South Beach Sessions - Boog Sciambi

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[12] Hello and welcome again to South Beach Sessions.

[13] I've got a lot of notes.

[14] I don't need any of them for this man. This man is my best friend in the world.

[15] He knows me like very few people know me. One of the things we're going to try and do around here is let you see more of my relationships with people who really know me and know me in the most intimate of ways.

[16] So I will tell boogsham be in front of everybody.

[17] I've told them all of this privately.

[18] I love you.

[19] I respect and admit.

[20] you profoundly and I am wildly proud of you because you have done with your life what you set out to achieve 30 years ago when you were more anxious about these things.

[21] So Booghambi is with us.

[22] He's the voice of the Cubs and Sunday Night Baseball.

[23] Thank you for being with us.

[24] Love you too, pal.

[25] It's great to see you.

[26] It's funny.

[27] I was just talking about you with some people and I think one of the first things that popped into my head that I said out loud is just I miss you.

[28] So I wish I got a chance to see you a little bit more.

[29] It's good to have you right in front of me. Likewise, I miss you as well.

[30] You have chased your dreams and you have arrived at your dreams.

[31] This, I would imagine, is the happiest you've ever been by leaps and bounds professionally.

[32] Yeah, it's peaceful.

[33] It's nice.

[34] I think that the biggest part of it is there's not really any what's next.

[35] I like this.

[36] I like my day and what's in front of me and try to be, you know, present.

[37] in the day but there's not that hamster wheel of what's next what can i climb what's the next thing that i can do one of the many reasons i admire you though is because of how much growing you have done in this realm of presence with life's wisdoms through many challenges nobody has any earthly idea how hard you had it because you make it look so easy well i appreciate that i think that there's a blessing and a curse in that i think that i mean hell we'll just get right into it and just lay down on the couch uh i think that i work very hard to let everybody think i have everything handled and then there are times when i can get pissed off that everybody thinks i have everything handled but i would say yeah it's taken time and therapy and all that stuff where and just trying to work on myself trying to focus on what's my part in all of these things, and just trying to enjoy the people around me and really move towards the things that bring me peace, like not chasing happiness, but peace, because I think that if I continue to go towards the things that make me peaceful, I'll run into happiness.

[38] Your growth, though, has been because of a pursuit of self -improvement.

[39] I needed a partner to show me all the things that I didn't know.

[40] about where my blind spots were and I couldn't have done it, I don't believe, self -motivated.

[41] I needed to love someone more than I love myself in order to love myself correctly.

[42] One of the many reasons that I'm proud of your growth is because you have been instigating it on your own.

[43] So, and it's funny because I envy the fact that you found a partner that is truly that.

[44] And I think that that's probably the one thing.

[45] It's not a whole for me, but it's definitely of the things.

[46] If there is something that I would like, I would love to find somewhat.

[47] I think that that's probably the one component for me that's left.

[48] And I don't know that I was ready in the way that I needed to be, to be vulnerable while I was, you know, working on the things that I needed to work on.

[49] But yeah, look, I mean, there's a base.

[50] you know mental health component to it definitely dealt with depression in in high school in college and on and off as an adult so it is something that i've you know fought through but uh yeah better and better every day and again i like i said i can sit here and and feel yeah i'm just happy to be sitting across for me to be honest well you say high school though when you and i have had these kinds of conversations for a long time i think that reason that I gravitated toward you is because you were one of the first men that I'd ever met who was very comfortable talking about his vulnerability.

[51] And it goes, I mean, when you talk about depression, I think of some of the stuff deep in your earliest formative years.

[52] Like when you were a kid and your parents were getting divorced, I don't know if you want to go there with any of that.

[53] Yeah, for sure.

[54] I mean, when I was a little kid and I, you know, I stopped talking for I think six, eight months my parents divorced right before I was four.

[55] I obviously figured it out.

[56] And look, it's just one of these things where as a little kid, unfortunately, you're not able to do the thing where you recognize that people are leaving and it has nothing to do with you.

[57] But it's one of those things that you carry with you.

[58] And then yeah, I think it's it was something that in our family ran through through it.

[59] So I, you know, I can just remember in college being sort of the peak of darkness.

[60] I was at a bar.

[61] And I wasn't drunk, but I was having a drink.

[62] And I went outside.

[63] It was like I was in a trance.

[64] And I walked to a pay phone.

[65] And I called my mom.

[66] And I said, you have to get me some help.

[67] And that was, I don't know, my junior year of college.

[68] And that's, that's what I did to, you know, to, I mean, stay afloat to be honest you were a catcher at that point yes or you had stopped your baseball aspiration the baseball component had had ended i went to william and mary for one year to to play as a you know preferred walk on that i transferred to boston college in between i had my rotator cuff operated on i just you know and then mentally i i sort of was coming apart but the world was not deprived of a really good baseball player i will tell you i don't i don't know this about you though i don't know that's the first time i'm hearing the story of uh calling your mom junior year like what was happening then uh yeah it's just it was dark it was moving i just just i mean not playing was hard so i left william and mary i went to bc when i went to bc i got cut and that was hard so it wasn't by my choosing um but i wasn't good enough like did i deserve to get Cut?

[69] Yeah, probably.

[70] Probably.

[71] I mean, I think that there are permutations where it could play out where I would have played for three years at BC.

[72] But I just, I was just in a dark, I was just in a dark place.

[73] I think there is, I think in some ways I, what I would say is I used baseball because I was good at it.

[74] It made me feel good about myself.

[75] And then the Band -Aid got taken away.

[76] And I didn't have any place.

[77] I was kind of one of the ways.

[78] I wouldn't feel my feelings because I'd have success in sports and that was gone.

[79] So I think that that was one of the things that made it that made it challenging.

[80] When you say feel your feelings, you know me well enough to know some of these things.

[81] I'm just realizing some of these stuff, some of these things over the last five years.

[82] I'm someone who speaks my feelings more than feels my feelings.

[83] Like I will articulate what it is that I'm feeling instead of feeling it.

[84] Amen.

[85] That is 100%.

