Jazz Chisholm Marlins Captain and MLB All Star talks his unapologetic approach to baseball, tough journey in the big leagues, relationship with Derek Jeter, life changing moment with Kobe Bryant and why this year's team is the best one

Baseball has long been a game of tradition and unwritten rules that players are afraid to break. That was until this new generation stepped up to the plate and began to change the way players approach the sport. One young superstar is helping lead this charge. Miami Marlins All-Star Jazz Chisholm sat down with Ryan, Channing and Fred to talk about his baseball career so far and discuss what makes him so special. The MLB The Show 23 cover athlete has brought flair and fandom to Florida baseball, and he goes in-depth on what has led him to his current success. Becoming the 7th Bahama-born player in Major League Baseball, Jazz had a long road to the majors. He has always been the youngest player on every team he plays on, and his move to Wichita, Kansas made him as isolated as ever. He was a high school senior at 16 years old and gave The Pivot guys an idea of what type of change it was for a young Jazz. After his minor league move from the Arizona to Miami system, Jazz revealed how difficult his 2020, 2021 and 2022 seasons were for him once he reached the MLB. From his habits to his fashion he butted heads with veteran players, and when his old idol Kobe Bryant passed away, he relied on part-owner Derek Jeter for some moral support. With the new era of the Miami Marlins here, Jazz has a newfound love for the sport on and off the field. The clubhouse is packed with familiar faces and a positive energy, and for the first time he is arriving to Spring Training early and staying late. The music and anime lover may still have his downtime, but the team’s camaraderie has broken his independence. As his grandmother is still a Bahama softball legend and a family of 20 comes to many of his games, Jazz is loosening up on the diamond. The Jordan Brand athlete knows a thing or two about how to look the part, but the ice-cold chains and stylish kicks are being worn by one of the hottest players in the game today. When the Marlins needed a leader, they looked to the Bahamian, and Miami will be glad with the MVP-caliber player they chose to rally behind. New episodes drop on Tuesdays at 12 p.m. ET and Fridays at 3:30 p.m ET on YouTube, with audio available on all streaming platforms including Apple, Spotify and Amazon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest, or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior light beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 0:30Channing Crowder?

  Yo, what up, brother? I'm Mike. I'm Mike. That motherfucker worked for years now. He good, man. Chill, man. Yes, sir.

• 0:37Fred Taylor?

  What up with you, dog?

• 0:37Channing Crowder?

  What's up, man? It's a pleasure, man.

• 0:39Fred Taylor?

  What's good, man?

• 0:39Channing Crowder?

  Good to meet you, boy. What's up with respect? That's right. That's right. How y'all doing? Man, a little too slow for me. I go fishing. I don't even get on the island. I just ride around and catch fish and come on back home.

• 0:49Fred Taylor?

  Yeah, you gotta do your thing, man. You gotta know where to go, know who to see, who to talk to.

• 0:52Channing Crowder?

  It ain't so many people to see.

• 0:55Fred Taylor?

  You gotta know the right people.

• 0:56Channing Crowder?

  So her yesterday, him yesterday, them yesterday. I can gamble in Hard Rock. Shit, I don't need to go over there. I can play with that Hard Rock. I don't need to be hit the island no more.

• 1:05Fred Taylor?

  Nah, the island gonna do it. But you go over there for those reasons, right? You take the family, you got the resorts, you know? You got, um, uh, obviously Atlantis. And then you got the newer one.

• 1:16Channing Crowder?

  Bahama.

• 1:17Fred Taylor?

  Bahama. So I mean, you can break away and then you go to Fish Fry, eat.

• 1:21Channing Crowder?

  He knows his thing. He got it down. Bring the TV over there.

• 1:25Fred Taylor?

  Nah, nah. I tried to tell him in the bathroom, I'm actually, uh, I'm Bahamian.

• 1:29Channing Crowder?

  You are? Bro, why you trying to relate with this man? You're not Bahamian.

• 1:33Fred Taylor?

  My people, we all from Long Island.

• 1:35Channing Crowder?

  Okay, what's the last name?

• 1:37Fred Taylor?

  Uh, Knowles.

• 1:38Channing Crowder?

  Oh, for sure. Yeah, he been here. Well, next to, hey. Bro, don't do it. Bro, that's like, that's like. He's from Belgrade, Florida.

• 1:43Fred Taylor?

  That's where I'm from.

• 1:45Channing Crowder?

  That's, that's where he's from. His people are from Holland.

• 1:47Fred Taylor?

  Oh, my dad?

• 1:48Channing Crowder?

  That's just like Beyonce. Beyonce Knowles.

• 1:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, she a Knos too. She from Long Island.

• 1:54Ryan Clark?

  Really?

• 1:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, her people are from Long Island.

• 1:55Fred Taylor?

  When you ask where her people-

• 1:56Ryan Clark?

  You're related to Beyonce?

• 1:58Fred Taylor?

  Don't start that shit, brother.

• 1:59Speaker 03

  He might be though. He might be.

• 1:59Fred Taylor?

  Listen, listen.

• 2:01Speaker 03

  He might be.

• 2:02Fred Taylor?

  I don't even wanna put this on camera, bro. It don't make no sense. Nah, nah, nah, listen.

• 2:09Ryan Clark?

  We bout to get tickets.

• 2:11Fred Taylor?

  It ain't no tickets, but this is the thing. Like, so you get to a point, right? You, all of us have made it to the league. And we've all gotten to the height of our respective sports or whatever. And we, we, we've met people that come along later and what they say. "I'm your cousin. I'm related to you." I could never do that with Beyonce.

• 2:29Speaker 03

  She is.

• 2:29Fred Taylor?

  Although, no, no, real talk. Although, my dad, uh, her dad, Matthew. And when you go back and look at the origin of the family. Go back to Long Island and look at, look up the history of the Knos. And you'll see, she's even come, uh, she's even done stuff where she's tried to go back and find her roots. Somewhere down the line, and I, again, I don't like to even say it. My dad has said it. Matthew has said it. They're cousins.

• 2:57Speaker 03

  Hey.

• 2:57Fred Taylor?

  My dad and Matthew, they're cousins. If we go 23 and me, Beyonce bout to pop up in your shit.

• 3:03Speaker 03

  Nah, he crazy. It could though. That's the crazy part, bro. It's really crazy.

• 3:07Fred Taylor?

  But these guys, see man, this what it takes for the merry time.

• 3:10Speaker 03

  I'm related to the Knos too.

• 3:12Fred Taylor?

  Oh, for sure?

• 3:12Speaker 03

  From Long Island, so like, that's why I know.

• 3:14Fred Taylor?

  See, so we gotta do some research and figure it out.

• 3:16Speaker 03

  So you never know. It's crazy, brother. Bahamas is too small, bro.

• 3:44Ryan Clark?

  Well, Jazz, welcome to the show, man. Shoot, I mean, I DM'd you a while back, you know what I'm saying? I started you real step. You know what I mean? I just saw the flair for the game, and I think it's a lot of what baseball is, is missing. And so we appreciate you sitting down with us, especially during spring training. This is Chan, Freddie T, I'm RC. Welcome to the Pivot. MLB The Show, cover athlete, an All-Star.

• 4:11Ryan Clark?

  The seventh Bahamian to make it to the major leagues. And you have a different story. And you know, because only being the seventh says a lot, right? So it says that you don't get an opportunity to really see people from where you from become big leaguers, become all-stars, become a Hall of Famer as you said you wanted to do. But you have a different, I guess I'll call it diamond idol from the Bahamas. You had a Bahamian national player in the family, but it might not necessarily be the gender or who people would think. Tell me a little bit about your first idol.

• 4:55Speaker 03

  Man, my first idol is my grandma, for sure. She was definitely the one that got me to the field. She would take all of her grandkids out to the field every Saturday, Sunday and Friday. Watch her play slow pitch when like the Nationals weren't going on. You know what I mean? So like it would be our time to have fun with our grandma. We'd all go in like a group of 20, line up, walking down the street through the hood to go to the softball field. And like everybody would be like, oh, there's Pat and her tribe. You know what I mean? Like, because like literally 20 kids walking behind this old lady. She was like 50 at the time, but like she was still playing softball, going out there, making diving plays, stealing bags and doing all that. So like, if you were to talk to anybody in my family, they'd still tell you she's a superhero.

• 5:37Speaker 03

  Because like she been, she stopped playing softball at like 60 years old. So it's like, like nobody we know. Or like my mom, she used to play softball in high school. She ran track and field and she stopped at 20. So I was like, but that's not a normal thing for my grandma to be 60 years old and still playing the game that she loves. And she's really out there like having fun, smiling, like sliding around the place at 50. So I mean, like it made me really fall in love with the game. You know what I mean? Like just seeing her.

• 6:05Channing Crowder?

  And bro, that pass, like you said, the seventh from the island, the seventh person, like that's not a lot of people. What's the pass like getting there? Like why, why are you the only the seventh? Like how hard is it to come from that island? I don't know the numbers or whatever and become that man and be it, you know what I'm saying? On the cover of the damn video game?

• 6:22Speaker 03

  For me, it was just like, honestly, me and one of my best friends growing up, Lucius Fox, who was number eight. Uh, he, we always had a goal from when we were a kid, man. Like, coming up through the Little League, like, he came in Little League at like eight years old, but I was playing softball with my grandma, but we both like joined the Little League at the same time, that same Little League, and we were always like, so our Little League had like draft picks. Like you were getting drafted when you would move up to a different Little League, and me and him would always move together, and we would always be the one and two picks. And our teams would always play in the championship. We would always be like one or two MVP for the season, and it would just been like that our whole life. When I was like twelve, we went to Little League World Series, and we won the Little League World Series.

