Hold My Cutter
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Hold My Cutter
Beating The Model: Inside A Baseball Lifer’s Playbook
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What if the true edge in baseball isn’t in a spreadsheet but in a heartbeat? We sit down with baseball lifer Mike Berger to unpack a scouting philosophy built on live looks, instincts, and the human elements analytics can’t quite capture. From the moment a prospect’s poise surfaces under pressure to the quiet ways chemistry binds a clubhouse, Berger explains why the best scouts either agree with the model—or beat it.
The stories run deep. We relive the under-the-radar chain reaction that brought Michael McKenry to Pittsburgh for $50,000 and later turned Jason Grilli from “washed up” to All-Star. We walk the shared halls of Three Rivers, connecting Steelers and Pirates lore, and trace Berger’s family imprint on the franchise’s identity—from the skull-and-crossbones to the smiling pirate inspired by Frank Gifford and a grandmother’s babushka. Culture matters, he argues, because it shapes standards long before the first pitch.
Leadership takes center stage through vivid moments: Adam Wainwright setting up a newcomer’s locker and handing him the pregame meeting, a masterclass in humility and clarity. Then comes Barry Bonds—his interview as a hitting coach, his glove-to-barrel timing lesson born from Bobby Bonds, and the ripple effects on Stanton, Ozuna, and a soon-to-explode Christian Yelich. Berger makes the case that modern staffs win with range: the truth-teller who says it once with precision and the grinder who shows up at noon for flips and stays until the last swing.
If you care about scouting, player development, and what really makes a team hum, this is your blueprint—equal parts Pittsburgh pride, clubhouse wisdom, and practical tools you can feel. Subscribe, share with a baseball friend, and leave a review to tell us the one moment that gave you chills.
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Another edition of Hold My Cutter. We're featuring the Grand Reserve on this particular episode with the great Mike Burger, a baseball lifer. Burger Bits Burger. Burger Bits Central Catholic product drafted by the Pirates. Years uh in professional baseball as a player, coach, manager, and now has been a longtime uh scout, uh a manager, an assistant GM, part-time. Paul Bunyan in the Paul Bunyan. Paul Bunyan in high school stats were outrageous. We talked on a previous episode with Mike about we we talked a lot about character. What what do you look for as a baseball scout, Mike? And how much we always talk about baseball analytics as a scout. Do you even bring that into play? Not much.
SPEAKER_02:No, you're looking at To me, that's double counting. Let the office do that. Yeah, yeah. You know, as as well said. Thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03:May I write that down. Yeah. Wow.
SPEAKER_02:You know, it's it's you know, you I scouting anymore, you know, you have it's don't take this the wrong way. It's boots versus suits. You know, you have the the the the young men and women in the office who are doing their and they work hard. They're tired, and I've gotten to know these these kids, and everyone's a kid relative to my age. Me too. They work hard.
SPEAKER_03:52 since I'm 50.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, that's true. Yeah, 50. You don't look 50. You don't look 50. They were 39. How are you doing that?
SPEAKER_00:Something else.
SPEAKER_02:They work hard, and I've learned a lot. I have I've really I have I've gained a lot of knowledge. But to your question, you know, again, I I've got to I've got to beat the model. You know, everyone has a model. Yeah, you know, a a performance model based on analytics. It's my I'm tasked with beating the model. Do I agree with the model based on a live look? Whether it's one day, two days, three days, if it's a college series, um, or do I agree with the model? So I've got to either agree or beat with the beat the model. And again, what I look for in large measure is athleticism. You know, how easy, you know, at you know, easy easy gets better fast. You know, if somebody does things easy, there's a chance it's it's going to be easy five years, ten years down the road. Um, make up again, again, instincts. How how how well does he process? Look for that one instinctual moment where everybody else would have been out of place on defense, he's there. Look for that one instinctual moment offensively, or look for that Wainwright moment. And I love Wainwright as an example. Wainwright loads the bases, nobody out somehow surrenders one run. You know, um, when the game revs up, does he slow down? When the game revs up, does the offensive position player slow down? Um it's just all the I hate to say ancillary because they are important, but everything that that analytics can't gather, which is which is momentum, which is heartbeat, which is is swag, and and and just the moment in time that analytics doesn't measure.
SPEAKER_00:Mike, a lot of times years ago, I don't know if it's true now, maybe it is, but you could see when the gates open, or before gates open for that matter, you would see at least a handful of baseball scouts hanging out in the stands watching pregame stuff. Does that happen much anymore, do you think? Not as much as it should. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um, you know, Mark Del Piano and I, who by the way had a big impact, Mark Del Piano with the New York Yankees, had a huge impact on getting you to the pirates.
SPEAKER_00:Now tell that story.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You want me to go? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, please do.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, because tell me this.
SPEAKER_00:All we knew is we just get all the we was that the year we had like eight catchers. Yes, yeah. It was eight catch.
SPEAKER_02:And all of a sudden we get this guy from McHenry. And we get this guy McKenry. Well, you guys get this guy.
SPEAKER_01:So it's in your blood. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Mark Delpiano, who's a dear friend of mine, who is a special assistant with the New York Yankees, who was once a pirate and valued. Clint valued him, Neil valued him. Um, and again, Delp is like a brother to me. Delp is in, correct me, he was in Pawtucket in 2011.
SPEAKER_05:So you're playing in the Red Sox or something.
SPEAKER_02:He just got traded from Colorado to Boston.
SPEAKER_01:Minor league deal. Did some taxi squatting. Taxi squatting.
SPEAKER_00:You're playing AAA in the Red Sox organization.
SPEAKER_01:Correct.
SPEAKER_00:In 2011.
SPEAKER_01:Chili Davis, my head coach, who I love.
SPEAKER_00:Who are the big league catchers?
SPEAKER_01:That that were that were Veritec and Saltamakia. Okay. In Boston. In Boston.
SPEAKER_00:But who were the big league catchers in Pittsburgh? Seven or eight of them. That's an old coach.
SPEAKER_01:Chris Snyder and Jerry Elman.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, oh, oh, those are two of them.
SPEAKER_01:Two of them. But they were ended up being eight.
SPEAKER_00:Eric Fryer. Yeah. Eric Fryer, man. Guy had a good arm.
SPEAKER_01:Wyatt, remember Wyatt.
SPEAKER_00:Wyatt Torreas played one, I think, one game and then became a right away that year, like an advanced. Yeah. Video scout. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's wild.
SPEAKER_02:So this is 2011. I guess I'm with it. I'm the farm director in Arizona. And again, Delp and I are like this. So Delp calls me, as we all do in our business. You check in with your buddies. And uh Delp says, I'm up here in Pawtucket on just on regular assigned pro coverage working for the pirates. And as the story goes, correct me if I'm wrong, he said, I'm in here in June, and we've got a massive casualty situation. We lost five catchers in Pittsburgh. They all broke like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, which you guys just alluded to. He said, So I'm up here in Pawtucket, and he said, Ford shows up to Paw Tucket by way of Colorado in a trade. And he said, I just seen him in Colorado Springs, right? He said, I saw him catch a couple weeks ago in Colorado Springs. I kind of liked it. He's kind of pretty good. Arnie Baylor is the triple A manager for the Red Sox in Pawtucket. And Delp had a relationship with Arnie. This is Scouting 101. He said, I got a relationship with Arnie Baylor because Arnie Baylor was when Delp was the farm director in in Miami, Baylor was one of his Myerly coaches. So I roll in, I'm doing my coverage, Arnie's the manager in Pawtucket. I see McHenry on the roster. I just saw him a couple weeks ago in Colorado Springs. I said, this guy can catch and throw. And we've got a casualty situation at Federal Street in Pittsburgh. So he said, I pull Arnie aside, say, dude, good seeing you. Hey, listen, can you do me a favor? Can you catch McHenry while I'm here? Now, mind you, this is a pirate guy asking a Red Sox AAA manager to basically reconstruct his line.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because we had a top prospect there too, an Esposito.