[86] It's probably a reason that you and I can.

[87] connect.

[88] I absolutely echo that.

[89] I'm not good at sitting with my feelings.

[90] I'm really good at eating my feelings.

[91] But just sitting with them is hard.

[92] It's uncomfortable.

[93] It's still, it's a daily thing for me. But same.

[94] I'm able to, and again, thinking and talking about your feelings, that's not feeling your feelings.

[95] And it's, you know, it's a daily, it's a daily reminder.

[96] Oh, but you've gotten some tools, and this is one of the reasons that I admire your growth so much.

[97] I do some of the breath work, some of the meditation.

[98] I have found some healing after my brother's death sort of sitting in the grief.

[99] And it's been interesting.

[100] I don't know if the folks out here know this, but you, me, and my brother lived together for a while in our 20s.

[101] And I regard it as like a super happy time.

[102] this always surprises me when it happens.

[103] The funny thing about this is the pain is always there.

[104] It's never not there.

[105] Yeah.

[106] But it still surprises me when it sneaks up on me. But I regard it as an exceptionally happy time in our 20s when, you know, the world was sprawling out in front of us.

[107] And all three of us were chasing exactly what we wanted professionally.

[108] Yeah.

[109] And there was, I mean, look, you guys are brothers by blood, but there was a comfort level that was.

[110] special.

[111] I think that one of the things that was really neat was how I was able to connect with Dave.

[112] And Dave could not care less about sports.

[113] And I know that over time, the people in your life that you would put in front of him, it would be harder for him to connect with them.

[114] And he and I just kind of were able to hit it off.

[115] He was sort of oblivious to even the things that I did professionally and you did professionally, and we had this amazing connection.

[116] And so there was just, we had a very similar sense of humor.

[117] And yeah, it was a cool time.

[118] It's super rare for my brother to have connected in those places because I was pretty lazy about where my friendships were.

[119] They were the commonalities of work friends and we're all interested in the same things.

[120] And my brother wasn't at all interested in those things.

[121] So many of my friends didn't become his friends because of that but you did yeah and again you know both of you shared in common when your brother definitely liked to play but you both were down for you know deep conversations and sharing and just talking and so uh yeah it was it was easy it was it was it was very judgment free is what i would say your excellence it's easy to hear and see now but I got to see and remember all of the conversations about your levels of anxiety and needing to get to the ballpark six and seven hours earlier when I would be telling you, buddy, you got this.

[122] You've got like a mastery of this game.

[123] You've got a knowledge of this game that's super unusual and the craftsmanship of your position and that you were still always seeking with an anxiety.

[124] You did conquer that.

[125] Somewhere along the line, I don't know how you did or where you did, but you conquered it.

[126] so look a couple of things for as much as you were along with me for the ride there's a part of the play -by -play component that you can't totally understand when you're on the radio and you're trying to execute this thing and describe what you see and paint this picture i mean it can be in the early stages scary because it's a sport that's really slow but it can get fast in a hurry So it didn't get to the best place until I was able to conquer feeling like, you know, someone could land a UFO on the field and I was going to tell people what was happening and not miss a beat.

[127] And then all the other stuff would come out.

[128] But it just, look, it became a thing where it was about feeling prepared and the things that I would do to feel prepared as opposed to actually being prepared because I was.

[129] always prepared.

[130] But I still had the thing where the Marlins are playing the Pirates and Jason Bay is out with a hamstring injury and I go upstairs and I am freaking out because I'm like, oh, is it his left hamstring or his right hamstring?

[131] And I needed somebody to come down and be like, it's Marlins radio.

[132] They don't give a fuck whether his hamstring is right or left or even if it's his hamstring.

[133] Oh, but that's why your standard is what your standard is.

[134] Like I've told you before when you get frustrated by the amount of incompetence that surrounds our business, if everyone cared the way you did, then everyone would be you.

[135] You wouldn't get to be the special person because you care about being seven hours overprepared for something that you're clearly prepared for.

[136] Yeah.

[137] I mean, it was also painful, and I would say I've also let go.

[138] of some of it and I'm able to make mistakes and give myself grace and understand that I just am not capable of throwing a perfect game.

[139] It's just too much.

[140] I can't speak for three hours and just nail every single thing.

[141] It's just, it's really hard.

[142] Where and how did you get good or better at giving yourself grace?

[143] Hmm.

[144] Um, it's a hard one.

[145] It's, it's hard to, I know, I know how hard you are on yourself.

[146] I'm similarly hard on myself.

[147] It is the thing in therapy that I'm always trying to unlock.

[148] How can I be a little more gentle with myself?

[149] How can I remember in moments that I'm not being gentle with myself to be forgiving with myself?

[150] I mean, look, therapy is certainly part of it.

[151] I mean, there's plenty of reading that I've done.

[152] I've worked with a guy on and off as, you know, know, for about 10 years, you know, who we work and do meditative stuff, but also reflect on things along those lines.

[153] The hard part is, you know, when you talk about anger and resentment, in today's world in my life, the biggest factor for anger and resentment that I'm concerned with is that it makes me feel crappy.

[154] So for as much as you sit there and talk about, this person's doing this to me and making me feel that, no, I'm choosing to feel the way I'm choosing to feel, and I don't want to feel bad.

[155] So the one issue that's really hard because of how hardwired I am is I want to own my part in the bad stuff that I'm doing.

[156] But I am there's an element of it, you know, there's a joke they're talking about, you know, you're, that I'm the piece of shit at the center of the universe, you know what I mean?

[157] Like, so I, there is, there's an aspect of it where I want to own my part, but I'm also wired to be like, oh, you own your part.

[158] It's all your fault.

[159] So you got to find that middle space.

[160] I will say this.

[161] There's another, there's another basic and I'm curious where you are on this.

