You're listening to the downbeat the street tis you're a friendly neighborhood down beat.
It's nine oh seven in the morning. It's Kevin fer Dannabelle's Mikes, Aroy
Men and skin Out at Texas Live Today or eight any shadow of Globe Life
Field. As it is opening day in Major League Baseball. You're fighting CHAMPI
and Texas Rangers. These guys both have Texas Rangers hats on. I feel
naked without one. Danny has the new goldlined Championship one. Kevin's got the
baby blue old one that I bet smells like gas station sushi. If I
took a whiff of that thing, who's playing sushi at A guess, I'm
not gonna smell it. I will not smell your hat. So, man,
we're psyched. We talked, talked a bunch of baseball today. Kevin
got us kind of fired up for a Wyatt Langford among others. The new
faces you'll see in Ranger outfits uh as the season gets under So we're psych
man. It's good times in DFW, and we are very psyched right now
to welcome a very special baseball guest. He is a World Series champions World
series MVP. Damn it, he's a two time sy Young Award winner.
His name is Tom Glavin. A happy Opening Day, mister Glavin. How
are you doing? Yeah? Good? A complaying day? Do you guys?
Special day? Man? I think you got two of these two opening
days starts, maybe more, I don't know. You guys had a bit
of a good rotation on most of the teams you were on, so you
kind of had to share the wealth. But how special is Opening Day for
the picture that is climbing the mound on said day? I mean, it's
a great honor, you know. I know the first time I did it,
I wasn't sure whether I deserved it or not. You know, I
was still young, and we weren't very good. But and I don't know
if it was we had nobody else to do it, or if I earned
it, But nonetheless I enjoyed it, and then you know, subsequent years
after that, it's it's an honor. I mean, look at you always.
You know, there's there's an honor of the opening day pitcher. And
to your point, you know, we had some rotations obviously in some of
those years where any one of the guys could have been the opening day starter,
so you know, it didn't mean you were the number one so to
speak. It you know, usually for us, you know, it was
kind of like, well, who won the Cy Young Award last year?
Okay, so you can you can be the opening day pitcher this year.
That was kind of the way it went for a little while, which was
kind of fun. But you know, it's just, uh, it's a
great honor, you know, to be able to run out there opening day
day one of the season and and kind of lead the troops out. You
know, it's it's it's a special feeling, I imagine, So is it
Bobby Cox back in the day? Was it? And you kind of wait
one day and they call you in and say you're gonna be our guy this
year. You know what, I'm not sure exactly how it went. I
don't know if it was he told us, or you know, we heard
it about it from reporters or you know, a lot of times you could
figure out at the start of spring training what the rotation was in the beginning
forcing of spring training, and then and you know kind of kind of count
the days forward going into the April whenever your opening day was and kind of
figure out who was going to be the opening day starter or something. Everybody
stayed healthy through the spring. But you know, like I said, I
think for us it was just in any given year, it was just you
know, whoever's opportunity it was to go out and do it, and then
we all we all had to be number ones after that. We talked about
this a little earlier in the show today about how today is day one of
one sixty two. You know, you get through opening Day and all the
excitement and everything, and then you wake up tomorrow you have another one hundred
and sixty one of these suckers to go. You've played twenty two years.
Was there ever a point or maybe was there ever a point in your career
where you woke up one day and realized that the grind was something that you
really knew that you were going to feel and may not be as excited about
it as you were as maybe the first three or four, five six years
of your career, when you're young and excited and just happy to be there.
Did that ever happen for you? And if so, when would that
that point have been in your career? You know, I mean, I
think it's inevitable that if you play long enough, it's going to happen,
you know. I mean, yeah, there's always excitement around opening day,
right, and then you know, to your point. Then the next day
is I don't want to say it's a letdown, but it's you know,
you're okay. Now the routine starts and you to your point again, one
hundred and sixty one more of these here we go, and you you know,
opening day is all about opening day, and you're focused on the moment.
