When I got to the ballpark today, there were cars lined up outside of
Dodgers Stadium because they're here to celebrate Jason Hayward, who has only been here
for a couple of years but certainly has made his impact on the Dodgers and
this community, and tonight is his bibblehead night. He's making the city connect
uniforms look as a classy as they possibly can in this babblehead. Jason,
thanks a lot for the time. Oh, I appreciate it. I say,
what a cool night to have a bibblehead. You know, historic franchise
in the Los Angeles Dodgers. You know, honored to be a part of
that collection, always collected them as a kid. And I was just telling
you, you know, before we got on that this is probably the first
time I take the one out of the box in a long time, because
such a special thing of the baseball fan. So cool to be a part
of it. And then, as you said to where the city connects,
I think it looks pretty good. It felt like Christmas standing next to you
when you were pulling it out of the box. Are you happy with the
way it turned out? No, I think they did a really great job.
I was just telling Lon Rosen that, uh, you know, thanking
him for making this bobblehead look like me. You know, it's a pants
down version, which is you know, cool to see. I think it's
cool like as a as a difference, because I sometimes I go pants up,
pants down whatever. But they got the armsleeve, they got the wristband,
the white white cleats, white batting glove, the you know, the
the black finished maple bat and the cool cool navy helmets with the with the
new City to Connect logo. No, I think they did a great job.
And nice smile right there about a young guy. Hey, great smile
in real life too. Man, you and ta Oscar Hernandez got the two
best smiles on this team. Oh, I appreciate it. I appreciate it.
How many bibbleheads have you had in your career? I want to say
this is four or five? You know, playing a long enough, you
know, fortunately you get to get to have a few. But again,
like you know, I played first, you know historic franchises, been lucky
enough to say I've done that. And this is another cool and I added
the collection. And this one's cool because I get to do it as a
dad, you know, And you have Messi throwing out the first pitch.
It must be cool that he may kind of know what's going on. Yeah,
I think he really has no idea other than where at Tata's job.
This is where Tata works. He knows baseball, and so he'll say,
all right, like you, maybe I throw this to dad. Maybe maybe
I don't right now exactly. So that'll be interesting to see in itself.
But it'll be really cool to show him video and pictures of that day.
But looking forward to having him and him and V out there on the field
with me to celebrate the day, no doubt. Jason Hayward is our guest,
and obviously you're on the injured list right now with the left knee injury.
We were talking about this as well. How big of a relief is
it that it wasn't more damage than you know what it could have been.
Oh yeah, it's there's a there's a quote unquote low point of the day.
You know, for me, it's not being able to go out there
and play with the guys and and grind with them. Of course, it's
your baba head day. It's it's really fun day to have. So that
that's that's unfortunate, but you know, looking at the bright side of things,
you know, there's no tear there, There was no miniscus or anything
like that, structural damage. I hadn't had anything like that before, so
I just really wasn't sure that day, and in real time when it happened,
I just knew I hit the wall really hard, and then it kind
of threw off my timing as far as landing and getting my feet set,
and I came down quick, and I just knew something wasn't right, and
I want wanted to keep going, especially I know what we've been short guys,
you know in that moment, but had to get out of there and
make sure that things were okay. And now getting those results, yeah,
like bomb brews, you know, swelling and all the natural stuff that's gonna
happen there. But with the All Star break coming up, take the time
to take care of that and and get back to helping us out as soon
as I can and just being a part of this run we gotta make.
I know, you're a big brother one way or the other. I know,
James Outman really leaned on you last year and at the beginning of this
year, have you had a chance to talk to him because of your injury,
he gets this opportunity. No, we hadn't talked too much. Well,
I mean we talked something yesterday, but we hadn't talked too much,
you know. I guess about like the whole situation more than like happy to
see you, great seeing you, you know, glad to have him back.
I know he was, you know, he said likewise on great seeing
me and glad to be back. You know this it's a silver lining thing,
right because you hate to have anything be an injury or someone coming up
or down. For that reason. The way I look at it is it's
nice to have James out, mean, be the guy who's coming up,
you know, to help us out and feel that void because you know,
someone who obviously big part of our season last year still gonna be a big
part of our season this year. You never know what it's gonna look like.
So I think it's it's kind of nice, in my opinion, to
how to be a situation where when I was saying, hey, we really
need you to come up right now on a spot, you know, with
with a whole lot of pressure like you've been playing and now let's go do
it. It's like, hey, something naturally happened, like, let's go
play baseball. Don't think, you know, do your best to go out
here and win baseball games, help the team win, And that's every bit
of who he is. And hopefully he comes up and has fun with it.
I think you will. And you know, we never take things for
granted, you know, intentionally, I feel like when you go about things
the right way, which out he does. But I still think there's just
that, you know, a little bit of you know, naturally somehow we
kind of take things for granted. And I think he's gonna make the most
of this new opportunity. You don't know what you have until it's gone right.
Every time, Yeah, every single time. And you know, I
think it's awesome to see him back. Jason. Something you said a couple
of nights ago still sticks with me. A lot of these younger guys are
getting opportunities because of the injuries, and you said, maybe try not to
do too much. Isn't that the case in baseball when things aren't going your
way. It's not that you're not trying hard enough, you're trying too hard.
Yeah, No, definitely, And that's it's so hard not to be
trying too much, to do too much. It's very tough to mentally just
say stay within myself and just go through the process compete, But that's the
name of it. And you know, you get better with repetition. You
take the feedback, you use that as going forward. And that's a beautiful
thing about a season being this long as a as a baseball player. So
you know, our young guys, I think have done an outstanding job taking
their lumps, how they've handled those even in their successes, they still want
to get better, and you know it's really fun to have them around.
Think our vests really appreciate what they bring to the table. All right,
Jason, thanks a lot for the time. Appreciate you celebrating your bobblehead with
us. There's a photo between you and Freddie Freeman's locker. I feel like
next year we need a babble ahead of that photo. Hey, I can't
control. I can't control next year. I could do my best of control
right now. We wait, You'll see how that goes. But all in
all, I have said this before this year already, hope hopefully next year,
you know, we're all here celebrating something special like a parade that we
uh, that we earned together as a group here in November, you know,
at the at the end of the season, being the last last team
standing. But you know, we'll see what happens. We things got to
play out, We got to take care of business. But uh, that
would be an amazing thing to see. It would be beautiful. I'd love
to be there with you. Thanks a lot for the time and enjoy your
family on a special day. Thank you, David, Appreciate you man.