Ep. 216 - Clint Hurdle: Take The Long Way Home

0:01 Stories from Real Life is a production of Media Well Done, LLC. A first-round draft pick. A major league player at 20. A future superstar. At least that's what everyone believed. But life had a different plan. In this episode of Stories from Real Life, we talk about failure, sobriety, leadership, fatherhood, faith, and why the greatest success in your life may have nothing to do with the dream you started chasing.

0:46 This isn't just a conversation about baseball. It's a conversation about becoming the person you were meant to be. This is Stories from Real Life, and today's bonus story is Clint Hurdle's Take the Long Way Home. You are listening to Stories from Real Life, a podcast by engaging storytellers for engaged story listeners. Here's your host, author and journalist, Melvin E. Edwards. Hello again and welcome to another episode of Stories from Real Life.

1:29 I'm your host, Melvin E. Edwards. Thank you for joining us for the podcast where real stories are so much more interesting than fiction. Today's guest became one of baseball's most recognizable managers. But long before that, Clint Hurdle was the kid everyone expected to be a star. His playing career ultimately followed a different path, but the lessons that came with it would shape everything that followed. So Clint Hurdle, welcome to Stories from Real Life. Melvin, thanks for just being persistent and continuing to connect with me so we can get together and do this. I've admired your work. I've done some research on you as well, and I like to do things that are healthy, that are innovative, that are creative, insightful, impactful.

2:10 You check all those boxes, and I'm happy to be here. Thank you, sir. I'm honored. All right, so let's jump right into it. I've been waiting, as I mentioned to you before we started recording, I've been waiting for this opportunity for a long time. That's why I wouldn't give up on it, because I really... Sincerely wanted to talk to you, and I appreciate your time today. So before we get to the baseball questions, I have a personal question for you. Where did your middle name Merrick come from? My middle name Merrick is from my mother's father. It's very unique. I've not met, I haven't met anybody since then with a first name of Merrick or a middle name, but his first name was Merrick Johnson.

2:52 And it was a way for my parents to remember both their fathers, my mom's father Merrick and my dad's, obviously his dad was Clint. That middle name was Clinton. So they put them together, Clinton Merrick. Nice. Good heritage there. All right. So let's talk about baseball. Before you were drafted when you were 17, did you play American Legion baseball? I did play American Legion baseball. You know, it was our generation's version of travel ball. It was really the first time we got to travel in our own cars if we had one or ride with a friend who had a car. We weren't on a team bus. We weren't with sponsorship or, you know, guardians keeping an eye on us.

3:38 We came from different high schools and played. It was a wonderful experience. Actually, one of my teammates on that team was Bruce Bochy, longtime manager, future Hall of Famer. Without a doubt, that was my teammate. We played against each other in high school one year. I was a sophomore, he was a senior. He was at Melbourne, I was at Merritt Island, and we got to play on the same team that summer. It was very enjoyable. Well, I grew up in Houston, that's my hometown, and Bruce Bochy was drafted by the Astros and came up as catcher before going on to other teams. So I know Bruce Bochy very well, known that name for a very long time, never met him in person. So I'm sure it's probably hard for you to believe that last year was the 50th anniversary of you being drafted.

4:23 So take me back to being a first-round draft pick at 17 years old. Did you have any concept of how unusual your life had suddenly become? No, I didn't. You know, I was asked to retell this story just a few weeks ago, maybe – Yeah, three weeks ago when we were all together in Scottsdale for the Rockies pre-draft scout meetings for the ML Major League Players draft, you know, for the young college players, high school players. And one of our leaders there asked me to retell the story of my draft day, Josh Burns, our GM. And, you know, I had figured out, actually my sophomore year, the scouts were coming to watch An All-American football player named Waldo Williams, who went on to play at Florida State, he was our catcher.

5:14 They came to watch Waldo play, and it was that year that after our games, we would see all the scouts scurry up to Waldo and his dad and his brothers after the game, and they'd walk off and be chatting. Well, there was one particular game towards the end of the year where a bunch of scouts left with Waldo and his dad, and then there was three or four hanging out. And they were waiting for me. I didn't know they were waiting for me. But when I came out of the dugout, they all stepped forward and go, hey, our name's this, this, this, this team, that team. Is your dad here? And my dad was in the stands. I brought my dad up. They go, we just want to let you know that we've been watching Waldo all season. I think we might have been watching the wrong guy. We've really enjoyed watching you play. You're a sophomore. You're years away from the draft. We want to let you know we're going to keep our eye on you.

5:55 So it was that time at least the seed was planted that this could all happen. Following years, junior year, more scouts, senior year, a lot of scouts. And then the scouts started getting more precise with their questioning at the end of the game. Some phone calls started happening. Hey, if we drafted you, would you sign? And, you know, my dad was very smart. My dad worked as a computer operations manager at the Cape. Wasn't an agent at all, but I had... Opportunities elsewhere. I had a baseball, football scholarship offer, athletic scholarship offer to the University of Miami that I finally signed with them, letter of intent, after 10, 12 visits.

6:39 Back in the day, you could make all the visits you wanted. And I had been offered an academic scholarship to Harvard based on my grade point average. So my dad played Well, my son's dream's been baseball since he was six in the backyard, and I'm a big baseball fan. However, it's got to be worth his while to walk away from a football opportunity and just as importantly, an opportunity to go to Harvard. So he played his cards that he had. As it worked through, we got down to about four teams that actually told us that if you get to our slot, we're going to draft you number one. The highest team at that time was the Royals. They were picking nine. I want to say...

7:19 I want to say the Reds. They picked later. And then I want to say the Twins. And one team for sure, the Athletics. All gave us phone calls, wanting to know if we'd sign. And my dad played the same story. The Ace Scout was a little different, Melvin. He called up and said, you know, my dad answered the phone. He goes, is this Clint Hurley? He goes, yeah. Clint, we just want to let you know if we draft you, we're going to offer you X. And we want you to call us the next day and tell us whether you're going to take the offer or not. My dad was like a little... Angry that that was the way they were handling it, but it wasn't me. And he goes, I'm sorry, you have his father. When you said Clint Hurdle, that's my name. Let me hand this to my son. So he gave it to me. Scott basically told me the same thing.

8:00 Hey, we're going to, we signed you. We're going to, the minimum, the bid they made was like so much less than anybody else had even talked about. $25,000. And not that they were going to come and romance me or hang out or anything. They were just, I'm supposed to call them back and say yes, and then they sent a contract. So, We got off that phone call a little disappointed and just prayed that somebody else would pick us. And we were fortunate that the Royals did the following day. So when the Royals picked us, Bill Fisher had scouted me for three years. He was the area scout. He was a pitching coordinator. He had done so many different jobs. Later became a iconic pitching coach in the big leagues, had the rocket in Boston.

8:45 Was a pitching coach receiver when he came back to the Reds. Bill knows pitching baseball. But he was my scout. He was our family guy. We had spent time together, broken bread together. So we had a small party at our house just waiting to get drafted. We got a phone call from the Royals from one of the bosses and then said, Bill will be coming to your house any minute. Little do we know, Bill had already been parked outside our house in case we were drafted. He knocked on the door like a minute later. Came in, talked to my dad. They went through a round of negotiations that lasted about, I think, an hour and a half. My dad and him kept going to the garage, and I had to make a trip to the garage because I think my dad said no to their offer a couple times. Kept trying to leverage the situation.