• 7:05Speaker 03

  And we both got scholarships to go to high school in America at that time, right? My dad lived in Orlando, my uncles all lived in West Palm Beach, and basically, my whole family's in Florida, except me and my grandparents that I live, I lived with my grandparents at the time. My dad's like, probably just finished college like three years ago before I'm like twelve, thirteen years old. I mean, for me, I'm like, okay, I'm about to go, I got a scholarship, like, I'm about to go move to Orlando, live with my sisters, live with my dad. Like, I've been waiting on this opportunity my whole life. I get a call, uh, you're going to Wichita, Kansas. And I'm like, what the hell is going, bro, I was so mad.

• 7:48Speaker 03

  Like, to this day, I still think of that and get mad. Like, it don't matter, it's like, it's something that I can never get over. Because why are you sending me somewhere that baseball isn't even a thing? You're sending me to a school where they're top five in the state for basketball, because the whole team is European. And then, I'm gonna play basketball too, because I played basketball in high school. Our football team is brand new, but our college coach is a, uh, our head coach was like, top, like, old, he got hurt in college, but he was like a number one guy when he first got to college. So like, they're expecting me to play football. Baseball team's straight trash.

• 8:31Speaker 03

  That what they needed too? No, like, straight trash. Like, we had Dominican, like, we, they started recruiting Dominicans, Venezuelans, but then we were a private school. And we're in Wichita, Kansas. So like, all the public 6A schools and 5A schools don't want to play a private school because their rankings are gonna drop crazy if they lose. Right. So like, and that's when max preps was the thing, you know what I mean? Like, when you go after, like, a football game, you check, see how many tackles you got in the game and stuff like that, like, max prep. So like, that's what it was. Kansas was not doing it for baseball, bro, like. I called my parents, I even called my grandparents and I was like, "Bro, I hate y'all for this decision right now." Like, that was like, the num, first thing I said on the call, because my, my cousin got drafted out of the same school that I was supposed to go to in Florida.

• 9:16Speaker 03

  So I was so mad, because I'm like, "Bro, what are we doing?" Like, everybody knows this is, all I want to do is play baseball. So like, I don't even want to go to school for real, like, I'm from the islands, bro, like, it's baseball or nothing at this point. Like, I'm 16 years old as a senior, they already telling me I can't get drafted because I'm 16 years old in the United States draft. I got offers because I played summer ball, you know what I mean? Like, I got college offers, D1 college offers, but I'm not even looking at those offers. Like, I signed to commit it, but like, you know what I mean, like, that's not even in my mind. Everybody used to tell me like, "Oh, what if you get hurt, this and this, what is your back?" So I was like, "Bro, I probably ain't gonna get hurt until I get to the big leagues, I'll tell y'all that right now." That was always my thing, I'd tell everybody that from when I was a kid.

• 9:59Speaker 03

  Like, it's nothing stopping me from getting to where I want to go, you know what I mean? So like, especially like, through that going through Kansas thing, like, I think I hated my dad, my grandparents, my pa- Bro, I think I hated everybody that didn't, like, want me to be in Orlando, I hated all of them. But was it a good decision though? No, it was not. It had to be, you, you are, it's who you are now, like, without Kansas, are you saying? Still, to me, I, I, yes, without Kansas, I'm further than I'm right now, I think so.

• 10:25Ryan Clark?

  What about Kansas made it such a bad experience outside of not being with your family? Like, obviously, as talented as you are, your destination was your destination. But what was it about Kansas that still has you upset?

• 10:40Speaker 03

  It's just because, like, for me, if I didn't go to Kansas, I could have been a first-rounder, like, easily. Like, I could have got paid millions out of high school, bro, like, the talent that I have right now- I just really learned baseball when I got to the big leagues. If you looked at me playing the minor leagues, it was pure talent. Like, I could tell everybody that right now. In the minor leagues, I did not learn baseball for real. Like, in the minor leagues, when I was trying to learn how to be a baseball player, a professional at it. You know what I mean? Like, it wasn't me learning how to play baseball for real. Like, I got to the big leagues, and now I know about baseball for real. Like, I know to go in there and like, if this guy got me out on this pitch again, he's gonna try me again. Like, in the minor leagues, I wasn't thinking about that. In the minor leagues, I'm going up there and I'm saying, I'm gonna whack everybody that I see because,

• 11:24Speaker 03

  no matter, I'm the youngest on the field, ain't nobody gonna tell me nothing. Like, that was me as a kid. Like, I'm 18 years old, everybody in the league's 21, like, that I'm playing in. I get, I'm 20 years old, everybody in the league that I'm playing at 28, 29. I get to the big leagues at 21, 22, everybody's 33, 32. Right. Like, you know what I mean? So like, in my head, like, it's just like, even through high school, I was a senior at 16. I was playing 18U when I was 15, 16 years old. If I'm in Florida doing that, I got a lot more looks. Like, and the only reason I got some looks is because I played FTV in Florida. Okay. And that's when I forced my parents to do that, when I was 16 years old, my last year of high school.

• 12:03Fred Taylor?

  For me, I'm a firm believer in, you know, being where God wants you. You know, where he puts you, and he puts you in those places for a reason. Even going back, when you said, uh, Ms. Pat and her crew going up to the hill to grind, and honing your skills, starting there, going through Kansas, this is a necessary part of your journey and your story. I think without that, I also looked up, you are a part of the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp, uh, and I wanted to ask you about your time in Jacksonville. But, um, you were the first Bahamian to make the All-Star game. And here you are saying, look, you're just learning how to play the game.

• 12:41Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:41Fred Taylor?

  You know, so I think those are huge words. How did it feel when you became the first Bahamian, uh, professional player to make All-Star?

• 12:50Speaker 03

  I mean, it felt great. I mean, like, I already had all my goals from a kid, like, from I was a kid, I was writing goals on the whiteboard or on my walls that said like, I want to be a Hall of Famer, I want to be an All-Star, I want to win MVPs, I want to win Gold Gloves, I want to win Silver Sluggers, I want to win every, every single award that there is to win at what I can do, is what I want to win. I want to be the best at it. I don't want to just be a normal player. And that's like, where I was coming up in like, when I was in Kansas, it was like, I was the youngest on the field, but still the best player by far. No competition anywhere in Kansas. You know what I mean? Like, we were private school, so it was just like, for me, it was like, I'd go and face another private school where

• 13:34Speaker 03

  the parents are paying for their kids to be playing, you know what I mean? Like, the guy's throwing 70 miles per hour, I go play summer ball, the guy's throwing 90 miles per hour, and it's like, okay, that's a little bit more competition, but like, me at 16 years old, I was hitting 90, guys that threw 90 miles per hour, like, it was normal. Like, even though I didn't have that practice. And that's what I'm trying to say, like, for me, if I went anywhere else, I would have been a better baseball player, I would have known about baseball more, I would have actually, like, I wouldn't say my grind would have been better, I would say like, for me, it would have been like, I would have worked on better things, like, I would have been better at the game, I would have been more advanced than I am right now. I didn't start getting hurt until I got to the big leagues and started really learning about baseball and learning like,

• 14:17Speaker 03

  okay, you play 140 to 162 games a year. Yeah. Well, your body's gonna feel like this if you do this. Like, in the minor leagues, I wasn't thinking about that. In the minor leagues, I was waking up every day, just going to the field and just hitting homers, like, that's what it was. It was no thinking about nothing, just gonna go play baseball.

• 14:34Ryan Clark?

  You have UFO chains, alien chains, all of these different things. Uh, we make fun of Channing. Channing wears every shirt anybody ever sends him.

• 14:43Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 14:44Speaker 03

  Me too.

• 14:44Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, like-

• 14:45Channing Crowder?

  Oh yeah, free shit?

• 14:46Ryan Clark?

  Free. Yeah, right, so-

• 14:47Speaker 03

  Walmart.

• 14:48Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, so, yeah, yeah, so he'll pop up with like anime, and then we'll ask him an anime question, and he doesn't know anything.

• 14:54Speaker 03

  Oh, nevermind.

• 14:55Ryan Clark?

  Naruto. I want to ask you- Naruto. Who do that? Naruto. So I want to ask you about, I want to ask you about One Piece, though.

• 15:01Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 15:02Ryan Clark?

  Right, so, Monkey D. Luffy, right? Straw hat, I think it's-

• 15:06Speaker 03

  Straw hat.

• 15:06Ryan Clark?

  Right? Every time I talk to people who love anime or manga or those things, they always tell me there's a deeper meaning to every story. I've heard that that's one of your favorite characters. What is it about that character that resonates with you as a young man? Who is, like you said, just finding yourself athletically now? But also, I guess that has to be as a person too.

• 15:30Speaker 03

  It's so crazy because the anime is still getting like bringing out episodes to this day. They got like over a thousand two hundred episodes, right? So like for me, like that and Naruto, like you was talking about, your favorite thing to do. Right, so like they bring it into my story so much because like as a kid coming up, like even when I was the best, I was still chosen last. Like because I was always the outsider of the group, you know what I mean? Like I was never the guy that hang hung out with everybody. I was never that guy. I was really the guy that went home and watched anime, play video games. I got twenty cousins at the house, like we're gonna go and ride bikes down the street and play softball in the yard, play basketball, football. We we have each other, right? So I was never out with my friends, you know?

• 16:14Speaker 03

  I never had like school friends until like I was like a little bit older, ten, twelve years old, right? So for me and Naruto, Naruto starts off his story as everybody hates him. Everybody hates him for who he is, right? He didn't do anything wrong. He was just born into it, you know what I mean? And like that's how I felt as a kid, like coming up, nobody loved me. I was just good at what I did, you know what I mean? I was just a really good baseball player, so everybody had to respect that. But nobody liked me, like nobody wanted to be around me, nobody wanted to really hang with me. Then, as I grew up at twelve years old, I started to really embrace myself, right? Like I didn't care what other people said, like it wasn't like I wouldn't hide that I watched anime or this and stuff because like when I was growing up, anime wasn't cool.

