Speaker 1: And with that for the Sewn Salisbury Show continues. I
Speaker 1: get to talk to him twice in two days. What
Speaker 1: a treat this is.
Speaker 2: And Clint Hurdle, former Pittsburgh Pirate, taking the playoffs hadn't
Speaker 2: been in two decades as the manager, longtime player in
Speaker 2: Major League Baseball and obviously took the Colorado Rockies twenty
Speaker 2: one to twenty two back in two thousand and seven
Speaker 2: to get them to the World Series, joins us now
Speaker 2: and we're grateful to have him on and we'll discuss
Speaker 2: his new book.
Speaker 1: Clint, great to have you on. Brother.
Speaker 2: Let me start real quick. This Astros team, Let's hit
Speaker 2: this one first. They've had a hell of a run
Speaker 2: the last seven or eight years of you know, dominating
Speaker 2: divisions and putting themselves in position. People are already starting
Speaker 2: to panic because they're averaging a run, running a half
Speaker 2: a game, and they're not driving and runs and leaving
Speaker 2: people in scoring position. What do you say to somebody
Speaker 2: five games in do we use the it's early or
Speaker 2: is it the optics from last year to this year
Speaker 2: seemed too obvious and too much the same. How quickly
Speaker 2: do you know that, oh we got to change something
Speaker 2: when you're a manager of a team that's struggling offensively.
Speaker 3: On Good Morning, Sean. It's a great question, it's a
Speaker 3: good baseball question, and it's fair, And I think that's
Speaker 3: when it comes down to, you know, the general manager's
Speaker 3: feel and the manager's feel, the conversations they're having, what
Speaker 3: they're seeing. Sometimes, as we've learned through a lot of
Speaker 3: the analytics that have been brought to the table, what
Speaker 3: we perceive that we see with our eyes may not
Speaker 3: be happening the same way when the numbers are presented
Speaker 3: to us. The fact that it's a short sample size
Speaker 3: is something to be taken into consideration. At the same time,
Speaker 3: you just mentioned if it's the same existing challenges that
Speaker 3: we're being manifested through the last season, all right, did
Speaker 3: our adjustments play out over the season? Do we undercorrect?
Speaker 3: Do we overcorrect? Normally we would look at the season
Speaker 3: in twenty game increments at least the places I've been
Speaker 3: and total evaluation a quarter the way through. So after
Speaker 3: twenty games is when we would sit down the general manager, myself,
Speaker 3: his posse, and the coaching staff and say, Okay, what
Speaker 3: are we doing well? What are we not doing well?
Speaker 3: What do we need more of what do we need
Speaker 3: less of and go from there.
Speaker 2: Clint, you know this early in the season, you know,
Speaker 2: manager in his second year, Joe spot of people are
Speaker 2: trying to make an impact. New players, a new right
Speaker 2: fielder in Camp Smith, a'l two base move, a lot
Speaker 2: of changes that we'll get to about this Astros team.
Speaker 2: But when you're just five games in, is there a
Speaker 2: tendency or should you as a manager do you micro
Speaker 2: it or do you say let's let it breathe for
Speaker 2: that twenty game increment and then we'll adjust. How do
Speaker 2: you from immersing yourself too much into it and letting
Speaker 2: the players think, oh, my manager started to panic as well?
Speaker 3: Well, this is where this is where the elite coaches
Speaker 3: and managers that they make the difference. It's where Andy
Speaker 3: Reid makes a difference. You know, It's where Joe Tory,
Speaker 3: Bobby Cox used to make a difference. It's where right now,
Speaker 3: you know we talked yesterday that Dave Robertson makes a difference.
Speaker 3: It's that touch and feel of do you go all inclusive.
Speaker 3: If you're going to give a message, do you give
Speaker 3: it to the team, not holding a team meeting. But
Speaker 3: maybe it's something you prepped before your scout meeting. Hey,
Speaker 3: here's some observation to watch you guys to think about
Speaker 3: these give me some feedback. Do you go one on one?
Speaker 3: Do you deploy your coaches in their areas to have
Speaker 3: a couple of conversations with maybe a couple of individuals.
Speaker 3: One of the things that helped our process along the way,
Speaker 3: especially in Pittsburgh, is we put together what I called
Speaker 3: it was a you know, as a player leadership council
Speaker 3: team whatever. I had the players pick like five guys
Speaker 3: on the team that would represent the team during challenges
Speaker 3: and opportunities, and we would meet try me twice a month,
Speaker 3: and this would be a time where I still wouldn't
Speaker 3: I still wouln't push too many buttons out five games,
Speaker 3: then I'd give it. I'd give it some time. I'd
Speaker 3: give it two weeks and then maybe pull in some
Speaker 3: of these veteran players and say, what do you see?
