- 15 hours ago
"Hitting is your thing, so how do the Red Sox start doing it" Former Red Sox catcher Rich Gedman joins!
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00:00And our Miller Lite local legend is here right now, Rich Gedman.
00:05Can we have a round of applause for Geddy, please?
00:08Ten years, over ten years with the Boston Red Sox.
00:11Two-time All-Star, and now working for the WooStocks.
00:16Am I correct about all that?
00:17That's correct.
00:18Well, it's nice to have you here.
00:20It's hard listening to yourself talk.
00:22Yeah, tell me about it.
00:24Yeah, some people don't want to hear Curtis talk ever again.
00:26No, just everybody.
00:27Well, did you grow up in Worcester?
00:31I grew up in Worcester, yeah.
00:32Red Sox fan forever.
00:34And then lived your dream playing for the Boston Red Sox.
00:37Yeah, if we would have won the World Series, I would have had a Disney movie.
00:40Yeah.
00:41I mean, you didn't really take the blame for that.
00:44That was one.
00:45Oh, can we not go there?
00:46Let's talk about something else.
00:48That was one strike away, Stanley, that we blamed for that one.
00:50Oh, gosh.
00:51Listen, it was a wonderful time, right?
00:53Yeah.
00:53Be a kid that grew up in Worcester, play for the Red Sox, get to the World Series,
00:57going to win the World Series, and no.
01:00I'm curious about that.
01:01And then for the next 40 years, trying to figure out what happened.
01:04I feel like you and Matt Ryan have one thing in common, which is whenever you sit down,
01:10there's one question you're always going to be asked.
01:13For Matt Ryan, it's Super Bowl 51 and 28-3.
01:16Thanks, Chris.
01:16I appreciate it.
01:17And for you, it's that.
01:17But I'm just curious, after the game, because you still – many young'uns will think that
01:23they – the Red Sox lost the World Series that night.
01:25They did not.
01:26Can we go somewhere else with this?
01:27I don't really want to –
01:28I didn't get up this morning thinking I'm going to rehash the 86-0 series.
01:33He did.
01:33I'm just curious about whether or not you guys were able to get back into a mental place
01:37after that, or if after that game, it was just such a historically demoralizing defeat
01:42that Game 7 was too much to ask.
01:44No, no.
01:45I mean, let's face it.
01:46The nice thing is we had Game 7, right?
01:48So we had the opportunity to come back and win.
01:50In the seventh inning, we're World Series champions, right, if we just played seven.
01:54Yeah.
01:54But that didn't happen.
01:56How are you enjoying being with the Woo Sox?
01:59Oh, it's great, right?
02:00I love baseball.
02:02I want to say it's what I do.
02:04Some people have vocation.
02:05I have baseball, right?
02:06Yeah.
02:07That's what I've done all my life.
02:09I've been very fortunate to be able to do it.
02:11I'm very grateful, and I'm doing it in my hometown where I grew up,
02:15three blocks away from Polar Park, right?
02:17We had Chad Tracy on the show yesterday.
02:20Oh, gosh, he's the best.
02:21Yeah.
02:21He's a good dude, man.
02:23Yeah.
02:24And you think – how difficult is it preparedness-wise to go from being out here
02:30and a day later you're the manager of the Boston Red Sox?
02:33Well, you hate to say that he was probably doing more in Worcester than he is now in Fenway.
02:41Certainly, the pressure is a little different in Boston than Worcester, of course.
02:45But his daily preparation is second to none.
02:49Yeah.
02:50And his way with people, he's pretty special.
02:53Obviously, if you met him, you got a chance to talk to him.
02:55You see what a special guy he is.
02:57He's a baseball guy through and through, hard worker, very well prepared.
03:03You know, I can't say enough about him.
03:06He'll do a good job, right?
03:08He's in an awkward position, but he'll do a good job with it.
03:12The people will play for him.
03:14They'll play hard for him.
03:15And, you know, whether we win or lose, that'll be a different story.
03:19But he'll be ready, and he'll do a good job doing it.
03:23Hitting is your thing, so how did the Red Sox start doing it?
03:27It's easy from here, I can tell you that.
03:31I don't think it's a case of they're not trying hard enough.
03:35I think in some ways they might be trying too hard and trying to force things.