And then I think day two you start to I think envision a little
bit more of the marathon. You're getting ready to start, and you know
what that entails and what that's going to be. And you know it's a
little bit chopped up at the start of the season because you know you'll have
you'll have your home opener, and then there's a chance you're going to go
on the road and have at least one opener on the road and sometimes maybe
two openers on the road. So you know all the pump and circumstance that
goes around the home openers every time you do it, I mean it it
bumps into your routine, you know, So it's hard to get into that
routine. So I know there's a part of that too, where the guys
are kind of chomping to get into their routine and the daily flow of what's
going on and not all the pomp and circumstances around opening day. But you
know, yeah, you settle in and I think, like I said,
you start to look at the marathon and look, there are years where you're
like, oh my god, at least for me, like I said,
when you play twenty two years, there's going to be a time or two
where you're like, oh God, here we go again. It's a long
season. Maybe you're you didn't feel great coming out of spring training physically,
you're a little banged up, and you're like, oh my goodness, how
am I going to get through this? And so yeah, there are times.
But you know, I think that's depending on who you talk to,
that's the good or the bad of baseball, right It's I think that that
marathon is what makes it pretty special because generally speaking, it you know,
it makes the cream rise to the top, and generally speaking, teams win
their division and get to the playoffs every year have earned it. This is
two times Cy Young Award winner Tom Glavin joining US. Now he'll be at
the Invited Celebrity Classic presented by Chuck Tal Casinos and Resorts April fifteenth through the
twenty first out at Las Colinas Country Club. You get free grounds tickets.
How about that free grounds tickets at Invited Celebrity Classic dot com slash tickets.
Tom. How much are you tracking all the goings on in baseball? I
know you got a kiddo that's a you know, in the miners, and
you know, obviously the Braves one of the favorites in the National League.
We here defending the our first championship here in Texas. We've got baseball fever,
how much are you tracking the goings on in MLB? And are you
what are your thoughts on the Rangers upcoming season? You know, I would
say, I'm you know, overall, I'm a casual fan. I mean,
I obviously know what's going on with the Braves because you know, I'm
I'm I work for them, I broadcast for them, so you know,
I'm familiar with them. You know, as far as the rest of the
sport goes, Listen, I'm I'm familiar with all the people that everybody else
is familiar with. Uh, you know, I'll watch some games from time
to time, and uh, you know, I'll probably hopefully watch some Ranger
games this year if mister de Grom can stay healthy and get on the mind,
because I love watching him pitch. But you know, it's I would
say, I'm kind of, like I said, I'm kind of a casual
fan. I know enough to be dangerous. But you know, listen,
I think that's you know, the Rangers situation. You know, an exciting
time, right You're you won a World Series. Now you've got to come
back and try to do it again. Uh, you got to some extent
proved that last year wasn't a fluke, you know. And I know for
me and my situation, you know, we didn't. We didn't come off
of a World Series championship the first time we had success, you know,
in ninety one, we went to the World Series and lost. Uh,
And I remember coming back that next year and feeling the pressure and the weight
of expectations, and you know, that's that's a hard thing some times to
deal with for the first time. You know. I know for the Rangers,
it's going to be every series, every every every night, team is
going to be playing their best against the Rangers because they're the World Series champs,
and they want to see how they measure up. So I think that
was an adjustment coming in for us that next year after we had had some
success, and certainly after winning the World Series. But listen, I think
that's to me, that's one of the things that makes baseball so great,
right. Every year, every year there's a team or two that nobody really
had on the radar screen that makes a splash and maybe even wins the World
Series. And you know, I think Texas was certainly the Rangers were one
of those teams last year. I don't know how many people, if any,
had picked them to go to the World Series, let alone win it,
but they did. And that's where I think makes our sports so great,
is that seems to happen every year. Yeah, we were certainly surprised,
pleasantly surprised because they weren't playing great toward the end of the year and
then bam, they just kind of dominated in the world or in the playoffs.
It was surprising. But even that said, they are the defending champs
and if you look at odds, people have them at seventh eighth something like
that. Best odds to win the World Series. Plus we were just talking.
We have I think the top two candidates in uh Evan Carter and Wyat
Langford to win AL Rookie of the Year. So generally speaking, you'd think
the defending champ with the top two Rookie of the Year candidates either being added
or continuing on in the case of Evan Carter, would be a pretty scary
team. But the vibe I think around MLB is, you know, not
a fluke, but you know, hey, they won, but they're not
ready to go on some sort of big run that obviously we all hope.