[162] man i can remember growing up and just resisting people who were older and you could tell they had a tone about being wiser and i'm older and i'm wiser man i just experience life what matters what doesn't matter what are the things that really factor into my peace my happiness so you learn it's it's i mean age is part of the answer is just age is age and how my sort of brain works and also i need to stop feeling bad right i need some tools to like why am i going to keep choosing to feel bad when i've arrived at my professional dreams and i've made all of these choices that has resulted in things that should make me happy no question but it's also you you know and then you also become aware of man and this is for plenty of people, if you could rewind, you've probably hit the dot, dot, dot, when I get there, this will make me happy 18 times in your life already.

[163] You know what I mean?

[164] And so it's not, it's, you know, the cliches, it's the journey because it's not going to be when you get there.

[165] Like I said, I would love to find a partner and someone to really connect with.

[166] But I also remind myself, it's not, and that's going to fix something or fill a hole.

[167] It's, no, I'd like to share my life with someone.

[168] A lot has changed over the years.

[169] Chris Cody is an EP now.

[170] Chris Whittingham is off being a star.

[171] The Boston Celtics are world champions again.

[172] So what is the best thing about the original light beer?

[173] Miller Light sparked this debate in 1975 and we still.

[174] haven't settled it.

[175] Man, I love every single thing about Miller Light.

[176] It's just a vibe.

[177] Every time you get one, you watch the game, you just kick it with your homeboys, toss me a Miller.

[178] You don't have to choose what's best.

[179] Miller Light has great taste and it's less feeling.

[180] Taste like Miller Time.

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[184] When you say you have someone for 10 years who has helped you with this, it's not a traditional therapist, right?

[185] No, no. It's, yeah, it's my buddy Danny, and he's, he's, I mean, it's basically, you know, comes from English football background, and he, um, he, um, he, um, he, um, he, um, he, um, he, um, he, um, he, uh yeah we started basically just doing mindfulness and meditation over Skype and then you know he would be in the states and we do work together but that's the focus of it and then we discuss certain things and it's it's got a little more of you know it's got a little more of you know you remember Harvey Dorfman Harvey Dorfman is uh one of the first sports psychologists that teams hired he's with the A's but But he was with the original Marlins, and he's written probably the most famous sports psychology book, the mental ABCs of baseball and the mental ABCs of pitching.

[186] I mean, if you go into every major league clubhouse right now, somebody has that in hard copy or on a Kindle in every single clubhouse.

[187] Corbyn Burns reads it before all of his starts.

[188] Kyle Hendricks, like they all, it's incredible.

[189] But Harvey, his thing, what's different than standard therapy is, Harv, this is happening.

[190] Okay, what are we going to do?

[191] What are we doing?

[192] And, you know, that's not just, I think that it leads me to one other point, and that would be, for his greatest therapy has been, I have to say that I think that for a long time I was confused into thinking, that I would think my way into right acting and it's not that you got to act your way into right thinking that one's interesting right because I've learned later in life what pollutant the mind is I have always trusted my mind implicitly thinking that I had control of my mind without realizing that it was controlling me and I had a certain absence of control over everything I was doing yep when I was allowing it to control me it's a poison to be led by your mind instead of your heart oh I mean And again, for me, it is daily.

[193] It's daily in terms of, I will catch myself saying something to myself.

[194] And it just stop for a second.

[195] Being cruel, being cruel.

[196] Yeah.

[197] Well, when you say it's part of your hardwiring, do we have to go a lot further than not speaking for eight months after your parents get divorced to find the roots of you're not good enough?

[198] Yeah.

[199] I mean, there's, yeah, look, there's other stuff for sure.

[200] but it's just, yeah, at times you get to feel like you're just sort of floating out there, right?

[201] I mean, at least I should say, not right.

[202] Yeah, that's how I feel at times like you're just floating out there alone a little bit.

[203] How often do you feel excellent, though, because you're obviously excellent at what you do?

[204] You are, by consensus, excellent at what you do.

[205] How often do you feel it?

[206] I'm not sure.

[207] I will say, I will tell you this.

[208] Calling the World Series last year on the radio nationally for the first time was really neat.

[209] And I was excited about it, and I left feeling like I did a really good job.

[210] And I was, it was something that I always wanted to do, and I got a chance to execute that thing.

[211] And I was, yeah, I was proud of myself.

[212] And I'll also say, look, it's, you know, there's, you want the validation to come from inside because when you're looking for the external stuff.

[213] But that said, you know, the only guys, they've only been calling it since 1979, I think.

[214] And it was, you know, Venn and Jack Buck and then John Miller and Dan Shulman.

[215] And so, and after the World Series, I got a call from John Miller, who just, just to tell me, that he listened and he thought I did a good job and that I was like floating.

[216] So I think that the bigger thing is we're here together because of the, you know, the Marlins and the Cubs are playing and that will be a raucous situation over there at Lone Depot.

[217] And but I think that the bigger thing is this.

[218] I still look forward to it.

[219] I'm going to sit down in that seat and just I'll take the moment to breathe into it.

[220] and my first thought will be yeah this would be fun it's nice to carry around that gratitude it's also pretty cool to see how your life has become about this world your friendships your connections how much you missed it during the pandemic because it didn't have the humanity that it has daily and you sort of were hit in the face with the loneliness of i'm broadcasting from a closet it, I miss my interaction.

[221] Absolutely.

[222] So, I mean, again, everybody, my cousin is in a band.

[223] You guys have actually used some of his music.

[224] My cousin Patrick Wolf.

[225] He was high school classmates with Pablo Torrey.

[226] Shout out Regis High School, always.

[227] Run on the world.

[228] Anyway, sorry.

[229] Don't, don't say it.

[230] You've been annoying about that since you left Regis High School.

[231] Anyway, but he's in a band.

[232] It's called Goodnight, Texas.

[233] and we have these conversations over the years, but the idea is, how do you get your yayas?

[234] Like, how do you get your yayas out of this?

[235] And to me, I think I'm a little bit different.

[236] When you look at play by play, especially in today's short attention span, highlight mode, it's like, how did you call the big play?

[237] And yeah, I like that.

[238] But calling a cool diving play by the second baseman or just a basic flow of a story and weaving that in, man, I like that stuff.

[239] And the connection to seeing people is a huge part of it, as you alluded to.