SPEAKER_02:An Esposito, that's right.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so they they were they pretty much knew, hey, if I get called up, I'm gonna probably play sparingly, right? Because Salty was getting every name. Veritat go down, I was gonna be the backup. So they were doing what I think. Mike? I can't remember his first name.
SPEAKER_00:Did you ever make it to the big leagues? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Espo made it to the big leagues. Yeah, he made it to the big leagues. But didn't have your career. Didn't have your career. Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_02:As as as the story would go. Yeah. So so Delp rolls in, he says, hey, look, we got a major situation here in Pittsburgh. We're just catchers are breaking down left and right. Do me a favor. I just saw McHenry catch in Colorado Springs a few weeks ago. Can you do your old farm director a favor and catch him? Because I need some I need some dope on him. So Arnie catches him. So Del Piano, I remember this like it was yesterday. So great. Del Piano says, Berggs, I'm telling you, he said, McHenry comes in. He's got some crippled power. It's kind of an out around swing. He's got some cripple power, but he said, Berggs, I'm telling you, if you threw this son of a bitch four balls in the dirt at the same time, he'd block all four of them. And he's got a cannon for an arm. It's kind of Russ Martin, albeit a generic version. So Arnie obliges, catches him. The rest is history. Delp calls Neil Huntington, and Neil, I guess, agreed. So, you know what, our metrics on him are good, whatever it was at the time, because it's pre-video.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:To Neil's credit, it's pre-video. They 50 grand? Was it 50 grand they get you?
SPEAKER_01:I know that now. Yeah. 50 grand. I think it was 50 grand. He wasn't a bag of balls.
SPEAKER_02:So Theo Epstein, Theo was a GM. Theo and Neil agree to a deal to get some quote-unquote backup guy, emergency guy into Pittsburgh named Michael McHenry for 50 grand. And here we are. And this again, it's a credit to you for again the makeup, the tenacity that you had, and then to to parlay that into what you're doing now, which I admire. Here we are, 14 years, almost 14 years later, again, weaving his way into a pirate icon. Albeit, you know, with a couple couple clutch home runs during that period, the great catch and throw, albeit with some peaks and valleys, to your catching career. And it's all because of Mark Del Piano, who also got AJ Burnett, or I'm sorry, Jason Grilly. Jason Grilly in the scene. From the Phillies Minor Leagues. Phillies Minor Leagues Lee High Valley.
SPEAKER_00:Grilly was uh washed up. Washed up.
SPEAKER_02:Who is this guy? Washed up. Del Piano went to whoever the manager was and said, Hey, listen, can you get Grilly to throw? I need to throw in the freaking impact in ninth inning. He does it once. He said, All right, I don't trust it, do it again. What? Because Del Piano had Grilly as a Marlin too. He does it again like the next day, gets on the phone with Neil and Clint, and you guys got an all-star closure for two years. Again, it again, we're all over the map here. It all goes back to scouting. But how about those connections?
SPEAKER_00:How about those connections? How important those are. My gosh.
SPEAKER_01:Clint had us both in Colorado.
SPEAKER_00:There you go.
SPEAKER_01:We were teammates in Colorado. You and Grilly? Yeah. I mean, wild wild enough, like how small baseball gets at times.
SPEAKER_02:And because you got a scout, again, with with elite instincts, with elite character, and and and creativity where that was off the charts and say, look, you know what, Arnie, I was your farm director. I was your farm director in Miami. Do your old boss a favor. Let McHenry catch. He does. Boom. Fast forward to Lee High Valley. I think they were in Syracuse when he got grilly. And grilly was done. He wasn't going anywhere in Philly.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:He get him to throw the eighth inning, ninth inning, whatever it was, do it again. And then boom, he's got to, you know, he's got to throw himself at the mercy of the court to Neil Huntington, Clint Hurdle, and boom. And that's just tip of the iceberg with Del Piano. It's it's McHenry, it's Grilly, it's Liriano, it's AJ Burnett, it's Russ Martin. This is what Mark Del Piano did for your organization during that run of greatness. And you know, again, unsung heroes.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. That's what I strive to be. That is so cool. That's amazing. Yeah. That's cool. You mentioned that. Yeah. Well, you talk about and those guys you talked about earlier about character and guys that want to be great. Talk about what Blast said. You know, do you have the obsession with wanting to be great? And all those guys did, even though some thought like a guy like Really was washed up, really wanted to be great. He loved those moments.
SPEAKER_02:They change. Players change. 100.
SPEAKER_00:Um you talked earlier about your dream of getting to the big leagues. And there are only two leagues, by the way, the burger. Only two leagues this guy didn't play in. Only two. Right? American League and National League. But you also aspired to be a manager, and an opportunity, I think, had come up once years ago when you were with the Martin. Because you were really close with the owner, Jeffrey Laurie. Did you have an opportunity to manage? Yeah, I didn't. What happened?
SPEAKER_01:I love this.
SPEAKER_02:Go ahead. Um, whatever year Dan Jennings ultimately took the reins from Mike Redman, who Red, if you're watching, I fought tooth and nail not to have you dismissed. Because I I thought Mike Redman, who's now bench coach in color, I thought Red galvanized the club. But we open up, the Miami Marlins open up in New York with the Mets that year. Mr. Loria, who's a dear friend, I owe so much to Mr. Loria to this day. We opened up with the Mets, and Mr. Loria lives in New York. And the the the tide uh would would rise and fall with how we played against the Mets. I think we lost the first freaking three against the Mets. And he's making changes. He's tapping into his inner Steinbrenner. We're making changes. Jeffrey, we're not doing it. I'm the AGM. Mind you, DJ's the manager. Mike Hill, who I adore. Mike's the you know, a uh high-powered man now in the commissioner's office. Jeffrey, don't do it, Jeffrey, don't do it. But they knew that I had the relationship with Jeffrey. Because I brought Michael Hill and Dan Jennings to Jeffrey Loria because of when you and I were competing against one another in AAA. How'd that go, by the way? How'd what go?
SPEAKER_01:That competing. Buffalo and Oakney City.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I'm not sure. Anyway, so let's go back to Loria.
SPEAKER_03:So another Buffalo loss. Bam.
SPEAKER_00:So you and Loria were awfully tired. I remember that because Loria Loria didn't know much at all about baseball.
SPEAKER_02:Jeffrey did. To his credit, he did.
SPEAKER_00:He's a fan, but he didn't know it like you, obviously.
SPEAKER_02:Not like I knew it, but he was impulsive and he high degree give a shit. High degree. Yeah. Players love him. To this day, players love him.
SPEAKER_00:Interesting because he does not have a great name necessarily around his baseball circle.
SPEAKER_02:He's in a players love him. Isn't that interesting? But but he had an inner Steinbrenner where it's fire Billy Martin eight, nine times, bring him back. The only problem was he would bring a new man, whether it's Ozzy Geon, whether it's Mike Redmond, whether it's whomever. So again, Mike Redman got in Jeffree's crosshairs in April. 0-2 or 0-3 in New York with against the Mets, he's gone. Tough league. Tough league. So I gotta fight him tooth and nail. I don't win the battle. We interviewed Jimmy Leland at his residence here in Pittsburgh. Dusty Baker wasn't good enough. Blah, Delarie Boa, whoever it was. So Mr. Lori, uh, once he realized he wasn't getting Leland, who I said, if you're gonna replace Mike Redmond, you get Leland. Jimmy wouldn't do it. We interviewed Jimmy out here. Jimmy's smoking Marlboro's. Katie made sandwiches. She went to the pool. She said, I'm not getting anywhere near this shit. Leland, Leland, Lori, and yours truly are there. Jimmy's flicking a marlboro about every 10 minutes off the rap balcony. Finally, Mr. Lorius says, Jimmy, I gotta ask you, who picks all those butts? He says, I do if the deer don't eat them. So we're not getting Leland. So Lori says, he focuses attentions on me, who I was as triple A hitting coach in Oklahoma City. I was a minor league manager. He said, Why don't you do it? And I go, I'm not managing the Miami Mars. He goes, Yeah, you are. He goes, you were my triple A hitting coach in Oklahoma City back in the 90s. We won a championship. We beat Buffalo, and you've been a minor league manager. I said, Jeffrey, I'm not qualified. And I'm sincere. Like I grew up in the business. I'm not qualified. I grew up under watching Leland, Tanner, Murtaugh. I'm not qualified. And he kept writing me for about two weeks.