• 16:58Speaker 03

  Like, you know what I mean? Like I was watching anime when your parents were telling you like, "Hey, go to bed." Like you can't go use the laptop at eight years old when I was eight. You know what I mean? Like you had to go to bed to go to school the next day. So like for me, I was watched watching up Adult Swim and they sneak an anime on the TV. You know, Adult Swim got anime on the TV. So I'm watching anime at two o'clock in the morning as an eight-year-old, just like locked in because like I'm feeling like I'm watching my life story. And like even to this day, every episode that comes out, it feels even more and more and more like me. Like it's so crazy because now I'll go to One Piece, One Piece, Monkey D. Luffy. He's a kid, his dream was always to be the king of the Pirates, right? But it always, it's like a deeper meaning into my life. My dream is always to be a Hall of Famer, alright?

• 17:43Speaker 03

  But before he can become the king of the Pirates, he has to go through all these obstacles, right? All these obstacles, he's getting new friends, his friends are trusting him as a leader and all this stuff like, me through the minor leagues, I was the youngest on my team by four or five years every year, three, four years. But everybody still look at me as the leader. Just like Monkey D. Luffy, he's the youngest on his ship, but he's the captain of the ship. You know what I mean? Everybody looks at him like, oh, stuff's about to go down, where's Luffy? We need Luffy to save the day. That's how it was for me when I became a professional baseball player, high school. Playing any sport I played, I was always the captain. So like, even though I was the youngest, the coach always trusted me to be like, this is your team.

• 18:26Speaker 03

  Even when I got up to the big leagues, like, we had a team captain, but when it was time to get things done, it's still like, hey Jazz, we need you to step up, you know what I mean? So like, now, I'm in the big leagues and now I'm starting to hone my skills in which like, now like, this is where like episode a thousand comes in, right? Episode a thousand comes in, I'm in the big leagues. They just dropped episode a thousand when I got to the big leagues. Like literally that month, right? I'm watching episode a thousand, I just got to the big leagues and I'm like, bro, I'm just understanding baseball, just like how this man is just understanding this life of being a pirate. And how he has to move and how he has to control his teammates or his pirate crew to become the king of the Pirates. Right?

• 19:08Speaker 03

  Now we, to today, he's, he's unlocked his ability, right? His full, full potential. Isn't today, I feel like,

• 19:18Speaker 03

  I'm at that point, I've been in the league for five years now, I'm only twenty-six years old. You know what I mean, I'm still young, but now I'm, I'm at that point to where I'm here.

• 19:27Channing Crowder?

  Bro, I don't know who Monkey T. Luffy is.

• 19:30Speaker 03

  Monkey D.

• 19:32Channing Crowder?

  Oh, Monkey D. Loopy?

• 19:33Speaker 03

  Monkey D. Loopy.

• 19:34Channing Crowder?

  I don't know who that is, but just hearing it, bruh, it's two words.

• 19:38Speaker 03

  It's deep, though.

• 19:39Channing Crowder?

  I know about anime, but it's just hearing you talk and hearing you. There's two words that I think people misconstrue as arrogance and confidence. Some people call, a lot of people call you arrogant.

• 19:51Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, I know.

• 19:53Channing Crowder?

  Is it confidence or arrogance? Or how do you, how do you look at that? Because I'm here in South Florida, bro. We talk about you all the time. You get the front, you get the goddamn, it may be the show cover. And it even cranked it up more. Like, is it arrogance or cockiness?

• 20:06Speaker 03

  To be a good, good baseball player, you gotta be some type of arrogant. You have to be like, it's not like arrogant towards anybody else. It's really arrogant towards the game. Like, you gotta be able to tell the game, like, bro, I do this. Like, especially if you're a brother like me, like, me and my boys, how we grew up? If you ain't telling yourself, you good at this, bro, you the worst person on the field. Like, that's how we grew up. Like, if you didn't have that, my grandma even told me that. If you don't think you're the best, you're not gonna be the best. That's why my grandma texts me every day, hey, you the best, don't forget that. Like, even when I'm going down, my teammates tap me on the shoulder, bro, you the best player here. Don't forget that. Alright, time to stand up, let's get it going.

• 20:47Speaker 03

  Like, it's not really like arrogance, it's just like, bro, if you don't speak it into the future, and I feel like words have so much power. If you don't, if you're not gonna speak that you're gonna be the best player ever, or that year, or that day, or every day that you wake up, you're not gonna be the best player every day that you wake up. That's me. So, if you gonna ask me a question about something that I could do, I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna be the best at it. I'm gonna beat you at it and everybody else at it. Because that's how I feel, and that's what I'm gonna try to do, you know?

• 21:13Fred Taylor?

  What I, I was taught, uh, when I was going through my stuff in my career when I was injured, uh, the team went and got a sports psychiatrist, and we ended up becoming, I rebelled against it. I'm like, I don't need this guy. But then we became really good friends, like best of friends. And he taught me, uh, in every, uh, negative situation, you wanna try to find a positive. You wanna try to get back to neutral, right? And I, I'm sitting here thinking how much you say you hated Kansas, and you hated Kansas, and then after Channing asked you that question, because I wanted to ask you to, to point out one positive thing from your Kansas experience. But after talking, hearing Channing ask you the question, I'm like... That confidence, you know, that slight arrogance, knowing you were the best on the field.

• 21:58Fred Taylor?

  You know, that's the one thing I believe you, you know, would take from that situation because it's who you are now. It's teaching you how to fight through your adversity, through your injuries and everything else that you're going through where you still have the time and belief in yourself to say, I'm still the best. In spite of all of this that I'm going through, I am still the best. I got time to go and prove that to everybody because I still have goals. I think you should embrace your time in Kansas, you know, and not fight it because it's it's part of you. You can't run from it.

• 22:30Ryan Clark?

  It's for sure a part of you. Something stuck out to me, though, talking about the confidence and the arrogance and always being young.

• 22:40Ryan Clark?

  How receptive were veterans to that confidence, to the way that you played? How many times did you feel like, man, I might need to dull this light a little bit to fit in? Because it's hard saying I was always the outsider. I was always the guy that didn't fit in. And now you come in and you are more talented than other people at a very young age, even being raw. And I know sometimes like you might get that veteran that embraces you, but we all been in the locker room with the vet that hates, with the vet that wishes he had that talent. How many times have you had to deal with that coming up through the minors and the big leagues?

• 23:19Speaker 03

  If I could tell you, I hated my first three seasons in the big leagues, you would think I lied because of the way that I went out and did everything and stayed professional. But I hated 2020, I hated 2021, I hated 2022, all three of those seasons. Why? Just because of what you just said. Just like you said, you had vets that hate what you do and who you are. I had that from day one of in the big leagues for three straight seasons, from day one to year three.

• 23:50Ryan Clark?

  What are some of the things that they would tell you? Or what are some of the things they would do that made you feel like you needed to be that way?

• 24:00Speaker 03

  Well, it would just be like, I had, so let's say it like this, my first year in the big leagues, right? I get to the locker room, I got twenty pairs of cleats. Everybody know I'm a big shoe guy, I got about twenty pairs of cleats, seven to eight pairs of just shoes to go and practice in, and I got like a hundred pairs of batting gloves, all custom. Everything is custom, nothing is normal, nothing is white, nothing is black. Everything has color, right?

• 24:25Speaker 03

  I think like, within the first week, someone cut up, one of my vets cut up my cleats,

• 24:32Speaker 03

  poured milk in my cleats and threw them in the trash and said, "Those shoes are ugly, bro, get some new ones."

• 24:38Speaker 03

  I definitely, I don't wanna say what I did on camera, but yeah, I mean, I definitely, I was not the rookie that took that easy. I definitely went and threw his whole locker in the trash. I did it, that's me. Like, you're not gonna come over here and mess with the things that I worked hard to design myself. It's not like I went and let somebody else go and paint this and draw this, I did that in my, like, I'm an artist out of my heart, like, I love to make music, I love to draw stuff, I do all that stuff myself. So like, when you go and destroy the things that I worked hard to do, like, I ain't got the money like you, bro, I just got here a day ago, like, a week ago, like, you've been making millions for about,

• 25:20Speaker 03

  you're, this is your eighth year in the big leagues and you're worried about me, we don't even play the same position.

• 25:24Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 25:24Speaker 03

  Your friend and I play the same position, but we don't.

• 25:27Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 25:27Speaker 03

  So don't get it, let your friend come. If your friend has a problem, let him come, like, I don't have a problem talking to him too. You know what I mean, like, I know I'm not the quiet kid on the field, but in the clubhouse, bro, I literally never talked to nobody until 2023. You could ask any of my teammates.

• 25:44Ryan Clark?

  How lonely is that though, bro, like, you, you know, you come over to the States and it's like, okay, right away, I'm in Wichita, I'm not in Orlando with my people.

• 25:54Speaker 03

  Right.

• 25:54Ryan Clark?

  And then, from there, you're coming up through the minor leagues, trying to find your way, like you said, and just trying to learn baseball. And then you get to what should be the peak, right, the pinnacle, like, I've worked this hard from when, from when Grammy Pat told me I could be this, and I told her that I was gonna be in the big leagues, I told her I was gonna be an All-Star. I finally get it. And now that I get it, people are showing me that who I am. Isn't something they're going to accept. And to say that that was that way for three years? A dude that's from a big family who had cousins to always be with? How difficult was that to deal with?