[240] So there's friendships and people that I've known for the longest time.

[241] That's what nourishes me. So I can't just sit there in a broom closet.

[242] You know, we called those games, those Korean baseball games in the morning.

[243] that was like the Twilight Zone, man. And it was also super hard.

[244] It was like, it was, I mean, it was basically it was like log rolling and juggling chainsaws, you know?

[245] A bunch of players.

[246] You're calling, you're calling Korean baseball games because cable television has to satisfy.

[247] Yes.

[248] It's live programming.

[249] And you don't know the players, the teams.

[250] You can't talk to anybody.

[251] You don't have any information except just, you know, slight research.

[252] And we're calling it off of.

[253] of a monitor.

[254] It's not, we don't control the, you know, so tonight, I'm going to say to the director, hey, give me a shot of Ian Hap and talk back, and then he'll show Ian Hap, and then he'll talk about Ian Hap.

[255] This was just we're being led around by the nose, and it's like, and there's that guy.

[256] And the other thing that happened about three times, and you're going to think this is a joke, but this is true.

[257] So the games were either at 4 .30 in the morning.

[258] Where are you?

[259] You're in a closet?

[260] You're in Bristol, Connecticut?

[261] No. No, no, no, no. I'm in my apartment in New York City in the heart of COVID.

[262] And I'm getting ready.

[263] I wake up at three in the morning for a. 5 a .m. game.

[264] No one's listening to or watching this.

[265] You could say anything and no one would know.

[266] Yeah.

[267] I mean, there's there are some highlight calls where I'm in the middle of something and all of the sudden.

[268] Do that just go out?

[269] Is that, was that, I think that's, oh, that's a home run.

[270] I mean, literally, that's what it was like.

[271] There's, there's some real magic.

[272] Anyway, but this is true.

[273] And this happened to all of us, but because I was, you know, in the first iteration of, you know, KBO legendary broadcasters, the games at 5 a .m. I got a call at 4 .45 a .m. Hey, what's up, boo?

[274] I know you guys were going to do the Hanwa NC Dino's game, but it got rained out.

[275] And so you're going to do the Lote Giants and the KT whiz in 15 minutes.

[276] And I'm like, yeah, that's funny.

[277] No, so what are we doing?

[278] No, you're going to call the Lote Giants and the KT.

[279] Whiz in 15 minutes.

[280] Seriously?

[281] I mean, like, yeah.

[282] Is it the second baseman's right hamstring or his left hamstring that's injured?

[283] Well, but so you ask me, how do you let go?

[284] You get putting spots like that.

[285] I mean, your head, you are going to spontaneously combust if in that spot 15 minutes to air, they're telling you your game got rained out.

[286] And I don't have lineups or have any idea who are on the teams.

[287] It's hard to be a perfectionist striving for excellence under those particular conditions.

[288] As I said, log rolling, juggling chainsaws.

[289] What do you regard as the happiest you've been calling baseball?

[290] Is it right now?

[291] Is it because of, I mean, you've got a town that cares about its sport.

[292] You have the admiration and support of the organization.

[293] You have genuine friendships inside of the organization.

[294] I can't imagine that there would be a lot that would feel better than where you presently are.

[295] Yeah, that's great.

[296] I would say this is, this is it.

[297] I love it.

[298] I love just the energy of the place.

[299] It's a special job.

[300] It matters, you know.

[301] The baseball matters there.

[302] And it's cool.

[303] and it's still something that's important to me. Well, explain to people why and how you love baseball the way that you do, because it's uncommon the way that you love this thing and love continually learning about this thing.

[304] Yeah, I think that that's what continued my connection to it.

[305] I mean, we used to get into arguments all the time, and I brainwashed you some years ago when you would talk about.

[306] El Duque was clutch.

[307] I know.

[308] He was clutch.

[309] He was clutch.

[310] Every time in a big game, he would be clutch.

[311] Every time it happened all the time.

[312] Back in the day, he would be, he would have conversations with Billy Bean like right after Moneyball.

[313] And Billy Bean would be like, man, Lebitard really gets it.

[314] And I would be like, no, he doesn't.

[315] I told him.

[316] You would.

[317] You would tell me all the stuff.

[318] I read Moneyball myself, but you've known, I've told you this before.

[319] I believe you could be the general manager.

[320] a manager of a baseball team i do no shot no shot i i mean the the the level of aptitude that these guys have now is this beyond and but i i mean i appreciate it but it's look i i loved as a kid just the basic nature of the sport playing it both sides of my family liked it dad's side was philly's fans mom side yankee fans um you know told the story a million times my grandparents went away on a cruise i was six and i didn't understand what a cruise was and when my grandfather sat there, you know, we're going to eat, we're going to gamble, we're going to dance, we're going to play shuffleboard.

[321] And at the end of it, I looked at him and my only question was, how do you get the box scores?

[322] And he said, you don't.

[323] And I said, I am never going on a cruise.

[324] And editors, no, never been on a cruise.

[325] Not because of that, by the way, but I just haven't.

[326] So I just loved it.

[327] And then it was the sport I wanted to call.

[328] It was the one sport I didn't call in college.

[329] So as I mentioned, I go into the Marlins It's, you know, empty broadcast booth or a booth that was empty and call it into a tape recorder and then, you know, gave the tape to Dave O 'Brien and then, you know, your buddy, Jim Favola.

[330] And then I went to Boise, Idaho and, you know, off we went.

[331] But it's, and then I think as it went on, yeah, the, the, the, the, the, the sabermetric stuff, the guys like Rob Nyer and Bill James interested me and I got a chance to learn and understand and know more and more about the.

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[345] I knew baseball.

[346] I was reading Bill James' baseball abstract with my grandfather when I was in my teens.

[347] But the level of aptitude that you had for this sport blew me away because you were learning from all of these different vantage points, and you're very good at accessing information and combining it, and you're just an extraordinarily discerning person.

[348] I liked getting a chance to learn all of the nerd type stuff and then go to the baseball people that had the eye to see things that I couldn't see, and then you'd kind of come and form some of your own opinions.

