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Lance Parrish on standards and accountability.
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Lance Parrish on standards and accountability.
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The Unparalleled Performance Podcast features ambitious and passionate guests who strive for more than the status quo. In this episode, host Josh Reband interviews Lance Parrish, an eight-time Major League All-Star. They discuss Lance's career, including winning a World Series championship with the Tigers in 1984. Lance attributes his work ethic and discipline to his upbringing in a household with parents who were both Marines. He also talks about the importance of discipline in sports and how his coaches, particularly Joe Lewis and Les Moss, played a significant role in his development. Lance highlights the impact of having coaches who valued hard work and pushed him to excel. He emphasizes the importance of leading by example as a coach and the impact it can have on players. Lance's minor league career followed a traditional path, moving up one level each year. He acknowledges that this path is less common in today's game. This is the Unparalleled Performance Podcast. I am your host Josh Reband. Each week we'll feature guests who are ambitious and passionate about being more than the status quo because we all know that being average is the enemy to success. We will cover topics that will help you become more disciplined and committed to your goals in life, leadership, and faith. Now on to this week's episode and remember as iron sharpens iron so one person sharpens another. Enjoy the show. Welcome back to another episode of the Unparalleled Performance Podcast. Today's guest I have with me is Lance Parrish, an eight-time Major League All-Star and I could list many more accolades with that including a 19-year Major League career but I think the best one is winning a World Series championship with the Tigers in 1984 and Lance I think from what I know of you and the few times we've met and have had a chance to interact I think you'd probably say the same thing am I right? Oh no question. Well it was obviously the highlight of my career and it's what everybody aspires to once they make it to that level is hopefully being on a world championship team. So you know ironically I only made the postseason one time and it was that year and we won it all so I do cherish that year that was a great year. That's awesome yeah and I'll get into a little bit of that I really want to dive into as much as we can kind of just your character and your upbringing and things you've learned along the way. I've heard some of your stories you have some awesome stories that I think some people would like to hear too and there's one in particular I'll bring up in a little while that I've heard from you but I just kind of talking about your upbringing I know you came your parents were both Marines and then I think if I'm right your dad was a sheriff in California when you guys moved out that way so it appears just to kind of been a no-nonsense type upbringing household type thing is what it kind of appears to be and then just knowing your character and that you know you've held yourself to a high standard what in your childhood and upbringing and being raised in a in a family that had you know a lineage of the Marines and being a sheriff's son and things like that how did that help mold you into holding yourself to a high standard and and that sort of thing? Well I think you know I mean the whole Marine thing you know obviously that's true both my parents were in the Marine Corps it wasn't like they had me marching around the house or anything it was is pretty laid-back my dad was a hard worker my mom was a hard worker they instilled that work ethic and my sister and myself there were obviously things that were expected of us you know carrying our load in the household as far as chores went and doing yard work and whatnot and it was just something that was expected of us to when we had something to do everything else went out the window and we focused on that so and you know I appreciate that from the standpoint that I I think it helped me to develop a good work ethic not only for what I was able to do around the house and all that but you know when I was preparing for an athletic career you know that work ethic carried over into how I prepared myself for you know being whatever sport I was in from you know Little League all the way through high school and into professional baseball so it was uh it was great you know I can't say that I ever caused any real problems where I got in hot water with my folks because I knew they'd probably squish me into the floor so all they had to do basically was give me that look or say something and I snapped to it so yeah I love it and did your I growing up you know graduating high school in the 70s and I think coaching styles have changed so much from you know that time period to now in a lot of ways where you know if your coach said something back then it was it was gold you had you know whatever your coach said you listen to and I think nowadays there's so much pushback from players and parents you know kids that have kids that are going through certain things and they don't agree with the coach or they don't agree with the playing time and you know I I think it's just changed so much in terms of your high school coaches I know you played football and baseball and I can't I don't know if you played another high school. I did play basketball as well yeah. Okay in terms of the coaching that you got at your high school age what was that like and how did that prepare you because you got drafted right out of high school so the only coaching you ever knew before professional baseball was your high school coaches how did those coaches in any of those sports kind of help prepare you for for pro baseball? Well you know I think basically everybody that plays Little League or you know sports as a youth younger in age I think the coaches are more or less there to try to organize a team and allow everybody to have fun there well I can't really say there was all that much discipline going on when I was in Little League and then when I got into Pony League and you know junior high school and whatnot either the coaches at school or the coaches at that younger than age weren't really big on the whole discipline thing they expected you to do what you were told to do but I think once I got into high school I had a better understanding as to you know what the whole discipline thing was about and to be honest with you you know you being a coach and my experience being a manager and a coach and having