I wanted to introduce Dodger fans to a left handed reliever that you're going to
see more and more of as the season goes along, and that is Anthony
Banda, straight from Texas, Tajas, Houston area. Right, Anthony,
thanks a lot for the time. It's Corpus area. But yeah, no,
no, it's uh. I'm happy to be here, and it's it's
great. You know, everything about this organization has been great. But you
know, yeah, since in Texas exactly where I'm at, where I'm from,
it's about thirty five thirty minutes outside of Corpus, between San Antonio and
Corpus CHRISTI what you told me yesterday, it was baseball that found you,
and you not finding baseball to get here. Yeah. Yeah, So,
you know, like playing high school baseball, I was primarily a right fielder,
just a kid out there that could pretty much sling it, you know,
the second base wherever, wherever it needed to be. But you know,
I was just playing for fun. I was just you know, with
my friends, and that's kind of you know, how I went about it.
I didn't really know much about you know, college and how that other
good stuff worked. I was small town kids, so it was just more
about like just playing with my friends and just having fun. When you got
to the Dodgers, obviously everybody raises their eyebrows because they have a knack for
finding pictures like yourself and turning them into guys that are household names. What
have you learned about yourself during your eight year career and what have you learned
in the short time you've been with the Dodgers During the eight year career,
It's been a lot of ups and downs, you know. It's it's mostly
what I've learned about is how to you know, take the good from the
bad and leave the good where it's at and just continue going trying to be
consistent and you know, trusting my stuff. It's you know, everybody says
trust your stuff, trust your stuff to any any picture, you know,
But when you get, you know, into competing mode, it's just more
about, like you want to get swings and misses, you want to get
you know, get the outs quickly and stuff like that. So like it's
just there's a fine line, I guess you can say where you have to
jump over and have to absolutely dive into like trusting your stuff, And I
think that's that was a big thing that I've been doing this year. It's
just trusting my stuff end zone and and it's been great so far. What
have you learned from Connor McGinnis in the short time you've been here. I've
learned a lot of good things about you know, without being too technical,
I've I've learned a lot of good things about you know, what my arm
action does and how you know, how certain pitches fix it or fit it
really and you know, just you know, pounding the zone and being myself.
That was a big message to me when I first got here, was
just hey, be yourself. There's a reason why you're Here's the reason why
we came and got you. But there's also with Connor that he's by far
the absolute best I've ever been around. He knows how to, you know,
get that dialogue and get it to understanding with players, and he knows
how you know, he really really just knows how to communicate, and he
understands the craft of different arm angles, different things and stuff like that.
So it's it's he's he's definitely like one of the most incredible guys that have
been around in baseball as far as a pitching coach Anthony Bunda is our guest
out of Corpus Christi, Texas. And you grew up on, for a
lack of better term, a farm, right and you and your brothers would
help out your father. That's a long ways away from college baseball and Major
League baseball. Yeah it was. It wasn't like a legit farm like I
like to say farm, just because you know, we had animal we have
livestock. We did all the you know, we just some four h showings
with people that don't know what that is. It's just like a livestock show
to help kids, you know, get some some scholarship money to go off
to college and pursue their dreams. But yeah, we grew up around animals.
We helped my father a lot around the house. We had a big
piece of land and it was the best thing in the world for me as
grown up as a kid. That's it was. I woke up wanting to
do stuff like that, and I still do. I still want to do
stuff like that to this day. Every time we get on the phone,
I asked him like, hey, how's the fence and do you need help,
like you know, and he'll talk to me like, yeah, I'm
doing this or doing that. I'm like, hey, I wish I was
there to go help you. And you know, but it's been great like
growing up out there and being able to go out there and just be a
kid and run around on the land and you know kind of like you know,
just mess around with the animals and just you know, see different things.
It's been fun. It was. It was a lot of fun.
I had a great childhood. Did you throw against the side of the barn?
Where would you throw? I would actually get a tennis ball and I
would throw it on the roof and wait for you to come down and catch
it. That's how I learned how to catch Yeah, that's how I learned
how to catch it. It was a big thing. And I grew up
with you know, with a bunch of cousins around within the area. So
like we would always get together and we would get like rocks and stuff and
would be about fifty yards apart throwing rocks at each other and dot and rocks
and all this other stuff. So we're always doing you know, different things
like that, and uh, you know, we would get bottle caps and
get a stick hit him, you know, just anything we could find to
like play around with and like just be a kid. That was the thing
that that was That was the benefit of having all that land and being able
to run around free and just kind of get into trouble and you know,
just doing kids stuff, and it was it was a lot of fun.
What does your father think of Anthony Bondan now after eight or nine years in
Major League baseball? I still think he still sees me as his little boy,
you know, and I love it. You know, I'm I'm a
daddy's boy. I mean, mom is mommy's boy too. I love my
mother, Don't get me wrong, I love your mom. But no,
he's proud. He's he's a proud you know, hard blue collar worker.
And you know, I've I've learned a lot from him, all the characteristics
I've gotten being a good, good father, good man is I learned from
him. And you know, he's he's I know he's proud. I know,
I know every time I'm out there, he's smiling, he's just enjoying
it because you know, he never you know, he wanted the best for
me. But you know, with the baseball thing, how it happened,
it was just it was it's unbelievable, so I know he's proud. The
dream is still going. The livestock, the animals, they're gonna have to
wait because Anthony Bunda is with the Dodgers, and good things seem to happen.
Thanks a lot for the time. Great stash too, by the way,
I appreciate it, Thank you. It's taking me a long time to
grow it. He's still trying to perfect it. Anthony Bunda a good guy
to root for.