[349] and that to me was and is still so interesting when people give you data and then that I have the access to the baseball people on the field in the front office on multiple teams that are sitting there saying okay but here's something you may not be thinking about and it's just yeah you're just trying to be smarter but you're always forever curious too that's right like you the fact that you have been at this now what are we looking at 30 years Boise Idaho was when how old were you so 96 tell me about that experience the minor leagues.

[350] You didn't have a long time in the minor leagues.

[351] No, I did.

[352] I did a short season A, but I landed in Boise, Idaho, and I was waiting, and I was like, what did I do?

[353] Left Miami for it.

[354] Yeah.

[355] And I did it for a half season.

[356] So, I mean, short season A is, what, 75 games?

[357] And I came back.

[358] The year prior, or that year, I had been, I was doing talk radio here in Miami, and I was also the Panthers, pre -intermission and post -game host on the radio, and I would travel with them.

[359] And so, and then I would do my talk show on the road with Chris Moore.

[360] And so the Panthers, Wayne Hizenga also owned the Marlins, and I basically connected with the guy that did the hiring, and the next year, they changed up the way the Marlins were formatting their TV and radio broadcast, and the fourth broadcaster was going to be a pre -game, in -game scores, post -game guy, interviews, and eventually it led to play by play.

[361] But what was the Boise experience like?

[362] It was overwhelming.

[363] The reason I asked the question is you're in your early 20s, you're on a career path that you could have been doing sports radio for a really long time, and had that be a successful career and you aggressively chose something that was both culture shock and I imagine financial shock and all other kinds of shock.

[364] Yeah, there was financial shock.

[365] Holy cow.

[366] I wasn't good enough and it was just too fast for me. I mean, I've worked with a guy named Rob Simpson who's continued to work in hockey.

[367] If you called Rob up now, you would say, yeah, he wasn't that good?

[368] Like, it just, it was a lot.

[369] I just didn't, I didn't know how to do it.

[370] And I, it took time to learn how to do it.

[371] Was it a hard decision, though, to make the decision you made?

[372] You were, I remember the bravery in it, right?

[373] Because I thought, well, he's established.

[374] He's on the correct path, but he's choosing something that matters more to him.

[375] Is also more difficult, but it's something that he will like more than what he's presently doing and take more pride in being excellent.

[376] it did not feel like a hard decision it felt like just go jump at the deep end of the pool i mean my job before coming down and working at q a m through a friend of a friend of a friend i went and worked at a radio station in bradford pennsylvania wesb and i went there because at 22 years old i was going to have a chance to be on the air like that's one of the things that's changed is that you know the mechanism for people the avenues for people to be on the air now it's infinite back then it was harder to actually get up so i did news i did sports i bored up the pirates games i covered you know school meetings all that type stuff um i also was the midnight to eight donut maker for one night at a top supermarket which is awesome just one night one night and it was literally like splattering grease and like with the chopsticks and it you know five in the morning, I'm like, I could do this for a month, and I'll just put the money away by six.

[377] I was like, two weeks, it's money.

[378] At seven, I was like, okay, so one week and I'll just, you know, come in and I'll get the check.

[379] And I, 8 a .m. I was like, I'm never coming back here again.

[380] And I never went back.

[381] And I'll date myself, but the joke is worth it for the people that get it.

[382] I had told friends, because I needed to supplement my income, because I went there to do all that stuff on the radio for minimum wage.

[383] That's what they paid.

[384] They paid minimum wage.

[385] And I told all my friends that I was doing this.

[386] And so I had an answering machine, kids ask your friends or your dad, whatever.

[387] And they would leave me a message for probably 10 straight days at 1140 at night.

[388] And it would, so I'd be asleep.

[389] They didn't know I quit.

[390] And the message would simply be, shambi, shambi, time to make the donuts.

[391] They forgot you only did it for one.

[392] I didn't tell them.

[393] No, I didn't tell him.

[394] I quit.

[395] I didn't tell them.

[396] My bet.

[397] When you say that John Miller called you after you did a game, what are some of the other compliments you have gotten from baseball royalty that are moving to you that make you feel like you belong in the pantheon of the best to ever do it in our most historic sport?

[398] Well, I don't think I feel that.

[399] I just, like, something like that just felt as sort of surreal that, that he was reaching out like that.

[400] I don't, I guess I'm not, I'm probably not comfortable to say in that spot.

[401] What are you not comfortable about?

[402] I mean, in terms of, like, comp, I'm trying to think of a compliment.

[403] I'm just talking about people who have, look, man, there are people you've admired.

[404] There's, there's a craftsmanship to what you do.

[405] For those who don't maybe know the detail that goes into.

[406] a three and a half hour broadcast, which is what you used to be doing before baseball sped everything up, but a four -hour broadcast where you have to have this tapestry of knowledge.

[407] And you start with a mess and then you follow the game and make sure to fill all of that time in a way that's measured correctly, paste correctly, has enough interesting in it.

[408] It's a nightly work of art that, as you say, you never leave feeling like it was perfect.

[409] to have John Miller, who is someone whose style you've admired for a long time, who has a grace about what he does, to have that person call you after a thing that you've dreamed about for as long as I've known you.

[410] I know your heart's been broken in a couple of occasions where you thought you were going to call World Series games and you didn't get the chance to call World Series games.

[411] To have all of that happen, you are now guilty of articulating an inability to feel feelings.

[412] So, sorry, I mean, the one other specific one that I can tell you was, I remember, I walked into Fenway Park, I'm going to say it's 2017, and I walked past Bob Costas, and he was standing there with a couple of people, and he kind of turned his, and I know him at that point, but he kind of turned his head, and he saw me, and he almost ran to me, and he said, John, I just want to tell you I was listening the other night and it was just incredible like listening on the radio and um yeah that's pretty pretty amazing for him to go out of his way to to say that was really uh yeah it meant a lot oberman too who has an appreciation for some of uh broadcasting's finer qualities uh oberman is an enormous baseball fan huge baseball fan yeah big time but for to have these people tell you that you're great at what you do, surely you must then know that you belong among the people who are great at what they do.