SPEAKER_01:Why did you say you weren't qualified? On paper you were, but in your mind you weren't.
SPEAKER_02:In today's world, I might be, but in my in my heart of hearts, I knew I wasn't. That's all that matters. Because I got too much respect for the guys that did it, the Lelands, the Tommy Thompsons, who you referenced earlier, who rode those damn buses. Um, 2000 games. I just, that's the way I was wired. I mean, my old man told me, you don't walk on that minor league on that minorly major league field unless you're in uniform. I always, to this day, I walked a warning track.
SPEAKER_00:By the way, Jack Berger, his father, 35 years on the Pirates Organization, basically.
SPEAKER_02:Just wouldn't do it because my mom, my father was raised under Branch Ricky, under Dan Murtaugh, etc. So I kept telling him no, no, no, no, no. The last call I got from Mr. Loria as an assistant general manager for the Miami Marlins, I'm in Jupiter, Florida, watching our Florida Florida State League team play. Castillo's pitching. I go back to the hotel, my wife's there. Jeffrey calls. I pick up the phone. I said, Oh, this ought to be good. It's like one o'clock in the morning. Jeffrey said, Well, are you gonna manage my team? I said, No. Let me guess. You're not qualified. I said, Jeffrey, exactly. I've got Ichiro, I've got uh Stanton, I've got Ozuna, I've got Yelich, I've got Prado, I've got Riam. Jeffrey, I'm not qualified. He said, Well, you were my hitting coach. You were my man, I'm not qualified. 24 hours later, we fire Mike Redman. Fulton Awitch is throwing a no-hitter against us on a getaway day in Miami. Fulton Awitch has a no-hitter going through eight. Redmond is done. Mr. Laurie decides he's gonna fire Mike Redman. Mike Hill tells me that as our GM. I go down in the office post-game. Dan Jennings is in the office. He's our GM. And I respect DJ. It's five, six, seven, ten minutes after the game's over. I said, DJ, you gotta get down to the office. Red just got fired. He said, Burgess, I can't do it. And I go, what do you mean you're the GM? He said, close the door. So I close the door. I sit down in front of DJ's desk, and DJ says, Bergs, I can't do it because I'm his replacement.
SPEAKER_03:Oh man. I go, Oh man. So I hug him. I go, DJ, congratulations. He says, God damn it, Poppy, it should have been you. You've managed in the minor league. He said, I said, I'm not qualified. He said, Neither am I.
SPEAKER_00:So they hired the guy that was less qualified, way less qualified. Great dude.
SPEAKER_02:DJ hired DJ was there when we signed most of these guys. But the only regret I have in not taking that job, and it's selfish, because I knew I would have failed.
SPEAKER_00:No, you're not.
SPEAKER_02:We had a four-game series against the Diamondbacks. Four game series against the Diamondbacks in Miami. The next road trip, the first road trip the new manager is making right here at Pittsburgh. Yeah, right here in Pittsburgh. Can you imagine? And I mean, I'm a Pittsburgh. I'm a Pittsburgh dude. I'm a Pittsburgh pirate. I'm thinking of my father. I'm thinking of the Stargil statue, the Wagner statue. My dad, my dad used to take ground balls from Hannes Wagner at Forbes Field when he was a kid in the 30s. I think, how cool, but you know what? No, I can't manage Ichiro. Knowing he's going to the Hall of Fame and Yelits, who I want to bring him with me to Milwaukee. I wasn't qualified. So that's it. That was my I could have done it.
SPEAKER_00:I didn't do it. And I'm glad I didn't do it. Do you ever wonder, though? Really, when you think at the time you say you weren't. It's all fired up now. Wonder what would have happened.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think you know what? Yeah, you know, the ego in me says I would have been, I probably would have been pretty good. You'd have been great. Because I would have deflected responsibility. As I told Ford earlier, you know, you get into big leagues and you're the only one here on the sets that's played in the big leagues. That's the Audubon, man. That's 120 frickin' miles an hour. The big leagues is a whole different animal. Like an NFL, NFL field, uh NBA court on the NHL ice. That's a whole different field. But I had enough wisdom at the time that I would have deflected the areas of responsibility to people who knew it better than I did. Because I've always been good at that. I've always been good at recommending, and I've hired a lot of people and I've recommended a lot of people, people who I knew in my heart of hearts, whether it's Del Piano, La Cava, Brad Arnsberg, Jim Benedict, the list goes on, who I in my heart of hearts knew were at the very least my equal, if not better. So I probably could have pulled it off, but not.
SPEAKER_00:You know, you mentioned your dad. We gotta get to this. Your dad, Jack, your grandfather, uh Jack Sr. was a longtime Pittsburgh cartoonist, sports cartoonist. Flip the top. And yeah. Sorry, flip the top. No, no, flip flip the little. Oh god, help me. Sorry. Oh, there we go.
SPEAKER_03:There we go. That'll help. That's an auto model.
SPEAKER_00:A similar mistake we made. Well, Hannah Mears was our guest.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I like Hannah, by the way. Oh, she's great. Yeah, she's tremendous. Um, but so Jack Berger, a lot of years in the uh Pirates Organization, some 35 years. Do you know I was listening to during the wintertime, I got old cassette tapes for years that I go back and try and listen to. And one of these days I'll do an inventory and you know digitize it. Haven't done that yet. But I came across, it's just a couple weeks ago, Berg. Your father was being interviewed by some local station about how he got to become a broadcaster. Nellie King. Do you know that story? Well, Nelly, my dad recommended Nellie. Nellie King, but he said he's talking about the story. Nellie was doing some, had a job out of doing insurance, and then and then somebody from New Kensington, a New Kensington station, asked somebody about who he could get, and he wanted Joe DiMaggio. The guy said, and he goes, What about Nelly King? Nellie King would be good. Yep. And Nellie King ended up being a pirate broadcaster with Bob Prince for years. Legendary. Yeah, legendary. Uh so you were aware that that that your dad recommended Nelly.
SPEAKER_02:Because Nellie was close. My mother's Nell, but we like to say she was named after Nelly. Oh my gosh. Yeah, whatever. Um, but yeah, the the the the Prince and King. And again, I hold you in that regard um as as you know, passing the torch. But yeah, I I knew of that. Um Nelly King, uh, you don't obviously you weren't around with Nellie King. It was alleged, I think it was W like J W J S in McKee. Yeah, yeah, it was, yeah. I think so. Yeah, and and my father, again, just instincts. My father had heard Nelly um do news or whatever it was at the time and said he'd be fan and he had pitched for the pirates in the fifties, brief stint. My dad may have been his GM in the Meyer Leagues. My gosh, I forgot your father was back in Brunswick.
SPEAKER_00:Wow. That's probably the time.
SPEAKER_02:All instincts. And yeah, I do remember they wanted Joe DiMaggio to commit into. Yeah, okay, Joe DiMaggio is coming in to do pirate baseball. But it wanted to be Nellie King. And yeah, the rest is history. Nelly did the last game at Three Rivers, didn't he? Well, he did.
SPEAKER_00:He he and Blast and I went on TV. That's right.
SPEAKER_01:But going back to what you said about confidence in the first episode, when someone that you either admire or look up to comes to you and humbly says, I believe you'll be great at this, there's no better way to raise a man's confidence than that. Especially it's if it's a man you look up to. Do you agree?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I mean, you're playing and you were you're an up-down player.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and 99% of that was confidence. Yeah. Do I believe I can do this? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:How'd you get your start? Who threw you the mic and said, and I should know this, and I probably do. Who threw you the mic and said, hey, Brownie, go do this in a minute? Mike Lang, yeah. Mike Lang. Yeah, yeah. Do you remember that?