9:25 Finally, I took him outside. I said, what are you doing? We're going to miss the boat here. I'm going to have to play football. The Harvard thing was always very cool to me. That one kind of touched my heart because how many opportunities does anybody get to go to Harvard? Not many. Football, I played football for my dad. I played football for a lot of other people. I was pretty good at it, but that really wasn't something I wanted to do. So when push came to shove, we ended up signing a contract from the Royals, and really I had no idea at that time what I was headed into, how I was headed into it. And it all became an incredible journey, as you said, over 50 years ago that's still got a heartbeat today.

10:08 That's really fascinating. So I did some research on that draft. That was 1975. And Danny Goodwin was the first overall pick. He had a total of 150 hits in the major leagues. And six of the top 10 picks that year never reached the major leagues. And only one of them had more career hits than you. Did you know that? I did not know that. I've been told on occasion it was a bad draft. Rick Cerrone is the only one who had more hits than you. He played 18 seasons but didn't quite reach 1,000 hits. Yeah, that's more than me, for sure. All right, so when you're 20 years old and you reach the major leagues and people are already telling you what you're supposed to become, how do you keep your own expectations from becoming your identity?

10:58 Yeah, that's a great question, Melvin. One of the things I was looking forward to was your line of questioning because I've watched some of the podcasts and You do your digging and you do your due diligence and you're a smart guy. You know, we didn't have back then the tools. This is not an excuse, but we didn't have back then the tools, the opportunities to learn how to onboard like we make for our players now. We have classes. We have media classes. We have interview classes. They go to a rookie onboarding school that MLBPA puts on just to help them with a transition. That could be in front of them to understand the weight of words, of actions, of body language, all these things.

11:41 I had my folks and I had a PR director and maybe a couple other people that would try and help me along the way. So the narrative got strong, you know, and it all really hit. And a year or so later, it really hit when I was on the cover of Sports Illustrated and the title was this year's phenom. And in the article, Two words that I had no idea the weight they would put on me actually in my career was unlimited potential. And it wasn't until another player, Ken Brett, teammate, one of the best teammates I ever had, not George Brett, who was one of the best teammates I ever had, but his brother Ken was a magnificent player, pitcher.

12:23 People will tell you Ken Brett was a better athlete than George Brett, and George is one of them that would tell you that. Ken Brett died an untimely death very early on, but Ken Brett kind of took me under his wing. And walked me through, he goes, you know something, has everybody ever talked to you about the article in SI? And I'm like, no, it's like 1980 now and I'm having the best season I ever had. We got the best team and we're going to World Series. And he goes, I think it might be helpful and maybe therapeutic if we walk you through that. And we walked through it. I experienced emotions I'd never experienced before. There were so many things that from that article, really the hype, all of it, that I kept pushing inside and without realizing probably That's probably, I'm going to say, where I really developed a people-pleasing mentality.

13:07 It probably was always in me. But at that point, with all the pressure, I needed every fan that left the ballpark to like me. I wanted all my coaches to like me, all my teammates to like me. I didn't care so much about the opposition liking me or not. Actually, I didn't want them to like me because I wanted to play so well they didn't like me. But it also seemed like Whatever I did was never enough, whether that was self-manifestation. Sometimes it would be an interview process or a coach. You know, I went three for four, and I drove in a couple of runs. I made some plays, this and that. And I had a coach that I actually write about in my book that I know we're going to talk about later, but I had no coach. What I mean by that is whenever this coach would walk towards me, I'd go, oh, no, here he comes.

13:49 You probably had maybe ran into somebody like that in your life as well. But it would be like I'd have a good game and he'd go, hey, I want to talk about that one at bat where you fired on a first pitch changeup, you rolled into a double play and you didn't score the runner from third or less than that. Didn't want to talk about the three hits, the other RBIs or the plays. But that kind of forced me into, okay, everybody's watching what I don't do well. You know, what I do well, I'm just supposed to. But what I don't do well, I got to figure out because if I don't figure that out, I got a problem. So it was a struggle, not letting the hype become my identity and that tug of war Obviously, it overcame me later on when I actually tried to self-medicate and numb myself because of my shortcomings.

14:33 I'm sure we'll talk about that sometime. But yeah, I didn't reach out for the same posse that I had reached out. All the things you're told to do, I didn't do. I wrote something in my journal today in our Bible study, and I've never heard it succinctly put before like this, but discouragement leads to destruction. And encouragement leads to excellence. And I focused more on the discouragement. And I didn't. I had people that encouraged me. I probably just didn't hear it. And when they did encourage me, I probably took it for granted and played it off. But I made mistakes that you don't need to make. And I really believe I made them.

15:14 I believe God allowed me to make them, gave me the free will to make them. So later on in my life, through my coaching career, my managing career, my career now as an advisor or a mentor or a leader, That's incredible. So I remember, as I told you before we started recording, I remember you on the cover of Sports Illustrated. I used to get a subscription every year that my sister would give me for my birthday. And I remember that cover because of your unique last name. So do you still have that copy of that magazine? We don't, you know what, there's a copy in my office somewhere. The office is, we're going through the rebooting of the photos because we moved in 2020, the COVID year, and we put up a lot of photos from Colorado when the kids were little and things like that, and they were kind of revamping it.

16:05 I've never had a cover of the SI framed up in my house. I think I had one given to me. I've had a few given to me. And it's not shame. It's just not something. That I want to hang on a wall. I want to hang other things on the wall that make me smile. That makes me smile for a second, but then a lot of the thoughts start rolling through my head. I start going a lot of other places. So there's not one actively up in the house right now. So when you see that, do you first think, what could have been? Or do you first think, was I really ever that young? Those are both great questions. I've never heard the second one before.

16:45 Was I ever that young? I can remember the day like it was yesterday. When I tell this story, it's actually very comical. When Sports Illustrated reached out to our PR director, Dean Vogler, they had been in the process over a few years on identifying one player, putting them on the cover before the season started or spring training started with hype. Every other guy, I think the two years before, didn't make much at all. But he let us know. It was Rich Gale, Willie Wilson, and myself, three of my teammates. And there was a number of other guys in the forest, like Teddy Cox, Jim Wright, two of my friends that I knew personally.

17:31 And they would go, and you do this photo shoot, and then you have somebody interview you, and da-da-da-da-da, and then they go away, and nobody tells you what's going to happen. And one of the mystiques of SI has always been they never released the cover before the cover hit. And landed. So I'm going through my morning drive to my local 7-Eleven, which I stopped at every morning in Fort Myers. I'd get a honey bun and a quart of milk. Breakfast of champions. I'd get a honey bun and a quart of milk. And the same young kid about my age was working a counter most of the time. This particular day, I go in and I put the honey bun on, I put the milk down.

18:14 And I look at him, hey, good morning. He goes, he's looking at me just blank. He's like, Nod his head, and I'm like, what? He's like, I'm like, what? And this was back in the days, Melvin, that, you know, 7-Eleven didn't have a magazine counter like they do now. You know, you go on these fast food markets, whatever it is, Wawa, 7-Eleven, there's a counter. You got all kinds of magazines. There were three magazines, and all three were on the counter next to the cash register. Time, Newsweek, and Sports Illustrated. So the head nod, the head nod, finally, I look down, I see my picture on the cover of the magazine.

