This Past Weekend - E481 Trevor Bauer
Episode Date: February 6, 2024Trevor Bauer is a professional baseball player who spent 10 years as a pitcher in the MLB, playing for the Diamondbacks, Indians, Reds and Dodgers. In 2020 he won the Cy Young Award and was named a le...ague All-Star. He is also known for his popular YouTube channel, and baseball media company Momentum. Trevor Bauer joins This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von to chat about his life in baseball, how he got a reputation for being a loner as a kid, becoming a standout college pitcher, his unique journey through the majors that culminated with winning the Cy Young Award, and more. They also discuss the allegations that lead to his suspension from the MLB, his thoughts on how it went down, and why he’s ready to play again in America. Trevor Bauer: https://www.instagram.com/baueroutage/ ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit https://amzn.to/3HbAtPJ Prize Picks: Prize Picks: Download the Prize Picks app and use CODE: THEO. Prize Picks will match your deposit up to $100. Keeps: Thanks to Keeps for sponsoring this video! Head to https://keeps.com/THEO to get a special offer BetterHelp: This show is sponsored by BetterHelp - go to http://betterhelp.com/theo to get 10% off your first month. BlueChew: Go to http://bluechew.com and use code THEO at checkout to try BlueChew for free - just pay $5 shipping! Express VPN: Go to http://expressvpn.com/theo to get three extra months free. ------------------------------------------------- Music: "Shine" by Bishop Gunn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3A_coTcUek ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: tpwproducer@gmail.com Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Producer: Colin https://instagram.com/colin_reiner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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yet, then just give it time. We will do our best. And we love you guys. And thank you
so much for the support. Amen.
Today's guest is a professional pitcher for more than 10 years in Major League
Baseball. He was the winner of the Golden Spikes Award in college for the
best collegiate baseball player of the year. He's won the Saiyong. He's been an
all-star. He's recently played in Japan because of some interesting
circumstances. I'm really grateful to learn about what the past few years of his life
have been like and to get to know him. Today's7Vs. Yeah. Okay. I know these mics.
Yeah, you know a lot about this.
This, uh, this.
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This is the best. This is the best. These are SM7, yeah, okay, I know these mics.
You know a lot about this, these stuff,
you know, more than I do.
Okay, yeah.
I got into photography back in 2017,
started learning about it,
and then started the media company momentum in 2019.
So I had to buy cameras and lenses
and figure all the stuff out.
So I learned about it.
Your tripods are in a lot nicer condition than ours.
We put them in the cage where like baseballs are flying
so the legs are all bent and broken.
So yeah.
Yeah, thanks dude.
Yeah, I could probably learn from you.
I could literally probably go watch
one of your YouTube videos
and learn more about our own equipment.
So maybe I should do that.
Do you like to know everything about stuff?
Kind of like it, like, well, I guess
if you're starting your own media company,
because you have your own YouTube channel.
Yeah. Yeah. You like it.
It's good. I enjoy it.
Started it to try to entertain baseball fans.
So that's what we try to do.
I think we do a pretty good job.
We can do better, always trying to get better,
but yeah, that's fun.
That's what I enjoy doing.
So going to work every day and try to make some sort
of fun content to entertain people.
Yeah, I saw some videos on there.
You were having fun with some of the Japanese players
because, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, they were, it's kind of interesting because they don't speak the same
language so the same the type of you know banter back and forth that you'd normally have you can't
really have so the banter becomes a little bit more like body language and facial expression
so it was a challenge to like get that there but it's also fun you know it's like a new experience
and like baseball is kind of a universal language So they kind of understood and I understood it was,
it was a cool experience.
Yeah, it's fun when you don't speak the same,
cause even you just have to make a look
or do something with your hands.
Like everybody, everybody's like a mime all of a sudden.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The kind of subtle cues of human behavior
become more important.
The facial expressions, the body language,
the like, you know, pauses,
you know, stuff like that.
And I love the moment when you and another person who speak a different language realize
neither one of you knows how to say what you want to say.
So the side of it just like, yeah, it gets to that moment, you're like, oh, okay.
You just kind of know.
Maybe I should thank you for your time
and try somewhere else.
And you were playing in Japan, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, Hajime Maste, have you ever heard that?
What is it?
Hajime, Hajime, Hajime Maste.
I'm sure I heard it.
I don't know.
I think it means our friendship begins.
Can you look it up, Nick?
Just if you get a chance.
I one time got to go to Japan.
I was a student on the thing called Semester at Sea
and so you would go on a cruise ship
and it was in college
and you would go to different countries around the world.
That's cool.
Our friendship begins.
Watashi-tashi no yami-yari.
How do you marry Masu?
Okay, so a little off, a little off, right?
But we got to go, and I worked in the bookstore
on this cruise ship or this school,
it's a floating university called Semester at Sea.
That's cool.
Yeah, it was pretty exceptional.
We got to go on, we went to Kobe or Osaka.
And then we got to go on a homestay
where you would go and stay with a family
for a couple nights.
Was that down in Osaka too?
Yeah.
Okay, Osaka's cool area.
Is it?
Yeah, the beef there is incredible.
Yeah.
Like it's just, we played there a couple different times
throughout the year and there's a hotel
that like all the NPB teams stay at
because they serve like the dinner and stuff there
is like Kobe beef and like specialized to a soccer area.
So good.
It's so good.
And yeah, because that Wagyu beef
that came out of there, right?
At Japan, where's that from?
Bringing up Nick.
Yeah, that Wagyu beef and everybody's like wag,
man like three years ago, people started going crazy. What is Wagyu beef and everybody's like wag, they're like three years ago, people started going crazy.
What is Wagyu beef?
A Japanese beef cattle, derived from native Asian cattle,
Wagyu refers to all Japanese beef cattle,
where why means Japanese and gyu means cow.
Wow.
Wagyu were originally draft animals used in agriculture
and were selected for their physical endurance.
Wow. So they picked some real gangster meat, you know?
That's the fatty.
It's the intermuscular fat cells marbling.
So it's, you get that really rich texture.
God, I want that.
You know.
It's delicious.
Yeah.
Maybe not be the best thing for you for like an athlete, but it's
taste wise. It's really hard to beat. And when you say NPB, what is the teams in Japan called?
So there's 12 teams, Nippon Professional Baseball, so NPB just like Major League Baseball.
There's two leagues, there's Pacific League, Central League, six teams in each.
There's two leagues, there's Pacific League, Central League, six teams in each. You got different team names like the, you know, the Bay Stars, Giants, Tigers, stuff
like that.
So everyone, it's kind of similar to them.
It'll be just smaller, you know, not as many teams.
And how, how was your team?
We were good.
We made playoffs.
Unfortunately, we lost our first two game of playoffs
and got eliminated.
But, no, we had a good team.
A lot of talented guys, a lot of funny guys.
They were super welcoming too, which was great.
I mean, the organization as a whole,
making sure that foreign players have translators around,
even down to like, hey, what kind of food do you guys like?
Trying to have that in the meal spreads.
This welcome housing.
Yeah, and Japan, I mean, if you've been there,
you know, like it's super clean,
the people are super polite, super nice.
Like culturally, it's very different
than the United States in a lot of different ways.
And that was one of the things that really stood out is like how nice people are.
Oh yeah.
Dude, on the home stage that I went on.
So you got to go stay with a family for a couple of nights.
Yeah.
So I show up over there.
Uh, I, they speak Japanese.
I'm, I barely speak English, right?
And so we're just like, dude, so it's like real quiet and they made like a little
meal for me.
Yeah. And, uh, we just sat around this little table on the floor and ate
Did you so did you have to sit on the floor? Yeah, I think they put some wick like a thin mat
Yeah, and we sat there and then I guess when I walked in I gave the lady just a hug and a kiss just on the cheek
Yeah, just kind of how I am
and
Throughout the next couple of days,
she would have her friends come over
just so I would hug and kiss them on the cheek.
She was like, Linda, Linda,
and like the doorbell would ring and she'd be like,
do it, you know, and she just kept having friends come.
So I would give them, I think they just thought
it was interesting.
And then they let me sleep in their room, I think like, and I think they just thought it was interesting and then they let me sleep in their room
I think like and I think they slept in the wall or something
I swear they're like they stood up and like in the wall all night and just didn't sleep
That's crazy. So I could sleep like it's just a lot of um, I don't know if it's like sacrifice or just
extreme respect
What do you feel it like it is?
You don't try to explain.
Respect, deference, they, so what I've, what I learned,
and I could be wrong about this,
it's just what I've been told and explained,
because obviously I didn't grow up there
and all that stuff, but they care a lot about the good
of like the group as opposed, like over the good
of the individual.
So if the individual needs to sacrifice something to make the group environment better, the
individual is expected or used to offering to sacrifice.
So it makes sense.
Like if you have a guest in your house and they could be more comfortable sleeping on
the bed and you can spend a couple nights not sleeping on the bed, I can totally see
how that would be, how that would be a thing.
Yeah, it was baffling, man.
I was just, it was like, I felt so respected.
It was pretty fascinating.
I had a similar experience.
I, you know, they were so respectful that I was like,
no, no, no, I'm no better than you guys.
Like, I'm just another, like we can just be person to person
here and it's not that I'm like above you or something.
I almost felt like I was viewed as being above other people.
And I don't like that.
I just like to, like I'm not better than you or anyone else.
I'm just another normal person.
Let's just like interact on a fair playing field,
level playing field here.
I don't like being like looked down on by people.
And I don't like being put on a pedestal by people.
And I know they didn't do it intentionally,
but it almost felt like half the time
the interactions that I did have with people,
even just, you know, fans out in the community,
taxi drivers, waitresses, hosts, stuff like that.
I almost felt like I was on a pedestal
and it was a little uncomfortable for me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it's cool like that they, you know,
there is that respect and there is that like,
deference to the other person.
Yeah, they're all excited.
They're all so excited to like, respect you.
Or to show you how respectful it can be.
That's a good way of putting it, yeah.
Wow, what an interesting experience
just to get to go in and be there.
How was it overall?
It was great.
Um, I've always wanted to do that.
Um, so I had an experience in 2009, um, played on collegiate team USA.
And we had a five game series against the collegiate Japan team.
As we played over in Japan, played at like five different stadiums.
We were there for, I think 12 days.
They were packing stadiums, like 40,000 people for a college baseball game.
Now I'm coming from West Coast baseball, which doesn't have the type of fan
following as like the SCC does.
We, we draw like some nights, 50 people to a game, some nights, like a couple
hundred people at UCLA.
And I'm going to this stadium, this professional stadium, the Tokyo dome, and
there's 40,000 people or something stadium the Tokyo Dome and there's
40,000 people or something in the Tokyo Dome for a college baseball game is crazy And I remember in 2009 saying like I got a before my career is done. I'm gonna play
Baseball in Japan. I'm gonna experience this because the fan culture is so crazy there
It's like European soccer. There's like packed and chanting and the passion, everything like that. But like for a baseball game,
bands playing nonstop.
Like that was college ball.
That was college ball.
As you know, the Japanese style,
they had a band for the Japanese team,
but they also provided a band for the American team.
So we had a band playing for us,
even though we were the visiting team, which is,
which is the most Japanese thing.
Yeah, it was awesome.
So yeah, I've always wanted to do it. I was happy to have the opportunity to do that.
The travel is different. The baseball, even like the technical little details of the game,
like the way it's played, what's emphasized is different. Fan culture, Like it's, it was such a great experience.
The food, I'm a huge sushi fan.
So like the first time I went in 2009,
I didn't have sushi and it was
cause I didn't have a translator with me
and I didn't know what I was ordering.
And I had heard back then that if there's certain types
of fish that if you eat it and it's not cut right,
you can die like puffer fish or something.
Oh yeah, I heard that rumor going on too.
People were saying that in our neighborhood and shit.
I'm like, dude, none of us are gonna eat any puffer fish
But I couldn't tell what it was on the menu because I didn't read you know Google Translate didn't exist back then in 2009
So I didn't have sushi and that was one of my regrets. So I eat a lot of sushi this past year
Yeah, dude, I remember people like bro can't have any puffer fish man if it ain't cut right you could die
I'm like dude we could fucking we're we're lucky to split a Jimmy John tomorrow
Nobody's bringing puffer fish in my neighborhood
Like some people are just obtuse man
So I want to know like how you kind of started in baseball because like like I think everybody kind of like there's this
started in baseball because like, like, I think everybody kind of like, there's this, like, ambiance in the universe, like, there's a lot of information in the world about how you ended
up, like, having to go to Japan or one of the, you know, like, some of the overall reasons because
you weren't allowed back in Major League Baseball. But how did you, like, get into baseball? Like,
when you were, like, who brought it to you first? Like what brought baseball to you? I think, like my earliest memory of baseball
is I had this little plastic bat called Fat Bat.
It was maybe a foot and a half long,
had a big old barrel of plastic bat, Wiffleball bat.
And I remember being out in the front yard at my house
and my dad would toss me a Wiffleball
and I would hit the ball and run around the yard.
And we had this little like brick wall
that was maybe like, you know,
one center block or two center blocks high.
So I'd always try to hit the ball over that for a home run.
So I must have been two years old
or something at that point.
I think I was always just drawn to it.
I always wanted to, you know, like when I was growing up,
what I wanted to go do was play baseball, practice baseball.
I was always out in the front yard playing pickle
or three flies are up with some of the neighborhood kids.
You know, some people go out and play basketball
or football or whatever, like we played baseball on my block.
So.
And where was that at where were you guys living?
I was up in Valencia.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, in California.
What's it like there?
What's Valencia like?
Dude, there's tumbleweeds when we moved out there.
Oh.
Like open plots.
And now it's all malls and shopping centers and stuff
like that.
But really nice community.
Lots of trees, but like planned neighborhoods and stuff.
So we actually lived maybe like a five minute bike ride
from one of the public parks up there.
So when I was growing up, I just ride my bike
with a bucket of baseballs up to the park,
safe community, everyone, you know, you just run around.
It was a different world back then.
I'm 33 now, so I'm talking, you know, 30 years ago,
I'd be up and down the Paseo's and out all day.
And yeah, I love Valencia.
Parents still live there. I still go back all the time.
Oh, nice, man.
So you get out there and ball,
and that was just the sport that you kind of took too?
Yeah, I played soccer, I guess, or football,
depending on where you are in the world.
But I played that until high school.
When I got to high school, I was in like AP classes
and playing baseball, and I didn't have time for soccer. And I was in like AP classes and playing baseball and I had time for soccer.
And I was always just much more drawn to baseball anyway.
So yeah, never really played any other sports,
just been baseball pretty much my whole life.
Did you collect the cards too?
I collected baseballs and autographs more than cards.
So my dad and I would go to spring training every year.
We'd make the drive.
It's like six hours from LA to Arizona.
For the Diamondbacks?