SPEAKER_00:And who's your mentor? Yeah, yeah, Mike. Yeah. Yeah. Because he, you know, he he saw, he always says that now. He deflects that. But yeah, he saw it.
SPEAKER_01:Somebody else deflects the great ones, do.
SPEAKER_00:But hey, so now I've got uh the logos. Oh yeah. And and and the burger ties to the pirate logos. That's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. So there have been about eight different logos over the years for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Um your grandfather, Jack Sr., created the bucket, the Skull and Cross. The Skull and Cross, the old old school. And then and then in fact, wait, I gotta I gotta read something from a newspaper clip from the 80s.
SPEAKER_01:I think that's my favorite one.
SPEAKER_00:Which one? Oh, the old the old school of the it really is. Like all bias aside, it's really cool.
SPEAKER_02:I wish they'd go back to it.
SPEAKER_00:So this this article in the Pittsburgh Press in the mid-80s, technically, he was a fierce customer with a mustache, pointed sideburns, a shadowy face, and sometimes an eye patch. A scowl was his most salient feature. Jack Berger, senior sports cartoonist for 42 years at the Pittsburgh Press, softened the pirate's image in the mid-1950s, and Bob Gessner further refined it in 1967 when he designed the current logo. Well, then in around 1971, I believe it was. It was okay, 70. When they left Fort Field. Okay, that's uh they they went to the the smiling pirate, the the which was for years. The bucket. It debuted in 1971, I guess. But your mom and dad had something to do with that. Not the cartoonist grandfather, he had passed by this time. Tell us that story.
SPEAKER_02:Well, yeah, so when when they left, and the way I and I've talked to my mother, who's again still alive and very well at 92 in March.
SPEAKER_00:Will she watch uh Hold My Cutter, you think? Oh, absolutely. No, she does, she's that regular viewer listener anyway.
SPEAKER_02:She wanted to call in and she loves, I'm telling you, from the heart. She loves Greg Brown and she loves Steve Blass. She I mean, loves burger's like a second brother. But every four or five months, they'll always say, Yeah, no burger. And she, I mean, my mother's a baseball widow because of my father's involvement. So, to your question, get to the point, sir, as great, as the great Jeff Cox would say.
SPEAKER_03:Cox, beat up, beat up, beat up.
SPEAKER_02:So when they left, when we left Forbes Field and went to Three River Stadium in 1970, in June of '70, not only were we changing stadiums, we were going to this all-purpose, you know, what ultimately wound up being an ashtray with great memories. They wanted to change the image from the old buccaneer, the iPad, Skull and Crossbones, which my father grandfather designed, to a new modernized logo. So my father, Jack Berger the second, was on the committee to redesign this new image. My father asked my mother, they're gonna go with a more retro pirate, a more retro logo. My father says, You always have told me that you find Frank Gifford, the deceased Hall of Fame NFL player, you always find Frank Gifford to be a handsome, rugged man. And of course, my mother back, oh, of course, he's great. It's before Kathy Lee, player broadcaster, longtime broadcaster NFL football game. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Frank Gifford. Legend. Yep.
SPEAKER_02:So the likeness of that 1970 logo, which probably went to what 80? Probably. The likeness of that logo. No, 1987. Wow. 71. To 87. Yeah, 71. So the two logos in 71 and 79 are the new Buccaneer, the logo of that sculpted jaw, that is the likeness of Frank. Kind of like you guys.
SPEAKER_01:Sculpted jaw. Pretty much, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Pretty much. But without the gray, he had the bandana to color the gray. Exactly. Yeah. Good. And there's a story that made him look younger. And there's a story that's there's a I get it. If I had a bandana, I'd look younger like you. It's not a bandana.
SPEAKER_02:Truthfully, there's it's the babushka. Oh, that's right. Yeah, it's the babushka. Yes. The babushka. My mother, my grandmother wore a babushka. So that was her babushka.
SPEAKER_03:Incredible.
SPEAKER_02:How about that? My grandmother Marie McCabe, who my father's mother always wore a babushka around her neck. And um so I don't know if I've heard that word to law.
SPEAKER_01:Babushka. Babushka power.
SPEAKER_02:Babushka power. So the likeness of that logo that followed the pirates from Fort Field to PN or to Three River Stadium is the likeness of Frank Gifford, which my mother, which my father said, you always said Frank Gifford. We're looking for a more modernized, more chiseled. You've always said Frank Gifford was a handsome man, to which my mother said, Oh, absolutely. So that's Gifford's likeness. Frank Gifford, the Hall of Fame NFL guy, Notre Dame.
SPEAKER_01:With the babushka.
SPEAKER_02:With the babushka that was grandmother, my grandmother Marie McCabe, who died in 79, right after Chuck Tanner's mother. I didn't know that. Yeah. So that's it.
SPEAKER_01:So again, it's incredible.
SPEAKER_02:It's cool. And you know, my grandfather, again, my grandfather Jack, who did the skull and crossbones. I don't know if you knew this. My grandfather, who did the skull and crossbones, also, God is my judge, right hand, also designed the NFL shield. The NFL logo. I think that's right. The original NFL logo. How about that? In 19. I remember my father telling me they lived in Edgewood. So my father would have been, my father was 1925, he was probably 31 or 33. George Hallis, the owner of the Bears, and Art Rooney Sr., the chief, were very close with my grandfather, Jack Sr. And again, world-renowned cartoon artist. They came to my grandfather and said, Hey, we need an identifying marker to kind of represent the new NFL. And my grandfather designed the original NFL logo, which the NFL adopted. Now it's been modified probably 15-20 times since 33, but the original shield was that of my great-grandfather, my grandfather Jack Berger, who was a cartoon artist for the Pittsburgh Press. If we could ever find the original, and I've got a lot of his original work, none of which is the NFL Shield. If I can ever find out, these rounded drinks are on me. Oh, yes. Maybe in a couple houses because it's the most recognized symbol in the world, maybe other than Disney. How about that? Pretty cool. All self-taught. My grandfather was a cartoon artist, World War I, survivor. He was an artist, and it was all self-taught. So it's I really appreciate your bringing that up.
SPEAKER_00:Your grandfather didn't serve in World War I.
SPEAKER_02:My grandfather served in World War World War I. My grandfather, my father, Jack, was in the Pacific in World War II. Yeah. And my great my grandfather, Jack, was the in the original class of the Baseball Writers Association. Oh. Yes. BBA, BBWA, Baseball Writers Association. My grandfather, Jack Sr., was one of the original members. I have the pin somewhere. Was one of the original members of the Baseball Writers Association back in the early 1900s. Jeez. Wow. So when I tell you I'm a pirate and a Pittsburger. And a Pittsburgh.
SPEAKER_00:So Burks, what is it about Yens? What is it about being a? By the way, are you a Yenzer? We gotta get Judge John Wayner.
SPEAKER_01:Orion Rocker out.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Original. You know, and that, you know, good down to the still. What do you know?
SPEAKER_00:But what but are you?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I was raised here. I'm 63 years old.
SPEAKER_00:But he says, he says if you're outside city limits, you're done. Yeah, you're a squirrel hill. I was raised Squirrel Hill. Born and raised. Squirrel Hill and that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, going down and get some town talk bread and that.
SPEAKER_00:What is it about this great town and this baseball franchise and the people that separates it? What is it? And what is it about baseball, a baseball lifer like you? What is it? You can't you just love the game so much. What about the game?
