Best of DLS: A Stocking Stuffer of Baseball Mangers

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This is the Don Labatar Show with the Stu Gats Podcast.

Christmas Eve, Chris. Happy, Merry Christmas Eve.
Jeremy, I'm so happy. Every holiday, as I've gotten into marriage and kids, it's just running around like a madman.

And I get to be planted this holiday. Nice.
Christmas Eve at the in-laws, Christmas at my parents. I'm so excited to just be at one place per day.

I'm excited for you. Christmas Eve is always really fun with my in-laws.
Obviously, I celebrate Hanukkah. My wife is not Jewish.
And so in turn, we get to celebrate Christmas with her family.

It rocks. It's the best.
I love everything. Get the deep old girl.
Yeah, it's a nice life. And Christmas Eve games

with the family. Should have married a Jewish girl.
Yeah, tell Christy.

Should have married a Jewish lady.

I heard it. That was great.

Anyway,

so here's where we're at.

We have a Christmas Eve episode for you guys.

I really hope that you're excited for this.

And I decided there's nothing better on Christmas Eve than listening to Stan Van Gundy talk to former baseball managers. Love it.
Right?

I mean, there's no one more passionate that I know, not Tim Kirchin, not

either of us. Hey, listen to the pitch clock.

But Stan Van Gundy. So we have an interview here from 2006

with Joe Torrey. We also have interviews from 2013 with Joe Madden and Jim Leland.
And I'll tell you, Chris, like, in this Joe Madden interview, it made me realize this dude was transcendent.

This guy predicted everything that he says in this interview about what they do differently is everything that everyone does in baseball now. It's kind of insane.

This interview was, I assume, before Stugat started ripping him.

Because that's

late in the career.

Later in the career, he would rip their glasses.

Yeah, he turned on him. Maybe he declined to come on and do another interview.
But either way, this first hour of your show today is going to be three interviews.

Stan Van Gundy with the show with Joe Torrey, Joe Madden, and Jim Leland. Some pretty simple names for baseball managers.

Been wanting to talk to this guy for a long time. Very difficult job in sports.
Manager of the New York Yankees, and he handled it with uncommon daily grace. Joe Tory with us on the ticket.

Thank you for joining us, Joe.

As you look around all of sports, is there a guy, a leader, whose style you looked at, if I made you pick just one and you said, man, I love the way that guy handles himself?

Well,

I guess it's someone who just,

I mean, Gil Hodges, to me, years ago, was a nice role model because, you know, it wasn't about him, it was about his players.

And any of us coaches or managers who dilute themselves to think that they're the reason that these teams win. You know, I feel sorry for those guys because, you know, it's about the players and

trying to make sense to the players I think is important for us to do and

sort of point them in the right direction. But

there are a lot of

I admire a lot. I mean, I love the way Tom Copland does what he does in New York.
You know, that wasn't easy for him starting out and all of a sudden two Super Bowls under his belt. And I think

he certainly has

withstood the storm over there for

a long time.

Are you like Stan Van Gundy who was with us here on Wednesdays, Joe, where if there's a guy who takes himself very seriously in a leadership position and feels like he's the reason for the winning, will that be met with your disdain?

Well, I know better than that. I've watched him coach, trust me.

I mean, he, you know, both he and Jeff, to me,

did their job

with great class and effectiveness. And,

you know, and sometimes it's time to move on. I felt that three times, trust me.

The worst part of the job, New York Yankees manager, was?

Oh, I guess it was,

you know, the best part was the worst part. You know, you win four World Series in the first five years, and then when you go to game seven and lose in the ninth inning, they say, oh, you failed.
So,

you know, expectation, I guess. And, of course, the media, which I think

Stan can vouch for that,

you know, it's,

you know, it's always looking for the dark side of it a lot of times. So

it's just

things you have to deal with aside from being in the dugout or being on court side, you know,

is probably the toughest job. You know, at least you know what you're doing when you're sitting there on the bench.

How did you help your players deal with the pressure that comes with those expectations and the media challenges in New York? Well, I'll tell you what I said to them.

They only have to satisfy the guys in the lockers next to them.

You know, the fans are important, there's no question.

Media, you know, they are necessary.

But, you know, the guy in the locker next to them are the only ones that know how hard it is to do what they do.

And, you know, and I always judge players not on results, but on their effort and their preparation and their desire to play the game.