You do you feel like that's that's accurate. I mean it's probably the case,
right. I think for a lot of people it's probably yeah, they
won last year, but show me again, right, And I think that
when you look at when you look around baseball, and I don't I don't
say this with any disrespect, but you know, are there are there a
couple of maybe sexier teams on paper? Yeah, probably the Brave, certainly
the Dodgers. You know, with all the splashes the Dodgers made this offseason,
you know, it's hard not to notice them, right, It's hard
not to look at them and say, oh, they're going to be,
you know, they're going to be a formidable team. I think obviously with
the Braves last year, you know, they were about as big a luck
as anybody that I can remember in terms of people favoring them to win a
World Series, and rightly so, and they came up short. Now this
year, pretty pretty much the same team. They added to the roster,
you know, brought and Chris Sale. We'll see how healthy he can stay.
But you know, certainly a team that I think you would look at
from last year this year and say, well, yeah, they've got as
good a chance to win this year as they did last year, maybe better
with some maturity and Spencer Strider and some of their young guys. So you
know, I think that's kind of where it comes from. But that's where
you know, as a Rangers team, you know, you almost use that
disrespect so to speak to your advantage. Right It's like, Okay, you
think what we did last year, you know, maybe was a fluke,
or you don't quite think that we're as good a team. Okay, you
know, we'll quietly put that in our back pocket and we'll prove you wrong.
And I think sometimes that's that's as great a motivator in baseball as anything.
Now you know that you're joining us because you're going to be at the
Invited Celebrity Classic. Before we get to a couple of golf questions, I
know you're a Northeastern man. You know where you're from. I do have
to ask New England clam chowder or lobster bisk if you had to choose one,
you know, big decision. What would it be? Oh? You
know what, It'd be hard because I'm I'm not a sheeatfood guy, so
I probably if I had to have one, I'd probably have the clam chowder.
I'd probably like clams a little bit better than lobster. But give me
a cheeseburger instead. She chose neitherburger chowder. Said all right. We made
a bet earlier on because we're kind of golf obsessed a couple of us,
maybe more so than baseball. So settle this bet. How many times has
Tom Glavin played AUGUSTA National? I have played it. Let's see, I
think one. I've played it four times. They're a total of yeah,
total of three times. One time I stayed over and played two rounds,
So yeah, four times total more times I think we said four four times.
I think we set the over under at four. Okay, how does
that work? I always wondered this. So you're you're playing for the Braves,
you're a good player, You're a golfer, and I know Smoltzy is
a massive golfer. I'm sure Maddox was to how does how does the first
trip to Augusta happened? You ask someone, because I've always heard this,
even if you know someone who's a member of Augusta, the key don't ask,
never ask to play. They know you want to play. If you
ask, that's what's going to screw you. Any truth to any of this,
I think there's some. Yes. I know the first time I played,
I was doing some kind of charity event over in Augusta and and part
of the hook to get me there was to play Augusta. So I was
like, hell, yeah, I'll do that. So that, uh,
that worked out well. But yeah, I you know, I had a
friend of mine that had had a friend that was a member over there,
so that was kind of my invite from time to time. But I remember
one time I went over. The one time I went over and I stayed,
I was we were having dinner. And I remember the person that I
was with saw his son there and his son was having dinner and he made
a comment like, oh, he's going to get a letter. He's going
to be in trouble. Like, what do you mean he's going to be
in trouble. He's like, Oh, he's been over here three weekends in
a row. The club doesn't like that. I'm like, what do you
mean? Like, well, you know, we have our members, but
we don't like him to play too much. And I was like, oh,
okay, that's kind of odd, but okay, you know I get
it. But yeah, i'll tell you I played. The first time I
played, it was fantastic, But it wasn't until I went back the second
time where I really realized how spectacular it was and not a blade of grass
out of place. And that's the only place I've ever been where I was
scared to death on the driving range taking bibbits because I thought, oh my
god, they're going to kick me out of here if I say too big
a divots so's it's an intimidating place. That's amazing. Yeah, I'm obsessed.