SPEAKER_02:I think this to your first question, just the sports, just this this the sports person in general, like it doesn't matter where you and I fly a ton in my job. I fly all over the world in my role. It doesn't matter if I'm in Phoenix, if I'm in Indianapolis, if I'm in the Santo Domingo, if I'm in Guam or South Korea, whatever it is, there's there's a steeler. There is a steeler bar somewhere. There is somebody that loves Clemente. You see Clemente jerseys everywhere. I almost wore my Clemente Santurce jersey down here tonight. There are Clemente fans everywhere. There's we the We Are Family is it's nuts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You get on a flight, and I wear my dad's, I wear my father's 1971 World Series ring. Um I wear it like, and I'm on flights all the time, and everyone mistakes it for the Steelers. Because Mr. Rooney, the first Steeler ring, the first world, uh, first Super Bowl that the Steelers had, Mr. Rooney, from what my father told me, mimicked the first ring after the 71, which blasts and company won. So there's a resemblance. So I'm on an air, I'm on a flight somewhere going from Pitt to Charlotte and Charlotte or wherever, and and they see the ring and they go, is that a Stellar's ring in that? I go, excuse me? And they go, is that a Stellars ring? You're Stellars. You were did you play for the Stellars? I go, no, this is the Pirate Ring. This is Clemente Stargil. Oh my god, I remember that. Like it was yesterday. Oh my god, Clementy, that cannon, that bazooka, he had that guys, and you're a Pittsburgh, you're Harrisburg, but your Pittsburger, you are again, I know I'm a Yelzer. Y'all call yourself a Yelzer. You are like you are really rapidly because you're gonna be a you're like Tunch Yoken or somebody. Yeah, that's gonna be a good thing. You're coming real quick.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But the the Pittsburgh brand, it's everywhere. And I'm not leaving out the Steelers or the 70s, 76 Tony Dorset. But Pirates and Steelers, no matter where you go, and especially when they see this ring, once they determine it's not the Steelers ring, oh my god.
SPEAKER_03:Roberto and then you remember that Canon? I mean, he you know, he he he could smash those line drives in that, you know, and you know, Bobby and Bobby, it's just I'm a Pittsburgh.
SPEAKER_00:How about you talk about it? I love it. You talk about the chief. Back in the day where we grew up, our house, you and I, was Three River Stadium. We knew every nook and cranny. We I would go to so many Steeler games for free because I'd sneak into the pirate front office, you know, go back behind where the Browns crew was. Yep. Up behind the wall, Dirk Denardo, and his son Carmen forever, and uh oh, all those guys, man. Mr. Rooney. I was just gonna say that that the pirates, yeah, for those that don't know, pirates and and steelers, of course, shared that venue. Yeah, and there were so often you would walk by the the tunnel, inside tunnel. You of course on the left-hand side is the Pirate Club House. You go a little bit further, and there's the Steeler Clubhouse. And so Mr. Rooney was oftentimes right in the middle.
SPEAKER_02:Mr. Rooney and my father were very close. We used to go to all those banquets up in Youngstown, Ohio. We'd pick, I remember as kids, and my brothers will will confirm this. We're nine, ten years old. My father and mother would pick the chief up. And Mr. Rooney was giving a speech in 1970 on the on the Steelers upcoming season, and my dad, who was the PR director, was giving a you know a positive speech on the spring training. We would pick the chief up. Mr. Rooney, the chief, would send my brother. I have a twin brother, John, great nickname too, by the way. And a younger brother, Dan. And Art Rooney Sr. would send all three of us a football every year to Mike, the next Hannes Wagner, to Dan, the next Ty Cobb, to John, the next Mickey. We like literally Mr. Rooney, Mr. Rooney would come into my father's office in Three Rivers, because again, as Brownie described, they share the same stadium. He loved baseball, the chief. Oh, yeah. And they were very close, fond memories of Mr. again, he's the chief, coming in, always a stogie, always had the star. He loved Dave Parker. I have a classic picture of Joe Green. I'll send it to you. Please. I'll send it to you. Joe Green and Willie Stargil at at Three River Stadium in the batting cage at Three River in the turtle. Hot day because both guys are in cutoffs. You've got Joe Green holding a bat on his right shoulder. You've got Captain Willie holding the bat on his left shoulder. And the two of them are just like talking about. Remember in the day, the Steelers, the Steelers, the Steelers would practice, these are Super Bowl teams. Yes. Would practice on three rivers, and then the Pirates would come on later on. You know, it was so cool.
SPEAKER_00:Burks, we used to, you know, we used to play touch football. We would play touch football on the turf while the Steelers were practicing. We go out at lunchtime, front office personnel. The Steelers are practicing on one side of the street. We would go out and play after Monday night football games. Monday night football games, a bunch of us would go down and play touch football.
SPEAKER_02:That's all right. Lambert, Rocky Blair, Joe Green, Brad Shaw, I mean you name them. They were all there. Chuck Knoll. And there were times where they would leave Three River Stadium. And remember the old Kaufman's? Oh, yeah. The old Kaufman's warehouse? Yep. The training facility, when they really got high tech, they had a little grass cutout underneath the overpass over here when they wanted to practice on grass. The Steelers would leave three rivers, they'd all walk in pads, Lambert Holmes, all of them. They'd leave three river stadiums. Walk across the parking parking lots out of Press Gate A, walk over to a little grass cutout, probably 50 yards right underneath the overpass there where the casino is.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And and they'd have a tarp on.
SPEAKER_00:When you always drive by, you try and go slow and see those little slits in the tarp and see you can see anything.
SPEAKER_02:And these are Super Bowl, these are future Super Bowl teams preparing right there. And if you were lucky football, small little grass field, as you said, walking across. Because as a minor league player in the 80s, I'm down there in the winter working in that old batting cage with Will with Willie Stargil, Bill Madlock, Tony LaCalva, Todd Davidson, a couple of the other minor leaguers, myself included. We're hitting with Stargil, to Culvey might throw a bullpenner with Rod Scurry, Jose DeLeon. And then if again, if you hit at the right time, the Steelers are walking out of Prescade A in uniform, Lambert, Ham, Wagner, Noel, Franco Harris, to that little grassy cutout. Did you just float in every day? Yeah. Because all we did was work, and they were going over there building a Super Bowl team.
SPEAKER_03:It's freaking nuts.
SPEAKER_02:It is so nuts.
SPEAKER_03:You think about that all right now.
SPEAKER_00:I'm glad you brought that up. This was in the 80s. Just cannot believe that we were like the lights are still on. Yeah. Fans are barely off. As soon as the game ended, we just go on the field. We're using the yard. We're playing touch football. So true. On the field right after he said we moved to the light. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Absolutely crazy.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. As he talked about getting a ride, spring training with Willie and his Rolls-Royce in an earlier episode. Mike was talking about that when Mike was in the minor leagues with the Pirates, how Stargil would pick him up and some other guys, and they go from McKeckney Field, the Major League facility, to the minor league complex at Pirates City, a few miles away.
SPEAKER_02:And Willie would be on any given days. To Colvey Lee Lacey, Rod Scurry, Bill Madlock, you name it. And then again, because I was Burger Bitz, because he knew me as a baby when we were training at Fort at Fort Myers, he'd always he threw me in those two years because there was a non-roster catcher, catching the likes of Bly Love and Candelaria, Rod Scurry. And he he made sure I was included because he knew me as a baby. And I'm jumping in Captain Willie's Rolls Royce. Driving over and post. Dirty, sweaty, all that clay. He didn't give a shit. He didn't give a shit. Because he was a glue guy. And that's why he had all the stars. And that's why, that's why the We Fit We Are Family came around. And that's why everyone on it, whether it was Nikosha, Parker, Lacey, Ott, Bill Robinson, Omar, they were glue guys. It was glue.
SPEAKER_00:But they all know gravitated to Captain Willie. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02:And you know because you're the only one here that played in the big leagues. You can take, you can take all the metrics, all the analytics, all the hawkeye, and this is great stuff. You can take all that shit, and I don't mean it in a disparaging way. But you need it. It doesn't measure momentum, it doesn't measure heart, it doesn't measure glue. It doesn't measure glue. Or makeup. Or makeup. And when you got a team, again, confidence, momentum, success. When you got a team, whether it's a Belichick team, a Tanner team, a Chuck Knoll team, uh Mike Sullivan team, when you got a glue team as the leader, you get the hell out of the way. Which is what Chuck Tanner did. That's what Chuck Tanner did.
SPEAKER_01:Amen. And we've been close.