So even though my boss, George Steinbrenner, was disappointed a time or two,

it was hard for me to swallow knowing how hard these players worked. So, you know, to me,

I always tried to make these players accountable to each other, and

the only thing that satisfied me is a good effort and preparation. And, you know, it sort of simplified things.
I tried to keep the distractions out of the clubhouse.

Joe Torrey with us here on AM790 and now FM 104.3, the ticket. Joe, when you were hired as the Yankees manager, you were greeted with headlines from the tabloids such as Clueless Joe and Loser Joe.

And I'm wondering, did you save any of those headlines? Well, they keep popping up sooner or later, you know. But you know what?

It didn't bother me a bit because I was so thrilled to get this opportunity. I know even my brother Frank said, are you nuts? You realize how many managers George Steinbrenner has hired and fired?

And I just felt it was an opportunity to manage for an organization that was going to be out there trying to win, try to give you players. I was going to find out if I could manage or not.

And, you know, again, I was blessed with some pretty special players. I mean, Jeter being,

when you think about the core of this group that came down the pike for me, I had Jeter and Bernie Williams and Paul O'Neill, and of course, Tino came over the same year I did, and then you had Pettit and David Cohn and Mariano Rivera.

That's a pretty good core group. And

as I say, I was lucky, and these guys were very serious about what they did, and they never admired what they had just accomplished. You know, it was a great scenario for me.

The owner of your team, George Steinbrenner, late owner, did he ever call you in the dugout? No. No, I think I got George on the back nine.
I mean, I really do. You know,

he had Billy. I think, you know, he and Billy were very contentious with each other.
And,

you know, I think the one thing Billy never recognized is that George was the boss.

I recognized George was the boss, and he was allowed to do what he did, but he never, in fact, I called him more than he called me. I don't know if it was

disarming him in any way, but I used to call him, we were struggling, I said, George,

what am I doing wrong? It sort of caught him off guard a time or two. But he never,

never, I mean, he made suggestions to me when we were sitting in a room and stuff like that, but he never called me during a game.

What was the most awed or speechless you were ever left, Joe, by a celebrity or someone famous, important, or that you admired being impressed by you?

You mean someone else who was who was famous impressed by me yeah or someone you really respected where you were sort of left awed by it i'll tell you there there were a few of them the one that struck struck me was was henry kissinger

i mean i he invited my wife allie and i to his his apartment uh had uh

you know we had dinner uh there's about 40 people there and uh

And Barbara Walters was there and Mayor Bloomberg and, you know, he split up all the couples. And I'm sitting at a table with the President of Czech Republic.
Trust me, that'll get your attention.

You were sitting at a table with it, but you felt small, right? You felt like you didn't belong there. No, until Henry Kissinger got up and started talking about my being in the room.

Trust me, it was a little uneasy for me, but I realized what a great baseball fan he was.

Was the president of the Czech Republic a big Yankees fan fan? i don't know we couldn't understand each other

i've had players like that by the way i couldn't understand well sometimes that works too you know that

joe tore with us on the ticket of all the perks that came with cameos you were in analyze that all the perks that came with your cameos joe tore's favorite cameo was

oh no it was it was no question analyze that i mean i've been a big de niro fan fan, and, of course, Billy Crystal's been a friend of mine, and

to have that cameo at Gallagher's Steakhouse in New York,

I took a train in from Baltimore. We had a game that night, and

it was a lot of fun, and

that had to be the best experience for me. Joe, thank you.
We appreciate all you did and all you do. And so does Henry Kissinger.
Yeah, thanks a lot, guys.

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Don Lebatard. Punctuate this segment with what is your strike three call.
Strike one would be strike. And then you stand up and you give a good point to the right.
Stugats.

That's the same for strike two. But strike three, you get down low, you got your hands behind the catcher.
All right. The right arm goes up into the air.
Yeah.

And then you finish it with the punch.

The right arm flings way up into the air.

I wish everybody would see that.

This is the Don Lebatar show with the two guys.

He is fun, he is interesting, he's super smart, he's also different, which I imagine, Joe, gets you called a weirdo in the world of baseball

because you are different.

And I imagine that that doesn't exactly fit. Stan Van Gundy is here with us today, and he'll be talking to you too.
He loves baseball,

but that gets you called a weirdo, right? Well, if that's the case, I love it actually. You know, I don't want to be one of those normal

considered old school kind of baseball people.