03:40And the part that I look at as a baseball guy is I'm going, we're competitive.
03:45We're in games.
03:46We have opportunities.
03:47Can we get the timing right?
03:50Can we score four runs when we give up three?
03:52Can we score nine runs when we give up eight?
03:54And I think as crazy as that may seem, when the timing is good, we win games.
04:01When it's not, we lose, right?
04:03And it's like I don't mean to make it that simple, but that's how difficult this game is, right?
04:07It's inches.
04:07It's a play.
04:09It's being in the right place.
04:11Stealing a base when you need to steal a base.
04:12Getting a bunt down when you get a bunt down.
04:14Hitting the three-run homer.
04:16All those things are in there.
04:18There's nobody, I can tell you, there's nobody out there that's jaking it.
04:22They're not folding on purpose.
04:24It's self-induced pressure.
04:26And I think the support of the fans, the expectation of the fans, it's like, listen, we come from Boston.
04:32We expect to win here.
04:33And it's like the hard part is the daily, well, they didn't do this and they didn't do that.
04:39It's like we need to still, if our team is going to get where we want them to go, if
04:43we're going to have a good team in Boston,
04:44we need to continue to support them and the fans do, but it's like, they have to not listen to
04:50what the other people's opinions are.
04:52They have to come together as a group themselves and find a way to get the job done.
04:56And who does that for the young guys?
04:57Is that the veterans?
04:59Well, the neat part about the veterans, it's like those kids have to come partly on their own too, right?
05:05They have to grow.
05:06They have to learn.
05:06It's like, I thought years ago when the team struggled or a couple of years back, it's like, we were
05:11saying, gosh, they're awful.
05:12I said, it was stolen days.
05:14It was stolen days for young players, young pitchers to develop.
05:18And it's like, you don't want to say that they develop at the big leagues, but when that's the best
05:23you have, you sit there and you take your chances with them, right?
05:26And it's like, we have to live with their ups and downs, but that's how they become seasoned pros.
05:31I'm so curious because you were raised in an era without 500 analytical algorithms dictating what you do at the
05:41batter's box.
05:42How do you, in an organization that is really into driveline and the new way of hitting, implement your own,
05:51obviously, immense experience and how you teach people how to hit?
05:54Like, how do you balance those two things?
05:57That's a really good question.
05:58And I'm not sure I have a really simple answer, but I'm going to try to answer it the way
06:03I know it.
06:04It's like, to me, when you're in the batter's box, it doesn't matter what the numbers say.
06:08It's your relationship with the baseball, right?
06:11It's when the pitcher lets go, it's like, you find a way to put it in play.
06:14You find the way where the holes are.
06:16You find a way to hit the ball hard.
06:17You, you swing up to good ones and you take the bad ones.
06:21I wish it was that simple.
06:22It is not right.
06:23When the ball's coming at you a hundred miles an hour and it's, it's, it's soft, it's hard, it's up,
06:28it's down, it's in and out.
06:29This game is very difficult, right?
06:30There's no question about it.
06:32I don't think any algorithms or, or, or, or analytics can tell you exactly what that person's feeling in the
06:39box.
06:39But yeah, no, is there a danger, especially for young guys, when they're getting all that information fed to them,
06:48that they're, they're basically mind effed a little bit.
06:53Um, I'm not saying it's an issue.
06:56I think information used the right way is good.
06:58Right.
06:58Yeah.
06:59Um, so that's why I was sitting in this simple thing.
07:02When you go to the plate, nobody can go to the plate for you.
07:04You're the one who's at the plate.
07:05Yeah.
07:06The expectation of what's going to happen is like, oh, we should hit a home run here.
07:10It's like, no, it's not that easy.
07:11Right.
07:12But like I said, a friend of mine used this line.
07:16He says, you need to be consistently good, not occasionally great.
07:20And so in, in, in hitting, and then when you're, I'm not trying to do the math for you, but
07:26if you're three out of 10, you're a pretty good hitter.
07:28Right.
07:29Um, and I really don't care if the home run goes 110 miles an hour off the bat and goes
07:34472 feet.
07:35I really don't care.
07:36If it's not a big exit below guy.
07:38No, no.
07:38I'm not saying it's not part of the game.
07:39I said, they've found a way to create the equations that say, this is, this is a ball that's hit
07:44hard.