• 26:33Speaker 03

  Bruh, I'm telling you, like, it was literally like my first three years in the big leagues were the worst three years of probably my life. I tell you that, like, 2020 to 2022, like, outside of baseball was great. But like, playing baseball, which that was the thing that really I loved doing more than anything else, was the worst. Like, I got to where I wanted to get to at that point, not to the level of it yet, but like, I got to the big leagues and I hate it. You know what I mean? Like, this is crazy. Like, I hate being around these guys. I wanna, this is what I wanted to be around, but now I don't. Like, I just gotta come here and do my thing every day and then hopefully I just keep on doing my thing to stay around. Because if I mess up one time, these guys are trying to get me out of here anyway.

• 27:17Speaker 03

  You know what I mean? Like, our team captain trying to get me out of here. Or, like, my team captain coming to me, "Bro, you're the best on the team, bro. Keep on going, bro. You're gonna be great, da-da-da. You're gonna lead us one day." But then the next two seconds, he's in the coach's, the manager's office, telling the manager something.

• 27:34Ryan Clark?

  Damn.

• 27:35Speaker 03

  And then the manager coming and telling me, "Well, this is what your team captain said." Because our manager doesn't play that. He didn't play that BS garbage. Like, he, the last year that I got through all that stuff, like, he literally, we had a team meeting and he shut it all down. It's like, just leave him alone. Because he don't do nothing to none of y'all. I watched this kid all day. He comes to the field, he doesn't even practice. Like, that's the thing. Like, bro, my first three years of the big leagues, I didn't even practice.

• 27:59Ryan Clark?

  Why didn't you practice?

• 28:00Speaker 03

  What do you mean? I didn't, the guy, bro, I'm not there for, like, I'm not gonna be around you guys, bro. Like, I don't like y'all like that. Y'all don't like me, I don't like y'all, bro. When you saw me at the baseball field from 2020 to 2022, you'd only see me from 2:00, 2:00 PM to 3:00, 3:10. And if you get, nobody's allowed to even be at the field at that time. So you wouldn't even see me. You understand what I'm saying?

• 28:23Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, I know exactly.

• 28:24Speaker 03

  I work early.

• 28:26Channing Crowder?

  So you don't have to be around them.

• 28:27Speaker 03

  Regular team schedule practice was at 3:45 to 5:00. The game's at 6:40. The game's at 6:40. You see me at 2 to 3.

• 28:39Speaker 03

  You'll, I'll go after 2 to 3 o'clock. I'm sleeping the whole day until the game starts. Literally, you could ask any of my teammates. 2022 season, 2021 season, 2020 season. Never saw my face. No fan even saw me outside of there. They only saw me when I came out to come and play and I'd sign autographs after every game.

• 29:00Channing Crowder?

  Well, isn't that your, but that's your job to figure it out, ain't it? As a young dude.

• 29:04Speaker 03

  What you mean?

• 29:05Channing Crowder?

  To figure out how to deal with the vets.

• 29:06Speaker 03

  But when you try to figure it out for three years, what you want me to do? I'm gonna go and do my thing now. I'm a, I'm an all-star. I'm the all-star of the team. You know what I mean? Like, I'm, I made the all-star team. I figured it out. I figured out to go put on my headphones, work on my craft by myself. I'm not asking them no questions. Because when I ask them, anything I do, anything I say will be used or said against me in court. You know what I mean? My dog felt like he was getting invested at work. You feel me? You feel me? So when I work, I call the coach every night before the, before the night ends. Hey, what time we coming in tomorrow? Oh, you gonna be there at 2? Me too. I'm gonna see you at 2.

• 29:49Speaker 03

  That was me. I got my stuff in.

• 29:50Channing Crowder?

  For years.

• 29:51Speaker 03

  For three years. And then we got a new manager. Who switched the whole thing up.

• 29:57Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 29:58Speaker 03

  Like, he changed the whole culture, bro. He literally came in there and said, bro, we're not doing this.

• 30:03Channing Crowder?

  You talking my skill?

• 30:03Speaker 03

  Yeah. He literally came in there and said, bro, we're not doing this. That's not what this is. We gonna get to the playoffs. We gonna win. And this is how we gonna do it. If you don't wanna do like this, we're not doing it. And he got rid of everybody who didn't wanna do it like that. And that's how it's supposed to be. Like, you ain't supposed to have a vet that's trying to bring down the rookies, bro. Like, I was that guy that got in trouble so much because when I saw other rookies getting brought down by the vets, I was the one fighting the vets. That was the problem. Like, I was already a team leader without being called the team leader. But the vets, you can't be a team leader when you got guys in the clubhouse that's been in there for nine, 10 years. Even though they suck, they've been there for nine, 10 years.

• 30:46Speaker 03

  And the team calls them the team captain, but like, they're not a good captain. They're not a good person. You're not even a good athlete at this point. You're just here. And you're bringing down the young guys that are supposed to be good. Bro, like, I watched someone get called up to the big leagues. Supposed to be like, top three prospects on our team, right?

• 31:07Speaker 03

  He gets up there, hits a homer. Like, first or second at bat hits a homer, right? His next at bat, he goes and does the Juan Soto shuffle, right? Like, he's a kid. His favorite player is Juan Soto. He just got to the big leagues. Tell me why, he comes in the dugout after, he walks, get around the base, come in the dugout after, these vets sit on the side of him and start yelling at him saying, "Bro, you're not Juan Soto, bro. You shouldn't be doing that. Juan Soto is an all-star, dah dah dah dah. You can't be doing that." "Bro, what do you mean? He's having fun, bro. We playing a fucking kids' games." Like, that's when I step in and say, "Bro, y'all better back up off this boy, bro. This man is starting, he's playing every day for us. Why are y'all in his face? Y'all don't even play every day." "What's up?

• 31:51Speaker 03

  Like, get off, get off my man, bro. He's supposed to be helping us win when y'all bringing him down." And then after that, 0 for 50, 30-some strikeouts. Dang. You see what happens now? Because these are supposed to be the Spanish leaders, coming and telling this kid that he can't do that.

• 32:08Speaker 03

  When another kid that's the same age as him, that's playing the same game as him, play the same position, almost the same kind of talent, is doing that. How can you come and yell at this kid for doing that? Come on.

• 32:23Speaker 03

  Because you ain't yelling at me. And I'm the one doing the most. I'm Euro stepping. Yeah. Like... We know. But they, but they ain't yelling at me because as soon as they come at me, they already knew me from get, from the get-go. I was like, "Bro, I'm not doing, I'm not doing that. You're not gonna stop me from Euro stepping, I'm gonna have fun. They're gonna stop me from bat flipping. If they wanna hit me by the pitch, cool, I'll get on first base. I'll steal second." Now you gotta stop me from stealing. Yeah, and third, bro. I'm, that's a free base. That's up in my on-base percentage, that's up in my OPS. Like, you're up in my walks, bro. Like, thank you. I appreciate you for helping me out. Because like, what if I wasn't even feeling good that next at bat? Thank you. I'll take that. You telling me that I'm gonna, bro, okay, he throws 96, just don't hit me in the face, that's it.

• 33:06Speaker 03

  Like, all of us has been hit by 100 miles per hour, all of us have been hit by 98, all of that. So like, if I pimp a homerun and someone wants to hit me, now they gotta stop me from scoring again. Now I scored twice in this game. Yeah. What's wrong with me scoring twice? Yeah. You feel me? That's why, like, when I was coming up in the minor leagues, bro, and everybody tell me like, "Oh, you're gonna get hit by a pitch." I was like, "Okay, then we gonna score more and they gonna lose." Like, that's what it is. Like, you hit me by a pitch, I got my big dog right behind me, dawg. Yeah. He gonna wax some stuff, you feel me? So like, when I was coming up, it was really like, I didn't understand the game. Because I'm trying to figure out, like, why is everybody so scared to get hit by a pitch when we already do get hit by a pitch by mistake? Yeah. Like, they already do it. I'm just gonna be on first base, easy now?

• 33:50Speaker 03

  Instead of having to work a walk? And take that big ass lead off.

• 33:55Ryan Clark?

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• 34:08Channing Crowder?

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• 34:25Fred Taylor?

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• 34:38Ryan Clark?

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• 34:51Speaker 05

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• 35:22Fred Taylor?

  You mentioned culture and winning. Now, I want to talk about Hall of Famer, one of the best shortstops ever to play, Derek Jeter. You know, when he, um, his tenure was five years? Five years there, whatever, as a Marlins owner. Former owner said he messed up the ballpark. He kind of killed the culture and the team kind of...

• 35:42Speaker 03

  Jeter said that?

• 35:43Fred Taylor?

  No, former owner, Laurie. He said that about Jeter. In your, your experience, um, how did, how did Jeter do? And how did he influence you as, as a player? And help you deal with all of the stuff that you sort of experienced early on?

• 35:58Speaker 03

  The funny part is, I get traded over to the Marlins 2019, end of 2019, middle of, middle of season 2019. And I get to talk to Jeter and he's like, "You know, I traded for you myself." Like, this trade wouldn't happen unless, unless I was the one to say yes, like, "Bro, I wanted you. You're the only person I wanted." And we had to give up, basically, our second-best pitcher compared to Sandy, which, like, those two are literally on the same, at Cy Youngs and all that stuff, right? So, for me, I was like, "All right." And then 2020 came around and, like I said,

• 36:42Speaker 03

  Kobe was my number-one idol, Kobe Bryant. I go to LA, I go to the Mamba Academy. And this was like, two days before he died. I went to the Mamba Academy and I met him, right? And I, I wanted to ask him some questions, but he said he had to go. And the next day, I go to the Grammy, the Roc Nation Grammy brunch thing. That was cool. And then, like, I'm so excited because the next day, Sunday, I'm supposed to go and talk to Kobe, like, it's like, "Okay, my dream is about to come through. I'm about to meet my idol, about to talk to my idol." The helicopter crash happens, right?