18:56 And he nods his head like, and I'm like, and we look down, up, down, up, and I walked out. No honey bun, no milk. I got in a car and I knew something had just happened. Didn't realize what it was, but I was like, goosebumps, not the good kind of goosebumps, just the tingly kind of goosebumps. Pit in your stomach, what's next? Because I know I'm going to a clubhouse full of men. And if that's out, they've seen it. Something's going to happen. And, you know, I didn't process it all. I'm 20 years old. And, you know, if you think about it, there's men in that clubhouse that are 35, 38, 40 years old, been in the big leagues 10, 15 years, never been on the cover.

19:43 And some kid that's played AAA ball and had a good winter ball and got one month of big league at-bats is on the cover of Sports Illustrated. So there were some guys that didn't think a lot of it. Some teammates gave me all the business you could ever want your teammates to give you in a good way, some in a harsh way. And then there were some buddies that just put their arm around me and said, just don't say anything. You start talking, it'll keep going. You'll perpetuate, you know, just shut up, take it, whatever it is, wear it. And we'll see, you know, you'll get through it. But it kind of went on the whole season. You know, the opposing clubs, all of it.

20:23 And it was, it became, you know, something that I had no control over, but I had to try and figure out how to manage. And there was times I thought I did a pretty good job at it and the times I don't think I did a very good job at all. So when I see that cover today, like I said, I smile because it was out of my control. It's a really good picture. And I don't say that with vanity. It's a really good picture. I mean, it caught my attention. And you know what? At that time, I felt like everything was in front of me. And I was in such a good place. And it's not that I got to the crappiest place. I just had to do a lot of hard for a lot of years. That was one of the reasons why. And I didn't manage it well.

21:04 But I truly believe, somebody asked me this the other day on X. Don't you ever still think what could have been the kind of player you could have been? You know what? I'd give that about two seconds and I'd go, thank God I'm the man I am today because of that, not for any other reason. Because I believe with all my heart, my faith is real and it's big. And I've needed a lot of hard edges shaved off over the years. And I haven't known what's best for me all the time. And I really believe that God has. There's been people in my corner that have. There were a lot of lessons that came with that effect that I needed to learn along the way, and eventually I did.

21:48 Some of those failures and some of those successes, including the overwhelming expectations of being 20 years old and on the cover of Sports Illustrated, are those the kind of pressures that led you to drinking? I believe so. I come from a long family, a long line of alcoholics in my family. There aren't any. My dad and my mother drank socially. My wife drinks socially. My sisters drink socially. I think it was me finding a way to numb the feelings I had at the end of the game. It was all like, if I had a bad game, then I was going to have a better night.

22:30 I wasn't going to get beat up in a doubleheader. I was going to win something before the night was over. And even if the winning something was just not feeling the way I felt after the game I just had. Is that a weakness? Yeah. I could have gone a bunch of different ways. I didn't choose to go those ways. I didn't call my old pastor. I didn't call a huddle buddy. I didn't call a teammate. I found teammates that would help me drink more or whatever. I take all ownership for that. And then progressively over time, I mean, you win a game, I'd have a few beers. You lose a game, I'd have a few beers. You get rained out, I'd have a bunch of beers. And there'd be times when I didn't drink.

23:13 But the reoccurring thing I found out through going through my alcohol counseling in my AA meetings was there was a reason I drank when I drank. And whenever I did pick up that first beer, it was never two beers. It was never three beers. I drank till I got drunk. In other words, I drank till I got to a point where, ah, You know, that 0 for 4 with three punches, eh, I'll get them tomorrow, but it was a false bravado. So there's no doubt in my mind that that didn't help, but it was the way I handled it. It wasn't the SI cover, it was the way I handled the SI cover. It was the way I handled unfulfilled expectations. And another thing I learned, a very valuable lesson I've learned in that journey about expectations, are more often than not, they turn into resentments.

24:01 Especially as a coach or a manager when I have expectations for a player and I don't share those expectations or I don't ask the player, one of the best things I've ever done was learn from a mentor of mine, ask the player what he thinks he needs to do to please you. I did this exercise my first second year as a manager in Pittsburgh and it was crazy the things the players were telling me back. Goal-oriented they were, all about numbers, all about wins, losses, saves, ERA, homers, gold gloves, MVPs. It wasn't just about showing up, having fun, playing your backside off, loving on your teammates, doing the best you can.

24:43 It was none of that. It was all, I need to do this to make me happy. So I was able to work through a process to letting players know what my expectations were every year down the road. The real expectations were. Show up today when you walk through that door, that clubhouse door, you're ours. It's we, all right? You're going to play to the best of your ability. You're going to prepare. If you're not in the lineup, you're going to help prepare, win the game in whatever capacity you're asked to perform. If you're in the game, we're playing to win. We're not playing not to lose. You run balls out, dive for balls. Do what you need to do. Go play like you were six in the backyard. When you leave that door, you're going home to your family, man. Go love on your wife. Go represent your parents.

25:23 Go take care of your kids. Take care of your friends. And then we'll show up and do it again tomorrow. But separate the two. That door is huge. Walking in it, now you need to act a certain way. And then walking out of it, now you need to act a certain way and head home. I learned that through a lot of my challenges and my hard times to the alcoholism. Wow. Okay. Well, one of the things I've learned in my life is that two of the hardest things to deal with are expectations and labels. And one of the things I talk to people about this a lot, especially when I was coaching in our American Legion when I lived in Maryland, I was coaching the Annapolis team.

26:04 But I learned through living, through growing up, that sometimes, well, obviously, bad labels will hurt you. But I learned... Sometimes good labels can hurt you too. And rather than you're being labeled a phenom, not a promising young baseball player. For me, I was a smart kid. And that became my identity. It wasn't that I was a smart one. It wasn't that I was a kid who had Potential, academic potential.

26:45 I was the smart one. And when I was 13 years old, my dad died fairly suddenly. And obviously that had a devastating effect on me. But I really, I couldn't focus at school for probably a year. And my grades were awful. And I started to think, I guess I'm not the smart one anymore. Well, my potential hadn't changed. Everything else around me had changed. And that's why even good labels can be detrimental. And I just try to remind people that you're a person first. You're not a smart person. You're not a baseball player.

27:25 You're not a chemist. You're just a person trying to get through life. So just deal with things day by day. If you're enjoying today's conversation, I'd like to invite you to visit MediaWellDoneLLC.com. That's where you'll find everything we do at Media Well Done, from this podcast to our growing library of books. You can also get a schedule of where our authors will be for their next book signing so that you can come out and meet us and get your book signed. Whether you're looking for a thought-provoking novel like Nuremberg, Mississippi, a family history like the names they kept, or the forthcoming historical piece Baker Battery Goes to War, you'll find them all in one place.

28:05 The best part So let's go into sobriety for you. Forced you to learn things about yourself that baseball couldn't teach you? Yeah, 100%. I can't control what other people say, think, or do. You know, there's a part of me that started figuring out, well, if I can't control the narrative on the field, maybe I can control everything else around me.

28:50 I started leveraging relationships. I started trying to leverage people's opinions, people's perspectives. And what that did over time just wear me out. That's a lot of managing to do. I didn't realize there was going to be a management in my life. But early in my life, I was trying to manage what other people said about me, what other people thought about me, how other people reacted to me. But in sobriety, number one, I had to admit my life had become unmanageable. That's a hard first step, but it was real because it had. Divorce twice, two DUIs within a 10-year period, been released, traded, you know, all these different things for a kid that was unlimited potential and the next phenom.