played for as long as I have I think it's essential that you have some type of discipline on your ball club and you have a certain work ethic that everybody understands that if you want to accomplish your goals accomplish something as a team be successful there's there's a lot involved in that and a work ethic and discipline is is huge as far as as all of that goes so you know when I when I got into professional baseball right out of the gate my manager in the rookie ball was a guy by the name of Joe Lewis and Joe Lewis is notorious in the Tiger organization at least at the time that he was around and everybody that had him from one year to the next basically shares the same type of stories if anybody fit the mold as a drill sergeant it was Joe Lewis and I'll never forget when I when I first signed and went to extended spring training in June in 1974 down in Lakeland Florida and I was introduced to Joe Lewis you know I mean he was in my face from day one it was I mean a huge awakening for me I had never been away from my parents for any length of time and now here I was on my own and I had this guy in my face every day and I was the number one draft pick so you know I was thinking holy cow but I'll never forget he gathered everybody around in a little group you know a few days after we had got there and told everybody there were three things that that he couldn't stand in baseball number one draft picks guys from California which I was from California too and he said college graduates and I was like well all right well I didn't hit all three of them because I I signed out of high school but you know as part of a guy as he was and as hard as he pushed everybody that year we had the most successful season in rookie ball we were we played a 70 game schedule as everybody knows you know it's short season we had one game rained out that we never made up so we only have played 69 games we were 52 and 17 for the season and we won the Appalachian League Championship and I think if I'm not mistaken somebody had told me that recently they took a poll on on the top team over the course of however many years the Appalachian League has been in existence and our team ranked number one as the best team ever and in that competition so it was pretty nice but you know from Joe all the way through Joe Lewis Les Moss who I had in double-a and triple-a was he was big on discipline and and he worked and he was a work he loved to work guys you know which you know I benefited from that and I think I probably told you it wasn't for Les Moss I'd have never made it to the major leagues you know even though I was a pretty good athlete I was very undisciplined and I didn't know how to do a lot of things really skillfully but he took the time to take me under his wing more or less and and I had to come out early all the time to do extra work but it wasn't for that I never got to the big leagues and obviously once I got to the big leagues working with Sparky he was you know cut out of the same mold so you know there is a reason why those type of managers are successful. Yeah and I think that's a great reminder for myself is that as a manager as a coach we are the example that we're setting and our words we can say so many different things but players can see through that if they don't see us actually living those types of character traits out and I think that's just a great reminder for us all to hear that your example and Les Moss and that he was such a hard worker and he really spent a lot of time with you and that how big of an impact that that made I think that that for me just you know it enables me to you know realize you know our time is really important to players especially when you're the head coach or the field manager and you know players are expecting you to you know spend time with them and they want to have that you know time so yeah I appreciate you sharing that and I think you had pretty much a straight-laced minor league career you you went to rookie ball and then it was a the next year double-a the next year triple-a like you just climbed one one year at a time at each level and nowadays you see you know some guys jumping from some of the lower levels double-a or even high-a sometimes you know guys will get called up but you had a pretty traditional path in doing that is there anything that you feel like nowadays that because maybe guys don't go straight level by level and there is still some of that obviously but is there anything that you feel like nowadays if guys jump from high-a to the big leagues that they're missing in those you know a couple years that they could be spending in double-a or triple-a you know to be very honest with you I've noticed that it seems to work in the opposite as far as trends go I see more guys spending a lot more time in the minor leagues now before they get to the big leagues that it seemed like and maybe we just have a special group but I recently had to do a speaking engagement somewhere and I I actually researched our team out that 84 championship team and you know you take guys like Tram and Lou and Jack and guys that were in the minor leagues at the same time I was and I was teammates with you know I think Tram he signed in 76 played in rookie ball in Bristol like I did he came up at the end of 76 to help us in double-a because our shortstop that hurt helped us win the Southern League championship so he started off out of high school started out rookie ball came to double-a the next year he repeated double-a with Lou Whitaker that's when they moved Lou to second base and they formed that combination between the two and then after that year he was a September call-up and was in the big league so he basically was in the minor leagues for a year and a half and Lou was I think in the in the minor leagues for for two years Jack was there for you know a couple years Steve Kemp when we signed him he was in the minor leagues for like a year Jason Thompson was in the minor leagues and these are guys that eventually got traded for pieces to the puzzle but when I was in the minor leagues these guys were you know they were big news you know I don't know if anybody remembers Steve Kemp but he was the number one pick in the draft in the January draft I think in in 76 so he spent a year in the minor leagues and went straight to the big leagues and was successful as was Jason Thompson Jack you know started off and did very well well so I guess the point that I'm trying to make is that you know in today's day and age you I think they spend a little bit more time trying to develop guys and make sure that they're ready to go to the big leagues whereas when I was in the minor leagues they just pushed you and and I've often said