Diamondbacks, there's a bunch of people out there diamondbacks
I mean, I should I remember when they just put the Royals in the Rangers facility out there and they started moving in but the Oakland
A's
Cubs have been out there forever brewers like a whole bunch of teams. I think there's 15 or 16 teams out in spring training in Arizona
Now we go right here. Yeah, white socks a's, Giants. Wow, some great teams.
Did you ever get to see Mark Grace out there?
No, I don't remember if I saw Mark Grace, but I remember when Ichiro came over, I guess
kind of drawing the Japanese connection, but I remember when like Ichiro first came to
the Mariners and we're like, oh, there's this like new guy from Japan that's supposed to
be really good and it's just kind of sensation.
And then I remember standing there with a ball outside
of the fence at spring training, like, each or each
or trying to get an autograph.
And then he went on to be like just the best hitter that's
ever lived or something.
You know, and we had no idea that he's going
to be that successful.
But I remember being a little kid and just standing there
at spring training watching the guys.
Did he sign the ball? I don't think I think he was I think he was
Often other field or something. I don't remember if we had to know we had to know that's why yeah
Yes, that was your world and so you and then you just became good at it
Like like did you love did you just love practicing it so much like how did it? Yeah?
I love practicing. I love I just like doing anything baseball related.
So I was always thinking about it.
I was always out playing it.
So I think I developed some skills that way.
And I was always like, good-ish, but I was never the best guy.
You know, I never made like the best tournament team
or the best all-star team.
Wow.
Even in my freshman year of high school,
I was like not the ace pitcher.
But I also love like math and physics.
And I took a class in ninth grade with a guy
of Martin Kirby as in physics class.
Martin Kirby?
Martin Kirby's a British guy.
So he had this accent and like he made class really,
really fun.
Martin Kirby, like that?
Yeah, the Brits dude, you just fucking believe him,
you know, they go home and drink, but still.
He had a picture. So he used to be a smoker, actually,
and he quit cold turkey one day,
but he put two packs of cigarettes in his mouth,
lit them all at the same time.
So he had that picture on the wall,
like just him with two packs of cigarettes in his mouth.
And he said he got so sick after that
that he just never wanted to smoke again.
Damn.
But yeah, he was such a fun's, it was such a fun class.
And I started learning about like physics
and how leverage works and velocity
and energy transfer and momentum and all that.
And I started trying to take class and apply it to baseball.
And at the same time I went down to a training facility
in Texas actually for the first time.
It's a Texas baseball ranch.
Yeah.
And they were talking about some of the same concepts, momentum,
and energy transfer and whip and all this different stuff.
And so that was really when I started my true devoted baseball development,
where I was trying to take academics and apply it to baseball
and use the scientific method to get myself better.
Oh, damn.
So you brought some real home school energy to like get myself better. Oh, damn it.
So you brought some real home school energy to that.
Yeah.
But so that was something that like,
that took a, once that got added in,
like this other kind of world of it
that you could start to see
while you were doing it and stuff and equate,
then you really, I really kind of lit you up.
That's what it took, that's how my brain works too.
Cause I had like, I need to have something
that I'm chasing, some like, I'm here, I want to go there.
I need to plot a course.
And like, am I getting closer to my target or not?
Like that's how my brain works.
So as soon as I had, like I knew I always wanted to play
in college, that was my goal.
I never, well, my goal growing up was just to play
on the high school team.
And once I made my freshman team, it was like, okay,
I want to play in college.
And that was really when my development was starting. So I was like, okay, I want to play in college.
And that was really when my development was starting. So I was like, okay, I want to get
to college. I'm currently a freshman in high school. I'm throw this hard. I have this pitch.
I have this command, whatever, like I need to improve these skill sets. And so then I
would wake up in the morning at like 533 times a week and go to the YMCA and do like pool
workouts. I love the YMCA don't you? Yeah. Yeah.
We had a membership there.
I used to lift there and spend a lot of time there as a kid.
I always love it.
It just makes me feel like just part of the universe.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, I'm sorry I interrupted you.
So you would go there and you would, uh, you would just train practice.
Get ready.
I'd do that.
Yeah.
Prior to school and I go do school, go straight to practice after school.
We'd get done at four 35 o'clock, go home, do some homework and eat. And then usually like seven or eight o'clock, I'd go up to practice after school, we'd get done at 4.35 o'clock, go home,
do some homework and eat, and then usually like
seven or eight o'clock I'd go up to the local park
and I'd be there for an extra three hours
doing whatever workout I was doing,
or throwing, or videoing myself, or whatever,
trying to find some way to get better,
and that's just what I, I didn't really like do
anything else, I didn't have interest in anything else.
Did you have a lot of friends, like did you have a social world or that you just really
Did you and was that kind of a choice you think you made you just kind of get locked in on something and you because a lot of people
That have become great at something. There's there's sacrifices to it. Yeah, I don't realize that. Yeah, I think
It was partially that what I wanted to do was baseball
So given the choice of going to the mall
to hang out on a Friday afternoon
or going and doing baseball,
like I was naturally gravitated towards baseball.
Also, I'm not really the most like social person.
Like a lot of my social interactions,
I learned a little later in life,
starting in college and pro ball and stuff.
I just didn't, I viewed things differently as a kid.
I was kind of different.
I dressed differently.
I thought about different stuff.
My sense of humor was different than the normal kids.
So I struggled socially in high school,
you know, junior high all the way up into high school.
I didn't have a large peer group.
You know, I was kind of, I was part of two different groups.
I was like part of the athlete group, right?
But I didn't fit in with them because I was also a nerd.
Oh yeah.
And I didn't really fit in with the nerds
because I was a jock.
And so I kind of got pickled between both of those
where I didn't really have a group that I fit in with.
Like Clark Kent almost in a way.
You know, I mean, this is-
No, not quite as super, but.
Yeah, but well, you would turn out to be,
oh, here you are right there.
Yeah.
You're traveling this throwback to when the Astros
didn't have to cheat to win
That's cool, dude. Does that does that kid look like someone that would fit in so that's actually a uniform
I would wear my baseball like pants and uniform and stuff to school. Oh, yeah
And that's so I got I got picked on a lot
But also dude if you slid in the fourth period you were fucking legend
But also dude, if you slid in the fourth period, you were a fucking legend. I'll tell you that, you know?
If you're the only person that slides head first into social studies, you fucking win
as far as I'm concerned.
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Wow, so you just loved it that much?
It kind of became almost,
or it seems like I'm just being judgmental,
but like it became like a sense of pride that you had then.
Yeah.
Or like you identify, you really identified as like,
I think it was my backstop.
Like anything, anytime something would happen in life, if it was, you know, I was
picked on or bullied or whatever in school, like I would go to the park and I
would do baseball.
And you know, if something was going good in life, I was like, okay, like I'm
excited and like I'm going to go do baseball. I bonded with
my family over, you know, on the weekends growing up, we'd
have tournaments all the time. So you'd travel on Friday
evening or Saturday morning, two or three hours away, you'd
play four or five games in a couple of days. I was out there
with my mom and my dad, my sister, you know, whoever was
going sometimes, most of the time was my dad, sometimes my
mom, sister would come along. So I have really good family
relationships because of baseball. I have really good family relationships
because of baseball.
I have like baseball's always kind of been
my coping mechanism when something's going wrong.
I just go do baseball because that's what I know
and like I'm good at it and I feel a sense of
like accomplishment or progress towards a goal
or something like that.
And it's fluid to you, it becomes part of your makeup
and so you, I'm gonna go get back to a good homeostasis,
no matter what's going on, highs or lows.
Yeah. And I think exercise helps,
tends to help with that in general.
So because baseball is an active thing,
I think I got kind of the benefits of both the exercise,
but also that like centering of myself.
A lot of people have like video games as they go play
or they go watch a Netflix show or
something like that. Not saying those things are wrong, but I also think that baseball,
some, it's because it was something active, I got the physiological benefits of exercising too,
which I think helps stabilize. Yeah. And why the pitching was the pitching? Because you have a
lot, you have some cool pitches, man. I stayed up last night. I mean, actually really late and then
I couldn't sleep. I'm like eight days off nicotine right now.
So I didn't know it was gonna,
bro, it like will not let me sleep.
Are you on like, you doing like patches or what's the?
I'm on nothing, dude.
Straight up.
I'm on just light prayer and just doing my best.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know.
And it's like, but I didn't,
I thought it was like three days it's out of your system. Yeah, it is like haunting at night until you're awake
And you're like what should I do and then your brain's like maybe you should do some
Like won't let you it's gone
But it won't let you sleep and then it just starts to be like what about maybe a puff or two you think that's a you think
That's like a physiological thing or do you think it's a mental thing like your mind wants wants it or you think your body is craving it? Man, it's a good question.
Some of it is a little bit of a bore, it's a habitual, like it had become a boredom thing.
I don't have anything, I can't do anything else right now, might as well do this.
So maybe a little bit habitual.
And I think my mind, my mind is like, oh, I'm frustrated, I wanna be sleeping, I can't.
What can I do in frustration?
Cause a lot of times, if things were going good or bad,
vape became like a little bit of a habit I would use.
Interesting.
It's interesting to think about though.
Yeah, cause sometimes people just do things,
they don't even start to think about why am I doing it?
You know?
Like what inside of me is like backing me to this?
I'll find myself walking down the street.
Nothing happens.
I like think that my phone vibrated.
So I reach in my pocket and check it.
I'm like, oh no, no notification.
Put it back in my pocket.
No more than 30 seconds later,
I'm like, oh, someone just texted me,
but like it's not vibrating.
There's nothing there. And it's just I'm so used to reaching for my phone because of text, call, social media,
notification, like whatever you get programmed over the years to reach for your phone so much.
So I don't, yeah, I have the same type of experience with the habitual side of things.
Yeah, I think a lot.
Yeah, I've had some, I made some poor, I mean, I had like pornography.
I got into pretty badly
when I was like in my twenties and that was a,
that was a bad habit.
Vaping has been the tougher one as I have gotten older,
but I don't drink or do drugs.
So it's like sometimes I give myself a little bit of leeway,
but I just like my own energy's better.
I'm able to sit and have a more comfortable conversation
with people and so at a certain point it's like, I have to give it up just. I'm able to sit and have a more comfortable conversation with people.
And so at a certain point it's like,
I have to give it up just because I'm missing out on,
I'll be short with people.
I won't want to stay in a moment
because I want to go vape, just shit like that.
You self reflect a lot on things.
Like do you look at your own behaviors and stuff
and analyze yourself or how do you get that feedback?
Yeah, I started doing that more.
You know, I've done like some ayahuasca over the years
and I bring that up a lot, but that plant medicine,
that stuff is really interesting for exactly that.
It helps me learn.
It's not as much time that I spend learning something
like say I'll read or write something or be in a class,
but it's the time I go sit back with what I've written
and have a relation, have like a integration.
That's what I'm learning is so much more crucial.
It's like, because for so long, I was like kind of learning
and getting information, but a lot of things weren't sticking
because the big part I was missing out on was integration.
Interesting.
And so I think that's where some of that comes from.
And being in conversations with getting, being in conversation with some neat people over the years and makes me start to think more
Yeah, and leads me into like wanting to be more introspective and and wonder why I do things
Yeah, you know, I have a brother that helps me think about that kind of stuff a lot and make me kind of question
You know, so I start to not only be myself, but also
See myself a little bit. Does that makes any sense?
Yeah, no, for sure.
The studies on the ayahuasca and the mushrooms
and stuff like that for brain function,
like treating PTSD and past experiences
and stuff like that is pretty interesting.
I'm like, I follow it decently closely just cause I'm very interested in the
effects of like the brain and how you, how do you learn something?
How do you get over something?
How do you change behaviors?
Stuff like that.
So yeah, it's a, the last couple of years has been a lot of cool stuff that's
come out about that stuff.
There was like 10 years ago, kind of demonized and looked at it.
It was like this really bad thing.
Now we're starting to learn a little bit more like, oh, this could be useful in like these certain areas.
Yeah.
There's like shades of gray in there, right?
It's not just like it's good or it's bad.
It's like, uh, it could be a useful tool in certain cases.
It could be abused in certain cases.
Um, yeah, it's interesting.
Yeah.
I love that.
I love that it's book that kind of says becoming like a new modality or
whatever, whatever term people use for people to try and get well, you know?
Cause it almost goes really back to our roots,
like literally back to like,
it's like Native American root medicine
that they would use to like really have a better look
at themselves kind of.
But I recommended, I think it helps,
it's helped me a lot in just having different ways
to think about things.
When did you start being good at bait?
Like when did it start to add up?
Cause if you're doing all those unique pitches,
like some of the pitch,
like you just have such a cool like assortment of pitches.
I almost feel like, yeah,
somebody's rolling up to the mound.
This is from your channel right here.
Yeah.
Oh, this is back in,
I was 11 years ago.
Wow. You've had your channel for a long time.
Yeah. I started, I think, 2011 to do,
like, you know, try to connect with baseball fans
and like give some information.
And then I actually stopped it for like six or seven years
there from 2013 through maybe 2019 or 2020.
I should have kept it going.
I'd have a lot more subscribers.
You got a great amount of subscribers.
It was 690,000 amazing
Yeah, and did what made you stop? What was the break was you were you getting busy with baseball? No, so I actually got in trouble
So I when I was growing up I in high school and college I watched a guy named Tim Linsicum
I like studied everything about him. What do you play for the Giants? Yeah? Yeah, and I
from his college film his his Giants film,
minor league film, I can still close my eyes
and picture the exact delivery from a video
from University of Washington he was throwing.
It was like 40 degrees that night, half long sleeve.
I can see the video in my head.
But I studied him nonstop. And one of my most fun things to do in college was
every time you pitched I would go on mlb.com and I would see the highlights
and I would just watch him over and over and over and I got a lot of enjoyment out of it.
So I actually started putting a segment up on my channel when I signed as in the minor leagues.
There was no way for fans to watch me pitch in the minor leagues and have that same experience of highlights.
So I would take video clips from the games, make a little highlight reel.
I called it weekly whiffs and I would put it up on YouTube channel.
I did two episodes of it and then the organization that I was with at the time was like, hey, you can't do that.
It was just different. No one was doing that.
It was, you know, it can be looked at as like you're trying to embarrass the other
hitters or whatever. It had nothing to do with the hitters.
I was just trying to entertain the fans.
Yeah.
And so I made a couple more videos after that, like the Pitch Gripz video in 2013
and a couple slow motion videos here and there.
But it kind of, in a way, it took a little bit of the fun of like trying to entertain
fans out. And so I just, I was off of it.
I went more towards Twitter at the time, which is now X,
but trying to just have that like back and forth
connection with fans and grow it that way.
And that ended up getting me in a lot of trouble as well.
Unfortunately.
People like you'd have your own voice a lot of times.
Yeah.