It's just the fact that we're willing to try new things. And a lot of it has to do with just that and information.
Although Penguins in the Club, I also understand, is a little bit different.

The different theme trips are different. But when it comes down to the everyday operation, we're probably as old school as it gets when it comes to playing a game of baseball.

Well, how about unconventional thinking? Like, what do you what do you what is something you believe that runs contrary or counterintuitive to what most old school baseball people believe?

Oh, my God, where do you begin? There's something really,

one thing that jumps out is that you can't make the first or third out of third base as an example.

And from my perspective, I want our guys to get the third base with less than two outs as often as possible.

One of the other things, just like hitting leadoff hitters, power hitters in the leadoff spot, the number two hole for me is no longer a traditional spot in the batting order.

I really pay attention to reverse splits, but in other words, a righty righty gets a lefty out better and a lefty gets a righty out better and not be afraid to utilize that in game strategy.

You just don't necessarily go by the way it had been drawn up way back in the day.

There's a lot more information if you really pay attention. There's a lot of anomaly moments in the game and just don't run away from them.
You have to have the courage with your conviction.

You have to have the support of the people above.

So all those things actually to me are I'm really surprised more people don't do it and I'm seeing now that more people are actually trying to do different things. How about shifts?

There's another one. Yeah, I was just going to ask you about that one, actually.
You shift more than anybody.

I think everyone knows that. What will determine whether or not you shift on guys? Because you shift on some guys that other people don't.
Well, with us, we have a percentage that we go by.

When it reaches a certain level, we feel as though it's safe to shift. I guess that's the best way to put it.

And beyond all that, I mean, there's times when guys will hit the ball contrary to where you're playing.

But that doesn't mean all of a sudden you blow up that thought process and move back because it happens one out of a hundred times. And furthermore, I want certain hitters to try to do that.

When Jose Batista wants you to ground ball to the right side for a base hit, I'll take it as an example. I think there's a lot of mental strategy involved.

It's really hard to evaluate or determine exactly how much it is, but there is that element also where when you cause the other player to do something he doesn't necessarily want to do, and I think that in some ways is a success.

I got to imagine Joe Madden, the raise manager with us, and this is a progressive organization.

They're considered the new money ball, although we've talked to you about the Jonah Carey book, the extra 2%.

They are a very smart organization.

And I'm just wondering, Joe, if you have with you the conviction of your data and your knowledge, my guess is no matter how unconventional the move, you couldn't give a bleep whether it's being criticized or not.

You are totally relaxed when making what others would assume are hugely gutsy moves.

Quite frankly, you're right.

You know, it really doesn't matter what a talk radio person might think or somebody in the newspaper or anybody outside the organization.

What matters is the people within the organization, the support of their ownership and front office matters. And then beyond that, that's your players buying.

And when it comes to the player buy-in, that has to be discussed in advance.

Because when you're trying to do some things that are a little bit different, you just don't want to spring it on them at the last moment.

A lot of the stuff that we do, I will talk to the players in advance of that moment, and our coaches do a great job of the prep work, too. But at the end of the day, for an organization to be

deterred by outside voices or noise based on

it goes against their internal philosophies, I think that's kind of on the organization making a mistake right there. How do you feel about conflict with your players?

I try to avoid it, in a sense, by being proactive and staying ahead of it. I mean, you always want to stay ahead of your potential problems.

I mean, there's quality control and there's quality assurance. Quality control, control meaning that you can react to a negative moment and try to fix it.

Quality assurance you try to stay ahead of your problems. I think again our coaches do a great job of stepping in front of our players and trying to avoid that.
And I'm not saying we're perfect.

We're going to make mistakes and we're going to have different things pop up at different moments. But you want to put out the fire as quickly as possible.
You confront it head on.

You don't let it fester. Don't ever let anything fester, man.
Once you start doing that, it really can get ugly. But the point is to try to stay ahead of your problems or your mistakes.

Can you give us a a real world example?

Well, you know, just you look at certain players that we've had this year, and UNL Escobar came into our camp as an example with a lot of different thoughts from the general public and people that had had him before.

So for me, it was very important to get ahead of all of that conversationally,

dealing with common friends that I have and that maybe UNL had. And beyond that,

setting kind of a philosophy among the group in regards to how we're going to deal with and

cohabitate with UNL on a daily basis. So you don't necessarily listen to what everybody else had said.