29:33 All of a sudden, I realized that me by trying to make everybody happy, I kind of made nobody happy, especially myself. And I had to find a way to recreate my mindset. And it became that to just have a servant's heart. This isn't about you anymore. This is about God put you here for a reason. You need to find out what your why is. And we know what's behind you. But today's the day where you can move in a different direction and take some action and start creating a different narrative. And that's what I started doing. I mean, I went from I was never probably an everyday player. My rookie year, I think I had the most at-bats I ever had, but platoon player, big league player, World Series player, to being like the 25th man on the team.

30:14 I had to learn new positions. I found a way to stay alive in the big leagues. That's hard. I had to make two teams my last two years as a non-roster invite team. That's hard, but I did it. I learned how to catch a 27. By learning how to catch a 27, by somebody believing in me enough, in Davey Johnson, To think I could actually pull that off. It opened my eyes to that of coaching and managing, which I don't know if that ever would have happened. Because I saw the game from a different lens from being behind the plate rather than being out in the field. And then the relationship I started developing with pitchers. Because all I ever thought about with pitchers was they were hard to hit. I didn't like them and I wanted to wear them out. But now I realize that, you know what, the most important guys on your team, not everybody will tell you this, but is your pitching staff.

30:58 Because if you don't have a good one, you're not going anywhere. And if you have a good one, you've got a chance to go a long way. That's it. And you better find ways to build relationships with those guys. And you better find ways to help those guys be the best version of themselves when they get that ball and they're on that mound that night. They don't always have their A game. You've got to find a way to help, be a wingman, be a co-pilot, whatever it is. So it's so much service before self. There were games when I started learning how to catch. Then when it came my turn to hit, I was emotionally and mentally worn out. Physically, I'm getting beat up. It was like, I almost want to say, no, you know what, just pass. I love to hit, but I had started to develop into a different person where that part of the game just kind of overtook me.

31:40 But then in life, man, I just needed to start serving others. I needed to get back into church. At the age of 40, I recommitted my life to Christ. I got sober. I had 16 other things on my to-do list that I was supposed to do. And I can't remember what those other 16 are now. And I don't revisit them. I just know that I really believe God. God put me in a position to learn from my past so I could share that in my future and share with others because quite honestly, and that's all I ever need to be is honest, is in 17 years of managing, there weren't many things players brought to me in my office that I had already walked through or I knew somebody who had walked through that we could call and talk together. I actually had a lot of information for the players that had nothing to do with how to hit it, how to throw it, or how to catch it.

32:26 I think it was one of the things that helped me become a leader. I was transparent. I shared my failures. We all can identify with a guy that's not done so well and maybe found his way back than the guy holding the trophy at the end of the day. And when players saw that I was vulnerable, if you follow me on X, you've seen some of the stories last year. I let it all out there, man. People need to know. And I didn't get to where I got because my dad owned the team. And I didn't get to where I got because I was this year's phenom or I had unlimited potential. There was a rocky road. I had to learn a lot of lessons. But those lessons put me in a position of Understanding that it's not about me.

33:09 It's not about me. Right now, it's about my wife. It's about our kids. We just went to my son's graduation. I tell people, graduate from the CIA. And they go, oh, he's going to be a spy. I go, no, he's going to be a pastry chef. He graduated from the Culinary Institute of America. He retired from baseball at the age of four. That's a beautiful story in and of itself. But I tell about that in my book. We have a special needs daughter who's 24, born with a birth defect. Did I want that? No, I didn't want that. God gave that to us. You know what? Maddie's Maddie. She's been a blessing. She's helped Carla and I get to places in our lives together relationally that I don't think we ever got on our own. Carla's the biggest blessing I've ever had. Third time I was married.

33:49 I got sober. I've been sober 27 years. We've been married 26. That's after two failed marriages. You do the math. You know, there's a reason. Clint started figuring some things out. But by not realizing it's not about me, and I just need to show up and be the best version of me today that I can. And truthfully, just use my eyes and ears to see if there's somebody else. I don't need to tell them what to do. I'll share experience, strength, and hope. Sometimes it's nothing but putting an arm around somebody to give them a hug. And sometimes it's just taking a phone call. And sometimes it's just writing a note or a letter saying, hey, I believe in you still. But you got to get moving.

34:30 You can't stay where you're at. These podcasts that I do now, again, it's just about sharing. And I try and handpick the people that I do it with because I'm not looking for that buzz. I'm not looking for that whatever, all the sports podcasts that are out there that are electric. Nah. You know, if it happens, maybe. But I'm looking for real people telling real stories, trying to help other people. And you definitely are in all those pockets. I appreciate that again. Thank you, sir. You talked about The rocky road that led you to where you eventually landed. That's a perfect transition for the Colorado Rockies.

35:10 So let's talk about how you took them to the World Series in 2007. What do you remember about that team that might not show up in the statistics? Well, it started happening. Number one, it was a dream of Kelly McGregor, our team president. Kelly became my best friend and my mentor. Unfortunately, he died in 2010. As the active president of the Colorado Rockies. He had come to our organization. Jerick Morris hired him. He did some onboarding for a year or two as an assistant to the president, but then he became the president. And Jerry stepped away. All-American tight end at Colorado State. Played some in the NFL.

35:51 Faith-based guy. Tremendous leader. Used his eyes and ears so well. But we developed a friendship even when I was the hitting coach. And it was through that friendship we would take a walk around the neighborhood, around Coors, at the end of every year once he and I got together. He showed active interest in me. He brought me into a couple Bible studies. We started having some leadership meetings. And then eventually it led to Him being my boss and becoming the manager in 2002. But Kelly, Dan O'Dowd, those two men coming into my life, giving me an opportunity to lead and believe in me when I didn't think everybody, manage a team? Seriously? But it was through those rebuilding years because it was hard.

36:32 We purged money. We ate debt. We weren't good. It was hard just to push those players out again and just think, let's win today. That's all we can focus on. We'll find a way to play good baseball today. It wasn't about winning a World Series. 2002, older team, we got rid of some of the age, got rid of a lot of the experience, but we tried to freshen the group up a little bit. But 2003, four or five were hard. And then in six, we had a lot of minor league players starting to develop together and win some things that got together on that 06 roster. And we added a few players along the way. Dan did some really nice jobs on adding some guys. And we still didn't have a... Successful season, we weren't over 500, but things started happening that hadn't happened before.

37:14 This group, they bonded. They were cohesive. They didn't like to lose. They loved to win. They held each other accountable. They cheered for one another. And it was at the last game of the season. We were in Shea. Aaron Cook threw a complete game. We won. And normally, the last game of the season, everybody's in a hurry to go home. And normally, you know, everybody gets out of the dugout and shake hands. Everybody on our team ended up on the middle of the infield at Shea Stadium, like hugging each other, shaking hands. We just stayed there as a group. I don't even know how it happened, but we all were there. And I can remember looking at my coaches like, what is going on? As we go back in the clubhouse, Kelly's in my office waiting.

37:55 He goes, I don't know what happened out there, but that was special. Something happened. You don't see that. I go, no, I've never been involved in that last game of the season on a team that we'd been eliminated a month ago. And he goes, the best is yet to come. And that was kind of our mindset. We had been building for that. And in 07, we didn't have a great start. We never had a great month until September. We were just in the hunt. We were fighting. We were never out of it, but we were never really in it. But these guys never backed away. They never stopped working. They never stopped believing in one another. They just, they never stopped. And the thing I kept telling them, because every once in a while, one of them would come to me, whether it was Helton or Hop or Cook, a pitcher, or somebody in the bullpen, Fuentes, and, you know, hey, Skip, we hear the messaging, but, you know, it's getting late.