SPEAKER_02:And I say we because I'm a Pittsburgh guy. We've been close here on the baseball side. We're not there yet. But when you get that, you stay the hell out of the way. And the great ones know that. Murtaugh knew that. He won two in seven in the 70s. Leland knew that and got the hell out of the way. And he came close a couple other times. He didn't do it. Um God, I just I get goosebumps thinking about this shit.
SPEAKER_00:So what was it? You know, talk about Willie. Burgs, when you walked into that clubhouse, you just felt the presence. He was there. You didn't have to see him, but you felt it. He had that rocking chair later in his career of sitting in the corner. He had like three empty lockers. And it was like Papa telling stories. People would just want to sit there and just you just want to be in his presence. You know, as a as a non-player, it's just a front office employee, but you could see that the players felt that everybody wanted to be around them. Right.
SPEAKER_02:And and again, credit to Chuck Tanner for recognizing the situation and for backing off. Yeah and getting the hell out of the way. Again, great leaders know that. Great leaders know that when when your best player, when your best player, and again, I keep going back to Michael here because he's the only one who stands. He's the one that he knows. Yeah. When you're, and I think this is our hurdlesm. When your best player, when your best player is your best makeup guy, get the hell out of the way. Yeah. Yeah. And again, but it it's not, it's easier said than done. Some some head coaches, some managers, they want to micromanage. We've all said, I've been in the minor leagues forever. You've been in the big leagues. You've seen this shit more than anybody. Some guys don't get it. They stay the ego gets involved. Oh, like it's gotta be me. I'm the skipper. The great ones, Sparky Anderson knew that. Sparky Anderson knew they deflect. Deflect.
SPEAKER_00:Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, just leave alone. Now, having said that, and we this is obvious. Sparky Anderson, Connie Mack. Doesn't matter. If you don't have a team, a good team, you can't get out of it. It doesn't matter. You can get out of the way and you're gonna lose 110 games. So you have to have obviously the players, of course. But when you do get them, I agree.
SPEAKER_02:But again, leadership is knowing it leadership is recognizing when it's there, when it's ever present, and it's obvious. Get out of the way. Yeah, it ain't about me. Right, right. They're making my job easier. Yeah. Get out of the way, let them roll. Every now and then, you maybe throw a table over like Leland did, but otherwise, get out of the way because they police themselves. They have that. Chemistry, chemistry is the hardest, is the most difficult thing in any sport to get. And you can't if there's There's no guarantee. However, when you have chemistry in football, baseball, in whatever workplace it is, hockey, basketball, when you have it and you recognize it and not getting out of the way, shame on you. When you've got that chemistry, when you've got Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright, and you've got that, preach, get out of the way. And I've been told, and I got again, we've got we've all got friends. I've often been told that when LaRussa was in charge, and we know LaRussa, and I know you had your issues with Tony, but I've known Tony, I've heard Tony, when Tony would welcome a new player into the club with Wain Wright and Melina or Carpenter there, welcome to the Cardinals. If you're a position player, go get with Yachty, he'll tell you how we roll. If you're a pitcher, go get with Carp or get with Wayno, he'll tell you how we roll. That's leadership.
SPEAKER_01:Let me tell you, I played for the Cardinals for a minute. So you know who undid my locker? Adam Wainwright. I walk into the clubhouse with the clubby, Wayno comes over, and I felt so almost ashamed. Because this man's got 10 years in the big leagues. I've looked up to him forever. I've known him a little bit. He goes, Welcome to the Cardinals. He's just sitting there getting to know me, pulling out my jock strap and hanging it up, grabbing my cup and putting it in the cubby. And I'm like, this is different. And then we're playing the Pirates that day. Guess who led the meeting? Me. Because Yachty goes, Hey, Poppy, it's yours. Pop. That's it. That's all he said. I'd never, other than playing with him, but the respect that man showed me, that whole staff sat there and looked at me. Yeah. Take it. Ten minutes later, I'm done. He goes, thanks. I learned something today. That's it. I led the next meeting. I was there for a month. I I was a part or I led every meeting because I have nothing to teach them. I'm going to go play.
SPEAKER_02:And was that not an injection of confidence? Talk about Superman.
SPEAKER_01:Talk about boom right there. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:It's leadership.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and I realized in that moment what my role was. Because I just won it bat.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:One at bat in four weeks.
SPEAKER_02:And you've seen it. And again, you know, Brownie, you have the unique experience of having, I mean, you've seen it with four Super Bowls, albeit L1, L two, L3.
SPEAKER_00:You know, that's how they spell Bills now, right? With four L's. You know the new area code in Buffalo? O44. But you've seen that. You know the great thing about dating a uh uh a Buffalo Bills fan?
SPEAKER_03:Here we go.
SPEAKER_00:I didn't ever have to worry about getting her a ring. Um but anyway, so anyway.
SPEAKER_02:No, but but yeah, I mean you you lived it, and again, I love watching NFL films and hearing you, but again, you lived it with just an iconic hum. And correct me if I'm wrong, Marv Levy was one of my favorite humans. I mean, and I don't know the man, but I just know how how positive, how effervescent he was after every frickin' loss, and you covered them. So you have the very unique perspective of having been to the almost to the mountaintop four straight years in the NFL, having covered those blackout days here in Pittsburgh. I mean, firsthand, and something we haven't done. Yes. And I don't know if you can if you can substantiate what we're saying.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I mean, yeah, I'm listening to I mean, leader I mean you're you're on.
SPEAKER_02:I mean leadership is everything.
SPEAKER_00:Everything doesn't guarantee your process. Of course, the age old the age-old debate is what comes first. Winning or chemistry. Because I I've always contended that if you're a bad team and you're losing team, I don't want to see good chemistry. I want misery. So, you know, I I don't want to go. Oh, they get I hear that all the time. When the when over the years, the Pirates, it doesn't matter the record at the end of the year, any year they start to play well, say the first half of the season. They've got great chemistry. We'll see how the chemistry is when they start to lose.
SPEAKER_01:But I think that's when you find out who they are, is when they lose. Agreed. And the best teams evaluate. The best teams, the best teams and elevate. The best teams are.
SPEAKER_00:I don't know if you guys will agree with me, the best players that I've seen over the years, especially in baseball and uh way different sport. Baseball, you know, the different animals, apples and oranges, baseball and football. But the best baseball players, the best baseball people, burgs, they're like this. That was Willie Stargil. It was the same.
SPEAKER_01:You never knew those are the high makeup, high character guys. Always. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02:And if you have it, if you have it, you get out of the way. First of all, you recognize special. And again, I keep going back to Goldschmidt because I was with Goldschmidt, and you guys have covered. I I got a man crush on Paul Goldschmidt. And I have since the day, since the day we signed him as in Arizona. And there are NFL examples of that. There are Sidney Crosby examples of that. There are NBA examples of that. When you know you have that guy, when you know you have that guy, that to your point is treat the highs like lows and the lows like highs. And uh preparation, preparation is never compromised, performance is always at a high level. You get out of the way, you recognize you're in you're in you're you're witnessing greatness. Um, there are peaks and valleys to some. Again, as we touched on earlier, you know, you gotta get some guys like Barry is a great example. The talent, greatest player I've ever freaking seen. I've been doing this a long time. He's the greatest player I've ever seen. Period. Character, all right, whatever you guys want to say, he's the greatest player I've ever seen. Money guy, I don't care what he did in the postseason, that's a small sample, he's a lead. But when you have a guy whose makeup and whose performance, get the hell out of the way. Buster Posey. Buster Posey. Get the hell out of the way. He's my man, Chris. Great example. Yeah. He wanted to win.
SPEAKER_00:By the way, speaking of bonds, we never asked you you brought him in to be the hitting coach of the bonds for a year or two. Yeah. What was that like? It was incredible. And how tough was it to get him to coach?
SPEAKER_02:It was one year. One year. One year. He was in and out in one year. So we had an interview in New York at Mr. Loria's um the LaParker Meridian. Mr. Loria's go-to hotel in Midtown Manhattan. We fly Barry in probably November, early December. It's Don Mattingley, Jeffrey Loria, David Sampson, who is the Jeffrey's stepson, team president, Michael Hill, and yours truly, the AGM. We bring Bonds in. We have Bonds audition. You know, what are your qualifications to be the Miami Marlins hitting coach for what, the 2016?