• 37:21Speaker 03

  I called Derek Jeter on the phone crying like I called Derek Jeter and I'm like, bro. I was just supposed to meet Kobe and he just died like. That's my idol. You gotta step up. Exact words to Derek Jeter. That's exactly what I told him because he told me that I'm supposed to be his shortstop of the future. I called him after my idol died and I said, you gotta step up to be my idol. And from that day on, he literally treated me like his son.

• 37:48Ryan Clark?

  Wow.

• 37:49Speaker 03

  Like that day on, I was in his office like, bro, you know, like when your dad is like the coach? And you would get, you know, the coach would definitely push you more than everybody else. So think of it like this. I'm going through all that stuff while he's the owner that I just told you I hated baseball for three years in the big leagues. He's the owner. I'm going through all this stuff. He knows everything that's going on, but he's just telling me to push through it. What do you mean? You gotta listen to the vet. This is what I had to go through. Well, listen, bro, like I'm not trying to go through that. I'm trying to win. These guys ain't helping us win. Well, you gotta push through it. I wouldn't, I couldn't go to the Yankees owner and talk to him. I couldn't do that. Well, Derek, it's a new day and age. Like I'm here to you every day.

• 38:33Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 38:34Speaker 03

  Everything, every time I'm not having a good game or something, I call you. We go and talk. 2022 All-Star. Like me and you, we riding. He definitely did step up when I needed him for sure. But there's a lot of times that we bumped heads like. I don't think you're supposed to have the relationship that we had as owner and player.

• 38:54Ryan Clark?

  Probably not.

• 38:54Speaker 03

  But it was like we bumped heads a lot because we aren't nothing alike. That's the only reason we bumped heads so much because we're completely opposite. He's literally straight down the middle and I'm like this. Like I'm bouncing and I'm going crazy, right? But he's literally like, you gotta do it this way and this is how you're supposed to do it and this and that. And I'm like, bro, I can't do that. That's not the way I do this. Like I can't play baseball that way. I can't live like this. I can't do that. Like this is my type of life. This is how I live life. No, Jaz, you gotta live life like this. This is how you're gonna do it. And this is the only way you're gonna get what you want. And I'm just like, it was like, but then like baseball wise, like, all right, Jaz, you're doing this too much. You gotta make it like, because he's not.

• 39:38Speaker 03

  A mechanical guy, like he's not gonna tell you to do all that. Like he gonna just tell you, "Bro, go hit the ball to right field." I bet I could do that. That's how I grew up, learning how to play baseball. That's how I learned. So like, we, baseball wise, we really was like this. Off the field wise, it was literally like, like father, son, that just couldn't get along. You know what I mean? But it was always like love, you know what I mean? Like, it's never hate, it's always love, and I always felt like, the respect that I have for him is always...

• 40:05Ryan Clark?

  Do you still talk to him now, that he's no longer there?

• 40:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:08Ryan Clark?

  What are some of the conversations like, now that he's not in the building? And you are a different Jazz? In the sense of, you're not that young kid that's trying to learn. It's like, you are the leader, you are the vet, you are the best player that has to get the Marlins to where you and them eventually wanna go.

• 40:30Speaker 03

  For, for him, I wish I had him now.

• 40:34Ryan Clark?

  So you wish you had Derek Jeter now?

• 40:35Speaker 03

  Like, as a person as I am now? Yes, like I'm, I'm grown now, like I'm the leader that he wanted me to be back then. Back then, I wasn't the leader he wanted me to be. Like, back then, I was the one that jumped at everything, you know what I mean? Like, you come at me too frisky, I'm, I'm not gonna just sit there and lay down. Like, I'm a man too, you gonna learn how to talk to me. I've been do, I've been living by myself since I was 12. Like, without parents, without none of that, going through years without seeing my parents. Like, think of that. I really ain't gonna let another man who's only six years older than me talk to me like I'm a child. Like, come on. Like, and we play together, and you don't even play. Like, come on.

• 41:19Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 41:19Speaker 03

  Like, we gonna get this thing right, bro. You could talk, like, if you wanna approach me, approach me the right way. I could talk to anybody. I have no hate, no, like, I have, I love everybody. That's how I am, that's how I grew up. I have no hate. You come to me the right way, I'll always talk to you. Even if we have a problem, you come to me the right way, there's never a problem. You feel me? So, that's what I told everybody from I was a kid. Like, from I was 20 years old, 21 years old, and I stepped in the locker room. Like, my first big league camp, I was 19 years old. And I got kicked out of big league camp. For what? Because I tried to do what the coaches told me to do. And an old vet tried to get rowdy, and I'm not that one, bro.

• 42:01Speaker 03

  Don't talk to me like that because I told him, I said, "Bro, if he would have told you to do that, you would have shut up, right? So don't talk to me like that, bro. Come on, we here.

• 42:10Ryan Clark?

  When, so you go through, you go through all of these things, Jazz, and 2022 does come around and you are named to the All-Star team. At the time, though, you're dealing with a back injury, so I'm sure it could be sort of bittersweet. And then you fast forward that and you're named the cover athlete of MLB The Show. Like, we were football players. Bro, had they called me and told me, one, I was never even close to consideration for being on the cover of Madden. Let me get that straight. Had they called me and even told me, "RC, we'll put your cleat on there," I might have passed out. When you've gone through all of the things you've gone through,

• 42:50Ryan Clark?

  worked to be an All-Star now, worked to the point where you're on the cover of MLB The Show, what was that moment like for you?

• 43:00Speaker 03

  It was, it was really surreal, even though it was more like, you know, when you say something and you got that "I told you so" before you really realize everything's going on? That was what was really going on. Because like, as soon as my agent called me and said, "Bro, you're gonna love me, dog." And I was like, "What you talking about?" It's like, "You're on the cover of MLB The Show." And I was like, "Boy, I did not tell you I was gonna be on that." Because it was like, we went to visit the studio, like, right before the season started, 2022 season started. And I'm in the studio and they're like, "Jazz, you know there's never been an All-Star from the Bahamas?" I was like, "All right, I'm about to go be an All-Star, and if I'm an All-Star, I'm on the cover of the video game." They said, "Bet."

• 43:42Speaker 03

  They said, "You go do that, you go on the cover." Like, literally, I was like, "What?"

• 43:51Speaker 03

  Tell me, like, bro, what you mean? You tell me, this is all I gotta go do? Just be an all-star? That's not even the hard thing to do. Like, the hard thing is to keep playing through it. Like, I could have seen you say, go win an MVP, then come back and talk. But you just said be an all-star? I could go be an all-star. I could go be the best at my position. It's more of being the best in the game. Like, that's really where I think, like, deeper. Because like, when I got called and I was an all-star, I was like, okay, that's an all-star. Like, the next time I talked to them, I was like, I don't even want to be on the cover again until I'm MVP. Like, if I'm not MVP, I don't even want to see myself on that cover again.

• 44:26Channing Crowder?

  And you said best at your position. What is your damn position? Shortstop, second, centerfield.

• 44:32Speaker 03

  Centerfield, alright.

• 44:33Channing Crowder?

  You know what I'm saying? Like, we jumping around. They said you chose...

• 44:37Speaker 03

  To play centerfield.

• 44:37Channing Crowder?

  The story is you chose to play centerfield. Like, that progression. And whoa, you were an all-star second.

• 44:42Speaker 03

  Yeah. So, me and Skip, like I said, the culture has to change, right? Without me going to centerfield, the culture doesn't change. You know what I mean? So, like I said, I go to Skip. Skip, if we need a centerfielder, I'll go play centerfield. Like, I don't have to play second base. I could go and, like, bro, it's baseball. I can go play baseball anywhere. You know what I mean? Like, and still go be one of the best at it. Like, and when I look at, like, I know this is like an arrogant thing or cocky thing to say, but like, when I go look at numbers and everything, like,

• 45:17Speaker 03

  I look at my past numbers. I've never played a full month of June. I've never played a full month of July. And I've barely played a full month of August.

• 45:28Channing Crowder?

  That would be crazy.

• 45:29Speaker 03

  Those are the three months that everybody in baseball in the league gets hot as ever. Like, and May. Like, I've only played half of May. So, like, when I think of it, I've never played in the summer of baseball. Every year, I play March, April, like, the first four or five games of May. Then I get hurt, June, July, come back in the middle of August, and might play September. Like, if we go into the playoffs, I'll play the whole September. If we're not, I wouldn't play at all. So, like, when I look at it, and I hit 20 homers a year just doing that. That's 20 extra homers in three months. Like especially if you look at the average, I hit seven to eight, seven to 10 homers a month.

• 46:14Speaker 03

  That's three months of missing baseball every year.

• 46:16Ryan Clark?

  What's your best position though, in your mind?

• 46:19Speaker 03

  I mean, for me, I could, I'm a shortstop. In my head, I'll forever be a shortstop. I only played second base that year because our team captain was a shortstop. Then I go, my coach said we gotta change the culture. He's coming in, he's coming in to win. We're gonna bring a winning culture, we're gonna get to the playoffs, we're gonna do this. Alright, I'll go play centerfield. Also, I could go do that. And then you look at the numbers.

• 46:41Ryan Clark?

  Y'all picked up Luis after that too.

• 46:44Speaker 03

  Leading in a lot of stuff before I got hurt. Before I got hurt last year playing centerfield, I was leading in homers. I was like third in batting average, leading in slugging percentage, leading in doubles. All this was before I got hurt. So then like, when you get hurt, and that's why they say like your best ability is availability. Cause like, if I don't get hurt, it's best at the position. You know what I mean? And that's why I'm trying to come back and do it again.

• 47:14Ryan Clark?