38:42 I go, hey, we haven't got hot yet. I said it in April, I said it in May, June, July, I said it in August, we haven't got hot yet. Well, my last kind of get-together with the team, it was September, and we just lost a hard game. And it was deflating. And the next day was our scout meeting for the team. I just say, boys, yesterday was hard. Today doesn't have to be. And I'm telling you this one more time. We haven't got hot yet. We got hot. You know, we won 13 out of 14. We sweep the Phillies. We sweep the Diamondbacks. We went 21 out of 22 games in one of the most incredible runs that's ever happened. But all that backstory was the part of it.

39:22 You can look up the players' numbers and who had the big years. Our pitching staff, starting staff, was above average. One of the better staffs we had in the history. Our bullpen was locked down. We changed closers two-thirds of the way through the year. Corpus took over for Fuentes. That doesn't happen very often. Neither one missed a beat, and I give Fuentes all the credit because he went from being a four-time all-star and a guy closing the game to being a guy helping the closer get the ball at the end of the game. He didn't blink an eye. Nobody on offense blinked an eye. Everybody kept throwing in. And they went on. I say they because it was like a dad watching his kids play in the backyard. It was all I could do to stay out of the way. Let them play. And it turned out that there was a lot of moves to be made at some times. And for whatever reason, most of the moves I made worked.

40:07 It was just that run you get on. If it would have happened, Melvin, if it had happened in New York, L.A., Boston, Philly, Chicago, there'd been a movie out. They'd still be talking about it. But it happened in Denver, Colorado in a time zone that nobody knows about. And truthfully, we snuck up on the Phillies. Because one of the questions in the first press conference was, one of the guys from the Philadelphia press asked me, who are you guys? I was ashamed of you for not knowing who we are. Hopefully, after these two games here, you'll have a better understanding. I didn't know whether we were going to win, lose, or whatever. Well, we beat them like a drum two games in a row, and then we went back and ended up sweeping them. But we still kind of snuck up on everybody. It was an amazing, amazing time. That's incredible.

40:48 So after Colorado, you went to Pittsburgh, and they hadn't experienced the winning baseball team in 20 years when you finally broke through in 2013. How do you change the expectations of an organization that has gotten accustomed to losing? Well, fortunately, I'd gone through some of that in Colorado. So I had a playbook. I ran in another good leadership group, Neil Huntington, Kyle Stark, Frank Coonley, the leadership group, the president, the GM, the assistant GM. They had already put some good things in place. However, they were coming off back-to-back years of overhaul. And one of my goals, as I told them, is I'm going to help rebond this city with its baseball team because it's an iconic city.

41:29 It's one of the best cities for sports. When you win, they come out. When you don't win, they're going to let you know and they're going to stop coming. 20 consecutive losing seasons. I walked in the door at 18. I felt like I had an understanding. Well, 2011, we started off hot, we finished cold. 2012, we started off hot, we finished colder. I really had an understanding of their angst after the 20th consecutive losing season. Same way, though, Neil Huntington had put together a young roster, homegrown players, got some shrewd moves in free agency, a couple low buys in free agency, a couple good trades. But I kept preaching from the day in that, hey, if we can't look people in the eye and say, we're going to play winning baseball, we're just going to meet the demands of the game.

42:11 I tried to shrink wrap it into just a couple things to focus on. Not 100. Number one, meet the demands of the game. The game Certain situations come up and you meet the demand or you don't. At the end of the night, you can look at the 10 things that happened and say, well, we handled five of them. Well, if you handle half of them, you got half a shot of winning. You need to keep that advantage in your sight, meeting the demand, scoring a runner from third, moving a runner from second with no outs. All right? No leadoff walks, no two-out walks, putting their team away with two outs and runners on base. All those things add up. So it wasn't so much that we were losing and we didn't have A, B, or C. We were in games, but we just weren't meeting demands, so we had to find a way to play better baseball.

42:52 What a concept, right? Let's just focus on playing better baseball. And we added to the talent pool. Neil and Kyle and Dan Fox and Mike Fitzgerald, our analytic group, they helped us add to the talent pool. And slowly, we got some right guys. And in 2013, adding A.J. Burnett, adding Russell Martin, already having Liriano in play. The emergence of the bullpen, the way it became from Melanson to Tony Watson to Grilly. And then offensively, Neil Walker showing up. Andrew McCutcheon becoming an MVP. Pedro Alvarez, a lot of homegrown players. Starling Marte. We just became a really good team for three years. We were as good as any team in baseball. And when you come to the North Shore and play in PNC Park, we had a competitive advantage because our fans were loud and they were proud.

43:39 So that year when it all flipped, though, it was like a huge weight had been lifted off of everybody. 20 consecutive losing. Longest North American streak in sports. Snap. 21 years not getting to a playoff game. Snap. And it all happened that one night when it really kind of pinnacled was the blackout game against the Reds. Cueto's on the mound for them. Liriano's on the mound for us. And our fans out of nowhere just start chanting. I could hear Cueto, Cueto. They do it four or five times and Cueto drops the ball. I nudge Bannister. I go, oh my God, he dropped the ball. I'm not thinking anything else. I said, they got him to drop the ball. It's like cheering the goalie out of the net in hockey.

44:21 And then lo and behold, the next pitch he throws, Martin hits it in the North Shore notch for a home run. The place erupted. I get goosebumps talking about it now. It had been building all day. It had been building all season. The vibe you could hear the people walking over the bridge, the Clemente Bridge started at noon. By three o'clock, they're having a party outside. Nothing like we've ever heard. And it was building all season, but this was it. And then that home run and the way we finished the game, it was like, you know, thank you, Jesus. But for everybody, three generations of fans, there was grandfathers and mothers and kids. There was young people that hadn't seen a winning team in 20 years, you know, that were 21 and they finally saw their first winning team.

45:05 The number of pirate flags in the stands, the Jolly Roger, all of it. It was incredible. I've been blessed with two of the most iconic games that anybody can be a part of. Holiday slide at home plate in the game 163 in Colorado that put us in the playoffs against the Padres. And then the play-in game, the wildcard game against the Reds. Neither one of them was a World Series. I've been to three World Series and I've never been in that kind of environment except for those two games. Special times. That is incredible. I lived in Annapolis for a long time, as I mentioned to you earlier, and I've been to Pittsburgh a few times, and that is a beautiful stadium, and those fans were really, really excited there.

45:47 My son got to play a game there in that year, 2013. He was 15 years old, and he was on a travel team, and they had a chance to play a game there, and he got a chance to play center field. So that's a great memory for me. He never reached the majors or anything, but he's a mechanical engineer, so that's a good fallback. That's right. I'm pretty proud of him. All right, so this next question is coming to you from a lifelong Astros fan. So you talk about the culture of losing and turning that around. What do you do when the pressure to win allows ethical boundaries to be crossed? Well, that's hard.

46:27 And that's been the problem of man since the beginning of time. Hubris, ego. Greed, Seven Deadly Sins. You got about three of them wrapped up right in there. And I can remember, you know, having a conversation at one time about the team because we went into play and there was a time when we knew things were going on that were shady and we didn't even have our meeting in the stadium. We had our meeting at the hotel. My third base coach is Joey Corey. His brother Alex is on the team. And we have some internal conversations. Joe shares some information with me, and I just say no. The way we win a game is by using our ears, our eyes, the video we're allowed to use, the scouting reports we're allowed to use, da-da-da-da-da.