SPEAKER_00:I can't believe that Barry Bonds went through this process. Dude, he was unbelievable.
SPEAKER_02:He was unbelievable.
SPEAKER_00:I can't believe he actually had the interview. I I picture him going, you want that.
SPEAKER_03:He was unbelievable.
SPEAKER_02:He didn't know the first thing about the analytics, the computer. And again, I go back with Barry. Barry, Benny Di Stefano, the last left-handed catcher in the Big Lays, and yours truly, were living in an apartment right across the street here in Allegheny Center in 1988. We were all living in an apartment. We all had our own apartment. It was Mike Berger, Berg's, and his soon to uh his bride, Leslie, Benny and uh Benny's wife, forgive me.
SPEAKER_00:I forget her name, too.
SPEAKER_02:I'll get her, I'll get her, uh, I'll get Benny's wife, and Barry and his first wife's son. Son. So we all had apartments in Allegheny Center. We'd play racquetball over here in downtown to stay in shape. Bonds was the heir parent, future Hall of Famer. Benny was the try-hard guy, and Berger was the guy that was just trying to grind his way up to AAA. Um, so we knew one another. So, fast forward to the interview in 2016. Barry knew me. Barry knew me. When he walked in the room, he knew me. I had to kind of reacclimate him as to our history. He knew me because I was an asshole. And we played, three of us played racquetball, and I used to bury that ball in his back. You know, bury that ball, we're playing cutthroat. Used to bury that ball in his back. So we're doing the interview, and he had no analytics, no computer background. But I said to him, once Mattingley was finished, we had the two of the best left-handed hitters in the history of the sport in that room, Mattingley and Bonds. And he revered Donnie. I watched how he looked at Donnie, he revered Donnie. He didn't give a shit about me, respectfully, Mr. Laurie, the owner, Mike Hill, or David Sampson. But he and Donnie, he revered Donnie. So I pulled, I said, Barry, let me ask you a question. How would you, how would you address Justin Bohr? Or Justin Bohr? Oh yeah. Part-time. Who's now working for us in the brewery? How would you ad how would you adapt big human? We got Justin Bohr out of a double A minor league rule phase, rule five phase. He grabbed me by the sc by the scruff, pulled me up into the front of the room, and he said, Burks, he said, pretending I'm Bohr. He said, Put my hands here, put my hands here, boom this, boom that, boom that. Inside and above the ball, hunt hard away and go the other way. Brilliant. Brilliant. Man. Brilliant. And we haven't even touched on Ozuna, Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yellow.
SPEAKER_01:By the way. Oh, I know.
SPEAKER_02:D. Gordon. I mean Gordon. The list goes on and on. And I go, I'm in. Mind you, he couldn't turn on a computer to his credit. Instincts out the ass. Yeah, yeah. Barry Bonds had instincts out the. And correct me if I'm wrong, Bohr had a huge year that year. Huge year. Yeah. 25. We took him off, we took Justin Bohr off the Chicago Cubs double A roster in West Tennessee.$5,000 minor league. You talk about Clemente going in the Major League Rule 5. We took Justin Bohr off a double A roster. We got 100 home runs off of him, out of him, and he's now working for us in Milwaukee. He's a tremendous guy, tremendous minor league liaison. We got him for like$4,000. But but to Barry Bond's credit, he had the swing broken down. He had this body type broken down. And let me give you the best Barry Bond story.
SPEAKER_00:You already knew this in the interview, by the way. Think about that.
SPEAKER_02:No video. Can I give you a Barry Bond story? Yeah. Do we have time? Please. Okay. Listen to this.
SPEAKER_00:Do we have time? Listen to this.
SPEAKER_01:I'm not going home. Leonard Lee, do we have time?
SPEAKER_00:Leonard Lee is our uh producer director. We ask Leonard every once in a while when he has a question. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:It's a compliment. Yeah, yeah. So listen to this. So we hire Bonds. His one and only year with the Marlins. We're at Nationals Park, Nats Park. We got a rain delay. I'm the AGM. We got a rain delay. It's going to be an all-night. I come out of the I come out of Rapunzel's Tower in the GM box. I go down the clubhouse. Thank you for that. I get down to the clubhouse. I come down to the Major League Clubhouse because we're going to be there a while. I come down, I got to go to the men's room. I got to get a coffee. And I do dip. I got to dip in. And I'm walking in the coach's lounge, and Bonds is in there because he's into he's into uh uh the race, the bike racing. Um Lance Armstrong. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's into the race, he sponsors the race team. Oh, I know he's a big bike. Big bike race. Yeah, but whatever that Tour de France stuff. Oh, oh yeah, yeah. So he sponsors a race team. So I walk in to the clubhouse, coaches lounge, to use the bathroom, to throw in a dip. He's watching the race, he's sponsored race team on his iPad. And he sees me, and he goes, Hey Berggs, you got a dip? And I go, Yeah. So I flip him a dip, he puts one in, and I go, Okay, I got him. Not getting, I go back to 86 with him.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So I got him. And we're gonna be here a while. I said, Hey Bear, turn the shit off. That's the way I am. I said, turn that computer off. And he goes, turn the shit off. I gotta ask you an important question. He says, Yeah, what do you got? Puts a dip in. I go, what's the most because to me, and again, I stand by my client, it's the greatest player I've ever seen. Suspicions aside. I said, What's the greatest piece of hitting advice you've ever received? Puts a dip in, flips me the Copenhagen can. He said, Oh, it's easy. He said, I was Arizona State, I punched out four times. My father was in watching me, Barry Bonds, who's dad, Bobby. Who was a tremendous player, played for a hundred teams, tremendous five-tool guy. He said, My dad's watching me play, a punch out four times. My dad's got a place here in Scottsdale. After the game, we go back to my dad's place. My dad proceeds to ream me a new rear end. He said, What the hell? What the F. He puts me in the batting cage in his backyard. I'm standing there at home plate with bat in hand. Dad's behind the old jugs machine with the two wheels. He's got to crank the 1010. 10 dial, 10 dial, it's going 100 miles an hour. Before he shoots a ball through the wheels, he said, he walks behind the machine, takes the bat out of my hand, puts my left-handed glove in his hand, and he said, All right, listen here, dumbass. He said, I'm gonna shoot you balls. I want you to pretend you're hitting, but I want you to take your take your pre-swing movement. I want you to catch the ball. Instead of catching the ball with your barrel, I want you to catch it with your glove. He goes back behind the machine, shoots a hundred-bile hour fastballs out of that machine, boom, he catches with his glove, resets, boom, catches with his glove, resets, does it about 10 times, comes back, takes the glove out of my hand, puts that bat in my hand, and now, all right, now catch the goddarn ball with the barrel of your bat. Light bulb moment. Light bulb moment. So instead of catching 100 miles an hour, and again, he went all through the pre-swing. We all know Bond's swing. That little that little coil, that little cock, boom, there it is. Instead of catching it with his barrel, he caught it with his glove. Now catch it with your barrel. He said, Berggs, he said, light bulb moment. He said, there ain't no son of a bitch that ever threw a Percival, you name it, that threw a fastball by me the rest of my frickin' career. Holy smoke. And he imparted that on Giancarlo Stanton. Stanton hit like MVP year, Stanton hit like 53. Ozuda hit about 37 that year and hit 340. That year in my that last only year in Miami. Yelich, I mean, I go on a Donny Mattingley predicted Yellich was gonna hit 30 the next year after a 17 home run season. I bring Yelich to Milwaukee with me because Jeter fired me. I told Matt Arnold, my new GM, hey, Don Mattingly told me Yelich was gonna hit 30. You gotta get Yelich, and we traded for him. Yelich hit 44. Because the Mattingleys, Bonds, the Ichiro's, we employed at one time in Miami, we employed the three greatest left-handed hitters in the history of our sport. And I was in, I was flying with them in my role. I was in every meeting. Ichiro, Don Mattingley, Barry Bonds. And I told Mr. Lawyer that. He goes, What are you talking about? I said, Ichiro, Mattingley, and Bonds. Can we get Donnie to No, he can't get Donnie. He's fucking managing the team.