  You're talking about being the best at position and the accomplishments you've made. You also just went through arbitration. And I believe you lost that arbitration on your birthday. Right, so I own a training facility and I always looked at baseball players like from the big contracts, right? You see the Shohei Otanis and the Mike Trout's. I was like, hell, baseball is all that money. And then they were like, yeah, but you ain't seen me when I was on that bus eating oodles of noodles and peanut butter sandwiches. And all of those things. You know, and so now you get to arbitration and I think it was a few hundred thousands of dollars you guys were going through. Are there ever, or how do you deal with the feelings of losing arbitration?

• 47:59Ryan Clark?

  Based on what you know you have done, right? And what you've accomplished, how do you deal with that? And then now go play and say, I'm still gonna be that team player, Jazz, that goes play center. Cause Skip Schumacher says that's what we need for us to be better.

• 48:14Speaker 03

  See, and that is a good question. Cause like, this is my first time going through that, right? And what I say to myself is like.

• 48:22Speaker 03

  Just listen to the music, bro, like, that's my favorite saying to my head. Cause like, I, I write a lot of songs, I go, I make a lot of songs, right? And I go home, I don't like, this is the first year I've went and have not watched one clip of me playing baseball this whole spring. I haven't, I went home and made songs every time. Or wake up, go home, take a nap, wake up and make a song or something like that, right? For me, it's like, when I'm thinking about that, it's like, I went into that arbitration room thinking like, okay, I did this for them, I did that for them, this and that. But when you go in that arbitration room, the team's not talking. That's not the team talking. Like, they hire someone else to talk, to do that job, you know what I mean?

• 49:07Speaker 03

  Like, cause if the team was to come and talk, they'd be like, well, shoot, he was an all-star, he moved to centerfield for us. Right. Like, you know what I mean, but that's not what they do. They go and hire someone whose job it is to make you lose that arbitration. So like, it's a business and you find out a lot of things in that room, you know what I mean? Like, I was sitting there like, dang, this guy's talking really good about me and he's only saying one bad thing about me. But now that one- What was that bad thing, the injuries? That I keep getting hurt. That's it, like, the one bad thing about arbitration is like, you have to be available to play. So the guy that got paid like a hundred thousand dollars more than me,

• 49:47Speaker 03

  he played like the whole season, the last two seasons. I haven't, I've been hurt the last two seasons. So like, he got his arbitration money, but I didn't get mine. So for me, it's like, I sit in that room because I'm like, I got hurt playing a position that y'all wanted me to play.

• 50:03Speaker 03

  But now, I'm gonna come out this year, I'm not gonna get hurt playing centerfield, especially not on defense. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I'm, I got arbitration again next year. And to be real with you, I would test myself again. Unless they really give me what I asked for, I'd do it again. I, cause I already went through it, you know what I mean? Like, you can't hurt me again. You hurt me the first time, you got, you caught me, cause I didn't think it was like that. But now, I can walk in there and sit up and smile right in everybody's face. And do it again. And not even say, blink once. I swear.

• 50:37Fred Taylor?

  The turf toe surgery you recently had, do you think that contributed to a lot of the back stuff you were going through?

• 50:46Speaker 03

  So my back stuff was the year before the turf toe. So turf toe, I ran into the concrete wall making a play in centerfield at our field at home. So that was another thing that we were at home and that happened too. So it was just like so much that went into it for me is like that happened at our field, me playing a new position for this team. And I still lost my arbitration. All right, cool. That's fine with me. But like nah, it was really that I had a meniscus tear that whole offseason, right? But if I would have got the surgery for the meniscus, I wouldn't have been ready to start the season in 2022. So I held off on that.

• 51:25Fred Taylor?

  And compensated it?

• 51:26Speaker 03

  And I compensated. And then that's when I got the crack in my lower back from playing. And then like when I got the MRI and everything, it was like two weeks into the season, right? But I was already hot, like I was on fire. They called me and they're like, hey, we're gonna, we're gonna sit you down, bro, before your back gets worse or this and that. And I was like, and your knee gets worse? Like, I was like, nah, bro. If anything, y'all, when I stop being able to walk, y'all gonna take me off this field. Cause it was like, bro, it ain't like I'm playing for anybody here. It was, it was like nobody, I'm like, I literally tweeted, that was that year that I tweeted and I pinned AirPod Jazz on my Twitter

• 52:09Speaker 03

  because literally nobody, I only could hear the music. Like literally, I didn't talk to coaches, didn't talk to players, didn't talk to anybody. My best friend on the team was our bat boy. I swear, and he's still one of my closest friends now. Like still our bat boy, travels with us and everything. Still one of my best friends on the team. Like I hang with him outside of field. I wanna go get food. Hey, bro, you wanna go get some food? Like I even, like my jeweler even set him up with a nice chain, everything, bro, like. You know, I'm gonna take care of my people. You know what I mean? Like, if me and you rock together, bro, it's us against the world. And that's why I love my team now. Got Tim, Nick, Arias. These are my boys, boys. Like, we hang out before we were baseball.

• 52:54Speaker 03

  Like, me and Nick, before we were baseball players. Like, I played, like, this was Nick's team in summer ball, and I was the second team to him, to his team, because I was too young, obviously. But like, he was FTP Chandler, and I was FTP DiMarini. Like, you know what I mean? Like, me and Nick, I've known Nick from when I was a kid. So like, TA, one of my idols from, he was playing. And I got to talk to him, like, this past year, year before, even when he was going through all that stuff, I talked to him, bro. Like, he had the OG, Josh Bell, known him for a couple of years, Jonathan. Like, bro, all the boys are here. So now, it's really up. That's why I say, like, you know, I'm young now, so.

• 53:31Ryan Clark?

  There was a dope picture of y'all all that was just posted, just sitting on the grass, like, talking.

• 53:37Speaker 03

  Just talking.

• 53:38Ryan Clark?

  Tim's been on our show.

• 53:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:39Ryan Clark?

  We're huge fans of Tim. And you, you said it, like, when he got here, you was like, man, I'm excited to play with Tim. You know, I love your spirit, right? Like, you said, the young rookie, everybody's getting on him, he's not Juan Soto. And you were like, nah, but he can help us win.

• 53:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:55Ryan Clark?

  Right? Somebody like Tim, who's gone through what he gone through, which is what we were dealing with when he came on the show, and now only signing a one-year deal with the Marlins. You're talking about changing the culture, how you have all these people around that you enjoy being with. How different will that make 2024 for not only you, but for the entire team?

• 54:18Speaker 03

  I mean, I'll tell you the truth, as soon as we walked into the clubhouse this year, after Tim signed, at least, everybody was literally like, bro, like, I was at least saying, this is the first time I actually want to come to the field every day. Every day I wake up, like, you could even ask them, this might be the first spring training I haven't been late. One day, I've actually been like, one of the first people there, every day. Like every day, I'm one of the first people there. Like I'm on time for everything. I'm even telling guys who are late, like, let's go. Like before that, that was never happening. Like, what? You late? Okay. You wouldn't tell me if I was late, so I don't care. Like, that's how it was. You know what I mean? Like, those first three years at least, like, oh, that guy's doing that, I don't really care, like. Because if I was sleeping or anything, nobody would even blink twice.

• 55:03Speaker 03

  They would let me sleep through a whole game. You know what I mean? Like, bro, because it's happened.

• 55:06Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 55:07Speaker 03

  It ain't like this is... I'm telling you, bro, our team captain, when I was younger, came in, saw me sleeping before the game, like an hour before the game, and like he knew we had a team meeting, let me stay there and slept through the team meeting. And the coach came and woke me up 15 minutes before the game. The team captain?

• 55:27Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 55:28Speaker 03

  Come on, bro, how is that a team captain?

• 55:32Speaker 03

  That's not a team captain, bro. So that's why I say now? I know if I'm sleeping, Tim. Hey, bro, come on, brother, we gotta go. Anybody in the clubhouse would do that. Like even up to Sandy, to the Spanish boys, to the white boys, to the black, it don't matter who it is. Our clubhouse now is so together, it's like, bro, we don't even see color in that clubhouse.

• 55:52Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 55:53Speaker 03

  There's not a color in that clubhouse. From the top to the bottom, there's not a color in that clubhouse. And that's why I could come in every day after that arbitration and still be kind of cool.

• 56:01Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 56:02Speaker 03

  Like, I know what I gotta do now against the business, but my boys, we together, bro. Like, it's not them, it's us. You know what I mean? It's the team, not the owners.

• 56:11Channing Crowder?

  My son plays baseball. So like, he can go play for Core Springs on Tuesday, play third, then he'll go play center for Sunrise. And it's like you're saying, you at bat and you play in your position.

• 56:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:21Channing Crowder?

  You know what you're gonna do. Is it really that big a deal in baseball? Because football is camaraderie, it's B-gap, and you know what I'm saying? The gaps and knowing the safety got you over top. But baseball seems like it's such an individual sport. Is it that big to be cool with people like that?

• 56:34Speaker 03

  It's not even an individual sport like that. When you think, I gotta feel the ground ball and throw that ball to the first baseman. If I throw the ball down, and he gotta pick it out of the dirt. If he missed that, that ain't really on him, because it hit the dirt. That's an error on me. So like, think about this, right? My first year... I had twenty, no, I had seventeen errors as a shortstop my first year. My throws, the first baseman was six-three, six-four, right? Two-hundred-and-fifty pounds, big guy. My throws within his, all within his wingspan, right? Even the ones that would hop long, that could easily be like a long hop catch.

• 57:17Speaker 03

  This is my first year, you said the team, this isn't a team sport. Well, if it ain't a team sport and me and him don't like each other, or if he doesn't like me and he let it hit off his glove, that's an error on me. Oh, he can't play defense.

• 57:34Speaker 03

  But his homie come over here and make the same play, oh, he make a spectacular pick on that one.