[413] I get, yeah, I mean, again, I think that I'm, yeah, there's no, I think that I'm trying to just find the, the piece of it inside of me. I guess I, yes, it feels nice.

[414] I don't, I try not to, I don't want to focus on that stuff too much because I think in, in everyday life when you're when you need the validation of other people or you need you know another one back to you know our original stuff about you know just therapy and peace in your mind when you need other people to get your perspective like you give your power away and it's really dangerous when you need that and i have that i want to articulate my last point you know when i did standard sports talk radio i wanted to convince people i really did And I wore it emotionally at times in a way, you know, when they, they wouldn't be convinced.

[415] So, and I think that letting go of needing someone to, you know, the one thing that I've been lucky about is, I'll say this.

[416] I think I feel like this is probably more what you're looking for.

[417] And that is, look, man, I don't love my body.

[418] I, you know, struggle with a lot of different things in the workspace, when I leave a broadcast and I think I had a really good broadcast, I don't need it to be told to me from anyone.

[419] And if 200 straight people came up to me and said, that stunk more often than not in my heart, I'm like, nope.

[420] That's how I feel about writing when I've done.

[421] done it correctly, that it doesn't matter.

[422] It's why it's the most fulfilling thing to me professionally, writing well, because to know that when I've met my standard, if it's not unimpeachable, at least I have the piece of knowing there's nothing you can say to me. I know this was good.

[423] But you suffered it.

[424] You suffered it.

[425] Well, that's the only way it would get like that, though.

[426] Like, it's not, you have to, I mean, maybe all of this stuff comes, have you, have you met a broadcaster?

[427] Have you met a baseball broadcaster who makes it look easy?

[428] And it was actually easy for them, that they just get in front of the microphone, and they didn't have to do all the 30 years of craftsmanship that you had to do.

[429] Yeah, but I, I mean, but there's a pain that I inflicted on myself.

[430] I can't sit here and tell you that guys like John Miller or Joe Buck, like, suffer it.

[431] You know, I mean, I can remember, um, I can remember you having the conversation and they're, you know, different guys are different.

[432] You've asked Posnansky, uh, about, He loves writing.

[433] He loves writing.

[434] And then I'm blanking, is it Gary Jones?

[435] Who's the guy?

[436] Gary Smith?

[437] Gary Smith, who's, you know, probably, probably the best takeout sports writer, takeout, like, long -form storyteller, I don't know, the last 40 years?

[438] Wouldn't start writing until he had talked to at least 50 people.

[439] But he didn't suffer it.

[440] He didn't, I mean, I, you know, I've listened to you.

[441] You asked him.

[442] He didn't suffer it.

[443] did not suffer it uh there are very few i have met who do not suffer it many say the same thing hemingway says which is uh it's as easy as cutting your wrists right but i do envy the ones who don't have to suffer it because i've always tied it to my process it's why i've not been able to write a book the idea of it is too daunting to me to sit down and choose suffering at this point in my life but if it's the most fulfilling thing can i possibly have it without the suffering yeah no i'm with you i don't want you to write a book either because that means i'm to get phone calls at three in the morning and I'm going to be proofreading again.

[444] That's right.

[445] Those were the glory days.

[446] One of the few ever trusted with the ability to proofread.

[447] It still stings me that you didn't like that Edron James cover story that I wrote for ESP in the magazine.

[448] Still hurts in the places where I'm vulnerable.

[449] You just didn't get it.

[450] I'm sorry.

[451] No, you're not.

[452] You enjoy holding that over me. Can you tell us a little bit, though, about where it is that you thought.

[453] the path was most difficult for you professionally?

[454] Again, I think in the early stages, I really thought to myself, I'm not good enough, and I don't know how good I can get at this.

[455] So I think that there was that.

[456] And now I'm talking about being a baseball radio guy.

[457] I just didn't, it didn't come as naturally, you know?

[458] So, you know, you focus on the knowledge, et cetera, but when a. the play is happening in front of you.

[459] There's different, you know, there are different things and there's timing and there's flow and all the knowledge in the world and the ability to tell the story if the timing and the flow isn't on point.

[460] And if you're not describing what you see in a really good way, then, you know, the rest of it's kind of moot.

[461] So I, yeah, it was just, I wish I could tell you when it started to feel like I got this.

[462] It did happen.

[463] and you've lived there for a while as far as as as far as i can tell it's been i feel like since you left the marlins you don't necessarily suffer the over preparation stuff and that was how many years ago yeah my last year at the marlins was 2004 so yeah i sometime after that sometime after that but i think yeah it just it took a while and it i tell you the other thing is uh mike ryan and i were talking earlier about just kind of the you know about you and I possibly doing a show together back in the day and you know that I was chasing my you know my dream my passion to do play by play but one of the things is that I got more comfortable later in my career just doing me so that you know I always talk about like to young guys what's hard is you just you've got to get comfortable with the mechanics, but what you're trying to do is take what you're like on the air and take what you're like off the air and you want them to be as much the same thing as possible, that you're willing to make the jokes and say the off -cuff thing that you think isn't supposed to be the domain of play by play.

[464] And so, like, I didn't think, like, I felt like I got better when I turned 40 because I got just a little more comfortable with who I was on the air.

[465] And that you're really getting me. And so I do think that one of the components of the connection to baseball and baseball fans is every day.

[466] But I do think the way people react to me is in part about that I'm able to bring authentic me to the air.

[467] And so they feel like they know me. I remember you and I sort of talking about you mentioned the Mike Ryan component before Stugat and before Greg Cody.

[468] I thought that it was going to be you and I doing what would have been the best sports radio show in America or we would have killed each other.

[469] I don't know which way that would have gone because I think it would have been a. I think we would have had great chemistry and I think it would have been unusual to talk about sports the way that you and I were talking about sports in our 20s.

[470] And I really think with the reps of that, we would have gotten very good at this.

[471] Yes, I think back to what I was just talking about, I think I would probably have been more ready to do it and it thrived probably 10 years later because.