You know, which is, you know, if you're involved
in something that's bigger, like when you have to go into organizations like major league
sports, college sports, where there's a lot of big business interests on the
back end of things, they really don't like a lot of guys to have their own
voices. It seems like they don't, you're not really, you're allowed to, but are
you really allowed to? Yeah, it's an interesting, my perspective on that has
changed a good amount recently. Like, so coming up,, my perspective on that has changed a good
amount recently. Like, so coming up, I was like, okay, I'm my own person. I'm gonna
have my voice. Like, you as my employer don't control me. I'm gonna say what I
want, whatever. And I was very kind of bullheaded on that. And then I started a
business and I have employees and I deal with employees who remind me very much
of myself and they have their own voice and they express stuff in certain ways. And I'm like, okay, I got to handle this a little
bit differently as a business owner than I would as an employee. And now I can understand
the different perspective. I'm still very protective of trying to tell my employees,
you can't say this or you can say this or like putting guidelines on it. But I do see how someone like me coming up
that has these opinions,
especially when I would be like critical of the league.
Like here's an employee of the league
who's being critical of their boss publicly.
And like at the time I was like,
well, this isn't right and this isn't right.
And I disagree with this and the blah, blah, blah.
And so I would just say it.
And then without considering the opposite perspective.
And I think I was a lot more like,
I can identify this problem.
And I'm just gonna say that there's a problem and blame
instead of now what I really try to do is look at
and say, okay, I identify a problem,
but what are some potential solutions?
Let me present the solutions that I think
and have a discussion about it instead of just like,
hey, you're wrong, you're wrong, do this this way.
And whatever.
So some of that like evolution over time growing up
and getting older and learning from past mistakes,
starting a business, seeing other perspectives.
In your business, you're talking about YouTube channel,
the Trevor Bauer channel.
Yeah, well.
It's a cool channel, man.
Yeah, we have Trevor Bauer channel,
we have also Momentum channel and Eric Sims channel.
We all, we're kind of like a content group.
So Momentum is the company and it started in 2019
to grow baseball, entertain baseball fans.
And so we bring people in.
Wow, you have a lot of subs, subs, the kids call them.
You get a lot of subs on there, man.
Yeah, Eric just passed, I think he's like 520 now as well.
So I'm at 690, Momentum's at 567,
Eric's over 500 as well.
We got a couple other creators that come in.
The idea is basically you bring guys in
that love baseball, have a good personality.
You have a group channel where they can get exposure
to a lot of people, entertain a lot of people,
and then they end up growing their brands
and can go in their own different directions.
You have someone that does gaming,
you have someone that does action,
you have someone that does card reviews, you have someone that does whatever. And so
you start branching out and entertaining all factions of baseball fans and growing the
game organically where the audience is. One of the things that I think NBA was probably
the first sport to really adopt it is the social media push, like delivering content
to fans where the fans are. You go on NBA, or you go on Twitter
or X or whatever social media platform when the playoffs are going on an NBA, it's like
the second Steph Curry hits a three, it's everywhere. You have the same opportunities in
baseball, but it was hard to find content. And so I was like, okay, this is a problem, but instead of
just blaming, I'm going to try to actually do something about the problem. So momentum is kind of my attempt to like
help impact the marketability of players, help impact the growth of the game. You know,
young people aren't playing baseball nearly as much anymore. There's so many other opportunities.
You got streaming services, like in watching their iPad, you got gaming that's huge, eSports.
People aren't outside as much playing.
So the game is like shrinking a little bit at the youth
level, so trying to grow it in ways
where kids will consume the content and get interested in it.
Yeah, man, dude, that's so kudos, Brody.
This should be a part, be doing something, your job,
but then also wanting to create this other
more of your job kind of you know like
This is not a lot of guys that have that have their own channels like that. Yeah baseball has given me a lot
Oh, yeah, this charts a this chart said this is share of children age 6 to 12 who participate in baseball on a regular
Basis in the United States from 2008 to 2021.
And in 2008 it says 16 and a half percent
and now we're down to 12.6%.
Down like 25% in the last 15 years.
I'm kind of shocked because I know we have like a larger
growing Latino culture, you know?
And I know baseball is big in Latino cultures, you know?
Why do you think that is?
Why do you think there's been like a tail off like that?
Well, I think baseball has gotten expensive.
The equipment's very expensive.
The travel team's very expensive.
Also baseball doesn't have the cool factor that NBA has.
NBA has sneakers and like rap culture, pop culture.
They've blended the two together in a very cool way.
That's a good point.
And so when you're going through high school
and you're trying to figure out who you are,
like you want to be part of the cool crowd
and it's the sneakers, it's the new rapper,
the new album, it's the entertainer,
and that's synonymous with NBA.
Baseball hasn't had the same success in blending
and giving the cool factor for young kids.
Yeah, baseball always was like,
the kids would go off and do it in high school,
but you didn't really know,
and a lot of times you wouldn't,
it wouldn't be a part of the pep rallies a lot of times and stuff
So yeah, there was always a missing a little bit of football
You have the crossover you have like the cheerleaders and you have the football players
Yeah, you know there's like integration of like the whole school right and it's one game and the school shows up
And it's our school versus your school and so there's a lot of involvement around football NBA has the pop culture
integration Baseball's struggled to get that their thing. And you know, it's, there's a lot of
games. So it's not like if you miss out on this game, there's not going to be a game tomorrow.
Right. So.
That's a good point.
And it's always been that baseball has like an older demographic. It's a slower game. I think his attention spans are
shrinking ticktocks around shorts YouTube shorts Instagram reels all this stuff attention is shrinking
That cadence of baseball is slow, right?
Where NBA it's like 20 seconds and then there there's new play and then this and then that.
Football, it's like there's always something going on.
Baseball, it's like, well, there's four minutes
in between innings and then there's 30 seconds
in between a pitch.
Like one of the things they tried this year
is like a pitch clock.
So it shrank the time in between pitches,
which has seemingly made the game more popular.
So it was good.
I felt that energy when I went to some games this year.
It felt faster, it felt faster.
It felt a little bit more and it kept you a little bit involved
because it was just enough time where you didn't kind of zone out and go get
on your phone of that extra five or six seconds.
Yeah.
Like even we're saying that extra habitual moment where you kind of start to
check out, I would stay involved.
You know, we went to see that gallon pitch a couple of times.
It was really cool.
Um, who else did we go?
Oh, going to a Padres game is so much fun.
Man, that park is so much.
You go in San Diego.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dude, that is so much fun.
They do a good job down there.
Um, when the Padres and Dodgers were.
Oh yeah.
A lot of rivalry going back there.
Dodger players won't say it's rivalry, but it's a rivalry.
All right.
Um, and so we, you know, in 2021,
I was with the Dodgers, we'd go down play in Padres,
and it was like so loud and so cool.
The stadium's like pretty compact.
You got the industrial building out there
that kind of squeezes things together,
and they pack it full.
It's really energetic.
And yeah, we played some really fun games down there.
It is such a fun
place to be a part of. It's cool, it's right downtown, the backdrop's really cool,
you're right by the ocean, the weather's always great, like you literally you leave
the stadium and you're there's bars right there right outside. Like the best area.
They got some great players down there too man. Yeah. No, no, Joe is one of my buddies who pitches over there.
Yeah.
He's awesome.
Yeah.
But...
Udharvish, Machado, Tattis, Bogaards.
Yeah, they're just, it's fun.
That's a fun place to see a game.
Yeah.
So, how did, so when did you start to like, when did you like be like, okay, I've got
the mechanics, I've been working on this so much myself.
I have my own interest in it.
When did you start to be like good?
And what was that like?
So I was good my freshman year.
I was good my sophomore year in high school.
I made varsity team towards the end of my sophomore year.
But then I really, like I really exploded my junior year
of high school.
My velocity jumped a lot. I was throwing in the nineties. I struck a lot of people out. I had like a sub one ERA for the year.
Started getting a lot of, uh, yeah, I think I was at 0.79 ERA or something.
I don't remember the exact number, but, um, yeah,
struck out like a 106 people, I think in 72 innings or something along those lines.
So I had a really good year.
I went 12 and 0 that year.
Our team was really good.
Actually, there's a senior pitcher.
I was a junior.
Mike Montgomery was a senior.
He was getting a lot of looks.
He ended up getting drafted in the first round by the Royals that year.
So we had a lot of scouts out at our games.
Wow.
So you had a lot of influence to see that this could really happen,
right? I mean, he's right there ahead of you and this happens in front of you.
So baseball is such a small world too that like in the 2016 World Series,
the last person to throw a pitch for the Cubs, Michael Montgomery,
the last person to throw a pitch for the Indians, me. Wow. High school teammates.
We're the last ones that throw pitches in that for our respective teams in that
World Series. But yeah. and so he was good,
and I don't like losing to people on my own team.
I don't like losing, period.
Like I'm a super intense competitor.
So like he would go have a start and I'm like, okay,
I gotta be better than that.
And then that really drove me to be better.
And so actually I ended up graduating high school
half a year early.
And so I never played my senior season in high school.
I just went to UCLA to start.
Oh, you went straight to go.
Went to start. Yeah. So I graduated December, I think 18th, and I started UCLA January 4th,
and then I played what would have been my senior season of high school as my freshman
year in college.
So you was doing one of the younger pitchers that year.
Yeah. One of the younger pitchers. I was actually the freshman pitcher of the year in all of
NCAA that year, and that's after that year is when I made Team USA and went played in Japan in 2009 as basically a high school senior.
So what happens in that space? Cause like, um, and pitching is so perfect for you.
Then it sounds like cause it's your own little war that you're in.
You're like this, this orchestra, you're the, you're this guy, but you're also the guy playing the, you know,
it's like, it's you versus them,
it's very clear cut how things go.
What a, oh dang, I had a great question.
Oh, it's probably wasn't that great,
but I thought it was pretty decent.
This is my brain checks out every now and then,
but hold on, I'm gonna stay with this.
What about, did your ego, did ego start to build up?
Cause that's one thing I always talk about a lot in here,
just like our ego and what that's like, you know?
Cause what was it like when you start to get
like a claim for that,
if you're kind of have this social uncomfortability?
Yeah, I've always tried to separate ego
on and off the field.
I haven't been great at it,
but I think having an ego on the field is super important.
Like when you walk out there,
you gotta know that you're the best.
You have to believe that you're better than him
and him and him,
and you gotta feel like you're the best guy out there
to be like the true like competitor, you know?
But off the field, like going around telling everybody
that you're better than them
and acting like that's not great, right?
So I'm not naturally like inclined to be egotistical.
Cause the way I view things, it's never like a static point.
Everything is I'm improving or I'm getting worse.
It's a fluid situation.
And so if I'm either getting better or getting worse, I'm on a journey.
Just like you're on a journey.
You have your struggles and your, your success is I have my struggles and successes.
I view myself as like even with every other person, but on the field, like when it's
competition time, like I am the best person on the field.
And if I'm not that day, it's because.
Like I didn't work hard enough
or I need a better process,
but like every time I step on the field,
I have to believe that I'm the best person there.
And I've had times in my career where I lost that belief
and it was, those were very dark times,
performance wise, I was terrible on the field.
And I had to like trick myself and like fake, like fake it in my own mind that I was still
good.
And then when I started doing that, the results came back.
But
Wow.
Yeah, it's interesting at levels of success how you have to sometimes trick yourself to
stay there, how you have to use little manipulations, life hacks, all those, there's so many different
things that so many different people who are top performers in their, in their world or
sport or whatever it is, line of work do.
I think I'm a little predisposed to depression for whatever reason.
I don't know if it's something chemical or what it is.
I'm a very like kind of flat personality.
I don't have like a ton of highs and lows.
So when baseball would go bad,
like my mood would go really bad.
And I had to find a way to kind of pull
those two things apart and be,
regardless of baseball is up or down,
I need to be able to like be okay in my life.
And would you do to go, did you like, would you,
like when things got bad, how would you,
would you booze a little?
Like how would your world know?
So I've never, I've never been drunk.
I've never done drugs.
Wow, bro, you are, you are riding the fucking world.
Like that's, that's intense.
It's incredible, man.
It's just, it's just, I didn't have friends to invite me to the parties in high school.
Yeah.
So I never got started, but, um, yeah, I would like, when I would have it early in
my career, let's say prior to, uh, let's say July 2017,
I would have a bad outing and I would go home and I would study it for hours and hours.
And I would be up till four or five in the morning
and then I wouldn't sleep well.
And then I'd be miserable the next day
cause I'm like, okay, I should have done
all these things that I didn't do.
And now my results are bad and we lost the game
and I'm this and that and whatever.
and now my results are bad and we lost the game and I'm this and that and whatever.
And then I was just, the start of 2017 was like the worst half of baseball that I've had and I had like a seven or eight ERA.
Gosh, that's a lot. I could have that.
Yeah.
No, if I mean, I probably could.
Any number of people could have done that.
Let's just say some people could have it.
Yeah.
And sorry, man. That was kind of offensive. No, no. I mean, it's that. Let's just say some people gonna have it. Yeah. And sorry, man, that was kind of offensive.
No, no, I mean, it's true. It's just a fact. I was bad. And I
had to trick myself into believing that I was good. Wow.
Because I'm so analytical that I was like, I am the worst
pitcher in Major League Baseball right now. Factually. And I
had to pull myself out of that and somehow trick myself on the
field to thinking that I was good. And then I I had to pull myself out of that and somehow trick myself on the field to thinking that I was good and
then I also had to pull myself a
split myself from baseball so I could find a way to be okay personally in life and
So I had to start developing some other interests some stuff that when I went home
I would get interested in that thing instead of studying baseball so much and then from 2017 on outside of two months at the end of 2019 as probably like a top 10 pitcher in baseball and
But that's that split of like being okay personally and finding a way to kind of like level out that depression
Some of those you know really down moments
Made me better and more stable at doing my job on the field as well.
And would you go spend time with the guys after the games?
You would still kind of do your own thing a lot.
So baseball is, because games are played at night,
like when you get out of the field, it's 11, 15, 11, 30.
So if you're gonna go spend time with the guys,
it's like, what bar are you going to?
What club are you going to?
There's not a whole lot of other options.
On the road, sometimes you go back to the hotel room,
go play cards, have a glass of wine or something
in someone's room and hang out with the guys.
But it's not like you're just going to dinner at seven o'clock
and having a nice night.
So I would typically just go from the field back home.
Most of the time you spend with guys during season
is like prior to the game.
So you get there at noon or one, play in the clubhouse play some video games joke around whatever or day games when you get done
At four and you can go to dinner. Those are usually like Sundays if you're not traveling
Do you find yourself in social atmospheres? Do you feel pretty uncomfortable like how do you do?
How do you feel like in social atmospheres? Do you feel pretty has it changed over time? Yeah, it's definitely changed.
I'm very uncomfortable around large groups of people
that I don't know.
I'm not very good at like starting a conversation.