You have to make up your own opinion and you have to fit him into your culture the way you see is the right way to do it. And the best way to do that is just communication.

Communication and listening and don't dictate. One of the things that I think one of our strong points here is that we provide a lot of freedom for our players to work with.

And when you do that, I think you get more respect and discipline in return. So all those things are factors, but everybody's got a little bit of a game plan here.

And for example, a guy like UNEL, you don't want to wait till spring training to try to put that game plan in action. You've got to to start way before that.

How often will Joe Madden apologize to a player?

I've done it

twice, I think, in the last, or maybe three times in the last year and a half. Again, I won't be specific, but with one player, I really thought I overreacted and I said something I shouldn't have.

And the next day I called them in and said, you know what, I I stand by being upset about what I was upset about.

upset about, but the way I handled it was inappropriate and wrong, and it's not it's totally counter to what I believe in and what we do here.

So I definitely made sure that the player knew that, but nobody else did. I mean, nobody else has to know about that.

When you want to air your laundry out, whether it's publicly in a paper or you want to be confrontational in front of a group, that's not going to get it done.

It's praised publicly and criticized privately. When you do that, you could get everybody on the same page.
You mentioned your theme road trips earlier, and they're great.

They become legendary, actually. You've had your team dress up like nerds.
Seattle, they have the grunge look going. What's been your favorite one, Joe, and why do you do them?

Favorite one is difficult. I mean, last year it was motivated by my granddaughter, Tyler, in Arizona.
Then it turned into the Ken Rosenthal nerd road trip.

And then we combined that with Dehani Jones with the bow ties.

That one was pretty good because the guys really did get into that.

And it was kind of fun. It's always fun walking into the Boston Hotel dressed up like a bunch of nerds and having people react the way they did.
So that's among my favorites.

The grunge trip, too, was pretty solid to Seattle. Why do I do it?

For several reasons. One of the reasons I'm just poking fun in general at dress codes, which I totally don't believe in.

I don't understand why you would think that I'm going to gain discipline from you by forcing you to wear a $2,000 suit and how that translates to wins, I have no idea. So I've always felt that way.

So the part of it's poking fun. The other part is risk-taking and team-building.

Again, to walk into crowded hotels in the middle of big cities dressed awkwardly for you, something that you're really not accustomed to, there's a little bit of risk involved in that in regards to how you feel about yourself.

And in the team building, when you all walk in that way, it's okay.

So there's a lot of different reasons, but primarily it was motivated by just point poking fun a little bit at dress coats in general, which I totally disagree with.

Stan, I am swooning right now with man-crush delight, Stan. I don't know if this is happening to you over there, but I am,

I mean, I haven't felt this way since I was a teenager, Stan.

Are you dressed in all white right now, Madden? Well, I did. I did, and I actually wore a tie on this trip just because I normally wouldn't.
I bought a white suit a couple years ago

because

we started this tradition of all white into Miami. It's just a Miami vice motivation back in the day.
It was a solid show. And so we're just trying to pay tribute to that.

And the guys really get into it. We've had some great photographs with the all-white.
We've had the

the urban cowboy trip to Colorado that we turned into the midnight cowboy trip from Colorado to New York City. There's all kinds of different and the guys totally do dig it.

At first, yeah, I was a little concerned, people jumping on board. The first one was the Ed Hardy road trip with t-shirts.
And Don Zimmer, Don Zimmer in XL, it really

didn't help him a whole lot. I mean, but to see Zim in the XL bulging in a seat on your charter plate was definitely worth all of that.

So all these little things that we do, again, I think it helps morale. And

it's just a lot of fun, man. I mean, listen, you got to have fun doing this.
If you don't have fun doing this, do something else.

Who's the guy on your team that was most comfortable with that whole Ed Hardy scenario? It wasn't a costume. He just went home and grabbed something.
Oh, geez, that's a couple of years ago.

Actually, I might have been. I mean, I was into all that stuff, period.

You were. You were.
Of course. Of course.
I mean, you know. Of course.
Yeah.

It's all about, you know, you just whatever's whatever you

here's the guide guidelines for our road trip. If you think you look hot, wear it.
That's it.