if I played in the minor leagues today I probably would have never got out of a ball because I struggled in rookie ball I struggled in a ball I struggled in double-a offensively and then finally when I got moved up to triple-a in my fourth year I had a pretty pretty good year I put pretty good numbers up so that you know and timing is everything so I was you know from triple-a bounced into the September call up the same time as as Lou and Alan so and then I stayed up there from then on but yeah you know and I can't say that's true with every organization obviously it's not but you know I think back then they had a tendency to push guys a little bit harder and it was either you were going to make it or you weren't and you know and then they moved on to the next group so it's sometimes baseball's hard to understand and it's not always fair but you know and I've told my guys all along when I was managing when you put your name on the dotted line the clock starts ticking so you better take it serious and work hard. For sure love that yeah and kind of staying in your early days of your professional career obviously like you said and everybody knows you were a first-round draft pick with the Tigers did you I know you've mentioned before that you just loved the game of baseball and that's you just had such a big passion for it and but did you feel any sense of I guess feeling like you had to live up to expectations since you were the first round pick did that ever creep into your mind where you felt like you had to live up to things or was it just something you just loved and didn't really matter you could have been the last pick and you still would have treated it the same way well you know I think probably a blessing for me was I was very naive when I came out of high school back in those days there was no you know ESPN and you know sports weren't on 24-7 and I don't think I ever read a sports page when I was younger so I was naive to the whole process you know I came out of high school I you know initially had signed a letter of intent to go to UCLA to play football and baseball because I was a pretty good football player and then all of a sudden the draft came along and I was drafted by the Tigers you know I had guys telling me coaches from the different teams and in my league that I played in in high school you know don't you know you're gonna get drafted in the first round and don't take any less than this or don't take any less than that I was like you know at the time I was like my gosh it seemed like a zillion dollars what they were throwing out there's no way I'm gonna get that and then lo and behold I get drafted in the first round and I never felt any pressure and and maybe that was a good thing I mean I was frustrated with myself when I got you know into professional baseball that I wasn't playing like I was playing to you know in high school and Little League and all the leagues in between because I always was very successful at it and then I got to the professional ranks and it was boom you know I hit reality in a hurry I was you know facing college pitchers that had real good breaking balls which I had never seen on a consistent basis and they were wearing me out so I was like wow you know I don't know if I'm any good at this game at this level or not you know this is professional baseball way different than anything that I had experienced up to that point but you know I never honestly honestly I never I never put any pressure on myself I I worked hard I did everything they asked me to do I went from you know my rookie ball season to instructional ball I played in a ball and then went to instructional ball again went to double-a and then went to instructional ball after my triple-a year I was a September call-up and I finally got a break that I didn't have to go to winter ball so I was excited about that but after my first year first full year in the big leagues in 1978 I remember Ralph how calling me into his office that towards the end of the year and he was there with our farm director who Deavers and I was wondering what was going on and they said you know we would like you to play winter ball this year in Puerto Rico and I was like I thought finally you know had gotten winter ball out of my system or out of their system where I could just go home and relax but you know all in all things considered it was you know it was very good for me to do that and I had a blast going to Puerto Rico so yeah I didn't have any expectations I was very disappointed I wasn't helping the team more than I was because I just wasn't produced but I think I mentioned to you as well that after my rookie season when they I went from rookie ball to instructional ball that year in October or late September whenever it started our farm director who Deavers came up to me again at that time and said we're gonna switch you from third base to catcher because they signed me as a third baseman I don't know if I mentioned that we're gonna make you a catcher and we're gonna make you a switch hitter and I was like but I've never switch hit before. I was gonna ask you that yeah I had heard that and I'm like how do you just call a guy into his office and just say hey you know we're we're gonna toy with something here like I as a pitching coach you know sometimes you see a guy and you're like yeah that guy we could we could make him a sidearm guy like he's he's pretty effective already he's kind of low but if we drop him down some more he's gonna be even more effective but switch hitting it's one of those things that it's like hey yeah let's just call Lance into the office and just chat with them about picking up the bat from the other side of the plate and it's like who yeah I would have to imagine you know your thoughts going through that process. Well that was a you know a huge mystery to me and you know it was like wow you know I mean I it wasn't like I backed away from it but I was thinking you know do you understand what you're asking me I mean I've never switched hit before. Did you ever play ping-pong left-handed in the locker room? I didn't do anything left-handed. I was zero talent left-handed you know so but Hoot said to me Hoot Evers our fund director said his exact quote if you ever learn to hit left-handed with that short porch in right field in Detroit the Tiger Stadium there's no telling how many home runs you'll hit and that's when I reiterated but I've never hit left-handed before and they sent me to A-ball that year in Lakeland which was high A I mean the low A team was in Clinton Iowa and I think Jim Leland was managing that team but the manager that they had in Lakeland at that time was a guy by the name of Stubby Obermeyer. Stubby Obermeyer was