their little baseball games, they're playing kids' pitch for the first time. Oh, okay. And I take them out, I take them out to the gym and I show them my plaque, and I said, All right, how many wins did Poppy have? And they go, 360, whatever. And I go, now look over there. See the L? How many losses did I have? I had a lot of losses. I said, I don't think I cried on every loss, maybe a couple, but I I knew that it was gonna be tough. You're gonna fail, you're gonna fail a lot. Right. And then it's the people that can get back up again. Like I said, I can I can bring that into your field of work, what you did about being prepared, how great you know, you had to have a tremendous amount of discipline. I go through three things. Physically, the physical part, you're in charge of your body and how you look. Right. That's the physical part of it. I did all the work behind the scenes. Physically, I knew I was not gonna get tired, whether I was pitching five innings or I was pitching nine innings. Right. Then the biggest thing for me is my mental part of the game. Mentally, I'm gonna crush you because I'm locked in. I'm gonna crush you mentally. And then last part of my game is sometimes emotions came into play. I I tried when my arm was what we call underwater, like I really wasn't didn't have my fast, fastball. Right. Uh I would I would think about my mom being sick or my grandma. I try and will myself through the first couple innings, and then all of a sudden I get going. And next thing, you know, here we go. I'm on. The lights are bright, I'm on center stage, and here we go. So that's all that's it's it's a it's a process that you go through on how you do it.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

Yeah, and that's what makes a pro is is really that mindset and putting the time and energy in. I love hearing that.

Free Agency To Toronto And The Yankees

SPEAKER_00 17:32

So then what happened when you went to Toronto next, right? I did. Yeah, why?

SPEAKER_01 17:38

No, yeah, so from the no, it's a great question. So um, and it's it's a pretty um uh uh you know it got distorted of just people like again just kind of grabbing stuff when they write about you. Well, we say it doesn't have to be correct or true, it just has to be first. And so the Boston deal was my contract had run up and they got a new general manager. Now, if the old the the old Mrs. Yahoo, who who I loved, who was there when I signed, and and she's the one who really introduced me to the Jimmy Fund, which I still we still do stuff with their that's their biggest cancer um you know yeah, charity up there. It's really cool. And um, but anyway, so the new GM, he got not rid of me, but he got rid of maybe four other guys. A couple of the guys probably had the best swing on the team, but he wanted his his own team and and and to do things his way. So uh I was actually on vacation in Hawaii with Deb and the little guys, and I got a call from the agents to come back. We need to talk to you. You're a free agent. We there's something important. I said, I really need to fly. They go, Yeah, you need to come back. So we came back from vacation a day early, and next thing you know, I couldn't get an offer from a team that I was with for 13 years. But then next thing you know, I got four teams offering me a ridiculous contract, four-year, four-year deal, ridiculous. And it was one was Toronto, I think one was Cleveland, one was the Yankees, and somebody else, and I kind of I kind of let them I I hit it off with the the owner of the Blue Jays. You got to understand, let me back up again. When I was with the Red Sox, you know, our rival was normally the New York Yankees. That's a great, it's one of the biggest rivals uh um in all of sports. Right. But the the the Yankees weren't that good in the late 80s, early 90s. They weren't that good. They had a couple good players, but they really they've stunked. And the the the team that was tough was the Toronto Blue Jays. Late 80s, early 90s, of course, early 90s, they won back-to-back world championships. So the owner was came to me and said, Listen, I want you to I want you on the Blue Jays, and we're gonna rebuild this team to get back to these championship ways to win a World Series. And so that's how that all came together. Paul Beaston, I love Beastie, he was super to talk to, and he won me over. Uh, two years in Toronto, after the second year in Toronto, um, he left to go to the commissioner's office, which kind of freed up my deal. And next thing you know, and next thing you know, Mr. Steinbrenner comes to Houston not once but twice. And George, uh, who uh I got a little more mellow, George Steinbrenner, and uh he said uh he said, Listen, um uh I've been trying to get you for two or three years. You want to be a damn Yankee or don't you? So I end up signing with the Yankees, and uh and then and then the uh the Red Sox change ownership, and we had our team, and it was good again because both teams were very good and very competitive. And uh, as you know, when you're you got two teams uh hungry and thirsty for a world championship, and there's only one ring, uh you can butt heads pretty easy.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

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SPEAKER_01 21:25

I did. It was really special. Um I think the thing because uh when when you bring up the Yankees right now, for me, um uh it's the it's it it brings to the memory of um probably the coolest thing.