That when I have my my preseason meeting and we go over all the rules and regulations, which I don't have any,

the one the one question you have to answer to yourself prior to dressing for a road trip is if you think you look hot or not. If the answer is yes, then you wear it.

I mean, Longoria to me, because all of the net already. Totally Longoria.
Oh, yeah, Longo's totally into all that stuff. Absolutely.
Longo's kind of, he's definitely West Coast.

You know, then you've got the kids from the middle part of the country, some from down south, and they have different ideas of what looks hot or not, and it's always fun to see.

And then, of course, we have our Arland contingency, which I love. I love checking out the way the guys.

Yesterday, I think you know Escobar his off it if we had a photograph you would understand why he might have won best dress all white yesterday it was a little bit different and when was the last time you were hammered with a player Joe

oh geez

there was some legendary moments

you know playoff games absolutely after you went after you won a playoff series a couple years ago in the World Series even the playoffs more recently but you know back in the day as a bench coach I felt part of my duties was to go out with the guys at night to listen to them and I did and there was some guys that you had to stay out rather late with to listen to them all the way through.

So it's been a while, but primarily, you know,

post-playoff wins or like we went to the World Series a couple years ago. Those are some pretty severely heavy moments that you really want to get involved with your players.

And we do, and I do, and it's just a lot of fun, man. Go ahead, Stan.
You ever get any of those guys to go bike riding with you? I did one year, and that was several years ago in Minnesota.

Paul Bird and Buddy Black went with me in Minnesota. They have a great trail around Minneapolis.
The city of Minneapolis has got a great bike trail around the entire city. It's fabulous.

So I got Birdie and Pepe, Buddy Black, to go with me at that time. But you know what? I'm kind of a loner with that.
I like to get out there by myself.

That's really a good moment just to think. I like to do a little exercise.
I listen to my music.

You know, down in the Tampa Bay area, we live in Tampa now, and there's a lot of dolphin in the water. There are some stingrays sometimes.
I get to check all that stuff out.

It's a great way to start your day intellectually before you go to the ballpark. Joe Madden with us on the ticket.

Do you have any problems, Joe, sort of marking the line between being really friendly and human with your players and being their boss?

Because it sounds from the way that you talk like that might not be the easiest thing in the world.

Honestly, I don't really have that problem, I don't think. I've been doing this for a while, even before being a manager in the major leagues.

Back in the day, I started rather young as a minor league manager and coach. So there's a lot of

you build up that ability I think over time and you you get I I need to understand what the line is first and then the players that definitely follow. So

again, I've been instructional leagues, I've been charge of minor league systems, I've been managing, I've been a lot of different things.

So I think I think as you convert with the player and get to know the player better, that they, you know, I know what the line is, and I think that they figure it out also.

And then furthermore, as a major league manager, the office itself represents something. So

I think we all know how far we can go regarding the relationship and how casual it can be. But we do have a lot of fun.
What's the angriest you've ever been with a player?

Well, it's happened. A couple years ago, I'll tell you in 2008, we were playing in Kansas City, and

we were playing pretty well, and this is our year we went to the World Series, and we won a game in Kansas City, but played poorly and did some things that I really did not like.

So I kind of blew up with the whole group, and I did some screaming in the locker room in Kansas City. And And also, I really thought two things regarding that were perfect.

The fact that the meeting would be on the road in a visiting clubhouse where we hardly ever go there, so you leave it behind, and the other thing is after a win.

I mean, it's so easy to pile on after a loss.

I'd rather not do that. So

far in town, a foreign clubhouse, after a win, I thought was the perfect time to get it done. What's the key to a successful marriage?

Well, it was.

I want to knock you off balance a little bit. You're too good at these other questions.

Well, I'd say, I I mean, Jay and I, we've been married since 2008. It's been bi-coastal up to this year during the season.
So distance. Distance is always good.

But no, Jay's in Tampa right now. We're having a great time.
For me, honestly, again,

it's no different than what we do here listening. Listening is really important, man.
And if you choose

to not to listen to the other person, then it can get a little bit ratty. I just think listening skills are among the most important things we can do as a human being.

Joe, it was a pleasure catching up with you. The audience found you exceptionally refreshing.
Thank you for being on with us. My pleasure.

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Can I tell you something?

I don't know, maybe like a month ago, and I decided to watch Pitch Clock, and I told Jeremy, Stugats, this is a good show you're doing. This is the Don Lebatar Show with the Stugats.