a left-handed pitcher that actually pitched in the big leagues and they called him Stubby because I think he was like 5'7 and he never hit I mean he wasn't a hitter we didn't have a hitting coach on our team so it was like they just told me you're going to be a switch hitter and they put me on a team that didn't have a hitting coach or anybody to give me any instruction whatsoever about how to accomplish this so I just went it was like okay here we go see what happens. Unreal that in professional baseball that now that would never happen today because as we all know they I mean there's no shortage of coaches for everything they got multiple coaches for everything now but back then that was not the case. Yeah for sure for sure yeah that's an awesome story so you when you got drafted and you moved away just anything just in terms of wisdom moving away from your family for the first time there's going to be I'm sure some minor league guys that will end up listening to this that I think just in terms of encouragement or wisdom and obviously times have changed a little bit where you know we are so connected to everybody with our phones and we're able to you know do things on our own time as quickly as we want to but in terms of being away from families for the first time I've coached a lot of guys that when they get to Traverse City or wherever when they go to way to school it's their first time ever away yeah and you know do you have any wisdom or advice you would want to share and I this kind of putting on your manager's cap because you you know you've coached so many young players what what would you pass along to them? Well you know first of all I would say that you know like I mentioned earlier you know once you put your name on that dotted line you know the clock starts ticking whether you're playing professionally or you're playing collegiate ball you know you have an opportunity to prove yourself and a window of opportunity to accomplish that you know so that that in a sense is a stepping stone initially to what your ultimate goal is you know I can't say that I really adhered to that when I got into professional baseball I was surrounded by a bunch of college guys and you know I was out on my own for the first time and you know I was kind of a wild man myself for a while but then I finally came to realization hey you know if I want to make it I've got to I've got to get serious about this and that's the kind of thing that I've tried to share with with the guys that I coached and managed that please take this seriously especially nowadays you know I can never say that I played the game for the money when I was coming up I just loved to play and I loved the competition and I wanted to be the best I always wanted to be the best and I just stayed at it stayed at it but nowadays you know you have to look at you know there's opportunities out there where you can make so much money and why throw that opportunity away so you know when I when I was coming up through the minor leagues even though I wasn't focused on money or any of that and I did want to be the best that I could be you know I worked out all the time I lifted weights I did you know even when weight lifting was taboo and you know nobody did you were renegade oh my gosh I got more grief for that than you can imagine but nowadays it's accepted and you have an opportunity to go out and build your body up you know you have to do it the right way I mean and the reason that I think that's important is because the competition is is pretty stiff you know you're going to you know every level that you move up you're going up against stiffer and stiffer competition to to earn a job a position on the team so you know you have to you have to take that serious as well and when I told my guys look at your window of opportunity nobody knows how big it's going to be I don't I said but you know the clock is ticking and you need to take advantage of every moment to try to make yourself as good as you can be and get you know so you can you know have the opportunity to realize your dream I know I would assume everybody that's in this clubhouse their dream is to make it to the major leagues and be successful well if you want to accomplish that then you have to put your nose to the grindstone right now and get after it and don't let anything deter you and I used to talk about going out at night and drinking and doing whatever they were doing you know there's a time and a place for that and I'm not going to tell you how to live your life but a disciplined athlete is in my book a winning athlete and a successful athlete so take that for what it's worth yeah yeah and I think that's right on the head I think one of the things that I try to share with players is that at the end of your career whether like you said it's the end of your college career or at the end of your professional career you you don't want to have any regrets you don't want to say I wish I would have done this for three more months or I would have you know not taken those six months off or whatever the case is we just never want to look back on it and think man I wish I would have done more because then that is the ultimate regret because you never know how good that you could have been and so I think yeah you hit it right on the head with that that the decisions that you make and you can get away with it one of the things I mentioned to guys when they get to Traverse City maybe not every year I've mentioned it but I'm sure it comes across at some point is that you can get away with some off the field things that are distractions maybe for a couple weeks but when you're playing every day and especially trying to perform at a high level you can't do those things over the course of the season you might still hit 300 for the first 20 days of the season but after that your body is going to catch up with you eventually it's going to deter so yeah I think you hit it right on the head and I actually that was the story I wanted to ask you about in terms of weightlifting so you have a Sparky Anderson story the ground crew I really want you to share that one well you know I grew up when I was in high school the two coaches that probably had the biggest influence on my athletic career were both big into weightlifting and they pushed a lot of us to see the benefits of lifting and lifting properly now when I say weightlifting I'm not just talking about going in the gym trying to be a power lifter and throw up all the weight you can in the gym I mean there's a discipline that goes along with that as well so I was as much as I lifted and I lifted a lot I also spent as much time trying to maintain my flexibility because you know being big and strong