47:14 And no, not on my watch, not the way I do it. We're not. Stealing signs from Stacking Base, I'm a fan. If we can steal your signs, shame on you. Any other way by getting a replay from this to that to the other thing and then putting out, you know, whatever? No, no, no, no, no, no. We played the game a certain way and now technology has obviously changed the way we play the game. And quite frankly, the game I fell in love with is not the game we're playing today. That's okay. I'm not going to be the grumpy old man. I'm just a guy that's seen a lot of it changed. Like every generation complains about the one before him usually. However, in baseball, it has changed dramatically in the last 10 years.

47:55 What's important, okay? I still, if I'm going to stay involved, I need to find what I love, what I'm passionate about, and stay with that. Not spend my time changing something I'm not capable of changing. I don't have to buy into it, nor do I have to adhere to it. So we still talk to our players different ways about picking up tips from pitchers. Picking up tips from catchers, the way the catcher sets up. Sometimes you steal the signs from the catcher, the way he sets up to catch a breaking ball or a changeup versus how he receives a fastball. Sometimes you can get them from a base coach when he can see the catcher wide open and not protecting his sign. Sometimes you can pitch up sequences at second base. Those are all, you know, it's like in football.

48:35 Your scouts pick up different sets in the backfield. When guys cheat or a lineman pivots his feet a different way on a pulling player, there used to be a time when your staff could actually be smarter than the other staff and win you games. Now there's so much information out there. I don't know who could ever be smarter than you. But to cross the lines, it's not the way I'm built. It's not the way that I would do it and I didn't do it. And that's just what I share when I'm asked. That's what I share. All right. Fair enough. All right. So let's circle back around to a couple of things you referenced earlier about your family and perspective. So I know very recently, within the last couple of weeks, you attended your son's graduation from CIA, as you mentioned, Culinary Institute of America.

49:23 So tell us about that experience. Watching my son the last few weeks, I can only identify maybe the way my dad watched my opening day in the big leagues. It's been the culmination of a dream he's had for six years. I think he fell in light with cooking during COVID. He started falling in love with pastry. He realized he didn't want to be a chef. You don't like messing with fish. You don't like messing with chicken. Now, can he cook it? If we ask, yes. He can cook, but he will tell you, I bake. There's science to baking. There's math and there's science to baking. And the pastry chef that he fell in love with The attention to detail, the following a recipe, all the procedures, the creativity that can go with it.

50:10 So I was watching him work through that, all the, you know, the three years of prep. Plus they crunch three years of school, four years of school into three years. They go year round. So just watching it play out, meeting his friends along the way, seeing his passion grow, seeing him get, you know, some fails along the way. Some hard teachers along the way, all of it. It gave me an opportunity, really, never trying to be his coach, just trying to be his dad. And to see him, the thing that's blessed, I think, Carla's heart and my heart the most is when we go to his environment to see how the way the other kids receive him and how they honored him and how they shared in the joy and excitement and the reception afterwards. And then we handpicked a few people and had a smaller party later that night to honor him with a bunch of family that was in town.

50:55 And then the follow-up from that. Now he landed a job in New York City, a few blocks from Grand Central Station. And now our apartment, I mean, it's real. It's on and it's real. And I think, you know, he went from hard to graduating and being euphoric. And then we're doing harder now trying to find an apartment in New York City for him and a roommate that makes sense. Economically just makes sense. Now, yeah, you're going to get stretched and you're going to have to travel, maybe take the train and some other things. But all the fails that have come with that in a month, you know, you put in applications, no, no. Or you go see it, it's not anything that shows up to me. So it's all been learning opportunities, again, not to teach him, but to be able to walk beside him as he learns life, as he learns no, as he learns no, that doesn't work, or they didn't tell him the truth, or somebody didn't show up for a meeting.

51:48 Dude, it's real. It's on now. And, you know, you got to be able to embrace hard, do some hard, dance with some hard, feel what you need to feel, but then you need to let it go and get back on track because, you know, you're going on a task in the most wonderful, challenging city maybe in the world to be a pastry chef. That's a lot. So he's got a lot of guts, a lot of courage to undertake it. So it's been... The role my wife has played along this journey has been more significant than mine because there's times when I was away that she'd be able to step in the gap and spend more time to see that bond. He's a mama's boy in the best way possible because my wife is the best person I've ever met, and he's got a lot of her traits.

52:36 Unfortunately, he's still got a few of mine as well, so it's a hybrid mix. Yeah, congratulations. Thank you. As you can tell, we're very proud. As you should be. As you said to me a moment ago about my son, you should be very proud. I mentioned to you on X the other day when I saw your graduation picture, your family pictures, my daughter also graduated from culinary school as a pastry chef. And before she went there, she's always been really talented as an artist. If you can see here over my left shoulder, this old picture of this painting of the Astrodome and an old Colt Stadium in Houston. She painted this for me for Father's Day last year. Beautiful. And she went on to become a pastry chef.

53:17 And so because of her artistic talents, her pastries are not just good. They're almost too beautiful to eat, but I've managed to break through the barrier and eat way more than I should. Good for you. Well, my socks still fit, but I don't know about the rest of my clothes. All right, so let's talk about your daughter. Your daughter, Madison, was diagnosed with Prater-Willig syndrome, and your family experience became an important part of your life. And your connection with Pittsburgh Children's Institute even factored into your relationship with the city of Pittsburgh. So tell me about that. Yeah. As you said, you've done your research.

53:59 Yeah. Maddie was diagnosed with a birth defect three weeks into existence after she was born. There were some signs of more like a newbie. You know, she was floppy. She had some jaundice. She went and taken a bottle. And everybody kept saying, well, that's just, you know, she was a preemie. You know, she came a little bit early. But we had a doctor that was on at Swedish Hospital in Denver that was just keen, aware. And she goes, you know, that could be true, but let's make some tests. Let's take some tests. I think there's something else going on. We got to the point where after about the 12th test, Carl and I just said, stop. We're poking her with more needles than we were giving her bottles. She's a baby. We just need a break. Everybody needs a break. She understood. Waited a few more days.

54:39 She goes, there's a test I've done some research on that I really want to give her. And we're like, well, what is it? She goes, it's a Prader-Willi syndrome test. What's that? She goes, it's a birth defect. It's just, what? It's a what? It's a birth defect. No, no, I don't want her to have that test. That's what I'm thinking. But we talk about it and we go, okay. No, we need to know because a lot of things aren't moving in the direction they should be moving. And we trusted the doctors. And thankfully so. So they give her the Prader-Willi test. And we get a call the next day, hey, we need you to come in. And it was one of those things that you've seen on movies throughout your life where a doctor says, I need to talk to you. You come and they go, well, we need to go down the hall to a room. You walk down the sterile hall, you go in a sterile room, you sit down two, three chairs and they go, hey.

55:24 And she was very good. She goes, I've got some really hard news. She goes, we diagnosed your daughter with Prader-Willi syndrome. It's a genetic birth defect. And, you know, it was cool about her. She didn't say anything after that because I wouldn't have heard anything after that for a while. Carla and I just kind of looked at each other and we start, you know, eyes well up and just look at each other. We cry and then we finally look at her and go, what does that mean? I've never heard of that. She shares with us. It's a genetic birth defect that basically your chromosome number 15, which is your satiation, Chromosome, the one that lets you know you're full or you're hungry, is blown up at conception.