You know, I just, I think too much.
And so when I look at another person, I'm like,
well, they don't wanna talk to me.
And like, what am I gonna say?
And well, how do I not come up?
I don't wanna come off awkward and disturb them,
but I also like kind of want to talk to them.
But I, and I just, I just don't do, I just think too much.
Where I watch some guys, they just like go up,
Hey, how's it going?
And then like have a great conversation.
I'm like, damn, like that.
Yeah.
And then they're married.
You're like, God, that guy's doing great.
That's awesome.
Yeah, dude.
Sometimes I would always marvel at people that just had that
disposition to be able to be comfortable.
Yeah.
Man, I remember there's a WWE wrestler, the Miz is his name.
And he was just, he was always so comfortable where he was.
And it was the, I never saw anybody like it.
The guy just, and he just, it was just effortless, you know?
And that was one thing I was always so envious
of certain people that had,
they didn't have to fight inside of themselves
to be comfortable.
And, you know, and that was always like
something I really, I just noticed a lot.
Yeah.
I'm comfortable with myself,
but I'm not comfortable going into unknown groups and somehow integrating myself.
Now, if I know a couple people and we're out, I'm fine meeting one of their friends and having a conversation.
I can talk to someone all night, but I'm not the one that's...
I don't know how to go start those conversations.
You might have a freaking hit of the tizm. I got it.
You know what I'm saying? No judgment, dude. I don't know how to go start those conversations. You might have a freaking hit of the Tism, I got it.
You know what I'm saying, no judgment dude.
Some of the greatest people of our time now
have I think a low key dose, you know?
Seven, eight percent I think.
I wouldn't be surprised.
Yeah, it's awesome man.
Yeah, I mean, Elon Musk definitely is riding,
he's riding some.
Bezos has it for sure.
A lot of the greats have it. Some people think that Mike Tomlin, is that his name?
Football coach, right?
Yeah.
He, you know, you don't see a lot of darktism going on,
but I bet he's got a dose.
But yeah, I think there's a lot of it out there.
It's creeping up on all of us.
But I think it's helping in some ways.
It's because I think some of us are having to evolve.
We've gotten into such a digital and like a world that is
that if you have or able to conceptualize things
almost a little more electronically sometimes it's a light word I'm using.
But that you have more success because we're just becoming more like
Hypothetically like robots as people so it just kind of makes sense to make any sense to you
Yeah, yeah for sure. I mean prior to social media if you're gonna get information
You're gonna read a book you're gonna ask people around you're gonna be in the community and like learn from people around you
so habits of
ingesting information
were reliant on being able to have those interactions.
You're outside more.
There was less to do on your phone personally,
like less connection digitally.
There was no connection digitally for a long time.
Your grandpa was like shitty Google.
Remember you go to your grandpa?
Yeah, remember the thesaurus?
Yeah, I did.
Gotta go look up in the thesaurus.
Now you just chat GPT or Google it or whatever. Yeah,
you can now you can just you don't even have to you can like
go to my fake family.com and just pick out a family on there
and they'll send you a picture of you and a family. Yeah. And
you can frame it in. You're like, who the fuck are you
people? Yeah, it's just yeah, it's a different universe. But
it's kind of fascinating if we don't look at it that kind of stuff as a negative
I think sometimes we look at it as we're part of evolution, you know in a way
So sometimes that's kind of interesting to me
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It must be interesting to be you though because you it's I feel like when there's more going on in your head as much as it
Is a curse it's also kind of
There's enough of a world going on where you're kind of
You're dealing with that. Yeah, you know, there's a lot a world going on where you're kind of, you're dealing with that.
Yeah. You know?
There's a lot of stimulation.
Yeah.
I don't do well when I'm bored.
Like my mind needs something to be working on.
Yeah.
So there's never a shortage of that.
But I think that's why getting into business
has been very beneficial for me because
I don't have those like blank moments or blank hours
where I,
I would fill those early in my career. I'd fill them going on Twitter for three hours.
And I would-
It was so much fun.
It was so much fun.
And I had fun with it,
but I think me having fun with people
is usually like playful banter.
Like I'll kind of like throw a little like jab your way
and you throw them back my way.
And it's like, cause it's joustinging match and I like that because it's witty and it forces me to think and like
It's and I'm having these conversations with people and I'm like laughing and joking with them in person
Yeah, and you get a sense of like I'm not being serious
You can tell very clearly that I'm not being serious
but on Twitter doesn't come across that way and
Especially not even though the person that you're doing it with may feel that way, may not,
other people reading it might get really confused.
And so I would banter with a lot of people
and I think it got construed negatively by the media.
I know it got construed negatively by the media,
the larger media as a whole.
And then I get this reputation of being combative and stuff.
And I was never doing it from a competitive standpoint.
I understand how it looks that way
and how it came off that way.
And so those blank hours where I was just had nothing to do
and I was just like joking with people on Twitter.
You're just firing stuff off.
Got me in trouble.
Trump has a great,
Dave Portnoy interviewed Donald Trump and he goes,
you ever just like,
he's like, would you,
was he asking Nick about proofreading some of his tweets
or something, Trump's like, yeah, you ever just fire
something off and just go to bed and just hope it's okay?
And Trump was like, yeah, all the time.
You know, you're like, what the hell is going on?
Yeah.
But you do that, if you think about Twitter being a parallel
to like real life like
Someone says something to you and you just fire away because if you pause for five seconds
To think about what you're gonna say it almost like gives you the yips Like you almost don't know how to respond then because we're so
Conditioned like you say something and I'm like I have a response right?
But if have you ever thought about what proofreading, like in real life would look like?
Like you would ask me something
and I would think of my response
and I would pause for five or six seconds
and really think through my response.
And then I might say something slightly differently.
Can you imagine a conversation like that?
If it was like, you say something
and I pause for like 10 seconds
and then say something back to you
and you pause for like 10 seconds and like really actually think through it.
Like that way could we be like processing our answer and then it'd be printed out
for the person? Yeah. It'd be so bizarre. It'd be so bizarre. It'd be almost like a
script then. Yeah. Probably. It would be a very awkward conversation. It's not like
a normal human tendency to have an interaction like that. So when someone,
when you read something, it's like, oh, someone just said something and I'm going to say it.
Now it takes longer to type it, but you're still having the thought.
And so you never have the option in person to like, okay, I just said this.
Now let me proofread it. Let me read it again. Let me check for this.
Let me think about this.
My friend, right?
Is this okay? Is this weird?
Yeah.
But on Twitter, then it's like the
expectation now for, you know, people in the public eye is that you would proofread it
and then you would check with the publicist or you would check with, you know, someone
or whatever you'd make sure that it wasn't everything and just not the normal flow of
conversation. Now it might be in the future as the as humanity moves more towards a digital
presence. Like maybe that's what happens.
It's gonna be sad.
It's not, uh, it's not normal.
Yeah.
It's certainly abnormal.
What was that thing?
Did you bring it up, Nick?
What Trump had?
Oh, Portnoy asked the president if he ever regrets any of the
content he posts often too often, Trump said it used to be in the old days, you'd
write a letter and you'd say, this is, this letter is really big.
You put it on your desk and you go back tomorrow and you say oh, I'm glad I didn't send it, right?
We don't do that
With Twitter, right? We put it out instantaneously. We feel great and you start getting phone calls. Did you really say?
Half the time is like damn I didn't even I never and I never would have thought that that would be interpreted that way thought twice about it
Yeah, oh, it's ridiculous now, And then people are like, take it down.
People say, it's definitely, it's weird.
It's weird the way that we communicate now,
how foreign it is.
And I think also how like, as humans,
we're not supposed to adapt to the way we communicate.
Like, it's so abnormal to nature or nature.
I think that a lot of it ends up making us feel sick or confused.
Um, yeah, sometimes I'll send stuff to Nick and I'll be like, is this okay? You know, do I seem chilled?
Does it seem crazy in my gay?
All right.
And then he's like, dude, this is fine.
Right.
You're just, you're doing fine.
But it's like, I think, yeah.
And as you have some notoriety, especially for your sport,
I'm sure like the microscope gets even, even tougher. Okay, so you get through, so you're going through the major leagues. Yeah, you have some, there's some great videos of you out there,
like impersonating like other players and stuff. Dude, it's so funny, man. So when you start to
get the entertainment aspect, how did that kind of come into you?
Do you feel like?
I think when I got comfortable that I was good and that I had largely like established myself
where I was going to be able to have a career like earlier career, you're just fighting to
stay there.
And it's like, if you have a bad outing, you might not be there the next day. But once you get to a certain level,
it's like, okay, I have some leeway here.
I can't be bad forever, but if I have a bad start or two,
it's not gonna be like, I'm gone.
And so that gives you a little-
Right, because it's manageable.
Yeah, and it gives you a little sense of like,
settle in, you can take a breath,
you can be a little bit more comfortable.
And then you start having some of these longer standing relationships with guys on your team
because now you've been teammates for two, three, four years.
And you have some of those jokes and like each game and moment becomes a little bit less
serious because of that comfortability.
And then you have, you can start joking around and you can start having fun. Um, so really like 2018, I had a really good second half of the year, 2017,
really good start to 2018.
And I started like feeling more like comfortable and like settled with the team.
And I started, you know, entertaining.
I'm pretty like, I'm, I like the banter, like we talked about, I like the kind of
witty interactions.
And so I like figuring out the puzzle of how do I, like, take this normally
mundane thing and just put a little twist on it, like make it more entertaining for
people.
And then, yeah, starting in like 2020, really, after I started the media company momentum in 2019,
it was like, okay, this is an attention economy.
So in order for baseball to grow, there have to be clips that are viral enough to get to
the youth that they see it like, oh, baseball is fun.
Right.
And then I'm like, okay, how do I start making some of these viral clips?
Well, let me study NBA.
What goes viral in NBA?
Oh, when people do something,
like they dunk on someone and they celebrate it.
Like when LeBron's flexing on someone,
like that's everywhere, right?
When Curry hits a three, but before the ball's in the bucket,
he's already running down the court,
like celebrating it, because he knows it's in,
like that's everywhere.
So I'm like, okay, how do you apply some of that to baseball?
It's like, all right, what can you do in baseball?
Like, are you going to celebrate a strikeout?
That'd be comparable to like flexing on someone when you dunk on them, right?
Are you going to call your shot on, you know, the day before the game,
oh, I'm going to do this with this person.
Are you going to have some sort of, you know, what, what does that look like in
baseball?
It's a good point.
Yeah.
And so I started getting the entertainment aspect of it because I was settled with
the performance, like I can entertain or and compete at the same time.
Right.
So I can compete and just not do any entertainment.
And you're going to get the same level of performance out of me that you'll get
if I'm also doing a little bit of entertainment.
Um, because I've, that's like my base operating level is intense competition.
You're an interesting dude, bro.
I'm all messed up.
Oh, it's great though.
My mind's...
It's cool.
It's just neat to get a look at how you operate, man.
It's really interesting.
I appreciate you talking with me, man.
Yeah, because you're, but you're right though.
If you're trying to build this sport, that's what you have.
Those are the, you need some of those moments.
You know, like the, there's a video out there
and it's a bunch, it's a view just impersonating
some of the other players on your team.
I think when you're with the...
Yeah, the Indians, we're in Pittsburgh.
With the Indians.
It was a...
Shout out Sunshine Clevenger of it, Airtude.
Yeah, you know Mike?
Yeah, yeah, definitely been around Mike, man.
He's such an entertaining guy.
Yeah. So this such an entertaining guy. Yeah.
So this is a funny story.
A lot of people don't know the follow-up to this story.
So you can see the guys in the background on this video
have rain tarps on or whatever.
So it's raining.
Right, so you're in a raining game
and this is here Cleveland versus Pittsburgh.
What year is this?
This is 2018 maybe?
I don't know, 20s. And as you come up to bat here, you keep kind of impersonating, I guess, different players
on your team.
They're batting stances.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we had a lot of unique batting stances this year.
And so always, like we get four days off in between starts and starting pitchers.
So we're in the dugout just messing around, like we're not having anything to do.
And so I was always grabbing something and trying to impersonate, you know,
Michael Vilis, Jason Kipnis, Rayburn, Brantley,
like some of these guys that had really unique characteristics.
And so at one point I think it was Michael Vilis,
like, hey, when are you gonna do that for real?
Like, you won't.
And I was like, I'll do it.
So I go and I have this at bat where I, you know,
do Rayburn and Kipnis.
Were they all shocked?
They were all, if you look at the dugout,
I don't know if there's a view of it.
They're all like laughing.
Yeah, that's Mike right there.
You're just, yeah.
Kipniss seems like such a neat guy, huh?
Kip's awesome, yeah.
So the follow up to this though is I walk in this at bat.
And so I'm on first base
and I'm just this stupid pitcher,
like running the bases and whatever.
And so the catcher, obviously the Pittsburgh wasn't super like,
they're applauded again.
Yeah.
Pittsburgh wasn't super like pleased with that.
Cause they're like, you guys are joking around out here.
Yeah.
So right after that, the next pitch, like I take my lead off first and the catcher
catches the ball and like fakes, like he's going to throw it down.
The first baseman was nowhere close, but I'm not used to being on base because I suck as a hitter.
I'm never on base, right?
So he goes to throw it down to first and I freak out and I dive back.
And there's no first baseman there and it's muddy and I stick in the mud.
And I don't even make, like my hand sticks, I don't even make it back to the base.
I'm just laying there by the base looking around.
There's no one there.
The catcher never threw the ball and I'm covered in mud.
And he just like pointed at me and like threw the ball back to the pitcher.
I'm like, all right, all right, that's good.
You got me.
Yeah.
That's good.
I respect that.
That's classic.
That's such a neat thing about life too, how it works.
It's like the second you start to get on your high horse,
even just a little life.
Knocks you down.
Here you go.
There's another really good example that we're playing the Padres 2021.
We're at Dodger Stadium.
And I facing, I'm facing Eric Hosmer.
Now I knew Haas from Houston, Kansas City when I was with Cleveland.
So we played each other a lot.
So we have a little bit of a, you know, a history like playing each other.
So the first at bat, I throw him a curve ball,
he half swings at it and strikes out,
and I hit him with my sword celebration.
And the next at bat, he comes up,
I throw him a curve ball, instead of missing it,
he hits a rocket right back at my face.
Like it would have killed me if I didn't get out of the way.
I end up laying on my back,
and I'm laying on him, I'm like, what just happened? Fortunately, it didn't hit me. And he's over at first base back and I'm like laying on the mountain like what just happened
Fortunately didn't hit me and he's over at first base and I start to sit up and there's actually a picture of me Yeah, this is probably it is this yeah that right and I don't know if this video clip goes long enough
But see if I laugh right here
Yeah, yeah right there. So he's at first base. He like, Hey, I look over at him. And he, he gave me the sword
back. I got him the, I got him the pit, the bat before. And
then he just like, got me back and then let me know about it.