Jim Leland, not a lot of people know, Jim Leland is an emotional softie. And yet he scares the hell out of people.

You just, Jim, you just scared the poor producer, Mike Mike Ryan, who was impressed by your aura, your champion aura, and your gruffiness, and he got scared. Can you explain him?

He doesn't need to be scared of you?

No, I don't. I don't really think that's me at all, but, you know, I guess that's the way some people perceive me, so that's okay.
But no, I'm just looking forward to talking to you guys today.

You're cuddly and emotional. You're sensitive.
You're a sensitive man.

I've seen Jim Leland cry on a number of occasions because of how much he loves baseball and how much he loves his players. When was the last time Jim Leland got super emotional?

Just been a while, really. Probably at the All-Star Game, I guess.
I thought

that there was a whole lot of people besides me that were pretty emotional during the

Mariana Rivera

showcase at the All-Star Game. I thought it was absolutely tremendous, and I thought there was a lot of players

that

honored him and came out to the warning track from the other bullpen and guys in our dugout. I wasn't the only one.

I think I wasn't the only one in the dugout with a little emotion. I think there was a lot of people that night.
So that was probably the last time. You did good there, Jim.

Jim, you did good on that moment. Well, we did okay.
I mean, we, you know, we really,

we really wanted to win that game. Obviously, there is a little more to it than there has been in the past.
But

the fact that it was, you know, in New York, which is a big scene, obviously, and then the Mariano situation. And, you know, we just wanted our guys to compete, and they did.

And I was awful proud of them. Everybody from every team really competed, and you know, one common denominator was the fact that somebody in that clubhouse is going to go to the World Series.

Jim, you've been in organized baseball almost 50 years.

How many hitters have you seen as good or better than Miguel Cabrera?

Well, I don't think I've seen any better. I guess spons comes to mind.

Cabrera is one of those guys that he kind of

hits like a little guy with big guy results. And, you know, he doesn't really overswing.
He doesn't try to do too much.

You know, he's very capable of taking a single right field with a man on second, two outs, pick up an RBI. He's just a terrific hitter.
But like I said, it's almost effortless.

You know, a lot of people see him and see a big guy. They think he's just a muscle guy that overpowers the ball.

It's really not true. He's really got kind of a simple swing.
And like I say, he kind of hits like a small guy, but gets results of a big guy. Jim Leland with us on the ticket.

This is a difficult question. I want to reminisce with you a little bit about 1997, but did you have a favorite Marlon?

I know you loved all those guys and you appreciate the memories that you made with them. I know it's not Greg Zahn, but who was your favorite?

Well, because he had a couple of great quotes. Stan, you're going to love the couple of great quotes that he had for Greg Zahn.
One time, Greg Zahn

stole a base and wanted to know when he could steal a base in the future. And Jim Leland says, I'll give you the sign.
I'll give you the sign in the dugout. When I jump up and don't come down, that's

who Who was your favorite Marlon, Jim?

Well, this sounds kind of crazy, but

I really like Kurt Abbott.

I thought

he was just a fun-loving guy, and he really probably

never got as much out of his ability as he should have because he just didn't have the confidence that he probably should have had. But he was such a great guy.

In fact, I think he's a police officer down there now.

But he had such a great personality, and I, you know, he didn't play every day, but he was one of those guys that I just kind of had a soft soft spot for I really really liked him a lot and of course there was a lot of guys on that team that you know that I was actually pretty close to or as close as you can get you know manager player relationship you know you have to divide that a little bit obviously but that was just a great bunch and of course

you know it's I'm sorry to say this now because not sorry to say it but you know my good friend Darren Dolt who I thought made a huge difference has just gone under some

very, very serious surgery for brain tumors. And I thought when Dutch came over there, that probably probably made the difference I can remember

when we were trying to get Dutch and Wayne Izinga called me and he said well if we get Darren Dalton will we win the World Series and I said well I'll answer that this way I don't know if we get him if we'll win the World Series but if we don't get him I know we won't win the World Series and he really proved to be a huge difference down that stretch in your career Jim who would you say when you say you try and manage players and also you develop affinities for them as well who's the player that you would point to and say that's the guy that I was closest to?

That I was his boss, but he was also my friend?