9/11 Baseball And A Meaningful Trip

SPEAKER_01 21:41

So in my 24 years of playing, the coolest thing that I've ever done was uh I was supposed to pitch the night of 9-11. And this is the 25th year of 9-11 coming up. So we've done about six documentaries with different uh companies uh on 9-11, and obviously they're calling me because I was the starting pitcher. That night in that city. I was actually going against uh my former team, the Red Sox, and I had a milestone. I was trying to win my 20th game. And to win 20 games as a starting pitcher is like a tear top type uh something you could do, only you could do. And so, but what was really cool, Kim, about this is my agents went to high school with our four-star general at the time, General Richard Myers.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

And when all hell broke loose, we all know what happened. I I was about uh my my condo was about five miles from uh the world trade. And uh once we everything had happened and the dust had settled a little bit, we resumed playing baseball. We started we came back in Chicago against the White Sox, and there was not a dry face, not there was tears everywhere. But anyway, after the season, and the very next year, uh General Myers called my agents and said, Hey, I'd like Rocket to go to the Middle East with me and see a bunch of our men and women and help and you know cheer up their morale and just just to be there. They see him and they're blah blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

How fun is that!

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Yeah, and I I end up doing it for I think seven days. It was around Christmas time, and uh, but it was the coolest thing. We asked Drew Carey, the comedian. Drew was super, yeah, he came with us to tell us a few jokes. But uh that's what I think about when you talk about the New York Yankees. I think about how resilient those families were, those firemen, those police officers. Um, they we we lost so many loved ones um that we're set getting ready to celebrate the 25th year of that. So I I can't believe it's been 25 years already, but exactly.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

I know time flies.

Pitching The Night His Mom Passed

SPEAKER_00 23:40

You also had another pivotal moment, which is sad, but when your mother died, didn't you have to pitch that night?

SPEAKER_01 23:47

I did. That's a that's a great question. Um yeah, so that was uh that was uh probably my toughest. Uh the the pitching uh uh pitching the first game back uh after 9-11 was very difficult. Um uh losing my mom and having to pitch was probably a notch or two above that. I really had to I really had to click myself in the first and second inning. It took me about two innings to get my mind in tune with what I was doing. Um so I drove to Austin. My sister, my mom lived in Austin, about a two-hour drive from home here.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

And uh my sisters were there, my sisters lived up there, and they said they don't think mom's gonna pull through this one. So I went up there to tell her I love her and everything. And um the Astros knew I was gonna pitch. They were thinking about scratching me from my start, and I said, No, my mom would want me to pitch. It's you know, she's a work workaholic and she knows your job comes first. And uh so they go, We'll send an airplane to come get you and bring you back to the stadium. And I go, No, I'm gonna drive the two hours because it's gonna take me at least that long to I'm gonna drive straight to the stadium, and but it's gonna take me about two hours to clear my mind before I get that start. So really cool, really cool event happened. Um, I got about halfway home, my sisters called and said, Mom is is gone. And uh and um uh my sisters didn't tell me about what was going on, but this is the kicker. The kicker is which I tease my Astro buddies, the my our hitters, they never scored me any runs. I mean, if I got four runs in a game, it was like a miracle. That was like uh uh that was like 20 runs. So I so I always teased them. Well, this particular game, I think I went eight innings and I left the game and it was eight to two. And when I came out of the game in the seventh or eighth inning, the guys ended up scoring two more. We won the game 10 to 2. Now, I have a shoeless Joe Jackson bat that I got. I think there's very few here, but I got it from Louisville Slugger, and they they let me purchase it. The reason I bring it up is because my mom was one of my mom's probably her favorite movie of all time, is Field of Dreams, where those players come out of the cornfield.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

And and one of them shoeless Joe. And that's one of her favorite movies. As my mom was passing, my sisters called me after the game in tears, and I said, What is going on? And they go, We gotta tell you this story. They said, Mom said something, she mumbled on her way out shoeless Joe Jackson twice, and she also member she mumbled the words 10 and 2, and we won the game 10 to 2 that night. Oh wow, I just got it. Yeah. So she mentioned shoeless Joe twice, and she mentioned uh she said the numbers 10 and 2, and we won 10. I came out, it was 8-2, and then when my sister saw the extra two runs go on the board later, they totally freaked out.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

My phone was like I had messages and messages when the game had ended. I finally got to my phone after I got done icing my arm, and I I so I had to make the phone call to see what was going on.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

They said you're they said you're not gonna believe it. So anyway, that's that's something I'm gonna write about one day.