Tetease had a great one. He had a home run off me, like put one
one hand over his eye. Because in spring training, I had like
thrown in one eye closed,
and then against the Padres, and then they waited,
and then when he got me back, he put his hand over.
Do you mind if stuff you think gets fun?
I love it.
Yeah, it's cool, actually.
Dude, if people would like celebrate on me all the time,
I don't care.
Like, that's good for the game.
Yeah, dude, and it would be so kind of,
there's one thing like Savannah bananas, you know,
you see them, there's some of the shit's gotten crazy.
They're like doing the news,
he's the musical between fucking second and third.
And you're like, Jesus Christ,
there's like a 90 minute musical.
Let's get the game going, you know?
But it's also, there's something that's just fun
about just a little bit of the adding more to it.
And I think you're right.
I think if you know there's a little bit more ambiance between some of the players, it
definitely right there, you're like, oh, shit, he's gonna, it's almost like when you, you
know that, like Gary Payton was gonna guard Michael Jordan or something like, oh, I want to tune in.
Because I know that four times they're gonna face each other.
Let's see how this shakes out.
Strictly and duplicated just fought, right?
That fight was not really interesting until they had the little skirmish in the crowd
and Strictly like through the elbow and they fought.
And then everyone's like, oh, we got to watch this fight. And the fight, it was great fight.
Like, I thought Sean won personally, but.
I did, yeah, what did you think about it?
I thought it was three, two.
I thought he outstruck, he outstruck him.
Didn't think that Duplesse got much out of the takedowns.
A lot of takedowns, but not a whole lot came from them.
I don't hate the decision, like very close fight
could have gone either way.
I had it, I had it three, two, Strickland. Judges judges had a 3-2 duplicy. Yeah, you like the fights. Yeah
Yeah, oh cool, bro me too. Yeah, I feel like do I feel like
There should be a little more gravity if you're gonna give the belt away. That's what it felt like to me
I was like it's this close and you're gonna give the belt away. Like if you're gonna beat somebody for the belt,
there should be a little more gravity to it.
Yeah.
Should be like definitive you beat them.
Yes.
Like if it's a regular match, I get it.
But and maybe that's, I'm just somebody who sits in the crowd
and wishes they could be tough enough to be out there.
But.
Yeah, I wouldn't want to be in the ring.
But you know, one of the things you said earlier made me think what I've heard a lot of guys say they're like
They can be great guys neat guys
But they have to believe when they go in there yeah that they are the baddest motherfucker in the world
Because if they don't believe that yeah, it'd be the
What can happen is just they don't stand they're not giving themselves any sort of a chance. Yeah, you know yeah
God and that's just got to be I What can happen is just they don't stand. They're not giving themselves any sort of a chance. Yeah. You know, yeah.
God, that's just got to be.
I can't imagine like what that, what the walk must be like, like it's you and another human, like in a death match.
Yeah.
I, it's got to be a crazy adrenaline rush, but it's also got to be super scary.
I, I walking out to play a baseball game,
like you win, you lose, it sucks if you lose,
but like there's not that visceral consequence.
Yeah.
Like you walk out there,
you don't think they've ever had a death in the UFC,
but like you get seriously hurt, like bad.
Yeah.
And some of the guys,
they seem already hurt before they ever fought.
You're like, damn, this guy, he needs to keep whatever he's got
still in the tank. He's got a key. Can't lose more. Yeah. Yeah.
You know. Oh, but yeah, the fact that they and they love it.
That's the crazy thing. Yeah. Some of them. Yeah. They love it.
Like you could see sometimes like gachey or poor you just how like just fucking
that's that's their thing. Yeah, that lights them up
Imagine only getting to perform like twice a year to that's the toughest part
I hate I hate baseball cadence where I only get to play once every fifth or six day. I can't imagine
Twice a year once a year. Yeah, imagine once a year. Yeah, Trevor Bauer gets to come out and throw some pit in the
And pitch a game for like 20 minutes Can you imagine training for a year, Trevor Bauer gets to come out and throw some pitch and pitch a game. For like 20 minutes.
Can you imagine training for a year?
And then you get 20 minutes and like it could be over in 30 seconds.
I can't, it's almost like, I think penguins are only fertile for like 11 minutes out of the year.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
That's a crazy stat.
I never heard that before.
So it's almost like that.
That's a crazy stat, I never heard that before. So it's almost like that.
But yeah, if you find anything on that, Nick, let me know.
I don't know.
I got a buddy said he had some pants.
I shouldn't say this, but he had the option
if I wanted to get a little bit of penguin meat,
which would be crazy to eat, but.
I've had puffin.
Have you really?
In Iceland, yeah.
Oh my God, Trevor. I had puffin,. Have you really? In Iceland, yeah. Oh my God, Trevor.
I've had puffin, kangaroo, puffin, Icelandic horse, shark.
Shark was terrible.
Oh.
Yeah.
The fermented shark.
So they like ferment the shark and they freeze it and they serve it in these like little
cubes.
It's like a delicacy in Iceland and they love it.
It tastes like gasoline.
I couldn't.
Oh.
Yeah, it was, I don't know.
I've had a little gasoline.
Acquired taste for sure.
Oh yeah, especially yeah, and if you've had real gasoline,
it's like you don't want an imitation.
Yeah, you want the real thing.
But yeah, I've had reindeer somewhere, I've had owl,
I've had, what else have I wanted to have?
I wouldn't, I don't know if you want to have penguin though, you know?
People just love them too.
I just, they're kind of like the French bulldog
of the North, I feel like.
Like you couldn't imagine eating French bulldog.
No, you know.
Frenchies are way too cute.
Yeah, that's a thing people would be pissed at.
Now it would taste good, I bet.
I'm not even gonna go down that route.
I know some Frenchies and I know people that love their Frenchies I can't even good, I bet. Ah, I'm not even gonna go down that route. I know some Frenchies and I know people
that love their Frenchies, I can't even imagine, but yeah.
Yeah, let's don't even say anything else about it.
So you get to, your career score,
you were a Cy Young winner.
That had to be unbelievable.
Are you chasing that at a certain point to the season?
Does it get like, where you're almost like
the drivers in NASCAR where it's like you're I chased that for 10 years
Wow, so I went to college and I like I said earlier I
well, I studied Tim Linsicum and
He won a Golden Spikes Award, which is basically the Heisman Trophy of baseball goes with like the best college baseball player and
I went to college and my only goal not my only personal goal
And I went to college and my only goal, not my only personal goal,
like I wanted to win the college world series
and everything like that with my team.
But my personal goal was to win the Golden Spikes Award.
And I won that my junior year of college.
So like check that box off.
Where did you really, I didn't know that.
You can graduate.
You were the best player in college baseball.
The one one.
Wow, bro.
Yeah, it was pretty cool.
Mainly because I set a goal and I spent literally all of my time.
I should have gone to class more.
I just did not go to school, but it was baseball.
And just my thoughts, my training,
everything was just on that.
And I accomplished it and it's a sense of pride
that I could set a goal
and like accomplish it.
It wasn't the ego of being the best guy.
It was the fact that I set a goal and like worked my way
and actually accomplished that goal.
And so after that, I was like, okay, what's next?
I'm like, well, Tim won two Cy Young awards.
I think he has, he might have had three.
I think he has, I know he has two.
And I was like, okay, that's the new goal.
And so from 2011, when I won the Golden Spikes
for the next 10 years, I was chasing the Cy Young Award.
And everything I did was like, okay,
who's the best pitcher in baseball?
What do they do better than I do?
And like, let me go work on that.
And it's, did he get, oh yeah,
three time World Series champion,
two times Cy Young Award.
Yeah, back to back, 08, 09.
Dude, he was-
You're halfway there.
Those two years were...
Gas, I remember that.
Something different, like it was just so,
so unique what Tim was able to do.
Tim Lensicum, yeah.
Yeah, and so, yeah, from 2011.
He had a long hair too, remember?
Yeah. God, to be able to. He had a long hair too, remember? Yeah.
God, to be able to do so well with long hair too.
Haha.
You know, Randy Johnson did that, or Eckersley did that.
There's just, it's a special.
Yeah.
To be like, yeah, my hair fucks and then you go out there and throw a total gas on people.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
What are you saying?
He won.
Oh, so he won, he won two of them.
I won the Golden Spikes 2011.
I was like, I want the Saiyong.
And so everything I did for the next 10 years
was centered around like, what does the best pitcher do
that's better than I am?
And like, let me develop that skill set.
What pitch does he throw?
How hard does he throw?
Is he durable?
What's his command?
How's his nutrition?
Like all this stuff.
And so I just worked at it.
And then 2020, I won the Siam,
which was like a,
the pitching coach with the Reds, Derek Johnson.
I've been, I've known Derek for,
he's like one of my guys.
I've known him since 2000.
Since I was getting recruited to college, I wanted to go to Vanderbilt and play for him. He's a Vanderbilt at the time, but he's like one of my guys. I've known him since 2000. Since I was getting recruited to college,
I wanted to go to Vanderbilt and play for him.
He's at Vanderbilt at the time,
but he's like in the baseball circles that I kind of run in.
Caleb Cawthon was the assistant pitching coach.
He was, I trained with him for years in the office.
He got three dogs.
Eric Jagers was there.
Like he was, I trained with him and like one of my guys,
like all my people, Sonny Gray was there. Like all was, um, I trained with him and like one of my guys, like all my
people, Sonny Gray was there.
Like all my, all my people were there and like to have that year.
It was super special.
Um, do they get a also a copy of the.
No, so they give out, they give out one award.
Um, but for my catchers, I got them, uh, they're both kind of like watch guys.
So I got, uh, we all got like Rolexes.
I let them pick their watch and it all has like 2020
and I'll say I engraved.
Wow, look how happy you look.
Yeah, yeah.
And actually this was, we were playing the Reds this day.
So Sunny and Louis Castillo and DJ actually came over
for the ceremony, I have some pictures with them.
So you won it with the Reds,
but you didn't get the award till the next season
when you were playing with the Dodgers.
Wow.
And then for,
You were playing against the Reds when you got it.
Yeah, I think they scheduled the ceremony for that day
for that crossover.
Dude, that must have been so crazy.
Yeah.
For 10 years on my phone,
I had a picture of a Saiyong award.
Um, I think it was, I don't remember exactly who's Saiyong award it was.
I used to see the name every day.
And then every time I opened my phone, that was the, the background picture of my
phone, like every time I was looking at it, I just would see it in my mind.
And then I replaced that picture with now the background background of my phone is my Cy Young Award,
cause I want another one.
But yeah, I chased it for 10 years
and finally accomplished it, which is a pretty crazy.
To chase something for 10 years
and finally get it is like such a cool feeling.
I didn't even know like how to feel.
It was like, I can't believe this actually happened.
Yeah, are you able to feel proud, pride like kind of well?
Do you?
Not in the moment.
And by the time I win something,
I've already like set the next target.
Yeah.
And I was like, I won it.
And I was like, okay, but anyone can win one.
Like, wow, you can't win.
Who can, how many guys have won two?
How many have won three?
And like, so I just, it's one of my struggles.
I need to get better at it is like actually enjoying the fact that I did this
really cool thing.
What a trickster.
Your brain is such an, cause sometimes our brain is like a trickster.
It's like, oh, well it's like, and what about this?
You know, it's like, it's sometimes if I can look at that almost like, yeah, and
try and enjoy it, not be too hard on myself, not, you know, constantly be pushing the goal
on, but sometimes if I can just look at myself and be like, what a fucking trickster you
are brain, you're going to go and meet, you're going to, we just did it.
Yeah.
Like, let me, let me like hang out just did it and you're gonna do it.
Yeah, like let me like hang out here for a little bit
and like enjoy this.
But if I can at least laugh at that part of me
that does it instead of look at it like,
man, it just keeps moving and I'm never able
to have any fun, sometimes that can help me have
a little bit of a different like space there.
I get like long-term enjoyment out of it.
It's like little hits of it here and there.
So the award is actually up in my room at my parents' house,
like where I grew up and this is where I,
I still have artwork that I made in high school
that's on the walls and like hats that I had signed
by people that are hanging there.
Like it's like my room.
And so the award is like hanging up like in my childhood room
Because I feel like that's where it belong like most people will put it in like a case and like
That's where the journey started. Got it. And like that's where it I feel like it just belongs like
The young kid that like never thought he'd play big league Baseball because Big League Baseball players are like they're superstars.
They're like different than me.
And all of a sudden I end up being one of those people
and have this thing that like only the best of the best get.
And it's like still when I see it up there,
I'm like, this is crazy.
Like I have a note from my high school coach
threatening to kick me off the team next to like,
the Saiyung award.
Like, the disparity between those things
is like such an interesting contrast, you know?
Bro, that's so many feelings.
That's so much at once, dude.
What was he threatening to kick you off for,
do you remember?
Dude, I was, I have like four or five of them.
I got thrown out of a game one time, I was hitting,
and I'm probably made a bet what I thought was a bad call.
So I flipped my bat and I like drew a line in the sand
of like where the ball crossed the plate.
Didn't say a word.
I got tossed.
And then of course, like you're getting thrown out of a game,
not good look for the high school program.
There's times where like the part that I mentioned earlier where I'd go up
and do practice, like I would go up there and throw a bait. There's a tennis court
with like a really high fence next to a big open grass field. And so I would
throw long toss on the open grass field and the ball would hit the fence and like
die there. And I had to throw by myself. So I'd have two buckets of balls and I
would throw them all and then go pick them up and keep throwing.
And then one of the local tennis instructors didn't like the noise of the ball hitting the fence.
And so he would go and like, we had this years long like feud.
And he would come out in the middle of his tennis lessons and like grab my buckets of baseballs and steal them so I couldn't throw.
And then he would like call the cops on me and like all this stuff
but the thing is there was no signs it's public park no signs on the fence saying that I couldn't
throw against it we'd gone to city council and like cleared it and made sure it was okay he just
didn't like it. So a lot of just technical back and forth yeah but you like to make sure that you
you're kind of like me I think it seems in some ways I think I, but you like to make sure that you You're kind of like me. I think it seems in some ways
I think I like I always wanted to make sure how I felt was known. Mmm. I always wanted to have my say in things
So be able to have my say that's what I felt. Yeah, and it's sometimes it's a blessing and sometimes it's a for sure
I had I
Remember the morning That that kind of like
changed for me.
I was 17 in high school.
I had gotten up in the morning to go to the YMCA,
did my pre-school workout, came back,
showered, was looking in the mirror,
I was like, you know, why, what is it about me
that like I don't have friends
that people like don't like me,
that they bully me, that they pick on me,
like all this stuff.
And I just made the decision that day.
I was like, I like myself.
Like, I'm good in school, I treat people well,
I'm hardworking, I'm whatever.