07:45Well, the guy catches his bad aim for me.
07:47I'm sorry.
07:48I played in the era where you try to hit the ball where they're not.
07:51Yeah.
07:51Not what a concept.
07:52No, I'm no.
07:53It's like, it's that game, right?
07:55Simple.
07:55That's why baseball is so great.
07:56I love, like, I, I, I don't, I don't know how it happened or when it happened, but if Jim
08:01Rice were to come up to me and I were a young baseball player and he was offering me advice
08:06on how to hit, I would be a moron.
08:09If I didn't listen to a hall of famer like Jim Rice.
08:12And so I, I just watch this team and they cannot hit.
08:17And I get enraged that this is a sport where people like you who have been around it, you are
08:23a sponge.
08:23You've been around this game your entire life.
08:26That's why you're there.
08:28And yet then they want to ignore that.
08:30If that makes sense.
08:31Like you're great at what you do because you bring an unbelievable amount of experience to your job and you
08:36take it incredibly seriously.
08:38If everybody could just go in and read it like it's, you know, the national debt, like what's, what's the
08:43point?
08:45I'm not saying that you're not making a good point, but I can't say that you're making a good point.
08:52We appreciate that.
08:53No, no.
08:53That's the best answer we've ever had.
08:55I don't know, but it's like, it's, there are people trying to find a way to describe our game and
09:03what makes it good and what makes it bad and who's good and who's bad based on numbers alone.
09:07And I'm not saying it wasn't numbers alone when I was playing.
09:10It was right.
09:11It was, but it was, you hit 300 or you try to hit 300 and you have 30 homers and
09:16a hundred RBIs.
09:17And that was the criteria of what you were as a good player.
09:20What was your war?
09:21I had no idea.
09:24I'd like to think that we won more than we lost when we played.
09:27There's been obviously a lot of attention on Roman Anthony's latest injury.
09:32What do you know about Roman that you can tell us in terms of his durability?
09:36He's still a really young guy.
09:39I believe he just turned 22 years old, but he's had some availability issues already in the majors.
09:45Well, the first time I saw him play, or let me put it this way.
09:49The first time I saw Roman Anthony in a Red Sox dugout, he was a minor league player that came
09:55up as an extra.
09:57And when I walked into the dugout in Fort Myers, I went minor leaguer, minor leaguer, minor leaguer, minor league.
10:04Who is that kid?
10:06And that was Roman Anthony.
10:08And he was already a man at 20 years old.
10:13It's like, you're going, he's bigger, he's stronger.
10:15He's more handsome.
10:16I said, that's my next Superman.
10:18If there's a Superman movie, Roman Anthony is going to be that guy.
10:22Watching him play.
10:24He was absolutely fantastic.
10:26I didn't see any injuries in the near future.
10:30I thought this guy was invincible.
10:32But like you said, he's 22 years old.
10:34He's playing at the highest level and we expect big things out of him.
10:38I don't, for the first time, we're sitting there going, geez, there might be a little dent in his armor.
10:44Certainly being a baseball player, a good baseball player, having longevity in baseball, one of the things you have to
10:50be able to do is stay on the field.
10:51Um, if, if he can stay on the field, he's going to be a great player.
10:55Um, he's going to have nagging injuries.
10:58It comes part of the job.
10:59The problem for us right now is we need him to be Roman Anthony, right?
11:04We need him to be Superman.
11:05And technically for him, we just need to get him on the field.
11:09If he gets on the field, he's going to make impact and not judge whether he's hitting 180 or 320.
11:15His impact on the field matters, not sit there.
11:18And as you're a young player, you get dissected up there in Boston.
11:21They have all the things you can't do.
11:23And it's like, you guys are the greatest at building us up, but you're also the pains that knock us
11:29back down.
11:29And for him, he's going to be a superstar.
11:32In my opinion, I hope that I'm not wrong.
11:36But like I said, when he's not playing, we miss him and he's not, we're not the Red Sox team
11:41that we could be if he's in the lineup every day.
11:43We always hear how difficult it is to play in Boston.
11:46You were from here.
11:47So maybe not your experience, but did you, did you feel like it was difficult to play in Boston?
11:52No, I love going to the park every day, right?
11:55That's the paradise that you call Fenway Park.