SPEAKER_00 26:59

Yeah, yeah. That was and it was special, but it must have been hard. But it shows your mental resilience. I guess that's one of the words that you use. And you have to have that in any profession, I think, to be at the top.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

I would agree with that. I I think there's gonna be plenty of times you get knocked down, you're gonna have to pick yourself up. I think um people on the outside, there's so with you, like you said, with so much social media and everything else, there's so much criticism where some people just don't, they don't know. We try and not comment on things that that we know nothing about. Uh, I you know, I make make comments on uh, you know, like the say you know, the president, you know, 47, got to play golf with him. It was fantastic. I've played with him a couple other times. And I said, I I can handle his late night tweets and everything else, but as long as he he's doing a great job for our country making us feel safe. And for somebody that had a lease in South Texas and saw it run over by illegal illegals, it's uh tremendous. Come here a minute. I got your I got your girlfriend here. Get over here. Oh get over and say the real golfer, lean in here.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Yeah, she is the real golfer. Hi, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 28:10

We're we're recording right now, and she she's she is baseball etiquette right now. Miss Kim, she's gonna be like you. She's gonna be my second pitching coach.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

I I just had to quick study. I I'm trying.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

I got pitching coach one here and pitching coach two there.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

Yeah, you don't walk the first batter.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

Yeah, she always griped at me when I walked the first batter again.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

I don't do that. Yeah. I mean, I love it. It's good to see you, Debbie. Um how the y'all are doing this. I know. I miss you can.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

I miss you too.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

Come here in Sedona.

unknown 28:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

Yeah, come see you in Sedona. I she already told her she's always invited. I'm not. There you go. All right.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Oh, how funny.

Longevity Through Discipline And Self-Care

SPEAKER_00 28:50

So getting back to resilience, you had really didn't have that many injuries. You didn't, that's not why you retired from the game and you retired three times, right?

SPEAKER_01 29:00

Yeah, anybody can retire once. I tried it, I tried it three times, it didn't work. It was it was fun, though, it was a blessing because after I came out of retirement the last time, I actually got to pitch from my hometown team. They talked me into pitching here at home. It's pretty cool, you know, sleeping in your own bed, driving 20 minutes to the stadium. Right. And I got I got to play with a lot of cool guys, a lot of cool teammates that I watched from afar for a long time. So, and we got to the World Series. We kind of flipped those three years, we probably flipped a football town to a baseball town big time. I mean, we did a lot of winning, and uh it was it was uh yeah, it was a lot of fun. But you're right. I mean, you have to um you know, you have to stay focused to to play that long.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

Yeah, yeah. So you've also written a book, right? And appeared in movies. And one thing you and Debbie, because you just had Debbie on, didn't you do like I did, the sports illustrated swimsuit issue?

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Oh my gosh, she was she was so mad at me. I talked her in. I they tried to get a couple younger couples to do it, and everybody chickened out. So uh the little uh athlete, she put it in high gear. Once I told her that we're gonna do it, she was like freaking out. And so she started uh, I mean, I I she doesn't like to uh uh do long distance running, but she was running two to three miles just about every other day. She was getting after it. So I was proud of her. She looked amazing. You guys look amazing when you guys do that kind of stuff, and so it was it was it was fun for us to do it. We were worried about the boys in high school having their mom plastered everywhere, but that's the way it goes.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

Yeah, yeah. Well, I for most of my career, I did things before I had my sons. You had four sons, I had three. And I just made sure that I did it because I was comfortable with what I could handle or my dad. But I look back and my sons would read would have been ready to fight if I had done a bad photo, right? I mean, they're like, I'd fight the whole locker room, mom. Good thing you didn't do bad pictures.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

So I love it. You know, like I said, that it takes a lot of discipline. Like I said, um, I talk to the guys, uh, the current guys now too, because a lot of guys, uh, some of them are you know just a little bit out of shape. And that, you know, like I said, they really have they're really in control of um, you know, their you know, their personal appearance and how they look and uh how they feel. I mean, that's super important.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

Yeah. So do you think you didn't have many injuries because you took care of yourself so well?

SPEAKER_01 31:32

Yeah, I mean, I did the I I still do, I I still travel with three or five pound cuff weights, Kim, when I go golfing. So I so I don't get a frozen shoulder. I'm still throwing to the, you know, I throw from about 55 feet, maybe 50 feet, to the big league guys to be able to still give them a little velocity. And you know, I got to be ready for these grandboys. They they don't care how old I am. They they they want Poppy out there winging them, you know, come on, throw it to me, throw it to me, throw it to me.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

So you can't hit a hard one to those guys.