Speaker 3: What do you feel? What's the noise out there? You
Speaker 3: don't want to be roam in the halls. You don't
Speaker 3: want to be in the clubhouse all the time. You
Speaker 3: got to give these guys space and time to breathe.
Speaker 2: Clint Hurdle former manager. He've been to the World Series.
Speaker 2: Longtime manager, was once labeled the phenom when he was
Speaker 2: came up with Kansas City Royals and seeing a lot
Speaker 2: of great baseball and his obviously got his new book out.
Speaker 2: Hurdleisms went in Wisdom from a lifetime in Baseball. Why
Speaker 2: I write this book? What was the motivation and the
Speaker 2: expectations of it?
Speaker 3: My man, Well, the motivation, you know, it was number one.
Speaker 3: It's to try and help. It's gonna be a helper.
Speaker 3: I spent ten years, in nine years in Pittsburgh and
Speaker 3: the fingerprints of Fred Rodgers are all over that city.
Speaker 3: And I'm old enough to have watched the show. And
Speaker 3: I'm not trying to be sat here sentimental, but Fred
Speaker 3: Rodgers did a crazy number of things really well. He
Speaker 3: was all inclusive back when most people were. He was
Speaker 3: kind all the time when most people weren't. And I thought,
Speaker 3: my sharing my experiences, my struggles, my challenges, my you know,
Speaker 3: my mountains and my valleys, that maybe I could provide
Speaker 3: some help to somebody else on a similar journey. That
Speaker 3: was the reason for the book. And now as the
Speaker 3: feedback i'm getting it is, I'm glad I wrote the book.
Speaker 3: There are people that are reaching out. Male female, young old.
Speaker 3: I went and mailed some stuff in the post office
Speaker 3: here on the island yesterday. And the young female behind
Speaker 3: the message the counter goes, I'm sixty pages into your
Speaker 3: book and I'm like, I didn't. How do you know
Speaker 3: I wrote a book? You know, this is my way.
Speaker 3: She goes, well, you've been mailing them out the last
Speaker 3: two weeks, you know, to the people. And she goes,
Speaker 3: I just decided to buy one and read it. She goes,
Speaker 3: this is really, really good. I'm learning so much about you.
Speaker 3: I didn't know. She goes, Clinn, I'm glad you wrote
Speaker 3: the book. When they that's just.
Speaker 1: You know, that's from nowhere right when they open the book.
Speaker 2: I mean, I's got to be great satisfaction, maybe cathartic
Speaker 2: for you too, in a great feeling of getting this out.
Speaker 2: I know that, Hell, you're sober. Now, what's it been
Speaker 2: twenty five years? Clinton, twenty five years sober? Yeah, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five years, twenty six years. So when we open
Speaker 2: this book for somebody who may not know your past
Speaker 2: or doesn't know where you're going in the future, and
Speaker 2: they open this book, if you could say there's one
Speaker 2: thing I want them to learn.
Speaker 1: What would it be?
Speaker 3: Ask for help? Ask for help. You know, we we
Speaker 3: see there's images that are created in our daily life,
Speaker 3: and you know, in the sports scene the images. You
Speaker 3: see a lot of images at the end where somebody's
Speaker 3: holding a Super Bowl trophy, somebody's holding a World Serious trophy,
Speaker 3: and those are good, but not everybody can identify with those.
Speaker 3: I can't even identify with one of those. Have been
Speaker 3: a three World Series, it's finished second three times. I
Speaker 3: never get to hold the trophy, yep. But what people
Speaker 3: can I believe, identify with and relate to is authentic challenge,
Speaker 3: just real disappointments, maybe some hard times along the way,
Speaker 3: some failures, and then to see somebody that's gotten through them.
Speaker 3: Because I went from a guy, as we talked about yesterday,
Speaker 3: I had two divorces, I had two DUIs and tenures.
Speaker 3: And I'm not bragging, I'm just calling myself out. There
Speaker 3: wasn't a lot of trust. There was. You know, this
Speaker 3: was a guy that well, you hope you catch him
Speaker 3: on a good day. Later on, I had two major
Speaker 3: league organizations put me in charge of billion dollar operations
Speaker 3: to run the team from the dugout, and they're not
Speaker 3: just gonna do that unless they see something in somebody
Speaker 3: that's there's influence, there's integrity, there's positivity, you know, there's honesty.
Speaker 3: So I had to re I had to change myself.
Speaker 3: I had to change from the inside out. And I
Speaker 3: think that's my hope, along with you know, the sharing
Speaker 3: of the experiences for other people to know that it's
Speaker 3: never too late to start a new beginning with what's
Speaker 3: con has.
Speaker 2: Gone right With all the players you've been around and
Speaker 2: not only played, but coached and managed and led all
Speaker 2: the situations you've been in, is transparency an overwhelming trait
Speaker 2: to being I guess close to whether it's the players
Speaker 2: in the seventies or players that times have changed as
Speaker 2: we well know, is transparency important still or are players
Speaker 2: even looking past that now?