if you can't move doesn't really do you a whole lot of good so one of the things that I always had you know to come back at with Sparky was you know I'm more flexible than anybody on this team and I'd be happy to go out and prove it to you right now you can run it everybody out there but one of the spring trainings when you know we didn't have a weight room we had we had no weight room we had a room next to the training room that had a couple of stationary bikes you know 1970s or early 80s models and a couple machines that had hydraulic pumps on them that you could do some exercises with but beyond that there was really nothing that you could do to actually work out so I had I had bought a bunch of weightlifting equipment you know when I was living in Michigan at the time and it just so happened to be that year and I brought down with me a weight bar an Olympic bar and some Olympic weights and you know adjustable dumbbells so I could you know adjust the the weights I wanted on those and a few other things and I didn't have a bench so I asked the ground crew if they would make me a bench so that I could do bench presses and other things and they did and it was awesome it was awesome you know and I put it in that room right across the hall from the training room and I would go in there after our workouts were over and I would work out and somebody was standing in the doorway when I was working out and Scorpio was walking by he was leaving the complex and he poked his head in the door and he was just you know taking note of everything that was in there he didn't say anything he just looked in there and then he just kept walking and I didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing whether he was an acceptance of what I was doing or he was just taking inventory and gonna do something well turned out to be the inventory part of it and he told our clubhouse guy Jim Schmeichel when he got him on the phone that evening I want you to take those weights and throw them in the middle of Lake Parker which was the lake right next to our company and I don't ever want to see him again and Jim explained to him that you know those aren't our weights those are Lance's weights he goes I don't care I don't want to see him again and you get all that stuff out of there so obviously when I came to the clubhouse the next day and they were all gone it was like my hair was on fire and I was we don't want so as you know he was oh you know hey just take that back and listen you know Sparky doesn't want him in the clubhouse blah blah so long story short I was no longer allowed to work out in the clubhouse I had to go find a gym somewhere downtown and work out and you know to do what I was was doing but the irony in that the irony in that was I I left the Tigers in 86 and came back in 94 for spring training um and that is a story in itself but I was in spring training in 94 and when I walked into the clubhouse uh in Lakeland in 1994 in spring training they had a stinking golds gym attached to the clubhouse I mean it was unbelievable they went from having absolutely nothing to having more equipment than I'd seen in any gym before and the reason was Bo Schembechler when Bo Schembechler got there and became the GM he brought in a strength and conditioning coach along with him by the name of Brad Andrus who was also one of his players on one of his Michigan teams so we had a huge weight room had a huge strength you know strength conditioning program Brad Andrus and you know he had a few guys working with him and I just had the I had to smile at that I immediately went in Sparky's office and said what happened and he goes well he goes that wasn't my idea but I know things are changing so I just have to have to roll with it love it yeah yeah and I think you've mentioned it before in terms of weightlifting the mentality side of it how important that that is just to kind of feel like you got an edge and makes you feel good and I don't know I I think I've heard you say that before just kind of the mentality from weightlifting and I've seen that in guys that do take really good care of themselves that they do have that sense of confidence doesn't always mean that it's going to you know equal success at the end of the day sure but I you do sense a little bit of you know confidence within some of those guys that take that extra time to make sure that they're prepared for games and it's just kind of yeah extra extra uh tier of confidence I guess is the best way to put it well you know I I've mentioned that you know I don't know how many times you know in the last few minutes but you know throughout my career basically that I am a advocate of weightlifting I'm an advocate of making yourself bigger and stronger I think it makes you a better athlete if it's done correctly if it's done properly if you incorporate uh stretching along with it because I think that you know the more flexibility you can maintain the the you know less injuries you're going to have and the more successful you're going to be all the way around so yeah I I wanted to be strong I knew I wasn't going to be faster than anybody but I could certainly you know be stronger and being the position that I was at behind the plate I wanted to be able to be durable and maintain my strength throughout the course of the season which I was able to do and I credit the weightlifting part of that for you know my ability to to be able to achieve that so yeah I mean staying in shape running I mean I not only lifted but I ran I don't know how many miles during the offseason when I was you know preparing for spring training I didn't I never took too much time off it was always I felt like you know there's a bunch of guys that are trying to take my job and I'm not going to let them do it so I mean I hit the road and I hit the weight room and when I came to spring training I was ready to go every year. Like you said once you sign that dotted line your clock's ticking I think that's such a good good reminder so yeah and then I want to touch base a little bit on the kind of the World Series team but the culture of the team kind of leading up to that so you had mentioned that you had played with some of the guys on the 84 World Series team in the minor leagues and what that how did those guys and those relationships start forming kind of help you guys as you made it up to the big leagues and had some years together where maybe it wasn't you know the best seasons but then you guys just stuck together and I you can maybe touch a little bit more on the core of like how many guys were in the farm system that came up with you and how many were trades or free agent signings those kinds of things but having a core group of guys that