00:04I'll give it a minute for you to get past the leader.
00:11Okay.
00:15Well, do you have any children?
00:18I had two children.
00:20I lost my oldest daughter here about eight years ago.
00:23I'm sorry.
00:25And I have one daughter here now, two grandchildren.
00:30Great.
00:34So what do you think about baseball today?
00:38Well, it's like everything else.
00:41The world won't stand still, and baseball sure I haven't stood still either.
00:48There's not too much of a change in the actual game itself.
00:52Not too much.
00:53Other than the rugs.
00:54Yeah.
00:55And they're on the stadium.
00:57You know.
00:58And the DH and the American League.
01:00And the DH and the American League.
01:02Other than that, the basic functions of the game.
01:07I don't agree with the 25-game player limit.
01:12What do they have in your day?
01:1321.
01:14Most clubs vary 20.
01:15Uh-huh.
01:17Uh-huh.
01:17Uh-huh.
01:17I think that's the burden of the figure eight.
01:19I think it's the burden of the owners today.
01:23Uh-huh.
01:24Tremendous high prices.
01:26Utility barfares making $500,000.
01:29That's $400,000.
01:30If I was sitting there on the bench hitting a hundred and sixty-five.
01:33That's right.
01:34Uh-huh.
01:34There is a big burden of the owners.
01:37And, uh, I think that, uh, when back to 21, it might step up the total class of the
01:47players without having done sent a few back to the owners who would come back as better players.
01:54Uh-huh.
01:55Uh-huh.
01:56Very probably.
01:57Uh-huh.
01:58Uh-huh.
01:58How many, uh, how many did they carry on on a pitching staff usually in your day?
02:02Same amount as they carried today.
02:04Ten.
02:04So they just didn't have as many utility players.
02:07That's right.
02:07This is all, uh, uh, carrying right and left-hand pinch hitters.
02:12Uh-huh.
02:13Uh, a specialty base runner.
02:15Yeah.
02:16Uh, clubs carrying three cutters.
02:18That's right.
02:19Uh, we carried two.
02:20Uh-huh.
02:21Basically, we stayed, Mr. McKinney, uh, kept with two catchers.
02:26Uh, we stayed at, uh, 20 players.
02:29We stayed at the limit of 21.
02:30Hmm.
02:31Uh, most of the season because if someone got hurt, we could throw in our key player from
02:38a triple-A club overnight without going through the procedure of, uh, getting waivers and,
02:44uh, and losing the ability of a player of maybe for a week in trying to get them out
02:49of the league.
02:49Sure.
02:52Um, you wouldn't let it play on the artificial surface.
02:57Well, uh, when it comes to the artificial surface, when you actually play, it's just
03:03as tough on one thing than the other.
03:04Well, it is, but, uh, it strikes me that, uh, it's, uh, halfway a different, uh, ball game.
03:14Well.
03:15Yeah.
03:16The outfielders, for instance, can't charge a ball, um, hit in front of them and nearly
03:22as safely without it going over their heads.
03:25That's true, but if they get playing on there for a while, why, uh, they adjust, uh,
03:30they adjust to it, they adjust to it.
03:33And, um, your route would be far against the designated hitter.
03:41Uh, I'd be against it because, uh, the fact that, uh, it takes a little bit of a strategy
03:47out of the game.
03:48Uh, I, uh, I just, uh, uh, I don't know, I, I just don't see the, uh, the point of
03:57it.
03:57Uh, the only advantage that it does have is in the very early part of a ball game sometimes,
04:02you're leading by four runs and you've got one of those hitters come up and he hits one
04:06out over the cup of guy and puts you back in the ball game.
04:09Uh-huh.
04:10That, that part of it has an advantage.
04:11Yeah, but that's real.
04:13Yeah.
04:13But that, uh, that is real.
04:14Yeah.
04:15How about free agency?
04:17Well, the free agency, uh, I, uh, I don't blame anybody in giving as much as they can
04:25do.
04:25I don't know.
04:26Uh, whether he's working or not and be a factor or anyplace else.
04:29That's right.
04:30Uh, I think that, uh, the owners created a lot of these monsters themselves.
04:34Exactly.
04:35Uh, we can, I can go back when it all started in the bonus days.
04:39Uh-huh.
04:40You know, I was playing and, uh, they started, we, we put the money in the bank.
04:44We couldn't get the money out of the bank.
04:46Uh-huh.
04:46And here they give a hundred thousand dollars to somebody to find out if he could play.
04:49Yeah.
04:50So they started the monster and some of the policies of, uh, everybody followed Mr. Ricky's
04:57pay scale back in them days.
04:59And, uh, some of the things that Mr. Ricky started, uh, uh, uh, and everybody followed
05:04and eventually, uh, created their own purpose.
05:07Yeah.
05:07He started the, he's given credit anywhere for starting the, uh, farm system, farm team
05:12system.
05:13Uh-huh.
05:13That's, that's a pretty good thing.
05:15That's true, but on Ricky's pay scale, you know, uh, uh, everybody filled, uh, everybody
05:19filed, uh, for example, the general manager for the National League, and Ricky trained.
05:24Uh-huh.
05:24Mr. Giles, uh, uh, the tricky training.
05:27Yeah.
05:27They all came this morning.
05:28If you hit 299, they got so much.
05:31If you hit 300, you might get a raise.
05:33Yeah.
05:33See?
05:34If you hit under 300, you wouldn't get it, or they paid you back so much.
05:37You won so many ball games, uh, they have scale in there.
05:41Well, that may have been all right, you know, up to a part in it today, but that day's gone.
05:45That day is gone, and, uh, I think they created some of their own monsters.
05:50Uh-huh.
05:50And, uh, there's no way, uh, there's no way in there.
05:55Uh-huh.
05:56I'm gonna go.
05:56Uh-huh.
05:56Sure, sure.
05:58What a-
Comments