56:09 These kids for the rest of their lives are hungry from the time they wake up to the time they go to bed. Gross motor skills are delayed. Fine motor skills are delayed. Most of them IQ tops out around 75, 80. Most of Maddie is 12 years old and will always be 12 years old. She's 24 now. She didn't walk until she was 19 months. She didn't run until she was four years old. We were blessed with some information and some people in our community that had kids with Prader, Willie, and Colorado that shared their experience. And they told us, stay offline. It's horrific online. Nothing's been updated. There's been some advancements. Here's the real deal. And We were encouraged to get her in the water early, and that was one of the best pieces of advice we got. We got her in the water early.

56:50 We didn't realize the buoyancy of the water freed her up because these kids, they don't want to walk. They don't want to run. They're unsure of themselves. They're balanced, stability. Water gave her another lifestyle, or at least mindset. A lot of time in the water, but still the complications. From that point on, we've got to monitor calories. We've got to structure her lifestyle. We've got to set mornings up, afternoons up, evenings up. We've got to have all these different therapists, occupational therapy, speech therapy, physical therapy. And what we found out over time is we were blessed to be in Denver, Colorado, and we were in Denver, Colorado because of the Children's Institute and the people there because of the Children's Hospital and the doctors and endocrinologists there and the advice and the support we got and the beautiful part of it, the lesson we learned through that interview.

57:39 Was how many people showed up for Maddie, not because her dad managed the Rockies, just because it's what they do and the love they have for kids. They didn't do it because Maddie's daddy was the manager of the Rockies or they were trying to leverage tickets or get a signed ball or a bat. They just did it because they do. And then the other parents in the community, they're still friends today. And then we took over to Pittsburgh where we learned another community of Prader-Willi kids and adults and families. I became the national spokesperson for Prader-Willi syndrome when Matty was two. I've been doing it for 23 years. We host a fundraiser every year called Glen Hurdle's Hot Stove. We do it in Bradenton out at the Country Club. It's still the single biggest fundraiser for Prader-Willi syndrome.

58:19 People still haven't heard of us. We raise $250,000 usually annually, right around that number. And, you know, bless their heart, down the street in Sarasota, Dickie V and Vital for pediatric cancer raised $20 million in one night. Wow. I don't compare. Pediatric cancer is horrible. But to see the difference in awareness. So I was given another opportunity to serve, letting the world know about Prader-Willi syndrome, letting the world know about our kids, letting the world knows about the challenges the parents have. And within the family structure, you still got to raise other kids. You know, the one kid can't dominate the whole day or the medical challenges or the appointments can't. My son had practice. He had to do things.

59:00 We only had two kids. There's families that have more kids. They've got to shuffle more hats. But what we've become are advocates and resources for women and for men and couples. Because there's babies being born with prodigal syndrome. You know, 1 in 12,000 kids are born with it. And we are in a fraternity and sorority that we never signed up for. We're pretty blessed that we're in it because we have a lot of support from that end with other parents that know, that other parents that walk in those shoes. Because, you know, a lot of people want to help. And one of the ways is to give money. And then a lot of people that can't give money, they want to, well, you know, they want to say nice things. And when you hear some of the things they say, you can't get mad.

59:44 You know, I'll say Maddie's got a, you know, Maddie, Maddie likes, we got to count calories. She's hungry all the time. Well, so am I, you know, so no. No, you're not. Not like this. And you just try and slow down. Don't get angry. Maybe explain it so they understand it better. And they're like, oh my. And that's forever? Yeah, it's forever. We still have challenges with Maddie today at 24. We're getting her out of the house. We have a wonderful caregiver named Alex Ritz. We've got a home off-island that Alex is living in that Maddie's starting to spend more and more nights over there because Maddie wants to. You know, Maddie wants the freedom of Her brother went to college. Her brother drives a car.

1:00:25 Now, Maddie will never drive a car. Maddie will never have kids. Maddie will probably never be married. But there's other things that are important to Maddie that we can help her with. So we've learned service that way. We've learned to ask for help. And that's probably the biggest thing I'd want people to take away from this podcast, whatever else we talk about. If you're having a problem, the hardest thing to do sometimes is to ask for help, but it's the best thing to do. It helped me with my alcoholism. It's helped me with my wife Carla with our support for Maddie. It just helps if you've got normal kids. What I mean by normal, just if somebody else has done it before or had been in a circumstance the year and now before, that's the person to talk to.

1:01:05 It's not Google MD. It's not the web. It's talk to real people in real time with real life experiences because I really think that's the way God expects us to help one another through community. I also have an older daughter, Ashley, that's 40 from my second marriage. And the road she's been on has been incredible. We found ways to support her. I wasn't the dad for her that I could or should have been because we split at five. So we've recreated and rebuilt our relationship. That's been another learning experience for me. God's kept me busy with learning. Yes. Lifelong learner, we'll call you.

1:01:46 Yes, sir. All right, so let's say we're at third base right now. We've got less than two hours, so I'm going to try to get you home safely here as we start to wind down the conversation. So you returned to the Rockies organization after saying in 2019 that you were finished coaching Major League Baseball. In 2025, last year, you stepped back in the uniform as Colorado's hitting coach and were subsequently added as an interim with bench and coach responsibilities. So my question for you is, baseball has said goodbye to you a few times, and somehow you and baseball keep finding each other. Why do you think that is?

1:02:29 Each time we've said goodbye to one another, whether I was fired or traded or released, or the last time I walked away, I took two years off, not knowing that it was going to be two years. I planned more, but got asked to come back. It comes down to one word. It comes down to love. Came back the last time because the love I had for a few men in the organization asked for my help. And I shared out how I would help. I would not get back in uniform. I would not be an everyday coach. You know, I set up boundaries. So I was a special assistant to the general manager. And he asked me what I wanted to do. You want to work in the big leagues? I said, you know, I've been blessed with a lot of big league time. Almost 35 years in the major leagues. I think I can impact better in the minor leagues with the kids and the young coaching staffs.

1:03:09 He said, well, good, because that's really where I think you can make the biggest difference. So I did that for three years, up and down the affiliates. I spend four, five, six days, get to see everybody pitch, everybody play. I get to have a couple leadership exercises with the staff, get to watch the manager work, get to watch everybody work, write a report, try and coach people up on the way up. I usually do one of my exercises, two up, two down. Here's two things I think you're doing well. Here's a couple of things I think you need to improve upon or work upon. We did that for three years. And then last year, we got into a horrific place. And basically the same two guys, Dick Moffert, the owner. Well, three, Dick Moffert, the owner, Greg Fiesel, the president, Bill Schmidt, the general manager, men I had known since I showed up there at the beginning in 2002 as the manager.

1:03:53 Asked me to come back and help. And maybe it was just as the idea to get an older person in the room. Somebody that they knew could hold the wheel and still try and provide some direction for the young coaches that were in place and put a very hard situation. So I said yes. I would not have done it without Carla's blessing. I would not have done it if Carla had not come to Denver with me to be with me at that time. And she... Very honestly said, I will never stand in the way of your dream. And I said, well, I'm not sure this is a dream. It's not a nightmare, but I don't know if it's a dream. I just think I'm being called to serve and to help in the best fashion I can. So that's what I did.