SPEAKER_01 32:00

No, I don't throw a fast to them. I throw I throw what I call uh room service. It's just uh it's almost like batting practice for them. So and uh they love it because you know, for the most part, I can still throw strikes. Um, they talk about pressure. My I had to tell this story at a banquet just the other night, a big uh big banquet. And uh the questions were like, hey, when you're golfing like in these professional these um celebrity tournaments and they're showing you on TV, and you know, you have a three-foot putt, you know, pressure, a lot of pressure. And when you're pitching game seven of the World Series, a lot of pressure, I said, Hold on. I said, You guys want to know what pressure is? Pressure is go home on an off day. The the one of the boys were it was dad's pitch. He's seven years old. You're doing dad's pitch. So you're in that little circle out there. And you got the kids up there, they swing. Some of them have a high swing, some of them have a low swing. So I always tell them, hey, take a practice swing so I can see where your bat path is.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

Because Kim, you win or lose dad's pitch on how the dad throws. You gotta hit the kid's bat, basically. Right. And they get six pitches, and if you don't hit their bat for six pitches, they strike them out and they're in the dugout crying, and you feel terrible. So that stressed you out worse than the seventh game of a World Series. Absolutely. So I get the pitch six. I'm on pitch six, and this little guy's at the plate, and I'm like, here you go, little man, get your eyes on it, watch the ball, watch the ball, be come on now. Really, what come on? I don't want to strike, you know, this kid. Watch the and all of a sudden in the stands, one of the moms. Jesus, you're a professional. Throw my kid a strike. That's pressure. So I got the moms hooting on me at the kids' game, and I'm like, oh my gosh, please, kid, hit the ball, please. So that's pressure. Game seven of the World Series, nothing compared to doing that.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

Well, that's that's amazing to most people, I think.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

Oh, the kids pitch, and and you gotta lob it and throw it perfectly and try and hit his bat. I mean, it's harder than rearing back and throwing a 95 mile an hour fastball, I'm telling.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

And being accurate, right? I guess they're they're accurate is different than the the strike zone or whatever you call it. Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they may have a whole different thing. So here you are, this big teddy bear.

Beanballs Then And Injuries Now

SPEAKER_00 34:14

I always call you a teddy bear every time I tell someone about how wonderful you are. And there were times where did you really do the beanball over the head hunters?

SPEAKER_01 34:24

Yeah, so people talk about uh, yeah, but you know, there's like um 24 years, I think I hit got I hit a guy, you know, because you're throwing the high rate of speed. And if I'm coming inside, I'm you know, you try and come inside. I tell people this the home plate is 17 inches wide.

unknown 34:40

Right.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

And you pitch inside, you pitch inside, which I had to at Finway Park. There's a lot of big time hitters that if you left the ball over the middle of the plate at Fenway Park, they it goes a long way the other way over that green monster. But when you pitch inside, there are times when you pitch inside and you miss inside, you're gonna hit guys. A lot of them have a ton of equipment on now. They got the big elbow brace and the hand brace, and they need to have that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They got the the thing. We got the little guys even wearing that in kids pitch because the the kids pitch guys are pretty wild. But I think in 24 years I might have hit three guys above the shoulder, you know, coming coming up and in on them. Now, what you're asking about is I'm asking if you're intentionally aiming. Yeah, yeah, no. What you're asking about is when a game gets a little ugly on the professional level, I always say, you never want this in high school or college or even little whatever. But in the professional uh ranks, um, there might be one of my hitters that has an issue with the pitcher where he's probably hit him before or something like that, and they wind up and you know, hit hit our guy in the back or something. That guy comes over to the bench to me and says, you know, I'm looking at him. Usually guys won't come sit next to me when I'm working, but they'll say, Hey, we got a I said, you got a problem with this, and he goes, Yeah, we got a problem. So that's what you call cleaning up a game where uh they did it in the old, the old school days, you know, Yogi Bear and Don Drysdale and all these guys that if their their motto was if you hit one of my guys, I'm gonna hit two of your guys. And that was old school. So that but pretty much now, um uh with the the way the strike zone is, they pinch you a little east and west, they give you north and south, they work up and down in the zone. Those those kind of days I think are over quite a bit. And and all these guys are all chasing velocity. A lot of these dudes throw, you know, 98 to 100 miles an hour. And um they they're chasing velocity. I think that's again why you when you talk about injuries, you see so many injuries. Your your mechanics, when you're throwing baseballs uh triple digits, 100 miles an hour plus, and you're stretching yourself if if you happen to go to 100 pitches, 110 pitches, that's a tremendous amount of taxing and stress on your arm and shoulder. That's why you're seeing a lot of these Tommy John surgeries these guys are having, and then they come back and they say, Oh, he got his elbow fixed, he's he he's throwing harder. I go, no, no, no, no. He's not throwing any harder. It's just that he's well, he's healthy again. Uh and and let me tell you what, you got to do the small muscle when you get Tommy John, that 16, 18 months coming back, you really have to stay religious with your exercises and the program the doctor puts you on to be able to come back and return somewhere close to yourself at the major leagues for sure.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