know each other so well that have spent some time in the minor leagues how did that prepare you guys for for the 84 World Series team well number one I think it made us a very cohesive unit you know you know the the the military movie that's out there Band of Brothers I think anybody can probably use that terminology to define the team that they're on you become a band of brothers you know and and I played in the minor leagues with with Tram with uh with Lou with uh Tom Brookens Jack Morris uh Milt Wilcox gosh I know I'm forgetting a bunch of guys but you know Steve Kemp was you know a guy coming up through the organization he eventually got traded for Chet Lemon you know which I thought they would never trade um Steve but we needed a center fielder so you know and Chet turned out to be a pretty dang good center fielder uh Jason Johnson ended up going to uh Anaheim and um who else was on it I mean a lot of guys I mean I made a list out a while back and I was surprised actually all the names that I came up with and one of the things I think a lot of people and I've mentioned this before when I've been talking and Tram's the one that uh enlightened me to this fact when when Alan was drafted in 1976 and Jack Morris and Dan Petrie were also in that draft along with Steve Kemp the Detroit Tigers drafted Ozzie Smith that year and Ozzie Smith opted not to sign with the Tigers and uh and Tram did so it you know always be curious as to how that might have played out if they both would have been at the same time but Ozzie ended up signing the next year with the Padres and um you know the rest is history but um you know we just had a we had a great bunch of guys that played together you know during the season instructional ball I played with guys in winter ball uh in Puerto Rico uh I went down there with uh Jack Morris and Sheldon Burnside was a another pitcher on our team and um Steve Baker was a pitcher on our team that went down there as well um so you know off and on in different places we had uh we had you know the opportunity to all play together it was either during the season if we weren't all playing together in the season we were all playing together in instructional ball and we all got to become a little bit closer and I think one of the great attributes one of the great things that made us successful at the major league level was that we weren't afraid to hold each other accountable and push each other you know I think that everybody had a mindset you know that if we wanted to be successful as a team everybody had to do their part and if we saw somebody doing something they shouldn't be doing or they weren't putting the work in that they should have been putting in you know it wasn't anything for one of us to come up and you know maybe a little joking jab at first but then it became more serious than that if somebody didn't take it seriously so we we we got on one another and we pushed each other to become you know and I and I believe that Sparky was one of the guys that encouraged us to do that you guys want to be a good team you want to be a cohesive unit you got to push one another and hold each other accountable and strive to be the very best so you know all in all with the contributions coming in from all sides where they were coming in from I think that's one of the one of the big things that helped to shape and mold us to become world champions in 84. Yeah and I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions of championship teams I know for me growing up watching teams win championships you just think that everything is perfect on those teams like everybody fully bought in every day and that was just me being naive and not really understanding the process of winning teams and how much accountability really plays a role into that we've been fortunate to win a couple of league titles with the with the Pittsbitters and through those seasons I've realized like man we had so much junk go on this year but without that junk that went on in those one-on-one conversations or a player getting in another player's ear about something for not playing hard or different things that come up just normal throughout a season because it's 72 games in 76 days for us and I think it's just one of the biggest misconceptions of championship teams is that everything's pretty and there's nothing wrong with the team and everybody gets along really well so I'm glad you touched on that because I that's something that I would want people to know about successful teams or even successful organizations is that there has to be accountability in one one form or another. Absolutely, absolutely. I also thought one of the things that helped us you know during those years was that you know we had quite a few championship teams at the minor league level. I mentioned to you that when I first signed our rookie league team won the Appalachian League championship you know the next year in Lakeland we were not very good at all but we you know rallied again and the next year all of us most of us were in double A and we won another Southern League championship. Tram won a Southern League championship right behind us in double A and you know I think I think being on a winning team helps you learn what it takes to be a winner what it takes to win you know and unfortunately that doesn't always work out you know you're you know everybody strives to be a winner but being on one or two championship teams I think as an individual you come to an understanding of what it really takes and the sacrifices that you have to make to become a championship team but you just reflect on what happened throughout the course of the season so you know that itself is a good teaching tool for all of us. It's funny you say that on the first episode that I just released today I was talking with Ben Heller he debuted with the Yankees about five six maybe seven years ago and he's now in the Rays organization and we were talking about learning more from success or learning more from failure and one of the things that I've and I think I'm a little bit abnormal in this and it's probably I said in the show earlier was just that I think I've learned so much more from winning because it's helped validate the things that you're doing well and we both kind of agreed that the failing side of it helps us know how to handle handle failure mentally but the practical part of how to actually win is through doing it and through winning and being around winners and winning mindsets but the failure is something that we have to learn how to handle mentally to still be able to put out those practical things do everything well you know when you're a winning ball club when you hit a stretch when you're not playing