Oh boy, I'd have to think about that. You know, I like to think that I've had a lot of them, but I think the secret is to be able to separate the two.
I think you can have a friendship and still

be the boss. I mean, that's a very

touchy situation. I mean, when I say that, I mean, I didn't hang around with the players and things like that.
I don't do that. But at the same time, I liked them.

I saw what they were going through, and you see how tough it is to play this game and what those guys go through on a daily basis and the emotional ups and downs of it.

But I, you know, I just had a soft spot for all of them. I, like I said, I'm proud to say after managing 30-some years that I could count on one hand, the guys I just didn't really care for.

But I don't know. I guess, I mean, I've always had a soft spot for Bob Walk, who pitched for me in Pittsburgh and just took the ball at any time.

You know, there was just something about him. He was such a competitor.

But over the years, I've had so many guys that I put in that same class. I don't know that I really had one favorite.
But,

you know, like I said,

I have a lot of respect for anybody that can do what these guys do. And,

you know, if you have an extra special friendship with them, that's something. Sean Casey comes to mind right away.
I mean, he was one of the nicest guys that I've ever managed.

you know, all of them have made their mark on my life in some way or another. And fortunately, most of it positive.
Jim Leland with us on the ticket.

Jim, understanding that you like your job, what do you hate most about your job or what is the hardest thing about your job?

I think that

probably the most difficult part is just dealing with the media twice a day.

And I don't mean that disrespectfully. I mean, there's,

you know, a lot of times they have to fill the newspaper and there's some silly questions and that's aggravating.

And I also think that, you know, I know I'll get blasted for this, but I think that one time somebody told me they thought it'd be a good idea if somebody would have to cover a certain amount of games before they were allowed in the clubhouse, you know, to ask questions.

And I thought that was kind of a good idea that will never work. But, you know, when you get to postseason play, you get so many people that you haven't seen all year.

You know, it's not just the beat writers anymore, it's everybody that's in there and media, you know, asking silly questions like, you know, where'd you eat breakfast?

If you win, will you eat breakfast? You know, I mean, a lot of silly stuff. So,

you know, I think that I try to use the media to my advantage.

I try to use them in the sense that I think my responsibility is to tell the media everything I can and everything that's true about our club because I try to use them to get the word of our team out to our fans.

I think that's very important. So I have a great deal of respect for the media.

And on the other side of that coin, a lot of times you get, quite truthfully, some media that don't really know much about baseball.

So you get some silly questions that can be aggravating after a tough loss. Oh, Stan, he's speaking your language.
This nonsense of needing to meet the media twice a day.

That's Jim Leland and your you are kindred spirits. And I'm one of those guys now that's asking Jim Leland questions and nothing about baseball.
That's right. You're a media guy now.

And now I've got a couple of ridiculous questions for Jim Leland that don't have anything to do with baseball.

I'd like, if you don't mind, Jim, because you've always been very kind about tolerating my nonsense.

The number of cigarettes, if you had to give it a number, number of cigarettes Jim Leland has smoked in the dugout in the course of his career.

Oh, boy.

Well, I don't smoke them in the dugout anymore. I have finally learned my lesson.
I was wrong for doing that over the years.

I used to cuff it, try to hide it, but things were different in those days a little bit, too.

So, you know, now I go underneath if I want to have a cigarette where I'm out of sight.

But seriously, you know, I go down after everything and light a cigarette, but you don't really smoke if you have a couple puffs and you put it out. So

it's not, you know, that's more habit than anything else.

But to answer your question, I've smoked a lot of them. I'm not proud of that, but I also think that,

you know, I guess there's a lot worse things than that. So how did you learn the lesson, though? I didn't realize there was a lesson to be learned there.

Well, I think that, you know,

like when I was on the bench and some people would pick up on it, and of course the cameras always want to pick you up on something like that. It probably wasn't the best example to young kids.

And, you know, I certainly apologize for that. But I'm a smoker.
I don't apologize for that. I enjoy smoking cigarettes and I just don't I think we're kind of penalized to be honest with you.

We really can't go anywhere anymore and smoke a cigarette.

I've never figured it out how they worry so much about somebody smoking a cigarette, but you go to a ball game and I'll get in trouble with all the owners now.

They can drink 10 beers and get in their car and drive home, but you can't smoke a cigarette. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

That's not fair. You're absolutely right.
You're like an outsider.

You should be able to walk through an airport smoking a cigarette, not stuck in that leprosy cage that they put the smokers in.