Speaker 3: I think it's still. I think it's a superpower. I
Speaker 3: think it's probably more more necessary now than ever before,
Speaker 3: cause there's so many distractions.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: The world's a hard place to live in. You know,
Speaker 3: you look at your upbringing. We can get on a bike,
Speaker 3: we could ride down on a park, we could play
Speaker 3: from nine till five. We could pack about you know
Speaker 3: about brown bag lunch, you could do things that really
Speaker 3: are much harder to do today. And that being said,
Speaker 3: the authenticity of you being you in front of these
Speaker 3: people and being vulnerable for day Brown, I've read every
Speaker 3: one of her books, and who would have thought so,
Speaker 3: We would have told me, a female is going to
Speaker 3: crack your shield like you've never had a crack by
Speaker 3: reading your books. This woman has cracked my shield about vulnerability,
Speaker 3: and I think that's a superpower as well. There's no game,
Speaker 3: there's no leverage, there's no you're not trying to win anything.
Speaker 3: You're actually just trying to help that person in front
Speaker 3: of you, who's the most important person in the world.
Speaker 3: Right then to put them in a position where they
Speaker 3: can have some success, where they can have some fun.
Speaker 2: And find joy in that. Clint Hurdle Hurdleisms is the
Speaker 2: book Wit and Wisdom from a lifetime in baseball, longtime manager,
Speaker 2: player in Major League Baseball, been around it for about
Speaker 2: four or five decades. Joins us here for a couple
Speaker 2: more minutes. Some baseball stuff is analytics. Do we use
Speaker 2: it too much?
Speaker 1: Now? Have we lost some of the field for baseball?
Speaker 3: Yes, sir, I would say not everywhere, but some places, yes,
Speaker 3: And I think one of the situations I think we
Speaker 3: all probably picked up on probably five years ago. It
Speaker 3: was in my d my last year in Pittsburgh. We
Speaker 3: were on the cutting edge initially in the analytics in
Speaker 3: eleven and twelve were front runners with a RAIS, but
Speaker 3: then everybody caught up, and then people with more assets
Speaker 3: can obviously do more things right. So everybody's got the
Speaker 3: same information where you were finding ways to win on
Speaker 3: the margins, whether there's strength to your coaching staff, the
Speaker 3: intelligence your coaching staff, your gut feel of your players,
Speaker 3: your catching positioning, all those things that has all been
Speaker 3: struck down where everybody can get the same information. Now
Speaker 3: it's how you filter it down to your coaches and
Speaker 3: then finding coaches that can filter it and make it,
Speaker 3: you know, in small bites for the players, it can
Speaker 3: be overwhelming. We've taken the heart out of some situations.
Speaker 3: I believe we don't talk about the art of hitting,
Speaker 3: the art of pitching anymore. It's it's it's velocity, it's
Speaker 3: it's rock throwing, and it's spinning, you know, skipping rocks
Speaker 3: looking for spin. Adding A guy made a comment the
Speaker 3: other day, you know, there's times when you need to
Speaker 3: back off hitting the ball out of the park and
Speaker 3: look for a little less. I mean when that kind
Speaker 3: of comment now that becomes revolutionary, that shows you the
Speaker 3: swing we've made in our game from an offense. That's
Speaker 3: just common sense, right. You only get three strikes. If
Speaker 3: you got two in a situation needs a ball in play,
Speaker 3: you need to do something to put the ball in play.
Speaker 3: So we have used them. I think some teams have
Speaker 3: used them better than others. Some teams are using them
Speaker 3: better than us, and I think some teams are still
Speaker 3: in that vacuum where it's a short space and it's
Speaker 3: a screen and you're just cutting the heart out of
Speaker 3: the game and the player.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I walk up to you and I say,
Speaker 2: this torpedo bat, what the hell is going on? What's
Speaker 2: your answer?
Speaker 3: I would say, give it a try. One thing I
Speaker 3: always we every year, Sean, we have bat companies that
Speaker 3: come through the clubhouse. And I saw these guys this
Speaker 3: spring and the guy grabbed me. He goes, hey, you've
Speaker 3: always been one to ask questions. He goes, want you
Speaker 3: to look in our bat. I said, I've heard about
Speaker 3: the bat, I've never grabbed one, so I felt it
Speaker 3: and he goes, you know, here's the design. There was
Speaker 3: a young physicist. He's now coach with the Yankees. He
Speaker 3: told me the whole story, and he goes, we're just
Speaker 3: trying to find a way to pack more wood in
Speaker 3: the area where the player individually hits.
Speaker 1: The ball most.