So you're kind of our friend, and you have a friend who has
a friend that's a member, is what I'm here? Yeah, exactly,
Yeah, yeah, this is close i've ever been, guys. All right,
So you're coming to town for the Invited Celebrity Classics. This is a
nationally televised PGA Tour champions event seventy eight PGA pros, forty sports and entertainment
stars. Have you did you play last year? Have you played this in
the past? I did not play last year. I played in some of
the other ones that they have during the course of the year, but I
have not played in this one yet. I'm looking forward to it, all
right. So we've got Romo, we got Smoltz in this Pudge, who
are you smoking? Larry the Cable Guy, and an Alfonso Roberto at least,
how are we gonna? Are we gonna win this thing? I mean,
I don't you know, I'm not gonna. I'm not going there not
setting my sights on winning. But at the same time, I think I
had to be realistic. There have to be a lot of things go well
for me for three days to be in contention. I think, you know,
top ten is probably a better goal for me realistically, certainly trying to
beat spots is probably my goal number one a behind winning. So yeah,
I mean, I feel good about my game, so it's just a matter
of bringing it out in a tournament format, which is not always easy.
You perform well in this, you never know what could happen. You might
get the call from the Live Tour and be a billionaire. Yeah, I'd
probably take that call. Yeah, of course you'll love it, dud.
Last, Clena's Country Club is in beautiful shape and the weather here at least
for now, is perfect, So you're gonna have a good time, no
doubt. All Right, I have one last question for the great Tom Glavin.
The date was August tenth, nineteen ninety five, Fulton County Stadium the
place. What happened? I just tenth nineteen? Did I hit my only
home run? John Smiley? You hit your only home run? Oh?
Yes, opposite field? No less? You want opo off Smiley? Nice?
I did? Yees? Yeah, and I didn't. I didn't really
get to enjoy it much because I didn't think it was going out. I
thought it was going to hit off the wall. So when I got the
second base, it was kind of like, oh my god, that went
over the time You're just sprinting towards second and you're like, what do I
do now? I slowed down? I slowed down? Now, yeah I
had I had the Scott and rolling home run trot. I was sprinting around
the base like okay, slow down? Hell yeah, all right, Tom,
thanks for joining us. Man again invited cebrity Celebrity Classic dot Com slash
tickets. There's free grounds tickets for any fans who want to go out there
and see tons of celebrities, Greg Maddick, Roger Clemens. We mentioned smolt
Sy annaka Sorenston is playing DeMarcus where uh And of course Tom Glabbing going to
be there from April fifteenth through twenty first at Lost Cleanas Country Club. Go
go check that out. And Tom Man, happy opening day for real.
Thank you so much for joining us. And we appreciate your time. Man.
Thank you guys. I appreciate it all right. There he goes two
time born in Massachusetts on award winner not a seafood Yeah, interesting, it
happens. It happens. I know people born in Texas that don't like spicy
food. They're not friends of mine. No, I hate that Texas not
the beacon place of spicy food. It's just a home of spicy food.
I'm not challenging. You just did. Let's talk about like some spicy Indian
food. You know that's where like that's I don't know. Wasn't Glavin drafted?
Yeah, it's cool he was drafted in the NHL, wasn't he Yeah?
He was an eighty four Yeah, drafted ahead of Brett Hall and Luke
Robatie in the eighty four NHL draft. That's wild. Isn't that cool?
His kid's twenty five and is pitching in the Nationals organization. He's on the
entre list. He had twenty five year old. He does seem like the
guy who baseball was a job. I love that. I'll stay involved.
I'll do some broadcasting. But he's a very casual, you know, that
hardcore baseball lifer. I could have whipped him so bad with more golf stuff
a corner. What did you guys to go to golf? Earlier in the
interview, I know Danny was doing doing Golfling cares about baseball. Gosh,
Danny loves the PGA Tour because they would bring wouldn't they bring their bat their
clubs on the team plane. You know it and their pictures. Was dressed
up and sit there at seven tonight's the job. I don't have anything hit.
Yes, and wherever you are, you got a liaison or somebody that
calls like, guess what I Smoltson Glavin would love to play your course at
every course of league. Yes, of course we watch on Smoltsen Tom Glavin.
What a life, What a freaking life. That's what we need them
to think when Kevio and Shale call, we need to win some cy Young
Awards, Mike, No, you know we do. Pretty cool man,
Tom damn Glavin right here on opening day on ninety seven won the Freak Ben's
Skins a show. Going to be with us in about a half an hour
there on the road in the shadow of Globe Life Field. They were at
Texas Live today. You can go see them if you're heading toward Opening day.
Go say hi to Christina. She's an incredible young lady. Bend Skin
are okay too? All right? Coming up next, here's some talkbacks.
Yeah, talks do birthdays today. And also you'll never guess what they found
inside this cave underneath a NASCAR track. Next on ninety seven won the Freak