Right, right. Interesting. So, but I mean, for you guys to be able to know exactly where you put it.

SPEAKER_01 37:35

Yeah, sometimes when you, you know, if if I'm throwing 93 to 95, six miles an hour, I'm you know, I'm pretty good. When you start and I threw over 100 miles an hour a bunch, but I never pitched it. I'm a power pitcher, I'm not a power thrower. There's a difference. When you get these power thrower guys winding up and heaving it, they can make a mistake down the middle, which the big league hitters, I tease everybody, I say tease them, but it's true. Most big league hitters can put wood on a bullet, they're that good. And um but when you start when you start getting to uh 9,800 miles an hour and you're turning that loose, you can get that ball can go any which direction. So you heads, you know, you have to be heads up on that.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

Right. Okay.

Golf Stories Boundaries And Closing

SPEAKER_01 38:17

I want to talk about our golf game. Are you are you still getting after it?

SPEAKER_00 38:20

Uh I just did uh Myrtle Beach, so I did the Monday after the masters.

SPEAKER_01 38:25

Um you're you're big leaguer. You're such a big leader.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

Oh my gosh. We uh they gave us this condo, it was a two-bedroom condo, and the beds were rock hard. And so of course you're playing the celebrity with the pro, right? So I had this pro and he's like, you're not turning, like I was playing terrible. He's like, you're not twisting. I'm like, my lower back. I was like, because you're sleeping on this terrible rock hard bed. I'm like, I was all teased up and it just, but it was all about, I mean, people were on the course and you're signing autographs, you know, and they're all teen off and you're you're signing all these autographs. So it was just a day to have fun, and it wasn't about necessarily keeping score.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

So that's why they gave you the condo.

SPEAKER_00 39:08

That's why they gave us all the condos.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

You you didn't know how to bring your own mattress.

SPEAKER_00 39:13

Oh my gosh. Well, I'm sure you had that too, where sometimes the where you are and what you have to go through, or there's noise all night long, and you've got to pitch the next day. I mean, and I used to have to show up and not look haggard and tired. I mean, that's just part of life, and you have to roll the punches sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

Well, you you talk about rolling with the punches. I got one for you. When I was a rookie, my first two years, my my first year as a rookie, and my very next year, we had roommates. We did so you had two queen beds in a room. We had a roommate, and my roommate just happened to be uh a ridiculous loud snorer. I mean, where if I didn't go to if I didn't get to sleep first, I'm I'm done. And I can't tell you how many on uh you know, the six months uh of the season that I can't tell you how many times that I took my comforter and my pillow and I slept in the bathtub and I shut the door.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

Crazy.

SPEAKER_01 40:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:07

I can't see you fitting in those little hotel bathrooms.

SPEAKER_01 40:10

No, I didn't. I didn't. Legs were hanging over the side, but I was but it was quiet.

SPEAKER_00 40:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:16

And I locked the door. So if he had to go to the restroom at night, he's gonna have to go downstairs. He's not getting it, he's not yeah, I don't care how hard he bangs on the door. Nope. No chance.

SPEAKER_00 40:25

So it's setting boundaries, right? I mean, you gotta do what you gotta do.

SPEAKER_01 40:30

That's right. That's right, baby.

SPEAKER_00 40:32

Yeah. Well, it was wonderful having you, Roger. Thank you so much. And I hope people learned so many things from you. Preparation is key and taking care of yourself. And it's not just about how you look, it's how you're thinking.

SPEAKER_01 40:47

100%, baby. 100%. Love it. And let's go off sometime soon.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

Yes, yes, we need to do that. And uh, you said hi to Debbie, so I'll say hi to Jeff for you. Please do. I will. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Thanks for watching the show. If you have any questions for me or you want any more information, go to Kim Alexis.com.