• 57:41Speaker 03

  You understand? Yeah. Oh, that's way over there, so he's gonna slightly come off the base. His teammate come over there, he catching it in a split. His favorite teammate though, he gonna catch it in a split.

• 57:54Speaker 03

  So when you say it's not a team, it's really a team, especially like, we were in last those years, like, we were in last those years, I was the best player, as the youngest player on the team, rookie, all that stuff, like, it's like, so, so much, like, my numbers could be way better in so much different ways, but like I said, I can't blame that on him. I gotta make a perfect throw. Because if I know me and you ain't got nothing, the only way I could do that, if I throw that straight at you, if you miss that, that's gonna hit you in the lip. And that's what I did the next year. The next year, I made three errors with the same guy playing first base. Three errors, I even had gold glove suggestions and I only played sixty games. At a hundred-and-sixty-two, I had gold glove suggestions in sixty games.

• 58:38Speaker 03

  Cause I made literally every play and I threw the ball, literally if he would miss that, that would've hit him in the lip. Every time, cause that was my thought, that was it. Yeah, there's no other way. I didn't even go and practice though, like, that's what I'm trying, in twenty-twenty-two, I barely even saw the baseball field outside of a game.

• 58:57Speaker 03

  An all-star. An all-star. Yeah. Like you, I know you guys heard about the big scandal of a team meeting and all that stuff in 2022. They got on you and. I hit two grand, I hit two homers that game and a grand slam. And that meeting was like the wildest thing I ever heard as a player.

• 59:15Ryan Clark?

  What was, was the meeting, how was, how was everything pointed at you in that meeting? What, what about that meeting was the wildest thing you ever heard from a personal individual standpoint?

• 59:27Speaker 03

  Because it was like, it was never, like, it was nothing about baseball.

• 59:33Speaker 03

  Like, it was nothing to do with baseball at all. So like, that's what made it so wild to me because like, we're having a whole team meeting with guys that I don't even talk to off the field. So why are we having an off the field team meeting?

• 59:48Speaker 03

  When we play baseball? Like, we don't even hang out off the field. Like, I don't see you guys on the road because I don't leave my room. I play video games all day. I don't see you guys at home because I definitely don't live close to none of you guys. Like, I hang, my cousin, my little brother's with me every day. My little brother go with me everywhere. When I have my, me and my girlfriend were together, like, she lived with me. She went on every trip. Her and my little brother was on every trip with me. Like, I did not need you guys at the time. Like, I, I still didn't need it, but it's just like.

• 1:00:21Ryan Clark?

  What do you think the, the premise of that meeting was? What, what did they want to get out of that meeting?

• 1:00:26Speaker 03

  They wanted to put me in a box and it wasn't happening because I'm not ever going to get put in a box. Like, that's just me. Like, so the thing for me that was the craziest was like, oh, the way he dresses coming to the field. Oh, he wears four chains on the field.

• 1:00:43Speaker 03

  How are you complaining about me wearing four chains when I lead our team in every stat? Oh, he doesn't wear dress shoes on the plane.

• 1:00:52Speaker 03

  We're on a plane, bro.

• 1:00:55Ryan Clark?

  Is that a team rule?

• 1:00:57Speaker 03

  Dress shoes?

• 1:00:58Ryan Clark?

  Is it a team rule?

• 1:00:59Speaker 03

  No, so the, the, the rule is you have to wear nice shoes. No Jordans, no Nikes. But if your Jordans are like, let's say, you know, the ones that don't have like the extra stuff on it, it's just plain white ones. Like not even, the Nike tick isn't even on it. It's just like the dress shoes.

• 1:01:15Ryan Clark?

  Like the golf shoe?

• 1:01:16Speaker 03

  Like the golf looking ones? Those, but they're Jordan, right? He go, they go tell the manager, oh, Jazz is wearing Jordans on the plane. They were right. Snitch? What do you, this is what I'm trying to tell you. And this is why I'm trying to tell you like, when I would like, anything I did, that's why I didn't sit around nobody. I didn't hang around nobody, bro. Like when I went to the field in 2022, take off my shoes, take off my clothes and I'm gone. Like I'm not in the clubhouse.

• 1:01:44Ryan Clark?

  How do you even become an all-star in that atmosphere though, bro? Like I feel, like for me, I feel like it would be hard to perform, one, without throwing hands every day. Right? And then on the other, and then on the other side of it, it's like I'm out here with dudes I know I don't rock with.

• 1:02:03Speaker 03

  Because when you know people don't have your back, bro, and you know you the only one that have your back, bro. It's just like, I felt like I was at that stage of being a kid again when I was just like, nobody want to hang with me but my family, but guess what? I'm the one feeding my family. So at the end of the day, I'm a rock out and my family right there in the crowd. So if I hit a Euro step, I'm not even looking in the dugout. I hit a Euro step, I'm looking in the crowd because that's my little brother right there. You feel me? Like my little brother out here, bro, my cousin out here, my sisters out here. Ain't nobody can tell me nothing. I'm in the big leagues. What you mean? And I start every day, like I literally play every day. So even though y'all hate me, my family love me. These fans out here love me, bro. I don't even do nothing to y'all and y'all hate me.

• 1:02:47Speaker 03

  Y'all just hate me because I'm a good baseball player.

• 1:02:49Ryan Clark?

  But could, do you think, do you think you could, you could have more success if it wasn't that way?

• 1:02:54Speaker 03

  Yes, 100%. I mean, I feel like it would have been, like I said, in 2022, I had one guy on my side. Starling Marte, and he was the best player on our team. But like, it wasn't like he was on my side, he would just be like, he would walk past and he would like see them talking shit, and he would look at me and say, "Fuck them." Like, you know what I mean, like, that's what he would do. Like, he, he ain't talking, like, he ain't going up to them and like, "Bro, what's up? Like, why y'all on my rookie?" Like, that's not what he's doing. He'd just come up to me and be like, "Bro, fuck them." Like, that's what it is. Like, let them talk, you go do your thing. You go, and you say you wanna just listen to your music? Put in your headphones, go do your own thing. I'mma come and watch anime with you, bro. Like, me and Starling Marte, literally, every day. Starling Marte never hit BP on the field either.

• 1:03:39Speaker 03

  Me and him, every practice. All day outside practicing, me and Starling Marte in the nap room watching anime. Literally. He's watching it in Spanish, I'm watching it in English. Come on, like, we, we hanging. And like, he was, me and him, on the plane, the only person that sit close to me. Close, is what I'm saying. Close to me, not next to me. Close. That's crazy, bro.

• 1:04:01Fred Taylor?

  So, the, the, the culture has changed.

• 1:04:04Speaker 03

  A hundred percent.

• 1:04:04Fred Taylor?

  You understand the business.

• 1:04:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:06Fred Taylor?

  You're still fighting through your injuries. How do you reach or maximize your potential to maintain the level of playing as an All-Star, but also potentially get to that Hall of Fame type level you aspire to be?

• 1:04:21Speaker 03

  I feel like, without me meeting Skip Schumacher, that would not have been really possible. Unless I met another man like him, or a manager like him, I don't think that would have been possible, because like, he showed me that in baseball, when you're together, you really are unstoppable. Like, he brought in Luis Arias last year, and he's like, Luis Arias and I was like, literally, sat next to each other, ate, went and got food every day, like, hung out every day, right? That made me feel comfortable, bro, like, and that's what I'm saying, like, even though the numbers don't show that I was the best center fielder last year, if you look at the time right before I got hurt, I was the best center fielder. You know what I mean, like?

• 1:05:07Speaker 03

  The numbers show it. So like for me, it's like dang like I can imagine staying a whole year with my homie Luis and then they brought in Josh Bell and Jonathan Davis and then they brought my homeboy Dane Myers up and Xavier Edwards up like all my guys are here then they traded for my best friend before like they literally traded for my best friend. Everybody in the world in baseball, everything knows that Nick Gordon is my best friend. They traded for my best friend. That's crazy. And then they bring in TA. What? We are up. Like we up on the squad. Cause like now like now it really makes me feel like think about like AAU, right? You go play AAU with your homeboys. What's up? We throwing alleys. We

• 1:05:51Speaker 03

  might throw something off the glass, shooting from half court and we having fun. Like so far in spring training, I haven't felt one game yet. Like by now, my body would be like, alright, we've been playing baseball for two weeks now. Like, oh, like we gotta actually start getting into routine for recovery every day. Even though I already do that, it's like, but I really gotta get on it. Like, bro, I don't even feel it. It's like literally I go to the field every day and I'm like, what's up TA? What's up, brother? You ready to do this? Like make a play on the field? Oh, you feeling comfortable out here, huh? Like we talking shit. Like, but we talking shit to each other. Cause, bro, we love it. We love it, bro. This is how we grew up. This is what we grew up in. We grew up like in all reality, we grew up in the basketball world and football world. Me, TA, Nick, like

• 1:06:36Speaker 03

  Xavier, all these boys. We grew up in the football, basketball world. This is, that's just the reality of it. So like this is how we talk to each other. Oh, you feeling good today, huh? Alright, bet. Let's go get it. Oh, yeah, you can make that. I can do that too. Like, watch me go smack somebody around. Oh, you gonna smack somebody around? Alright, bet. Let's go. Oh, it's my turn to get something. You got something. Like, that's how we are. But like, that's what I had in the minor leagues though. I had some brothers around me in the minor leagues. Like in all reality, like every year it had like seven of us. Like it was crazy. It was really ridiculous. We had seven of us every year when I was coming up and like it made me comfortable, bro. I was in the minor leagues hitting 30 homers a year. Like, it was nothing.

• 1:07:19Speaker 03

  But it was just cuz I had my homies like, oh, you did that? Oh, we gonna do this. Like, you know what I mean? I had that last year.