[472] I still think that one of the issues that you and I would have had is that we talked so much and we shared a very similar perspective and we shaped one another's ideas in some regard.

[473] There are times when the cadence of how we deliver stuff is similar still.

[474] And I just think that when you're talking about back in the day sports talk radio, there still was again my passion and my focus was on play by play there was still though so much i think at that time where you would have made a point and i would have sat there and said yeah because i just i think that i just remember us arguing so much that and and i'd be stubborn so i wouldn't come around to your viewpoint until years later and sometimes not even then because el ducay was clutch he was clutching the postseason i kept seeing it again and again and he was Cuban.

[475] He was so Cuban and I love that he would just throw those crappy crouton pitches up there 89 miles.

[476] Eighty -nine miles an hour and he would get everybody out in the postseason.

[477] I know.

[478] I know.

[479] We spent so much time arguing about stuff.

[480] Like, yes, we'd arrive at shaped opinions.

[481] By the time we started examining that we weren't arguing a ton.

[482] By the time we were examining doing a show, I'm saying.

[483] There wasn't, we were, we were, the same page.

[484] I'm going to correct you on this because I remember being in the Waxy Studio one time, and I just think a lot of this would have made, a lot of humanity would have made an appearance in what it is that we were doing.

[485] I don't remember the specifics of the argument.

[486] Perhaps you will.

[487] It wasn't even about sports.

[488] You were saying there's something that I do that I am not good with anger, and Lord knows, God Almighty, I've learned this probably in the last five years.

[489] I didn't even realize the way that I was pushing down anger.

[490] That my discomfort with anger was such that I wouldn't even acknowledge that it was present.

[491] And when it would make an appearance, it would jostle me. But when you would bear your fangs at me, it would frighten me. And you would say that I would passive aggressively get you to that point and then take no responsibility for it.

[492] That was the source of the argument.

[493] That was that what?

[494] What did I do?

[495] Yes.

[496] What did I do?

[497] What did I do?

[498] What?

[499] I don't, huh?

[500] Who, me?

[501] Hmm?

[502] I mean, if we parade, let me tell you.

[503] something if we paraded every single person that is behind these doors in here and i gave them that scenario they would all be like oh yeah i know that dude what did i do so tell tell the people about this because this is a place where i've lacked some self -awareness over the years you're uniquely qualified to give people all of the all of the stuff they want on all the places where i have blind spots yeah i think i mean it's it's it's an element of where you would sort of push it would there's definitely a passive aggressiveness to it and then when you would get the reaction you would be surprised at the reaction and the focus would probably be a bit more on the reaction than on what we had just been discussing so it became about the reaction to the behavior and you'd be like I don't know what are you talking about you so mad yeah why would you get so mad about that what's the matter with you Right.

[504] What's the matter with you?

[505] Yeah.

[506] No, I understand what you're trying to do.

[507] You know both of my parents.

[508] You know my family.

[509] Yes.

[510] What would be your assessment of our family dynamic because you realize that nobody was telling me throughout my life because I grew up with so many Cuban kids that my whole family dynamic was weird.

[511] Nobody was telling me that.

[512] Yeah, I was telling you that.

[513] And I love your family.

[514] um i mean you know you're it's funny because i mean for for the fame that poppy has gotten he'll always be gone so to me you know so like it's it's a you know just having known him for so long and i still yeah just i still can remember like we're sitting on the couch and watching some terrible don johnson movie and he was like what was that show he was on the he's the police officer and like I don't what's this shit you know we're guessing Miami Vice Miami Vice no vanilla Smith that's right and it's like one 1 1 ,000 to 1 ,000 you're talking about Nash Bridges gonzo yeah vanilla Smith close enough close enough you uh I've never asked you what you made of my father the idea that my that gonzo the gonzo you know It spent eight years as part of ESPN's daily lineup of shows has to be one of the greatest miracles in the history of sports entertainment in his second language knowing very little about sports.

[515] And it would be one of these things where you get into an argument with him every once in a while.

[516] He'd always be upset about the dolphins.

[517] He'd always have something negative to say about Marino.

[518] And then when you would box him in or pin him down and win the argument, he would look at you and just go, I don't know.

[519] Well, I don't know about that.

[520] It's an argument.

[521] I don't know about that.

[522] And then it's just like all of a sudden the mic drops and you're sitting there and you're like, wait, what do you mean?

[523] I just gave me a bunch of facts.

[524] There were a bunch of facts.

[525] One of my favorite dad stories, I think you know this one is my father looking up from a newspaper.

[526] He's reading about Ted Kaczynski.

[527] Okay.

[528] He's reading.

[529] And he gets.

[530] to like the 17th paragraph he's inside of the the newspaper and he just looks at me from over the newspaper after reading the 17th paragraph which is that the the Ted Kaczynski fertilized his own lawn with his own feces and he looks up at me and he says Danny this unabomber so weird guy yeah dad he was mailing bombs it's not going to he fertilized his lawn, but it had to be weird to you to just see all of that because you had, I just, I still remember the conversation.

[531] And I don't know how deeply you want to go in here with our, with our parents aging.

[532] But I still remember I had to be in my late 20s, early 30s.

[533] Really doing this one.

[534] Yeah.

[535] Yeah.

[536] And, and my, the Olympics.

[537] Uh, no, I wasn't doing, you can do the Olympics one next.

[538] I'm doing my father insisting after picking me up from the airport on physically bringing my bags into the house and you're like why would you let him do that just do it for yourself and i'm like makes him feel needed he associates need with love and it's a nice thing to let him do it's not because i need him to carry my bags it's because he feels like a dad my father associates whether it's the pets or anything like my father associates that with love if you need him then that's the way that love gets expressed yeah um man you just pushed a button i i would say one of the things for me that it's not it's not in every space but in spaces where i don't feel loved and i want love i have a tendency to overgive and because i'm unsure of yeah i'm unsure whether i'm safe so like even now i can participate in relationships where i give too much and and It's probably a little bit of, like, people pleaser, and I'm sure there's a segment of the population that knows me that's like, you're a people pleaser, kind of a jackass.