as good as you want to you have to be mentally tough enough to push through that you know and to get back on track and to start winning again you know teams that aren't successful and end up becoming losing teams the you know the air just flies right out of them once they hit a spell or two where things aren't going the way they want to and they've lost a bunch of games in a row they just basically just you know we're not going to win we show up we're not going to win you know that's to me that's the thing that kills a lot of teams that they don't know how to snap out of that and and recover from that and get back on track yeah and i'm curious to know if you think this is true or not one thing that i've noticed in any sport is a team that gets off to a really hot start i think oftentimes accountability if things are going really well right away accountability can kind of get swept under the rug because we as coaches or managers don't want to bring something up of something that started out so well but if there's so i just i see it in teams that start out really well if there is not accountability early on in those moments that somebody's late and you have a standard for guys showing up late and you don't uphold that just because your team's 10 and 0 when your team hits that skid in you know three weeks later and then you try to go back and hold guys accountable for those things it creates a huge mess within the culture because then it just becomes about winning and losing and it doesn't become about standards and what we're trying to uphold our team to that's going to carry us through those hard times have you noticed that at all with within the professional ranks at all or your experiences managing well i can tell you that um you know the managers that i played for and i'll just name three off the top of my head that i played for at the major league level um les moss sparky anderson jim leeland i did play a year for jim leeland over in pittsburgh when i was wrapping up my career but uh those guys those are the kind of guys that operate exactly how you're describing it that you know when you enjoy success it's great but just because we're enjoying success doesn't mean that we uh lessen our standards or you know we don't hold you accountable for something that you need to be held accountable for you know it's a it's a long season and uh you know basically you have the same focus from day one all the way through till the end of the season that's what makes you a a good baseball player and a good baseball team and once everybody understands that and you enforce it um they know after the first instance or two that it won't be tolerated and this is this is the team that we are this is how we are going to perform and we're not we're not deviating from that at all you know so get used to it and yeah like i say jim leeland jim leeland didn't take any crap from anybody sparky didn't take any crap from it less moss same deal you know it was like they knew what it was all about they'd been there done that and you could be the greatest player i often i would have loved to have been a fly on the wall to watch how jim leeland dealt with barry bonds because i knew that barry bonds you know was a little tough to deal with at times but you know jim had his way and i think barry respected him an awful lot and probably probably played harder for jim leeland than he would play for anybody you know and and uh was a more of a disciplined player because of him and it was probably a good thing that he came up in professional baseball playing for a guy like jim leeland knowing what the expectations were and how do you carry yourself each and every day i mean as he became a superstar you know he might have you know deviated from that a little bit you know demanded a little respect from the younger guys or didn't like talking to media or whatever but i don't believe i ever saw barry bonds go out on the field and not give a hundred percent so that's so cool yeah and i'll kind of wrap up with this um i'm having a blast chatting with you and hearing your side of things um one of the uh i guess uh headlines or taglines with my podcast is that as iron sharpens iron so one person sharpens another from the book of proverbs and i actually remember when you spoke at our first pitch banquet when i was coaching at davenport and i met you there and you had mentioned that bible verse was up in the weight room i think somewhere that you had worked out at or something like that but you're talking about accountability and managers holding their players accountable players holding players accountable and that proverb to me is just so lived out in cultures and atmospheres in cultures that really understand that whether they're a christian team or not if you are sharpening each other to make each other better i think that that it's it's just to me that makes the bible life like it's just there and it's super cool to see um so kind of segwaying a little bit of accountability but just kind of in your own life and um i know you've mentioned that your the bible is your favorite book and things like that if you if you just share a minute or two on your faith and kind of where that stemmed from if you grew up in the church or not and just so yeah a little bit about your faith well you know i did grow up in the church i grew up uh you know one thing that my mother always made sure of is that you know our family went to church and uh you know even though the church that i went to at the time i didn't i can't really say that there was a whole lot of uh teaching going on that was more ceremonial than than anything that you know i can remember and that's obviously when i was younger but when i got into uh you know but it laid a foundation let's let's put it that way i i understood who god was um it laid a foundation in my life when i started to get involved in sports as you well know i mean i i follow my own grandkids around nowadays and they play you know all weekend long every day and and it's you know how do you squeeze church and how do you squeeze time into uh to spend time with the lord well you just you make time you know that's the way that it is um when i was in high school um it was a little more difficult for me uh to go to church because we had games on sundays and all that but um you know i i my mother still found time to to get us there and and uh when i got into professional baseball there was nothing basically and i and i have to admit that i you know i didn't spend a whole lot of time in the word nor did i spend a whole lot of time thinking about god when i was in the minor leagues we did not have a baseball chapel program back then but now today in today's game there's a