Like, I like what I see looking back at me,
so I'm gonna be okay with that.
And I'm not gonna stop chasing approval from other people,
and as long as I can be proud of myself,
I'm cool with it.
And so that gave me the freedom internally
to have a voice, and when someone would say something
to me, I'd fire back.
And I would feel better about myself
because I felt like I was defending myself
and standing up for myself.
And my life got a lot better
through the rest of high school and into college
because of that, because I felt like I had a voice
and I was being heard instead of just being like
swatted down all the time.
And then as my life situation changed,
something that can be good at one point
can be bad at other points.
As my life situation changed,
as people stopped picking on me as much,
as I got into professional baseball
and my profile in baseball grew,
I was still very quick to just fire back at people.
And fans normally in the bantery, good natured way,
but media people on air personalities, writers,
and stuff like that, they would write something about me
that I didn't like or that I disagreed with
or I felt was untrue.
That's one thing that really bugs me
is when someone writes something that is not true
about anyone, I don't think you should,
because it affects a person's reputation and stuff,
so I would just fire back at them.
And I was like, okay, I'm justifying this to myself
because they attacked me first
and they said this stuff isn't true. They set the terms where they're going to just come
out of, they're going to go out of their way to like, I wouldn't pick on them. They're
going to come after me. Well, okay, unleash it like fire back.
Yeah. Exactly makes good sense.
Yeah. I would just unload on people though, like said some pretty hurtful things and then
you know, I get the reputation of being this like combative person, which I'm not,
but that's how I appeared online.
And I don't think I updated my,
like how I behaved and interpreted the world.
Like, I don't think I updated that as quickly as like my life situation changed.
I see.
And so I got to a point where like I didn't need to be doing that stuff and there's a
much more mature way to handle those things.
Like just have a conversation with a person instead of just like online like firing back.
So that's one thing that over the last couple of years I've really tried to like
update.
Evolve in?
Update my, how I perceive the world,
like how I operate in the world
to match like my life situation.
Well, sometimes it makes sense that that takes like,
sometimes the world doesn't take into account that
we have to get to certain places where we have enough space
to look around at our environment
and update our own software, right?
And sometimes it takes time.
It's like, and that's just what it is, you know,
but the media is also gross.
I wanna, I'll say that, you don't have to say that.
And I think the media is very gross these days.
There's countless things that are printed all the time
and said that have no,
jurisprudence, is that a word in it? What am I saying? That sounds right.
Jurisprudence. I don't know what it,
Oh, it just means a legal system. Oh yeah. Yeah. I just, I don't know.
Merit. I don't know.
I think I remember just reading a scarlet letter and that popped into my head for
some reason, but I'm forever stuck on whatever books I read
in like like a ninth grade, bro.
Forever dude, people are like,
bro you have a good book, I'm like dude,
if it wasn't in fucking the Scarlet Letter dude,
I don't know it.
But no, it's interesting man.
And especially I think learning more about you,
you see like, oh well this guy has had to kind of like
create his own operating software to fit what works with him and his world, you know, and that's, um,
a lot of people, you don't get to know that about him, you know, um, I think society there should be more
uh, the way society is right now is everything's like very short attention span and very final. Yeah, it or it is that. And then that's true for the rest of time. Where in reality, it's like, this might have been the
case at this specific moment in time with these circumstances, this person feeling one way on
that day because of this other thing, this other person feeling this other way on, and then like
that situation changes. So the people change the next day,
the next week, the next year,
but you look back at something someone said five years ago
and you're like, oh, well,
he's a terrible person because of this,
or oh, I love him because of this one thing,
when like it's a tiny snapshot of a brief moment
that doesn't describe the whole of the situation, the person, the intent, anything.
But society, I think, is like so short with forming an opinion.
Well, especially with athletes, you only get to see a certain amount to them.
Yeah.
Like, and when they go on to a lot of long form conversations, a lot of times they, um,
there's someone, you know, there's a lot of fear about, you know, saying certain, they don't want
to say too, you know, they don't want to get in trouble. You only see certain like, uh, snapshots
of them on the sideline, you see a guy get upset two times. Yeah. You have no idea what's happened
or what's going on, but suddenly you're like, Oh, that guy's the problem. Dude, I saw the best example of that.
It's NBA game.
I think it was Durant.
It might have been someone else,
but I'm just gonna say it was Durant,
because that's what's in my head.
But he's doing an interview on the court
right after the game, right?
And the reporter asked him a question.
He's got a microphone on his face.
Oh yeah, you know, the team this and that
and the other whatever.
And he's got this like polished,
like you can tell like it's a,
he's been trained like how to talk to the media,
like say words without saying anything at all.
Like not a whole lot of.
I don't say anything at all basically, but say something.
So in the middle of one of his answers,
one of his teammates,
or I think someone from the other team comes up to like,
hey, good game.
And he steps away from the microphone for like three seconds and completely
changes.
Just like, oh, what's up brother?
Hey, he's great.
That's like going into this whole thing with someone that he's comfortable with
in a different way.
Yeah.
And he comes back to the interview right back into like the media mode.
And I'm like, if that's not the perfect example of how what you see is not always what is true,
I don't know what is.
Yeah, there's a certain protecting of the realm
in a lot of ways, you know?
Which part of it makes sense too?
Especially I think with baseball,
because baseball has this, I have to pee so bad, man.
Is that okay?
Sure.
Do you have to pee or are you okay?
I'm good.
Wow, that's amazing when people don't have to pay to me.
What, so everything was going, so your career was going great.
And then you had this, you had the instance that happened with the allegations, right?
Is that the best way to say it?
How do people?
Yeah, I mean, there's allegations against me, stuff I didn't do, but
Dick gets out in social media, the media writes about it. And to be fair, like they were very
serious allegations. Like what was alleged was very, you know, should be investigated and should
be taken very seriously. Just, you know, the way the system works, like those get those allegations
get made. There's an open investigation.
I'm advised not to say anything, so it's only it's a very one-sided discussion for a long
period of time. And then that influences public perception over it. And then when the facts start
coming out, when the truth starts coming out, it's a much smaller, there's a lot less buzz
around it.
And so the public perception's already been influenced
in a certain way.
There must have been harrowing to go through.
Yeah, it sucked.
It sucked.
It still sucks.
So, and it doesn't even sound like it was that,
it sounds like there was just,
you messaged with a woman online,
you guys both agree to spend time together,
you spend time together.
It's later revealed that she had the idea
that she wanted to, she had a plan or a strategy to,
she had a plan or a strategy to,
did it say like to take from you? I'm trying to think what the strategy was.
There's texts about taking my money,
getting it, yeah, stuff like that.
Yeah, next victim's star picture for the Dodgers.
And what's so crazy is, Trevor, is I was like three months ago, I'm looking at some stuff online.
And I'm OK talking with you about this.
Do you feel OK? For sure. All right.
I'm looking at some stuff online.
I see pictures of the girl and I'm like, how do I know this girl?
I had she had connected with me over social media at some point.
And we met up. she came to a comedy show
and then she came afterwards, we went to my hotel,
we just sat in the lobby and chatted.
And she like knew some friends,
we had some mutual friends and stuff.
But we just sat there and chatted
and then I got her in Uber home.
Thank goodness, I guess,
because you know, but that it just, I'm like looking at him like, how do I, but even that to me,
because I know she, I felt like she wanted to stay over
and spend time, you know, it just blew my mind.
I'm like, is this, is this like a fit?
Like, was this person like doing this kind of stuff regularly
or was it just happenstance that, you know, anyway,
it just that, and that got me even more in your world
kind of and I really started to look backstance that you know, anyway, it just
that and that got me even more in your world kind of and and I really started to look back
at what had gone on and and man, it was just I think a lot of people felt like it was just
a really raw deal.
Yeah, I mean, I certainly feel that way.
I can't change it obviously at this point like point. Like it is what it is, like the situation happened.
I've had to do like two main things.
One, I've had to like self reflect.
Okay, how did I get into this situation
where like something like this is even possible?
And then two, I've had to look towards the future How did I get into this situation where like something like this is even possible? Yeah.
And then two, I've had to look towards the future and try to have something that I'm
moving towards or something that I'm trying to accomplish because if I don't, I would just get mired in this really negative stuff. And that's, you know, it's not good for mental health. It's
not good for productivity or the people that I'm around or, you know,
stuff like that. So I've done a lot of reflecting and like looking at mistakes that I made and
a lot of that. Like there's a lot of components to this whole situation.
Like number one, like my interactions with
like number one, like my interactions with females
in general, like I had paid very little attention to my personal life, cause I was so focused on baseball.
And then when I started my businesses,
it was baseball and business.
And I just didn't pay attention to anything else.
So I had just, like, I didn't think anything of it.
Someone would hit me up on Instagram and I was like,
oh yeah, I just go over and do whatever. I didn't think anything of it. Someone would hit me up on Instagram and I was like, oh yeah, I can just come over and do whatever.
I didn't think anything of it.
I think at the time it was like,
well, I treat people well and I'm respectful
and I'm not doing anything improper.
And so that's fine.
Yeah, that's a way to live.
I'm living the way you're supposed to be living.
Yeah, I never even crossed my mind
that something like this could happen.
But, you know, I was associating with people
that were not, that didn't see,
yeah, people were like hitting me up on Instagram
because they knew me somehow, but I didn't know them.
Right.
You know, I would just meet up with them.
I knew very little about them.
That was dangerous in my position.
Part of like what we discussed about the software update.
Like I see myself as this guy that's like,
even with everybody else,
that just, you know,
and then I get into a position in life
where that's not the case and I become a target
and I just didn't see like the signs
of being a target or whatever.
And so I didn't update my software early enough.
It's a bummer.
Yeah.
It's a bummer because you also,
you want to be able to meet people on even terms.
That's the toughest thing about sometimes having
some popularity, I think, and something that's sometimes
kind of like, I don't want to say sad because nobody's like,
hey, look man, you get to have a lot of neat,
do a lot of neat things.
Yeah, I don't ever want to come off like a victim.
Like it was, like I was treated this way or whatever.
It's just like, there are realities to the certain situations.
Right.
Definitely very, very positive, like being a professional athlete and like having
that opportunity, like there's so many positives to it.
Um, I don't ever want to come off like I'm complaining.
Yeah.
But there are certain realities that go along with it that you have to be cognizant of.
And, um, yeah, I just, I didn't update quick enough to be cognizant of them Yeah, I just, I didn't update quick enough
to be cognizant of them before it happened.
I've updated now.
I've changed a lot of things,
how I do things in my personal life.
I'm very careful of who I meet and how I meet them.
I'm not having the same type of just casual
sexual relationships.
So I'm not agreeing to do the same types
of sexual things. I'm not agreeing to do the same types of like sexual things.
Um, I'm not like dating a bunch of people.
I've like really locked down my personal life and gone back to the square one.
Like what do I care about in a personal relationship?
Okay.
I want someone that's a BCD, whatever.
Okay.
Let me go try to find those things actively instead of just being okay with
anybody that's approaching me just to
Have someone around in those blank moments. We're like, oh, I have two hours at night and I have nothing to do
So like I'll just have someone. I'll meet up with somebody. Exactly. Yeah
Oh, dude, it's saying look I can relate. I'm not trying to take your conversation here
But just a young man can relate to that. Yeah, just the same type of thing. It's like and even young women
It's like it just becomes a habitual thing. Yeah, you know people think there's but you know, but it's like yeah
Sometimes the reason why maybe I haven't landed exactly where I would like to be
It's yeah, it's like have I if well, I just if I just kind of
Take whatever like shooting star passes through the sky Yeah, it's like have I if well, I just if I just kind of take whatever
Like shooting star passes through the sky. Yeah as opposed to going out and looking for like somebody
That's the real fucking sunshine, you know, it's like and not you Mike Clevenger
But I go for you prefer a female. Yeah, but um, but yeah, I feel you man
It's like I can all day it because people just kind of come and go all the time
Yeah, and that's man. It's like, I can all day it, cause people just kind of come and go all the time.
And that's fine, you can do that.
But if you really want to go out and you,
and like emulate what you want into the world
and then hopefully get that back, you know?
I think longterm wise,
like it's just a much more healthy
situation for me personally,
to be surrounded by people that are interested in the same
things that push me in a positive way to get better, to learn more, to achieve more or
whatever that support me in moments.
That's one of the biggest things is like getting through the last couple of years.
I mean, even today, I get still struggled today with, you know, there's still ongoing
like ramifications of
everything. Um, but just having the support group around you that like, you know, these
people care about you and not the attributes that you like, not the bank account or the
fame or the notoriety or whatever the lifestyle, like having that support group, you know,
weeding out some of the people that were around that like
didn't feel that way and really locking down the people that you vibe with and that like
you know have your back and
are going to give you some of those free spaces to mess up and like as long as you learn and continue getting better They're not just like gone when one bad thing happens. That's been so important.
And I'm so thankful for those people, my family,
like my business partners, my agent, Rachel,
like there's a lot of other people, friends,
I can't name everybody of course,
but those people, the support group that are there,
it's so important.
You're like when shit hit the fan, right?
Was it like, did it kind of, was it totally a shock to you?
It was, it was pretty bad.
Yeah.
I went from focusing on my next start to then like,
this article came out and then I'm having
all these conversations and then I'm not allowed
at the field and I'm still gonna pitch in two days,
but then I'm not gonna pitch in two days, but then I'm not gonna pitch in two days.
And then I can't take the team flight back
because I'm not allowed to be with the team right now.
And then I can't take a commercial flight back home
because my name's everywhere and it's such a big story
that like it's gonna be a disaster
at taking commercial flight to renting a car and driving from DC,
like back across the United States in the middle of season,
not knowing when I'm gonna rejoin the, like it was a.
Who drove with you?
I drove with my agent, Rachel.
Oh, sweet of her.
Yeah, she was in DC and then we were there
for two or three days and then drove back across country.
Fuck. Yeah, it was, it happened pretty quick.
And then obviously like, you had the legal stuff
that plays out, you have, you know, investigation
and you know, it was never, never arrested for anything.
It was never charged with anything.
Yeah, there was never any.
That drug out for, drug out is the wrong word
because like the allegations are serious
and they should have, you know, they looked into them thoroughly and I respect the hell out of the wrong word because the allegations are serious and they should have,
they looked into them thoroughly
and I respect the hell out of the police for doing that.
I think all allegations like this
should be looked into with that amount of thoroughness.
But it lasted for nine months before the decision was made
that there was gonna be no charges or whatever.
The whole time I was like not able to be with a team.
There was no resolution.
There's no, I didn't know when any of those decisions
were gonna come out.
So I'm just in this holding pattern.
And then there was MLB suspended me.
And then there was, you know, we appealed the suspension.
And then that took another, I don't even remember how long that took another period of time
Things move slowly in the you know as they go through courts and as they go through
Arbitrations and stuff like that. So who was there who was like really there for you while you like?