Speaker 3: And I go, what a concept. Yeah, you know, it's
Speaker 3: one thing we've never changed with the bat, really is
Speaker 3: the barrel. We've changed knobs, all different kind of knobs available,
Speaker 3: but we've done much with the bat other than maybe
Speaker 3: the barrel's a little slender, it's a little thicker. But
Speaker 3: this is revolutionary. He told me the reason why. I go,
Speaker 3: that's interesting. And I encouraged some of our guys that
Speaker 3: were there in the Major League clubhouse. He grab some
Speaker 3: of those bets. You get your hand, give it a shot,
Speaker 3: just trying to get none to lose. Right, here's the
Speaker 3: hard part. Vision, I mean, tradition can be a vision killer.
Speaker 3: When I picked it up, it was different. Okay, a
Speaker 3: matter of fact, you know, ten years ago I said,
Speaker 3: this is weird. Weird isn't the good word he used.
Speaker 3: This is different because of the distribution of the weight.
Speaker 3: Even I think Bellinger said the more weight. There was
Speaker 3: more weight towards closer the barrel, so the bat felt lighter,
Speaker 3: which in my mind makes it better. The bat feels lighter,
Speaker 3: I can get it through quicker. There's been a lot
Speaker 3: of comments made. The specifications are all major league, you know, regulated,
Speaker 3: they're fine. I also still believe give this time to
Speaker 3: play out. The numbers are kind of crazy hot coming out.
Speaker 3: But Pat Murphy, the master the Brewers, the guy that
Speaker 3: I love. I got that I I you know, I
Speaker 3: can identify with, He says, I don't care what kind
Speaker 3: of wand you got. It's the magician that makes the
Speaker 3: wand work. So there's got to be some hit ability.
Speaker 3: These guys that are doing some things now they've shown
Speaker 3: you a believe to do the best. But it's an
Speaker 3: interesting concept. I tipped my hat to the young man
Speaker 3: that came up with a thought for the Yankees were
Speaker 3: putting them in play, and now some of the other
Speaker 3: teams giving a shot.
Speaker 1: You were taken, and that one that they use.
Speaker 2: If you got a pitcher that's got pressed, the digitation,
Speaker 2: a little slide of hand, it's tough to put the
Speaker 2: battle the ball lithmatics.
Speaker 1: Well, we're going to find out.
Speaker 3: We're gonna find this week schemes I hope will pitch
Speaker 3: against the Yankees at Pittsburgh. That will be a high
Speaker 3: end lit assess.
Speaker 2: Okay, right, we'll see what happens to that on both sides,
Speaker 2: no doubt about it. Before I let you go, my man,
Speaker 2: what if? What if somebody calls you up fifty games
Speaker 2: in and wants you to go manage? Are you is
Speaker 2: that door closed or you still open to it? Because
Speaker 2: you have been a fixer and hugely impactful on teams
Speaker 2: you've been with. Is the ship sailed or is it
Speaker 2: still open? Like Tito, like Bruce? Are you still open
Speaker 2: to it the ship?
Speaker 3: The ship hasn't sailed. I would never say never. I've
Speaker 3: just learned in my life experiences that you know the
Speaker 3: next opportunity. You know. Kelly McGregor, we talked about Kelly right, yep, yesterday.
Speaker 3: Kelly mcgrave was a president of Rockies. He told me
Speaker 3: one thing. When I set in the manager's desk the
Speaker 3: first time he goes plan as lung. As God wants
Speaker 3: you in that chair, no man can move you out.
Speaker 3: And when God doesn't like you that chair, no man
Speaker 3: can keep you there. So I'm wide open shop the
Speaker 3: phone range and it doesn't. I'm pretty good right here.
Speaker 3: I'm loving life. But I would I would answer.
Speaker 2: The call so I can stand on a mountaintop and say,
Speaker 2: Clint Hurdles available. So that's a good thing. Ed he
Speaker 2: can still write books. Will there be a second book?
Speaker 1: Clint? You thinking about working on number two?
Speaker 3: I've already just started scribbling again. We'll see.
Speaker 2: Well that means there'll be a number two, and we
Speaker 2: can't wait. Brother, keep sending those emails and keeps sending
Speaker 2: that motivation, and you're always welcome here, my man. Enjoy
Speaker 2: your day. Appreciate you going back to back with me,
Speaker 2: and we'll do it plenty more times. Thanks, my man.
Speaker 2: The book is Hurdleism's wit and wisdom from a lifetime
Speaker 2: in baseball. You get it on Amazon dot com or
Speaker 2: wherever you find your books, and it is awesome.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you, brother, Thank.
Speaker 3: You, Thank you. Sean.
Speaker 1: I'm go with you two.
Speaker 2: One of my favorite dudes on the planet, similar stories
Speaker 2: in different ways.
Speaker 1: He is a special man.