SPEAKER_00:So again, it's just I'm off on a team. But Bonds only lasted one year. One year. But so you're saying he was a great hitting coach, dude, right? He impacted D. Gordon. Did we just get tired of it? He didn't want to do it anymore.
SPEAKER_02:No. No. Um I can't speak for him on that. It was more nine to five. Donnie had some issues because you know that the hitting coach's job in Major League Baseball today, in the present form, is the most it's it's surpassed that of a pitching coach. Psychologist is hours and hours. It's who wants flips at noon, who wants flips at one, who wants that second round of flips. You know, it's it's the Frank Manicino's, Andy Haynes, tenacious. Tenacious on on time available. I and I'm using a pirate perspective here. You have to avail yourself literally 13 Bonzi Bonzi ain't gonna do that. No, no, dude. He's in at 3 o'clock, 20 minutes after the game, he's got a Louis Vuitton over his back, over his shoulder, he's gone. Yeah, but impact. And so we had to fire him in Mattingley's office at the end of the year, Michael Hill, Don Mattingley, and yours truly. What was that like?
SPEAKER_00:Well, firing bonds after one year as head coach. Yeah, and he did he care? Was he a big deal?
SPEAKER_02:He was cool, he was really cool. He was cool because he heard it from Mattingley. And to Mattingley's credit, Donnie had to drop the boom because again, there just wasn't enough time spent. The impact was measurable. Again, with Prado, with Yelich, with but again, these these hitters at that in this day and age, they're they've they've surpr they surplanted pitchers in in just they need the guidance, they need the love, they need the yeah, you know, whatever it is. Yeah, they're not gonna do that. And I get it, yeah. I get it. They need the nipple, the nipple. Barry's not gonna do that.
SPEAKER_04:And Barry would Barry, he was matter of fact.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it was very matter-of-fact. It's nine to five. I'm gonna give you everything I got.
SPEAKER_01:Would you say that? I mean, you've been around enough staffs. You need both. Oh, absolutely. You need the guy that will just sit there on the couch, throw the dip in, and tell you how it is. Yeah, and then you also need the guy that will show up at 12. Yeah, Andy Haynes of the Ward. You need you need both in today's game because some guys need babysitting, some guys need a punch in the face. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02:You need the Don Kelly, yeah, the Don Kelly grind. Yep. And again, I mean, I love Donnie. You guys work with Donnie. I've never pulled you guys in how you view Don. Yeah. Don Kelly, their bench coat, Pittsburgh's bench, has a grind element. Second to none. Second to thank. Thank you. Second to be measurable. So you need that grind element, and there's intellect there too, don't get me wrong. Yes. And then you have the cachet of a freaking berry bonds. It's not just cachet. It's not just cachet, it's like real shit. Like you you you want to be good, you listen to me, and I'm gonna tell you once. And if you don't come to me on my time, we're out. Yeah. Okay, cool. Somehow you gotta do that. I'm gonna give you both Chili Davis. I've I don't know Chili. I've heard that about Chili. He has said that about him. How great he is. I've heard that about Chili.
SPEAKER_01:He would call me and be like, hey man, I want to talk about Brandon Moss. I'm like, I don't know Brandon Moss. And we talk for two hours on the phone while I'm heading off the team. I'm not in his organization, I'm not with him. He's in Oakland, I'm a pirate, and we're talking. I may have been a uh Rocky at the time, but that's how much he loves the game. And you talk about blending the two. He could sit on the couch talk hitting for an hour, he can go to the cage for an hour, but I'll never forget. I'm in Paw Tucket, and he flips open a notebook because I'm like, I'm lost. And he goes, Well, remember back here in May 15th? Yeah, two homer game, you had this double blah blah. We were doing this. And I was like, What? And we just went right to it, and then he added a piece, and I started to go. But right, you think about a guy, I mean, he's one of the best switchingers of all time. I'm a nobody. Yeah, and he's got me, but also like he took me even further, and we became guys that we confide in. Yeah. And he made me love the game even more.
SPEAKER_00:Well, he's got that and the work ethic. That combo. You don't have that combo. Yeah, for example.
SPEAKER_01:That's why he's not in the game.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Because he knows his value. I think it took a while, but he knows his value. I'm I'm I've I've all I don't know Chili. I've heard that because again, we we have common friends. I've always heard that about Chili. That's really cool. Like, I learned something, like you could put an exclamation point based on personal experience on what I've heard of Chili. That's pretty cool. Yeah. And those are different, those are difference makers. Whatever the sport, whatever the industry, those are and and Barry was that guy. I mean, it's no coincidence that in his one year, I mean, again, Stanton, it's it's Ozuna. For me, Ozuna was the MVP of the Marlins that year, even though he hit 36 and Big G hit 52. To me, Ozuna hit more impactful home runs, eighth, ninth inning off of impact velocity, um, and hit 300. Again, pick your poison. They were they're both great choices. And then the fact that Yellich and Mattingley called it. I'm sitting with Donnie Mattingley at a batting cage in Miami, last series of the year, right before Jeter's getting ready to frickin' fire me. Unbeknownst to me. And Donnie looks at me and he says, Berggs, I'm telling you, as Yelich is taking BP, he said, the son of a bitch is gonna hit 30 next year. He didn't say that, but I'm embellished. I go, because Donnie didn't cuss. And uh I said, Really? And he goes, Yeah. So lo and behold, I get fired. Jeter fires me and a Jack McKeon and Andre Dawson. I'm not putting my On their category. He fires a bunch of us, smokes a bunch of us like three weeks later. And now I got to audition for the next job. The Brewers are interested in me. Matt Arnold's a GM. Fortunately, I had interviewed Arnie. I got a relationship. I go, hey, dude, listen. Don Mattingly told me that Yelich, you might want to get him. He's going to hit 30 next year. Lewis Brinson, there were three other guys that didn't pan out. The Brewers wind up getting Yelich in that blockbuster trade in January and had um Lorenzo Kane. I told him he's gonna hit 30. I got to apologize because he wasn't hitting 44. Right, church wrong, too.
SPEAKER_00:So uh just real real quick, what do you think of Derek Jeter?
SPEAKER_02:Still one of my favorite players of all time. It's a 90 instinct player. I put him in the in the in the grouping of Peyton Manning, Jason Kidd, uh our um NBA. Um Jason Kidd? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Jason Kidd's a really good player.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I put him in that in that grouping of Irving, you think ultra-instinctive players, Hall of Fame player, selfishly. Why'd you hell'd you fire me? But he fired a bunch of people. I could have helped you.
SPEAKER_00:But he fired a bunch of people, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:He just he wasn't equipped to do what he did. Yeah. As an administrator, I can tell you, and again, little dig, I don't give a shit. Um Little Dig, he didn't retire. I know he got smoked. Um, I love his Capital One commercials. Yeah, he's a Yankee for life. I have profound respect for him as a player. Lousy administrator.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that's that's yeah, it's a different role.
SPEAKER_02:That's exactly right.
SPEAKER_01:It's a different role.
SPEAKER_02:I love the guys. I do not, I don't do not diminish what he what he had to do, in his opinion, as an administrator with the Marlins. I do not in any way, shape, or form let it affect how much I revere him. Again, I put him in the Peyton Manning, Dan Marino.
SPEAKER_00:Just because you're a great player doesn't mean you can be a great GM or a great manager that many, many times. Exactly. Many, many times. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:It's a whole different ball game.
SPEAKER_00:My brother. Wow. Burger Bitch. Are we over alright?
SPEAKER_01:Berg's Louise.
SPEAKER_00:What an absolute treat. Imagine in my mind. Great Fort Mike Berger on Hold My Cutter. He said, he fact Derek Jeter, one thing about Jeter, Jeter said his favorite podcast is Hold My Cutter. So I love that about Jeter. I do. So