Yeah, parents have been parents have been great
Yeah, parents have been great. Rachel I've mentioned, she was there, business partner Tosh, a lot of my employees that I consider close friends, Kevin, Eric, we've hired more
people along the way as well that have been there all the time. Yeah, friends. I mean, there's people that I just know that for,
you know, since high school or whatever that like would check in with me. Coaches,
I don't want to name names because I don't know whatever, but a lot of coaches and that I've
known through baseball, a lot of players, teammates. So you had some good support. Yeah.
And I think it's because people that I've played with, people that I've been in the clubhouse with,
people that I've known personally,
looked at their experience with who I am
and what they know of me and what's being said.
And they just like, nope.
There's no way that happened.
And yeah, so I think publicly it's been seen as like,
I'm this, you know, there's reports that I, you know,
Dodger's organization doesn't want me around
and teammates don't this and I'm not welcome here
and all that stuff, but like what's been seen publicly
and my experience of what's been going on
kind of behind the scenes and my interactions with people
and stuff like that have been completely different.
So it's actually been good knowing that,
the people that I know that have been around me
have that amount of trust
or that have had a good experience with me.
And I believe. Yeah, so I'm lucky Beth, I guess, trust or that have had a good experience with me and I believe.
Yeah, so I'm looking at some nice things.
There was an other or that that's what they put out in the articles.
You just don't know with a lot of these articles, man.
And the lawyers, too, that's the shadiest part sometimes is like,
it seemed like in your instance, the lawyers use the media to make you look worse.
Yeah.
That's crazy. Yeah, exactly.
That's fucking, like, why wouldn't you just do what the rule,
like, it just, man, that's fucking made me,
it just was sickening.
I don't know enough about the legal system
to warrant having an opinion.
So I don't want this to come off as like, I am advocating for one thing or another,
but it seems like there's this loophole having been through it where like,
you can make a domestic violence, uh, restraining order requests.
You can file for, for one of those and you can write a whole bunch of stuff.
And that's fine.
Cause you have to be able to write what happened and make your claim.
And then that is filed.
That becomes a public document.
You don't have to attach your name to it, but you can attach the other
person's name to it.
Wow.
And then it takes time for that to go through, to get scheduled, to get heard,
to get decided upon.
But the damage in today's society has already been done
as soon as that becomes public,
that like, you know, we went to the domestic violence
restraining order court, which is like the lowest standard
of proof that you have to, in order to get that,
to win a domestic violence restraining order,
like it's the lowest standard of proof.
We went to that and won.
Like there was no restraining order granted,
but in the month or, I think it was actually like a month,
I think it was like six weeks in between
when the initial filing and articles came out.
And when that happened, that's six weeks of one side
of the story being out there.
And like, damage is done.
I can't say anything.
Yeah.
And I've had great legal representation and they've advised me well along the way and
the advice is don't say anything and it kills me because like I want to defend myself.
I want to get the truth out there.
And then it's like, okay, well, what is the, what's the reparation for the damage that's
been done here?
And it doesn't seem like there's any sort of,
yeah, and maybe there's some sort of update
that can be made to that process.
Like I also see the other side of it where,
for people that are in those situations
that need a place to be able to go and get help
and to get out of a bad situation and to protect themselves,
like we never wanna discourage that from happening either.
So I don't know what the solution is here, but just like having talked to
people in professional sports and like a lot of people have reached out and like,
Hey man, I went through something similar.
This is what they did to me or this is what happened in my case.
So this was seemingly was helpful or whatever.
Like this is a thing that happens a lot.
Again, I don't, I just know what happened with me.
Of course, this is your case.
This is your instance, yeah.
It's, you know, the general way is like you make these allegations and then tell the person
you're gonna file this thing and in order, and the implications can be very bad for you
and so then money exchanges hands and I've
talked to multiple people where that's been the case. Right so it's just like
people can do that and then you have to pay to get rid of it. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah you know I don't know how they have data and it's tough that they
don't have to attach their name to it because then there's no real repercussions
for them, you know
I'm sorry you had to go through that man. Yeah, you know, I know that doesn't help or anything
But I think a lot of people probably feel that way
We all have our struggles and I don't like I'm very fortunate to be in the position
I am even with all this stuff like I'm not blind to that and so again
I don't want to I never want to come off as like oh woe is me and like I was victim I don't think
I mean, I believe that you were a victim never want to come off as like, oh, woe is me and like I was victim or anything like that.
I mean, I believe that you were a victim there
and I'll just say that for myself,
but I don't think you sound like that at all.
Yeah, it was a tough situation.
We all have tough situations in life
and like hopefully something that I say
about how I got through it
or how I am trying to like learn from past mistakes
and be better is helpful to the next person that goes through it or how I am trying to like learn from past mistakes and be better.
It's helpful to the next person that goes through it. So it makes their time a little bit easier than my time was.
It's thoughtful of you.
It's kind of a powerful to get to that place.
I'm sure it's been an interesting journey.
You know, it's been interesting.
I think in like 10 years when I look back on it, I'll be,
I think there'll be a lot of things in my life that have happened because of changes
that I made during this time period
that I'll be very happy with.
It's just very hard to like see off into the future
when you're so in it.
And when you feel like,
everything you knew about your world is completely like gone. when you're so in it and when you feel like, you know,
you're, everything you knew about your world is completely like gone.
Like you're basically just torn down to zero.
Like where do I go from here?
What am I doing?
But as far as like updating the software and stuff,
I think I'll be happy in five or 10 years
that like changes that I've made because of this experience
have helped me like grow as a person.
Wow. Fuck dude. You're fucking in. It's a, it is a high road attitude to hear from you.
For me, like I can't, I can't go any other road because it's poisonous.
What's next then?
What's next?
How do we get to see you?
Cause I wanna see you go for that second side young.
I'm gonna be really, really honest with you.
Yeah, I'd love to.
I mean, that's the goal.
Like I'd like to play in MLB,
looking for a contract.
And yeah, I mean, I've been training the whole time in MLB, looking for a contract.
Yeah, I mean, I've been training the whole time.
We talked earlier about how baseball is like my backdrop.
When things go bad, I go back to this.
And this has been one of the most difficult things
is like when baseball is taken away,
like what do I fall back on?
So I just fell back on training.
So I've improved like since people last saw me.
I'm throwing harder.
I've developed new pitches.
My command's better.
I'm still one of the best pitchers in the world.
I'd love to prove that.
Obviously I realized there's a lot of,
other considerations besides just talent at this point.
So I'm hopeful that I get a job
and I get an opportunity to go out
and prove that I'm good and I have a lot to offer.
I think I got like,
a lot to offer the baseball community as a whole
with content, entertainment and all that.
I have a lot to offer a team.
Like one of the things I'm really passionate about
is helping young baseball players
have their journey be easier than mine.
So we actually train, I think we got like 20 guys that we train for free at my
facility in Arizona and the off season pro guys that come in.
I've been working with all the pitchers there and developing pitches and feel and
mindset and all that stuff. I love that stuff.
So I have a lot to offer from that perspective, I think, to a team and club
house that I'm with, um, obviously like perspective, I think, to a team and clubhouse that I'm with.
Obviously, like performance, like you gotta win games.
I know I can do that.
That's not even a question on my mind.
So what was like the financial,
cause you were making good money, right?
Yeah, I signed, so I won the Cy Young 2020, and then...
That was your contract year?
I was a free agent after that, yeah.
Wow, bro!
That is a dream.
Very fortunate.
And look, I love it when dudes get paid.
That's what George Kittle told me.
He goes, everybody's happy when somebody gets paid, man.
Yeah, for sure.
So you had three years, 102 million.
Yeah.
So it was a kind of a unique structure.
The plan, I had opt-outs after every year.
The plan was always to play the first two years and then opt out and be a free agent after the third
And I would have been two years for 85 million the way the contract worked out
So an average value of 42 and a half million a year
Which was the highest annual average value at that time for any baseball player
I think show hey just crushed. No way. You were like the top of the heap. Yeah. Yeah
Wow, and did they still have to pay you a certain amount of that? Yeah, I got some of it
I also lost some of it in the you know, I think I
Don't remember exactly what the numbers shook out to be but I lost a significant amount of it with the suspension and stuff
like that so and we did expensive like the lawyer attorney fees and all that yeah man lawyers are very
much needed like very specialized and like you know you need you need them but very expensive
yeah so it's been obviously baseball has given me a lot financially I'm doing fine. I don't want to come off like I'm, you know, not fine, but It's been a heavy heavy hit for sure
And how do your agents like do you try to go back at the same rate? Like how does that even work?
Is that fair to ask you about? Yeah, that's fine. I don't like I just want to play like that's that's where I'm at
like I'll play for league minimum and like earn my money based on incentives.
Like I don't care.
Whatever, whatever the structure for the team is, like that makes them most comfortable.
Like it's fine with me.
You heard the man.
I just want to go play.
Yeah.
You know, yeah.
Incentive based, right?
Yeah.
You want to, you all show you.
If, yeah, if you sign me and like something's not going right
and you don't like the reaction or you don't whatever,
like you can cut me and then you don't have to bear the,
you know, the brunt of signing this,
let's say it's a $10 million contract
and you know, something's not going right
and you still have to pay the $10 million.
I don't need that.
Like I just want to, I want 10 million. I don't need that.
I just want a job.
I want to go play and let me just prove
that I'm still one of the best pitchers.
Let me prove that I have a lot to offer the organization.
And then I'll get paid an incentives.
I'll earn based on what I perform.
I'm happy with that.
I've always wanted to be that way too.
Like it's, I've only wanted to sign one year contracts
because I never want to be the guy that signs a long-term
deal and then it's like, okay, well I'm getting paid
regardless so performance doesn't matter and I'm just
gonna like play out my years or whatever.
I'm gonna get my saws or whatever, paint my nails
or whatever.
Yeah, like shout out to the guys that paint their nails,
no problem with it. But like. my nails or whatever. Yeah. Like shout out to the guys that paint their nails. No problem with it, but like, yeah, no judgment.
Yeah.
But, uh, like I, I'm an intense competitor and I just want to go compete.
Right.
And like, I would like to be compensated fairly for what I produce.
So if I produce nothing, I don't feel like I should be compensated anything.
If I'm the best pitcher in the league, I feel like I should be compensated for
being the best pitcher in the league, I feel like I should be compensated for being the best pitcher in the league.
And the easiest way to do that is just like,
minimum risk for the team, I'll play for the minimum.
And then if I pitch really well,
then have incentives that reward me for pitching really well.
And the value that I give to the team is equally shared
and both sides feel like they won.
Wow.
I'm happy to have any sort of like, like, yeah, I want to work together with the
team.
I want to be a positive in the community and the clubhouse on the field, like
overall for the game of baseball.
Um, I know that I can be that I have no questions about it, which is why I have no
problem taking like a incentive based contract because I know that I can go out
there and deliver. Um, I know the type I know that I can go out there and deliver.
I know the type of person that I am.
I know the type of results that I'm be able to produce
and I'm willing to bet on myself in that way.
But at the end of the day,
like I just want to compete.
Like I just want a chance to go compete
and like do the thing that I've spent 30 years
becoming one of the best in the world at and the thing that I've spent 30 years becoming one of the best in the world at
and the thing that I love to do.
Bro, if I had a team, if I had even,
if we had a spot here, I'd hire you right now.
I'd hire you to pitch.
What would you call it?
What's your, what's your team name be?
Oh, that's a great question, huh?
Put you on the spot.
Hmm, what's a good team name?
Probably maybe, uh, the reverb or the Lisps.
The Lisps?
Yeah.
One of my best friends growing up,
Douglas had a Lisp and I would always,
um, I would impersonate him because I was in,
it was like the, he had the unique voice.
It's one of the teachers when I thought I was making fun of him.
I'm like, what do you mean?
I'm not, he's like, he, God put that remix and I'm like he's doing something different. Like I just thought it was so cool
You know
Kind of cool because it's like taking something that can be considered to kind of like
Maybe not the best but making it positive. Yeah, it'd be pretty dope. What else the Nashville lists. Oh, it's got a ring
The line up Nashville lists. Oh, dude, it's got a ring. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. The list, dude.
Yeah.
I'd sign up.
Strike.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That sounded like Howie Mandel saying that joke.
But dude, if we could afford you, even if basic men
and we'd pay you to pitch here, but we don't have a team,
we don't have a field.
But God, dude, that'd be, yeah.
We just got to see you back up there.
There's no valid reason why you shouldn't be back out there.
Yeah, I appreciate you saying that.
Like I...
There's no valid reason.
It doesn't even make nothing.
If the universe doesn't make this happen,
it doesn't even make any sense anymore.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm hopeful that it will.
I'm hopeful that it will.
I just, I would like to entertain people.
I'd like to pitch. I'd like to pitch.
I'd like to win.
When does spring training start?
Usually like second week, around Valentine's Day,
second week of February.
Some teams are like February 12th,
some teams like February 16th.
It's like, they all kind of report at different dates,
but yeah, middle of February.
Wow, date with the diamond, huh?
Yeah.
And that's not, doesn't worry.
I'm talking about baseball diamond.
Yeah.
Yeah. We could see it, bro. Yeah, just looking for an opportunity. I want to play in ML worry. I'm talking about baseball diamond. Yeah. Yeah, we could see it, bro
Yeah, I just looking for an opportunity. I want to play an MLB. I love Japan
I'd have absolutely nothing negative to say about Japan
And at some point like being separated from the culture that I'm comfortable with and I'm used to like
It was tough and being away from friends and family and stuff like that
everyone made everyone there made it so much better than it could have been.
And I'm very appreciative.
But yeah, I would like I would like to play an MLB.
I would like to chase the second side.
Young, I'd like to, you know, try to win a World Series.
I finished second, you know.
Oh, yeah, you guys came in second place with the Dodgers.
No, with with Cleveland in 2016 and I finished second in college.
We lost to TCU and the national championship,
or not TCU to South Carolina in national championship.
So I finished second twice.
I'd like to actually win one.
Wow.
But yeah.
Dude, it would be so cool if you got to play with the Padres,
but if you got to play with the Dodgers,
Walker Bueller plays over there.
Dude, they just went and signed Shohei and Yamamoto too.
Oh, that's right.
I talked to Yamamoto when I was in Japan
through an interpreter.
He's a pretty special pitcher.
I'm excited to see how he does.
Would love to play there.
Shohei's a pitcher over there too, right?
Shohei is like.
Shohei, Yamamoto, Bueller.
Bueller, Kershaw is a free agent still.
I don't know if he's gonna sign that.
I'm not sure.
The spine's gonna hold it in the piece.
But I mean he's.
He's pieced up in the spine, he's amazing.
But he's just, yeah, he's like,
you got a massage that you gotta get him
in that Wagyu shape.
Because he's just, you know, his body's turned so much.