11:59Is it hard to play there?
12:00Only when you pay attention to how hard it is.
12:02It's like when you're playing the game and you're playing with your teammates and you're doing all the things that
12:07help you win and you're trying to get better and you're trying to reach the apex, be the epitome of
12:14the champions.
12:14We're going to do it all.
12:17No, it's not hard.
12:18Were you intimidated?
12:20Like, I think, I, I think your first at bat was you, did you pinch hit for Yaz?
12:26Is that your first at bat?
12:28Technically, that's my story, right?
12:30He was, he was, I mean, it's a, it's kind of a cool one, right?
12:33When you think about it.
12:34But, but I was 20 years old.
12:37I'm in the bullpen in Fenway Park, not as a, somebody who's watching from the bleachers, but I'm actually in
12:43the bullpen and Yaz is a DH and he hurts his back.
12:47And, um, they called out and said, listen, you're going in the game.
12:51I said, what?
12:53And then as I'm running across the yellow field, the Fenway park, I don't think my feet ever touched the
12:57ground.
12:57When I got there, I was already loose and I couldn't figure out why.
13:01And it was just incredible.
13:03Right?
13:03So you sit in there and go, what's what I just, after the fact, they said, I just pitch it
13:08for Kali Ostromsky.
13:09Technically he was hurt, but, but we'll, but I'll tell it that way.
13:14We'll tell it that way.
13:15So did he know your name?
13:16He was great with me.
13:18I want you to know that's my childhood hero.
13:20Right.
13:20Yeah.
13:20And he was wonderful.
13:22I've heard so many stories about how he was a prankster and things like that.
13:25He was always good to me, but I did see some things I probably couldn't say here.
13:29Yeah.
13:29But, um, he was the greatest, right?
13:32Did he smoke in the clubhouse?
13:33I'm not talking about that stuff.
13:34He was my guy, right?
13:36Okay.
13:37No snitching.
13:38I, I, I'm fascinated about Chad Tracy because of your unique experience with him and in our conversation yesterday, he
13:44was just amazing.
13:46I thought, what, did he have a great relationship with Roman Anthony and the young guys?
13:50Was there a specific, cause I'm just, when he was in Worcester and the, the young stars were there, was
13:55there a, did you notice a unique connection with them at all?
13:57He, it's, it's how he is.
13:59He's like that with everybody, right?
14:01He just has a way of bringing out the best of all the players.
14:04He's upfront.
14:05He's honest.
14:05He's a no BS guy and still finds a way to be nice on the outside too.
14:11Right.
14:11But he's, he's a competitor.
14:13He wants to win.
14:14I think in four seasons in Worcester, we did not have a losing season.
14:18And part of it is the guys running the race for him.
14:20He just brings that out.
14:22And yeah, he has a special quality that, um, a lot of human beings don't have, right?
14:26They kind of run with how we're doing, but he'll, he'll stay on the course of time.
14:30He's, he's a tough guy.
14:32And, uh, you know, he has good, he has a good background in baseball and, uh, but he's, he's solid.
14:38He's a solid person.
14:39Like I said, he's a good manager and, uh, he'll do a good job for him.
14:42I think I can guess the answer to this one, but maybe not best picture you ever caught.
14:49Roger Clemens.
14:51Yeah.
14:51Did this come to mind?
14:52Yeah.
14:53I think you had some cupcakes that were on April 29th.
14:56Were they made in 1986?
14:57Yeah.
14:58Yes.
14:581986.
14:59Not that I forget that date or remember that date.
15:02Yeah.
15:02Is that like a, is that like a no hitter where you don't talk about it as you're going through
15:06like, Hey, you may set the major league baseball strikeout record.
15:09Like, or do you guys discuss it?
15:11No, that's certainly not on my mind.
15:13I can tell you that.
15:13Yeah.
15:14Um, when did you know you were close?
15:15I didn't really.
15:17Yeah.
15:17That probably made it best.
15:18Yeah.
15:19Yeah.
15:19Um, the neat part was we were losing one to nothing.
15:22I think it was sixth inning, maybe they scored or top of the seventh day scored.
15:26And I think Dewey had a three run homer in the bottom of the seventh.
15:30And then, and now it's like, Oh, we're thinking about is find a way to win.
15:33Right.