baseball chapel program with every minor league team and every major league team and every minor league team has a chapel leader that leads bible studies and chapel services and same with with the major leagues so when i got to the major leagues i was invited by john hillard to attend a baseball chapel service and you know when he first said it i was like you know i assume we were going to hop in a car and you know go to a church or something he goes no no he goes you know we have a guy that comes and you know we have a room in the back where we you know have like a little um chapel service back there and i was like wow so i i went there and i listened and you know to be honest with you i said you know when i went to church as a younger boy and a young man it was it was more based on ceremony and i i didn't really understand what a relationship with with jesus christ was and when i got to baseball chapel that's all they ever talked about was you know god wants to get to know you he wants to have a relationship with you he wants to have a relationship with you through his word that's the only way that you're going to understand who he is and what's he want what he wants for you in this lifetime and if you pray to receive christ as your lord and savior and enter into a relationship with him and start studying his word he will he will come into your life and talk to you and and and lead the way for you and and you'll have a better understanding of how to live your life and how to approach the different obstacles that you're going to face in life and you know the more i heard that and the more you know counseling that i got from from the guys that came in there to hold those chapel services was like i want it i just i want this you know i i've never been approached by anybody about having a personal relationship with the god that created me and i didn't realize that you could actually possess that so when it came about boom i jumped at it and uh you know i've tried to live my life accordingly ever since my you know both my wife and i are christians our kids are christians we put them through christian schools uh you know and and you know once again laying that foundation in their lives is probably the most important thing that you can do for your kids you know the word says that if you raise them up in the lord they won't they won't uh deviate far from it you know as they go through their lives and that's certainly been the case with us all of our kids have married christian spouses all their kids you know are christians and go to christian schools and and churches and whatnot and uh so it's it's been a true blessing for not only me but my wife to see that we've been able to you know not only impact our own lives but impact our kids and our grandkids lives and i would go to the chapel services when i was managing i felt that it was important for me to set that example for the guys on my team i didn't want them to think that you know here i am claiming to be a christian and i never showed up at the chapel service so i made sure whether it was on the road or at home you know and i made my office available for chapel services or you know i cleared everybody out of the weight room and we had our chapel service there but i wanted to set that example for the guys on my team because i wanted them to know that i felt that this was a very important part of their lives so there you go yeah i appreciate that and that's one of the things too each year that i coach i pray that the lord will open up an opportunity for me to a b boulder about it and b maybe a new opportunity with it whether it's an extra few speaking engagements or whatever it might be and over the last couple years one of our assistant coaches todd reid he he's a believer as well and he mentioned he's like why don't why don't we ever invite the other team to our baseball chapel like there's nothing that against the rules that says you can't have a bible study gathered the other team before the game so we actually started doing that during our when we would have baseball chapel at home because on the road for us it's the setup is really hard sometimes we have to do it at the hotel or different things like that but when we're at home we started inviting the other team over and it's been super cool just to share that 15 20 minutes with guys from the other team and it just opens up conversations i know when i was a player and we would have things like that and you're out running in the outfield there's another pitcher that you saw at a baseball chapel type thing and you just start talking and then you have something in common and it's just a great way to connect with people and talk about the lord and talk about things that actually matter you're absolutely right i mean it's great uh it's great to know that uh there are other believers out there that you can connect with it's nice to know that you're playing on the same field with guys that you know believe the same things you do and you have an opportunity like you say that to share or talk with them you know one of the things that i recall when i was playing you know i mentioned that we did not have baseball chapel it had not been established yet in the minor leagues when i was in the minor leagues but when i got to the big leagues it wasn't like we had even though it was major league baseball and you would think they would have uh too much of everything up there but we never really had a a set place to to gather to have our baseball champs so we would either meet in the dugouts when you know they were having some on-field function and it was noisy and whatnot or we would be uh in the manager's office in in boston and in milwaukee i remember the clubhouses were so small there was nowhere to go we would have our chapel services in the shower you know everybody would pull their chair in the shower and we would sit in there and have it so you know you're liable to end up meeting anywhere but it doesn't really matter you know right you're there for a purpose and you you want to be there with your fellow believers and it was it was all good so awesome cool well thanks so much for your time i really appreciate i could keep going on and on but i don't want to eat up more of your time enjoy it thanks yeah much appreciate it's been great getting to know you over the last few years any time josh yeah see you this summer too you know that all right we'll have a pittsburgh shirt waiting for you perfect i appreciate that for joining us on this week's episode of the unparalleled performance podcast and if you enjoyed it please share with those around you we'll see you next week and go dominate your day
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