He's got so much, so many innings under his belt.
It's such a high level
that no one's body can take it forever.
Right?
But I mean, even so, with all the years and the mileage,
he put up a fantastic season last year.
It's incredible seeing the longevity that he's had
and the consistency of results.
It's just like, it's crazy.
And their head coach, who's the doctor's head coach?
Dave Roberts.
Yeah, dude, that guy's cool, man.
Bring up a picture of Dave Roberts, dude.
UCLA.
Yeah, bro.
Oh, do you play with him at UCLA too?
I didn't play with him, but he was a, he's a brewing, yeah.
Wow, dude.
Yeah, he's cool, man.
He's funny.
Yeah.
They got some funny guys over there.
It's a cool organization.
It would be cool to, it'd be cool to play. Yeah, I obviously love to play for him It'd be cool to play against them too because of the
the big like they just went and spent like one point two
Billion dollars in free agency. Yeah, like okay. This is the juggernaut like let's go see if we can take him down type of thing
So yeah, I could get up for either one of them, you know, mainly like I just, I just
want to, I want to play, man.
I haven't, I, I, I miss competing.
Yeah.
Was it tough to, was there a certain parts of the season that are tougher to
watch it, like when it gets in a plaster, it's all just kind of tough.
It's been tough to watch baseball.
Um, cause like, I know I'm good enough to be out there and I, I want to be out
there and I haven't, I haven't had the opportunity to enough to be out there and I wanna be out there and I haven't had the opportunity to be out there.
When I was in Japan last year, I watched a lot of games
because I was like, okay, I'm here, I'm playing,
I'm in it, I can respect what the other people are doing,
I can learn from it, I'm figuring things out.
And that was nice to have some of that back.
I just haven't, I don't think it. I'm like figuring things out and that was nice to have some of that back. I just haven't I
Don't think it's been healthy for me to like
Consume and will be content the last couple years
Which is sad because like everything that I've tried to build is like grow that
Entity into like hell right build it and then
I'm still involved in doing that. I'm still, but I'm just pursuing it in a slightly different way
where I'm not even like, I'm not really watching games.
And I'd like to get back to a place where I can like watch
and like be interested in like appreciate the great things
that other people in the league are doing.
I just had to like be a little bit protective
of my mental health on that front.
Yeah, because it would just kind of break your heart, probably.
Yeah, it was tough, man.
Seeing what other guys are doing and not being able to be happy for them, feeling that resentment
of like, well, I should be out there being able to compete too. God. I don't like, I never, I don't-
You should have been, there's no reason,
yeah, I can't even imagine.
I don't like being negative towards other people
and like feeling envious of other people's accomplishments.
I like to look at things and be like,
wow, this person is really, really good
and I can appreciate it.
Cause I do it in all our sports.
Like I watch Brady play and I'm like,
I'm gonna watch as much of this as possible
because he's going to be gone at some point
and like you got to appreciate what this is.
Yeah, same with saving.
Saving it Bama.
Yeah.
And my home right now.
And Caitlin Clark I do that with.
And Caitlin Clark, me and Caitlin Presley
want to come to your game and again.
So if we, if he can help us.
Sorry, I just had to say that out loud, dude.
Love it.
Mistal Pete, that's what I call it.
She's a, I love watching her.
But yeah, man, I think,
because if there was no criminal wrongdoing,
there was nothing wrong.
There was nothing wrong.
You can find things that if you look at yourself,
yes, I could adjust some of these behaviors and stuff,
but as a human being behaving in the world,
to not have done anything wrong.
And to have, it's really just a trial that you've been through.
It's almost like a fucking scarlet letter.
It was like a scarlet letter in a way.
Yeah, you get branded with something
and then you carry it
I'll carry it the rest of my life like I'll always be known for this in some way and hopefully over time
It'll be less and all the positive things that I do will get more
attention and be more synonymous with my brand, but like this will always be there
Which is which is tough. It's tough to, I can't even imagine.
I can't think about it too much, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah, because it's just such a, it's such an anomaly.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
So we got to get you.
We got to, we don't have to do anything.
I can't do shit, but it'd be awesome.
Yeah, dude.
This comes just like the, I would love to see you get to play
with the Padres too, dude.
They got Benny Snell over their own thing
He's a free agent right now. I think they got Darvish Darvish. I love I love they got Musgrove
Yeah, they got a great team. Yeah, and they just got a new head coach on football too. Who was it? They got
who the
The charges at Harbaugh. Yeah from Michigan. They got Harbabaugh he might come out to a game that would be cold
Go blue. I got some I got some friends that are big Michigan fans. Really? Yeah. Oh, they were all those people were so geeked
three so
Crazy season all the adversity they went through as a team. Yeah, right?
When you watch that you're like, okay
Like adversity either tears you apart or makes you so much stronger.
They really came together and they put together
a hell of a run.
What do you say?
What are your thoughts?
Cause you're almost relatable to like,
I mean, it's very scary,
like if somebody being like in any sort of like a
public persona or something or popularity,
it's very scary, right?
Man, God, it's just,
but there's probably guys who are imprisoned right now
for things that they didn't do.
For sure.
And that's trying to keep that perspective and like,
yeah, this has sucked.
I'm not trying to belittle what you went through.
It could be way worse.
But you're a person who was able to set goals and set
and really get through like some of the tougher parts
of life by your own manifestations and game planning.
Right? It seems like in your life, how do you,
like what did you do?
And cause I'm sure there are guys sitting in a cell right now who can
might be able to learn some stuff.
Yeah.
I think one of the biggest things is talking about it.
And that was one of the toughest things that I couldn't talk about it publicly.
So having a, having someone privately that you could just talk to about it to
at least hear yourself vocalize what you're feeling. Like I, if I didn't have someone to talk to about it to at least hear yourself vocalize what you're feeling.
Like I, if I didn't have someone to talk to, I would not have, I would not have
made it through this.
Um, that's a huge thing.
Like it's scary to talk about things a lot of times and like be viewed as
vulnerable or to be viewed, you know, you don't know how the other person's
going to view your perspective, but it's so important.
So I'd say, yeah, first thing, like find someone
to talk to, whether it's a therapist,
whether it's a friend, a family member, you know,
a lot of people aren't fortunate enough
to have family members around to talk to
or they don't have those relationships,
but find someone that you can talk to.
And be honest with.
Yeah, like be able to just tell it how you're feeling it. Yeah,
be honest about how you're feeling. Yes. That's the biggest thing I'd say. And then having something,
some goal, like humans need a purpose. We don't do well when we're like just existing for, we don't have anything to do.
And if you can find some purpose that's controllable,
that like, for me it was business.
Like I had a business, so I woke up in the morning,
I'm like, okay, how do we get this thing firing?
Or how do we get, make a better video?
Or how do we edit this way?
Or okay, I gotta figure out the,
what hire do we need to make?
So there was something that I was in control of
that I was actively doing,
that I could distract myself in a way from the negative stuff
and like focus on something that was like aspirational.
Like, okay, in the future, when all this stuff is done,
cause it's gonna be done at some point.
It may be a day, it might be a year, it might be 10 years.
It's not going to last forever.
So at some point in the future, when it's done, what is it that I have,
that I've been building that I can like aspire?
What position do I want to be when this is done?
Like, and can I make progress towards that?
Like that's how I, is like talking about it and having some sort of aspirational
goal that I was chasing
But yeah, the support group is is so big man. Yeah, like just being able to vocalize your feelings is
Important. Yeah. Oh
Yeah, yeah, I'm in a lot of support groups, dude. Yeah
Fortunately and unfortunately, but some of those moments are the best moments
of my life, you know?
Dealing with addiction and learning about recovering
and stuff, it's given me some of the greatest gifts
of my life, which are great conversations with people
and learning how to be around people and feel
and stuff like that.
I think the humans learn by failing first and then adjusting behavior and then growing and
it's a sense of pride to be able to feel like you've gotten better at something or you're in a
better place or a better person because of something but the moments where you're failing,
you know when you're in that like those tough, but being able to have that comeback
is so important because that's where you feel
that sense of accomplishment or that sense of purpose
or that, whatever it is, you get something from that.
If you never fail at anything, like life's just like,
there's no richness to it.
Yeah.
So I can definitely, I can understand how some of those moments like you fail at something,
you end up in a bad place and you find a way to like pull yourself back up and it like feels a
sense of pride. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Man, it's interesting how much you work with your own
integrity and your own like setting goals for yourself and it must be, it's like you have
probably a knowledge
of yourself on a unique level that some people don't get to have man and I think that's-
I think being an introvert, like I don't do well in social situations like we talked
about so I spend a lot of time thinking and a lot of it's about external stuff but I
try to think internally too and
Try to figure out why a lot of time like okay, I did this thing like why did I do that? What prompted me to react this way emotionally to this situation or what prompted me to go want to do like why do I like cars or what?
What is it right? Yeah, I'm trying to figure out that puzzle because I'm a puzzle. Yeah, you're the puzzle
And you're the guy doing the puzzle. That's kind of cool what you realize that.
Because it can make your life kind of richer in a way.
When you start to like, not only am I me,
but I'm also, I can look at me.
Yeah, yeah.
And then it's a challenge because like,
you want to look at yourself like very surface level.
I'm like, oh yeah, I'm good.
Like I look good today. I'm in good shape., oh yeah, I'm good. Like I look good today.
I'm in good shape.
Like, oh, things are good.
But when you start like digging down,
like maybe I'm not good in this area.
Like how could it be better?
Or like, I don't know if I like this part about me.
Is it bad?
Is it good?
I don't know.
Like how do I actually feel about this?
Maybe I want to like try to do this a little bit better.
Like those are conversations I have with myself all the time.
Like fucking interesting dude, bro.
You're a strange dude.
Yeah, I'm strange.
I dig it though.
I fucking dig it man.
I'm aware that I'm a little different.
And I mean that lovingly, bro.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
I'm really rooting that respectfully.
We got to order us a Trevor Bauer bobblehead dude.
We got to get one in here on the shelf, man.
We want to. I got some. You here on the shelf man. We wanna.
I got some somewhere.
You do?
Yeah, we're gonna make sure to hit up your,
all right.
Rachel will make sure she sends us over one.
Even if she has to drive it across country to get it here.
We want it over here.
We just wanna, yeah, we wanna, yeah man, we just, yeah.
I got some, I think I have a couple unreleased bobbleheads
that, so I was supposed to have a bobblehead day
with the Dodgers.
And so they had sent me some samples
as we were like designing it.
And then I got put on administrative leave
before it happened.
And so they never ended up like releasing the bobbleheads.
Wow.
But they had ordered like some stock
cause they were gonna do an in stadium giveaway. So I got my hands on a couple of those that never actually been released, which I think will be a cool
Cool collector item. So if you happen to have one you want to part with or even let us host in here for a while
Yeah, we're also willing to get one that has a blank jersey on and when you get your new deal
We're happy to uh
To get um to put that one in yeah, let me see what I got I got I got something for you guys and you get your new deal, we're happy to get,
to put that one into.
Yeah, let me see what I got.
I got something for you guys.
I just got a, I haven't looked at the inventory
in a couple years, but I got something.
That'd be sweet, man.
Yeah, dude.
Yeah, bro, I wonder, yeah, dude, there's so many teams.
How many teams are there that you could play
for so many teams?
Yeah, we got 30 teams out there.
Bro, some of them are bad, dude, they need you. I'm out there. Bro, some of them are bad.
Dude, they need you.
I'm not, I mean, some of these things are getting bad.
Or they could be doing, they could, you could maybe help.
Yeah. I think I could, I mean, I don't think there's a team
out there that I wouldn't help in some way, right?
But I also, you know, seeing the other side of things, like
there's a lot of, you know, potential the other side of things, like there's a lot of, uh,
you know, potential distractions, PR concerns.
Um, I don't think they're, I don't think they would be as much as people think they would be.
I think it'd be like a couple of days story and then it'd be gone.
Personally, I could be wrong, but, um,
you think there'd be some publications out there that would feel like,
Hey, the best, the least a way that we could be supportive
after, you know, maybe leading the charge with not being as supportive as trying to
even the score, you know?
Yeah.
But I don't know, that's my thoughts.
Yeah.
I mean, it'd be nice, of course, but I'm not gonna.
It's out of your control.
Yeah.
Yeah.
If it happens, it happens.
Like, Mookie coming out and saying some stuff publicly was like a,
I would never ask him to do that, but it was so like it meant a lot to me.
Mookie's my guy.
I love that guy.
Yeah, dude.
He built a house in Nashville.
Yeah.
That's what I heard anyway.
Somebody told me he might a lot, but I text him the other day.
He's like, I'm like, what are you been up to?
Mookie's like, oh, I just out here bowling, man.
He likes to bowl.
I was like, yeah, he, dude, he Moog. He's like, oh, I just out here bowling, man. He likes to bowl. I was like, yeah, he's a, he's like bowls 300s.
He like bowls professionally in the off seasons.
Some people get all the luck, dude.
Yeah.
Have you seen like he's, he like, he can dunk.
He's like good basketball player, great baseball player,
bowler.
I'm like, I think he golfs like, oh my God.
Dude, he's just like, he's one of those guys that just like,
you put him in anything athletic and he's just gonna be one of the best guys look at that
Wow, look at him. Look at him. He's got the walk. He's got this
Yeah, he really does go back and look at that wall. Yeah, look at me. He's back on this strut
Look at look at that. You see that little fist pump before before the like it's that that's that curry
Like he knows when he let it go that that's the one it's just built in it's built in
them yeah dude he's got it's a little bit of tiger woods ask to the fist pump
right there you could probably overlay those and be that's wild did you guys
ever like have some games like as Mookie a card player when you guys do stuff like
we had this debate one day if you took the Dodgers position players
and they had to pitch and the Dodgers pitchers
and they had to hit, who would win?
This should be a spring training thing.
It should be.
You're always thinking about this kind of stuff.
I was like poking at him a little bit.
I'm like, dude, we would dominate you guys for sure.
You throw like 72.
He's like, well, you guys wouldn't be able to play defense
if we got one hit.
And we had this like 45 minute discussion in the clubhouse.
It was just like back and really like half the clubhouse
was involved in it.
It was like big argument.
It was great.
I hope at some point we get to test that out
because it'd be fantastic content.
Dude, you're right.
Yeah.
It's a great idea, man.
I like the way you think, man.
I really do.
And I just, I'm grateful to get to spend time with you today, man.
And, um, and we wish you the best of luck.
Man, we're going to get that bobble of head in here and, uh, and we'll be, we'll be cheering
you on, bro.
I appreciate that.
Thanks for having me on.
It's been great.
Yeah.
That second Cy Young, baby.
That's right.
Get in there.
Trevor Bauer, guys.
Thank you, Trevor.
Now I'm just floating on the breeze and I feel I'm falling like these leaves. Thank you Trevor.