15:33And I knew there was a lot of K's because you look out on that right field wall and there's
15:37K's all along the wall and you're going, well, you get to about eight and they kind of run
15:41together.
15:42So you don't really pay attention to how many there are.
15:45And honestly, and truly, as much as we're baseball players and fans of history of the
15:49game, most of us don't know that 20 strikeouts is the record.
15:53You just know, it's a lot, um, the thing that probably is the coolest part about that night
15:58was, um, the 20 strikeouts was really neat.
16:01Right.
16:01I mean, he was overpowering.
16:02He was, he was unbelievable, but he didn't walk anybody.
16:05I mean, that's unheard of, right.
16:06That to be that on, um, impeccable control, right.
16:10He might've get a call here or there, but the point is he had 20 strikeouts, no walks and
16:15it's a, you know, it's a fantastic day.
16:17And after you look back, it's like, gosh, we got so much better since we got older.
16:21Well, do you like what they've done with the game?
16:23No, but that's okay.
16:25You don't.
16:26That changes the pitch clock.
16:28Oh, that part.
16:29I thought you meant the game itself.
16:30It's just, it's so much, it's so overexposed.
16:33It's ridiculous.
16:34Yeah.
16:34It's like, it used to seem like we just had our own little family.
16:37Now everybody knows us.
16:38Everybody knows where we are, where we go, what we do, what we like, what we don't like.
16:42It's like, it's way too complicated for me.
16:44I would have been a big trouble pitch, pitch clock though.
16:48I'm going to say something I probably shouldn't say.
16:51Right.
16:51Um, the pitch clock is fine with me.
16:55We're, we're trying to speed up the game.
16:57So it's great for the fans.
16:58And I'm old school guy, right?
17:02I sit there and I go, listen, there's beauty in a one, nothing game.
17:05There's beauty in a 10, nine game.
17:06Um, but for some reason we're, we're trying to say that if we make this game faster, more
17:12people are going to watch.
17:14Well, if we didn't have six minute commercials in between innings, the game would be shorter
17:19too.
17:20So in all fairness and all fairness, so it's like they blame the players because they're
17:26taking too long.
17:27It's like, it's not the players.
17:28I'm sorry.
17:29That's a great point.
17:30It's just, there's a lot of TV time and listen, TV time is money.
17:33And I understand that too.
17:35So that's why I have to be careful what I say.
17:37Yeah.
17:37But the point of it is, it's like, listen, the game is the game.
17:40People go to, go to Fenway park.
17:42Not everybody goes to watch the great baseball game on the great team.
17:44They just go there because it's Fenway park.
17:46It's absolutely beautiful.
17:47Right?
17:47It's a, what a, what a thing to be able to say you've been there and the people that
17:51love it go, there's so much more.
17:53I mean, there's something bigger than us going on.
17:55Right.
17:56As I get older, I start to realize that it's like, I used to think that people used to
17:59come to watch me play.
18:00Is it this coming to Fenway park?
18:01I just happened to be a by-product.
18:03You know, it's really kind of cool that way.
18:05And so, um, I, I don't know where my thought is going, but the point of is, um, I forget
18:11what
18:11the point is.
18:12So I think it was, it was, it was, it's a beautiful game.
18:14Oh, there's no doubt about that.
18:16But yeah, you were talking about the changes and things like that, but I have just a old
18:21school question.
18:22My friends and I used to argue about what was more impressive to you, the Clemens 20 strikeout
18:27game in 86, or he did it again against the tigers or the 17 strikeout one run performance
18:34by Pedro Martinez against the Yankees at Yankee stadium.
18:38When the Yankees were at the peak of their power, they're both, I mean, all three of those
18:43games are great, right?
18:45Um, some of it depends on when they are and what they are and what they're for.
18:49Right.
18:50But I mean, let's face it.
18:51Pedro was special, right?
18:53I mean, he had four pitches that were the best pitches of anybody in baseball.
18:57So you sit near the analytics say that he's supposed to strike out 17.
19:00He sent me anyways, listen, it's an honor to have you here.
19:09Um, let's hear it for Rich Gedman.
19:11Oh my gosh.
19:12Local legend.
19:14You're way too kind.
19:15I mean, you probably just got me fired, but that's okay.
19:18That's all right.
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