1:04:34 And it wasn't a return to uniform this year. It was back in the other role. And I do think that, you know, I've never gotten to a point where I've shaken my fist at baseball and said, I hate you. I've been fired twice. You know, it was very unceremoniously in Pittsburgh, just a hard ending there. And Colorado was 14, I think 19, 18 months after we've been to a World Series. You kind of know that when you sign up for it, but you don't realize the weight of it until it happens, right? But I got through those, and I went through those, and I learned from both those situations. But other situations present itself. When I got fired in New York the first time as a AAA manager, the next job I got was a better job.

1:05:15 I went to Colorado and only knew one person, the guy that hired me. In an entire organization, I only knew one person. I didn't know another coach. I didn't know another scout. And I ended up managing that team seven years later. It's kind of like dropping a baby off on somebody's doorstep and then the baby ends up, you know, being a member of the household. When I got fired in Colorado, I went to Pittsburgh. That turned out, truthfully, it was a better situation. I mean, it just, it grew me. It challenged me. When I got fired in Pittsburgh, I finally got that job that everybody wants. I got to work two weeks a month. I get paid. I get to keep my foot in the door in the game, still spend time at home. So it was another wonderful opportunity for the time of life I was in.

1:05:58 The most impressive thing to me is I've just tried to honor the season of life that I'm in with the opportunity that I've been offered and not to try and be more than, try and recreate, take over, be a good teammate, perform the role that I'm being asked to perform. Excellent. When you look back now, are you grateful that you didn't become the player everybody expected you that you would become? You know, I am. That was one of the things I just kind of mentioned on X the other day in this kind of share I had with a former sports writer in Detroit, a guy that I read back in the day, and he's got a different view on a few things than I do, but I'm trying to love on him and treat him with respect, but I would not be the man I am today of not going through everything that I've gone through, and I'm humbled by the man I've become, and I think at least the positions I've been put in, I think the sphere of influence that I now have, Based on pouring into people, about listening to people, about hearing people.

1:06:55 I managed 17 years in the big leagues. I didn't see that one coming, Melvin. And I never won a World Series. That's only two teams. That's not four teams 17 years. That's two teams. So did I honor the brand? Did I leave the place better than when I found it? Did I grow some people up? You know, all those things that you'd like to think, why would they keep you around? And... Again, married 26 years now, sober 20, I'm proud of those things. My mother passed last summer and she told me the last 10 years of my life, she'd find a time every year, she'd say the thing I'm most proud of you for, so I was getting sober and becoming the man you finally knew I knew you could become. Because she saw that other kid wander, she saw that other kid lost, she saw that other kid chasing the world and threw a mother's love.

1:07:41 I mean, there was a number of times she said, I don't care what you do the rest of your life, I just want to stop drinking. And it still didn't stop me until... I got sick and tired of being tired and sick and did it for me and then realized over time I was blessing everybody else that loved me and stood by. Mother's prayers can work wonders. Amen. All right. So as we wind down this conversation, I've got some rapid-fire questions for you. So short, punchy questions. Just give me a quick answer. All right. Best pure hitter you ever saw? Rod Carew. Toughest pitcher you ever faced? Oh, go ahead. Were you going to give some details to it? I cannot not say George Brett having played with him for the years I did. 1A and 1B.

1:08:22 Toughest pitcher I ever faced. You're going to laugh because I had this conversation on X the other day too. Shane Raleigh. I faced Shane Raleigh in the minor leagues. I faced Shane Raleigh in the National League, the American League. I think I'm three for a lifetime off Shane Raleigh. One hit was a moon double in AAA. Shane Raleigh would send cars to the hotel to pick me up to make sure I got to the park so I could be in the lineup when he pitched. I faced Hall of Famers, and they were tough. Sparky Lyle, probably the biggest name. Not Sparky Lyle, Ron Guidry. Ron Guidry, the toughest pitcher, big-name pitcher that I ever faced that just was hard. But Shane Raleigh was the guy that he knew and I knew that he owned me.

1:09:05 I remember Shane Raleigh. All right, player who taught you the most as a manager. The player that taught me the most as a manager. I don't know if there was one. There was a number of players that pulled different parts of me out that I wasn't sure about that actually made me a better manager. David Freese, Todd Helton, Larry Walker, those are the big names. And Michael Young, Ian Kinzler, Andrew McCutcheon. Starling Marte, Brad Hopp, Clint Barmus. The one player that people probably don't know about that probably was in my corner more than any other teammate was Amos Otis. We had lockers kind of next to each other. And with everything else that was going around, Amos would find a way to slow me down, to sit me down, and talk truth to me.

1:09:50 Because I had a lot of people tell me what I wanted to hear, and I had a lot of people just yelling at me, and I had a lot of people probably tell me what I needed to hear, and I wasn't listening. Amos had a way. Right now? War. Okay. Back in the day, the one that doesn't get enough attention today's game is RBIs. They have this whole definition of why it doesn't.

1:10:32 At the end of the day, here's my one argument about RBIs. There's 15 games played. There's 15 managers that sit down with a press conference after the game that teams just lost the game. Out of those 15 men, normally 12 to 13, we'll talk about missed opportunities with runners on base. Driving in runs is an art. Now, there are some cheap RBIs and there's some RBIs in it. There's also men that drove. Tony Perez drove in runs when runs were meant to be driven in. There's a handful of guys that did it throughout their career. But to this day, even today's game, you'll watch. Look at left on base. Look at hitting with runners in scoring position. It's a real deal. RBIs are a real deal, and we downplay it.

1:11:14 Dramatically. And as an Astros fan, I can certainly commiserate with that, especially in the last weekend, playing the Padres, leaving 12, 15 guys on base per game. It's madness. Absolutely madness. All right. One thing today's players do better than your generation. Celebrate. All right, one thing your generation did better. I think we had a lot more baseball like you. All right, and I can imagine that. That seems to make sense. All right, favorite ballpark. To this day, they don't play there anymore. To this day, my favorite ballpark is still. PNC is beautiful. Coors Field is beautiful. Those are my backyards for a long time. But going into Fenway Park, when they sing Sweet Caroline in the seventh inning, And every game is almost like opening day at Fenway.

1:11:57 They're putting 38,000 in there. The outside activities are still like opening day. Wrigley did a fantastic job on freshening it up, but holding on to a lot of the iconic old traditional values of it. I still like the old ballparks. You know, I was a Detroit Tiger fan growing up. I used to love going to Tiger Stadium. Managed the last All-Star game at old Yankee Stadium, which was a memorable experience. But there's a lot of beautiful ballparks out there now. All right. Last question of the day for you. One word you hope former players use to describe Clint Hurdle. Honestly. That's a quality word right there and a nice way to wind down the conversation.

1:12:38 So former baseball phenom and highly successful Major League Baseball manager has been our guest today. His book is called Hurdleisms, Wit and Wisdom from a Lifetime in Baseball. So make sure you get an order copy, and there's a link in the show notes to make it easy for you. You can order from several different outlets. So Clint Hurdle, thank you so much for being here today. I'm very honored to have you as a guest. Melvin, this was a blast. Thank you. I look forward to hearing about the podcast. Let me know when you upload or get it on, and I'll get it to my guy, and hopefully we can give you some exposure as well on social media. I'll have it up in a couple days. I'll get you the link. Thank you. Thank you for being here. So that's it for this episode of Stories from Real Life.

1:13:20 Until next time, don't forget to shine your light wherever you go. That was Stories from Real Life. Join us again next week for another great storytelling journey. See you next time.

1:16:51 Honestly.