Well, like I said,

I try to be respectful to all people, and I'm a smoker. I'm not proud proud of it, but, you know, it is what it is.
And, you know, like I say, years ago, that was, you know, that was a way of life.

Everybody smoked. Not everybody, but a lot of people smoked.
And now it's become such a hot topic and a no-no.

But I think we got other things in this country that we should be worrying about a little bit more than Jim Leland having a cigarette.

Yes, that's true. Jim Leland, champion, 1997 Marlins champion, Jim Leland.
Is there anything you miss about Miami or not so much? Well, I really enjoyed it there. Of course,

we had a great time, and I actually enjoyed it both years. I took a personal hit, but obviously, on my record, but that's okay.

I really enjoyed that second year because a lot of those kids became great players. We just weren't good enough to win a game.
We got beat up so bad.

But, you know, to go down there with Wayne Heights Ingen and win the World Series. And

it was kind of an odd place, to be honest with you, because we played a lot of games where actually half the crowd was to the other team. You know, Philadelphia, Yankees, Baltimore, Atlanta.

And it was Chicago Cubs. It was kind of a strange place, really, because a lot of nights, like I said, half the crowd was to the other team.
But,

you know, we accomplished our goal. And I thought,

you know, I thought we had one of the greatest World Series of all time. And I still say to this day that we really got cheated because

had that World Series that we played between the Marlins and Cleveland been between the Yankees and the Dodgers, it might have gone down as the greatest World Series of all time.

Do you have any that you remember, your favorite Greg Zawn line? Because I love the way that you used to ride poor Greg Zahn into the ground in a loving and hostile fashion.

Do you have a favorite from memory or too many to count? Well, I can remember. Yeah, I do.
I can remember Greg Zahn, who I love. I absolutely loved him.

And I was just really trying to teach him a lesson. And I think I helped him a little bit because one year they were talking about interleague play and all this other stuff.

And Greg Zahn came out and was kind of blasting.

the owners about it. And then I said, you know, I called him in and I told him, I said, you know, you're a backup catcher here.

You're a switch hitting catcher that's got a chance to stay in the big leagues for a long time, but it's not a good idea, you know, for you.

If you're the number one catcher in a star, maybe you should make some comments like that.

But when you're a backup catcher at this time and you got a chance to play for a long time, you need to just keep your mouth shut and just be thrilled to depth that you're in the big leagues.

And he went on to really have a nice career. And I'm actually kind of proud of that because I think, in some way, I think it helped him.
So it wasn't that I was picking on him or anything like that.

I was just trying to teach him a good lesson. You know, I mean, superstars can get away.

Let's face it, whether it's right or wrong, superstars get away with comments that the 25th player can't get away with. That's just as simple as it is.
Might not be right, but that's the way it is.

Well, you also told him that he wasn't allowed to steal another base until you grew a second ass.

No, I told him. I said, if I jump up in the air and never come down, you go.

That's the greatest line ever, Jim. Such a great line.

Jim Leland, champion Marlin. And just the last question, tolerate one more silly question.

How often after a loss will Jim Leland wander over and blow off steam by playing the slots over there in the Detroit casino? Just blow off some steam.

Well, it's not really blowing off steam. It's a lot of times it's, I don't go so much anymore because I moved out of the city.
So I,

you know, I kind of sit around and sometimes watch the late games in my office, and then I just go home. But a lot of times it's a really

peaceful relaxation for me to go over and...

just go somewhere up in a corner over there and sit and you know it's kind of a no-brainer people say geez you you know you're not using any brain power well i don't really want to use brain power at that time i just like to relax and have a cup of coffee or coke and sit there and uh you know mind my own business and you're kind of just relieved of everything and i i really enjoy it but i don't i don't get over there quite as much as i used to but uh i can't tell a lie i've really enjoyed it and it's been kind of a buddy for me uh to be honest with you i know it's probably not the best buddy to have, I guess, at times.

There's some times when I leave, if they rob me, all they get to experience. I ain't got nothing, but that's okay.
You can smoke at the casino. Yes, you can.
There, you're not an outsider.

In some of them, but in Ohio, you can't, but in some of them, you can.

Jim, always good catching up with you. Congratulations on all your success.
We really do miss you down here.

Well, I appreciate you guys having me on. Thank you very, very much.