[539] You know what I mean?

[540] Like, I don't, I mean, I'm not, I'm not always, yeah, I'm not always gentle.

[541] But that one, that one pushes a button for me just because, like, yeah, you were able to see that that made him feel good.

[542] And I struggled with it because I was always advocating for, you know, realness.

[543] You know what I'm saying?

[544] like that I wanted it to be you know have a conversation and yeah and people are limited well you'd have conversations about your own father though right some of the stuff you've you've come to grips I don't know you've come to grips with everything that that was because obviously when when you you said it sort of flippantly and you've said it several times over the course of knowing you I stopped speaking for six to eight months is a four -year -old when my parents got divorced like to me that would be a seismic life event that sort of shapes someone from the start and affects their hardwiring yeah and you're you know and you're and then it's just you and your mom and again there's plenty of people that had the same thing happen and they don't react that way and I think about that sometimes too so um look it's it's it's one of those things that I think that as you you I mean for me doing work on it and you look to kind of unhook yourself from those things as being unchangeable and again for me it's daily practice of you know some prayer some meditation and trying to and trying to be kind to myself and to others prayer huh yeah I didn't know that when did that make an appearance Hmm.

[545] Probably five years ago, six years ago.

[546] Is there a life event involved with that?

[547] Not really.

[548] I would just, I think, I don't have a, you know, a depth of, like, faith to give you on that one.

[549] I'm just surprised to hear you say it at all.

[550] Like, I think of all of these things is sort of intertwined, right?

[551] Yeah, yeah.

[552] That the spirituality of being one with your breath and the universe, and at peace with yourself and self -love that there's God in there.

[553] So what I would tell you is, I think I had a long stretch.

[554] It goes back to like sports talk.

[555] You know, I definitely had more of needing to be right than you did.

[556] And I think that just sort of letting go with some of that.

[557] And I think that it probably in some part eventually opened it up towards, I don't know, some type of connection in that.

[558] but just the openness of yeah i don't know yeah not sure well i feel this since my brother died uh i i feel i feel i feel right something and i don't think it's hope i don't think it's just my mind concocting something because i want to keep the love alive or keep the memory of him alive like i feel something that feels unknown and i don't think i'm inventing it yeah i get you and in the end and that's good enough you know what I'm saying like I think that that old me and for a long time needed to investigate and try to figure out and um have concrete answers correct the Olympic story I don't know which one you're talking about oh just the you know basically we were we were the Olympics and have you ever told the the uh Jeff Miller and you being a Japanese movie star?

[559] I don't know if I've told that story before.

[560] I think I have.

[561] I may have told the story before, but let's see what your recollection of it is.

[562] I was embarrassed and betrayed by my friend Jeff Miller, a stoic, passive type who is not inclined to this kind of behavior.

[563] I was in a media center.

[564] You were exhausted.

[565] It was very crowded, I laid down on a desk in a corner of the place and I just told Jeff Miller please keep an eye on things here.

[566] There's a lot of media here.

[567] Don't let me get embarrassed.

[568] I'm just going to sleep for 10 minutes.

[569] And then when I opened a single eye, there was a Japanese film crew right over me, filming me as Jeff Miller laughed in a corner.

[570] And we concocted a scenario where I'm huge in Japan as the sleeping journalist because everybody knows that I fall asleep in professional setting.

[571] That's right.

[572] what does that have to do with my father it was it was the you you likened it to we were talking about the interaction and you likened we were at salt lake city you likened it to giving him a lollipop um and i was like no um and i think yeah i think that that that again i you know it's just holding on to an idea of what you want something to be i mean again i think that it's one of these deals where and I still struggle with you know you want people to be a certain thing and you if you keep being disappointed by you know an expectation that you're setting then it's kind on you do you know the story of Jeff Miller staying at my father's house I do you know like yeah just this this is one of my favorites yeah you woke up to Gonzo well I don't want to how do I tell this story I'll tell it with you you so jeff miller needs a place to stay for some reason he can't stay at my house i say but my parents have an extra room and my brother's sense of humor is like all you got to do jeff it's okay they'll treat you well they'll feed you and everything but at some point in the evening my dad's going to try and come in the room and fuck you like he's going to try and do that and you just got to be okay with it and just lay still and that's what's going to happen and so uh at six o 'clock in the morning uh jeff miller opens a single eye the way that i did in that mean media center and sees my father coming for what looks like his head because at some point the dog has jumped in with Jeff Miller and slept and my father was going to take the dog to work but Jeff Miller's dad's reaching for him six a .m. My father's coming in for what looks like an aggressive kiss.

[573] Sure.

[574] But that's the way my brother was.

[575] You know the Adam Silver story with Libo, right?

[576] The night we're having dinner with Adam Silver and a bunch of important people.

[577] and my brother doesn't know anything about sports and I just see across the table that he's shouting.

[578] My brother's shouting at Adam, Adam Silver.

[579] What?

[580] Guy can't tell a couple of dick jokes!

[581] Not appropriate.

[582] No. I miss him so much.

[583] I miss you too, buddy.

[584] Back at you.

[585] Love you too.

[586] Love you too.

[587] Great catching up with you.

[588] Thank you for making the time.

[589] Thank you.

[590] A lot has changed over the years.

[591] Chris Cody is an EP now.

[592] Chris Whittingham is of being a star.

[593] The Boston Celtics are world champions again.

[594] So what is the best thing about the original light beer?

[595] Miller Light sparked this debate in 1975 and we still haven't settled it.

[596] Man, I love every single thing about Miller Light.

[597] It's just a vibe.

[598] Every time you get one, you watch the game, you just kick it with your homeboys, toss Mia Miller.

[599] You don't have to choose what's best.

[600] Miller Light has great taste and it's less feeling.

[601] Taste like Miller Time.

[602] To get Miller Light, delivered right to your door, visit millerlight .com slash beach.

[603] Or you can find it pretty much anywhere that sells beer.

[604] Celebrate responsibly Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories per 12 ounces, fewer calories and carbs than premium regular beer.