00:00I know that the thumb was bothering you a lot during the season and kind of limited your innings
00:03a bit. Ken Rosenthal wrote about your piano playing and how that solved the issue of your
00:08thumb. First of all, how does that solve the issue of your thumb and how good are you on the
00:13piano?
00:13I quit at Greensleeves back in 1968. It was right around the all-star break. I was trying to teach
00:18my kids how to play the piano. I had just basic knowledge of it. As dad, I was trying to
00:22teach,
00:22you know, kind of what song can I kind of learn that I could play to kind of teach them.
00:26And so
00:26I kind of, you know, learned a couple songs and was playing them. And I went to the field the
00:31next
00:31day and, you know, all of a sudden I gripped the ball and like, whoa, my hand feels better. My
00:35thumb
00:35feels better. And I made a start. I was like, whoa, I just got through the start way cleaner than
00:40I ever
00:40had. I had been to every doctor. I had done every exercise, cortisone shots, needling, shockwave,
00:48electrocuting my thumb, you know, like there wasn't a stone I didn't have unturned. This was the first
00:52time I actually saw progress. So then I started chasing it like, hey, maybe if I play more,
00:56play longer, like, will this help my hand? And I did, I could feel the results. Like the next
01:01time I started, like, whoa, my hand feels even better. So then it became like, all right, this
01:06is on. Like now I got to play a lot. I was putting in, you know, what's called two, three
01:09hours in
01:10between starts, you know, an hour a day, you know, two or three days, all of a sudden, then my
01:14thumb
01:14issue was gone. There was times I was on a hundred pitches and I felt fine the next day. I
01:18wasn't
01:18having to do anything. It was the biggest sense of relief considering how bad it was.
01:22Forget about Cooperstown. We got to get you into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in
01:24Cleveland, man. Billy Joel, eat your heart out. I got the new piano man right here.
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