• 1:07:26Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, but man, that's not, that's not, that's not baseball. That's not the unwritten rules and all that shit. I don't even know what an unwritten rule is, but baseball is the only thing that has unwritten rules. You just said it. You, y'all are playing on a AAU basketball.

• 1:07:39Speaker 03

  Basically.

• 1:07:40Ryan Clark?

  You know, mind frame. But that's not what baseball is. Can baseball change? Cuz baseball was, baseball was that old man's sport.

• 1:07:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, but then it's all these Spanish boys and you bringing in back the brothers are coming back. Like, think about baseball in the 1980s, bro. 1970s, like Eric Davis, Griffey, Bonds, all these guys, like, when I talk to you guys, this is what they used to say they used to play like. For real, cuz that's, it was them. They were out there with all them. So like, it was never a ti, it was never a time to like, when it was just like, oh, like, I don't know what that guy's saying, I don't know, like, what is going on? Like, nah, bro, like, back then, like Griffey was like, bro, I play with my dad, for real, like.

• 1:08:19Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:19Speaker 03

  My dad, his best friend on the side of him. Like, the guys that I used to call uncle when I was coming up, like, bro, I had all them on my team and they calling me nephew, like, oh nephew, what you gonna do? All right, aunt, watch me do this, like, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's like you playing with your family, like, and that's how I feel, like. When I'm at my best, it's like I'm playing with my boys and my family, bro. We gonna talk it, and that's why I said when I got Louis last year, Luis Arias, it was like, bro, I'm playing with my brother, like, cuz he's Spanish, but he just like me, like, he wanna have fun and talk shit and like, you know?

• 1:08:52Ryan Clark?

  But you know, you know, you moving to center field made that possible, though.

• 1:08:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:58Ryan Clark?

  So when you think about how that unselfishness was almost rewarded.

• 1:09:04Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:09:05Ryan Clark?

  Right? You came up in an organization that didn't show that sort of unselfishness. That didn't show that sort of love to the, to the young guy or care for the team. What's made it so easy for you to do that when people ain't show you that side, that sort of kindness?

• 1:09:22Speaker 03

  Because when Skip came in, he already sat me down. As soon as Skip got the job, his first thing he did was hop on a flight to Miami and we went to dinner. Me and Skip went to dinner. And we sat down and he said, he asked me what happened in the last three years of me being here. I sat down and I told him exactly, word for word, like even though I didn't go into a team meeting with you guys. I, we went into all that, right? Deep into all that and we sat down and I was like, that's what was been going on and I feel like it's gotta change. And he said, well, I want you as my team leader and I want you to change the culture in here. And I just was like, if you give me the people to do it with, I can do it.

• 1:10:03Speaker 03

  And he made it happen, like, that's why I said meeting Skip was probably one of the only reasons why I could say that I was being unselfish, cuz then like, in all reality, I was gonna go play shortstop this year. I was, I was, I was gonna be selfish, especially after losing my arbitration. I wanted to be selfish and say, well, since I lost my arbitration, might as well go be myself again and just go be a all-star at shortstop and do what I do and know I won't get hurt here, especially with a fully, like, a full recovered body, no backaches, no kneeaches, no none of that. I can go play a whole 162 at shortstop. But then like, something sat me down and like, in my head and like, thought about how like, I went and played centerfield last year and Louis came in.

• 1:10:48Speaker 03

  And then I looked on the roster and I looked around and I was like, oh, TA is a free agent. And if I go play shortstop, TA will not be a shortstop. Then they traded for Nick. And so, and then I was like, oh, I get to roam the outfield with my best friend too? Who's just as good at it as me? Oh, bet. So now it's Nick, Tim Anderson, you. Now it's TA. Hey, y'all, what y'all think about TA? Let me go on my Twitter right quick. Y'all, TA, let me retweet some TA stuff. Like, come on, like, you know what I mean, like, he, we all, bro. Everybody makes mistakes, right? Everybody goes through things, right? Like me in 2022, 2020, 2022, 2021, 2022.

• 1:11:33Speaker 03

  Nobody knows that I had like a lot of like murders in my family, right? Had a lot of cousins and people got murdered in my family like in 2021, 2022 and 2023. So like for me, it's like I've been dealing with death for the last like four years, right? And my aunt just died like two weeks ago, right? So when I saw what he was going through, I was like, bro. Nobody even realized like that, that especially going through what he's going through, that sits around.

• 1:12:06Ryan Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:12:07Speaker 03

  Like me, at least it's only like a death for me. Like I could, I could really get through that in three weeks. What he's going through, that could hold like, like years. That's hard to do. He needs to be around people that are gonna show him love, especially when he's not getting love from his people that's around him. And I understand that already. You know what I mean? I already went through that dark horse days when ain't nobody around me trying to show me love. Like big leagues as a kid, teenage, it didn't matter. Like we already went through all that. That's why when that rookie was getting yelled at about being Juan Soto? Nah, don't tell him he can't be Juan Soto. Tell him he gonna be better than Juan Soto. Come up with your own shuffle. Say that, like come up with your own thing. Don't say you can't do that. Like, okay, go hit a homerun and shuffle out of the box or something. Like change it.

• 1:12:52Speaker 03

  Dudes, change it or something. Don't tell him like, bro, you're not that good. You can't do this. Like, that's not how we move.

• 1:12:59Ryan Clark?

  I hear so much greatness when you talk and a want to and a will to be great. You mentioned Kobe was your favorite, right? That's my favorite player, basketball player of all time. But I always felt like Kobe was my favorite basketball player because we were around the same age. Like I left high school the year after him, so I, I felt like I related to him. But he was so much like Michael Jordan to me. And I would cry when Michael Jordan would lose to the Pistons. My dad was a Pistons fan. He'd be running behind me talking about bad boys, bad boys. And you know, like I'd be punching the air like Cuba Gooding Jr. on Boys in the Hood. You know what I mean? But you do sign to Jordan, right? There is, they are very selective about the people they partner with.

• 1:13:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:42Ryan Clark?

  Right? You have to have a certain. Talent level, but you also have to have a certain level of charisma. When you sign your name on that line to be a Jordan Brand athlete, was that some sort of confirmation that I'm on the right track of being who I want to be?

• 1:14:03Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. So the dream of mine was always to be a Jordan athlete. But it's not the same reason why what everybody else thinks like it is. Like, I'm not signing to Jordan just because it's Jordan, you know what I mean? Like, I'm signing to Jordan because one year in the Bahamas, he had a, literally, he had a softball tournament, a celebrity softball game, right? That he hosted. He was sneaking out of the back. I was one of them fanboys. I had a picture of Michael Jordan. I wanted him to sign it. I go to him, ask him to sign my picture. He tells me, "Make me make him want my autograph one day," and walks off. Like, just walks off. My stepdad was the umpire at this Jordan event.

• 1:14:45Speaker 03

  Anton Richardson, who was my cousin, he was one of the umpires who was a former big, he was the sixth big leaguer from the Bahamas. And my other coach, Greg Burrows Jr., was the other umpire. It was those three. And Albert Cartwright, those four. Those four, so I could get in. Like, my stepdad, his best friends are umpiring. I'm definitely gonna get into this event. I'm definitely gonna get a signature by Jordan. I got a Jeter signature that day, C.C. Sebastian, Johnny Damon. I got everybody's signature except Jordan. And Jordan tells me, "Make me want your signature one day," and walks off. I don't even know what that means when I was a kid. As a kid, I go home, I'm crying, I'm like, "Bro, Jordan told me that he ain't gonna sign my autograph." Like, this is Michael Jordan we're talking about. Like, I want a Michael Jordan autograph.

• 1:15:29Speaker 03

  I'm wearing the shoes, everything. Like, I'm feeling like I'm cool, you know what I'm saying? So, when that happens, I get the, I still haven't talked to Jordan face to face, yet. I just wanna go and see if he could remember my face. I know he probably don't remember it, but I wanna see if he could actually remember that moment when he was at the thing in the Bahamas and see if he remembers, like, the kid that tried to get his autograph and he told him that. Like, I really wanna know. That's why I'm gonna say it right now. I want him to know.

• 1:15:57Fred Taylor?

  We usually ask our guests their biggest pivot in life. Basically, that one moment that you can look back to and say, "This is, this moment happened, and this is the reason I am what I am now."

• 1:16:12Speaker 03

  I have a cousin that I used to call evil twin when we were growing up, right?

• 1:16:19Speaker 03

  But they only used to call us evil twin. They used to call him evil twin, not me. He was the evil twin because we were only like a month apart, right? And one day, I came home from my trip in for school to the Bahamas.

• 1:16:36Speaker 03

  And I'm hanging out at my family's house. We go riding bikes around the neighborhood. And I get stabbed on my hand. I got it right here.

• 1:16:47Speaker 03

  I get stabbed. I go home. I run home to my mama. "Hey, ma, I just got stabbed," da-da-da-da, to my cousin, this and that. He gets stabbed too, but he gets stabbed like here. So like, both of us get stabbed. And it's over like dumb 2v2 basketball game, right? We're younger than the guys. Everybody around the hood just making fun of them, jokes. Because we're younger, you know what I mean? Like, I'm in the US, so they, my nickname was white boy in the neighborhood, right? Because I lived in the US. I'm not from, not from the island to them, you know what I mean? So I was white boy. But I was also super athletic. Came back home. I come play on the hood court. I'm balling, you know what I mean?

• 1:17:31Speaker 03

  Like, I played basketball in high school. It's that, like, European, that guys are going D1, Ole Miss, all this, all the time. So it's like, I'm doing this. Like, so, me and my cousin are balling, beating these guys. They get mad. Everybody's making fun of them. They try to get into a fight. They stab me and my cousin.

• 1:17:50Speaker 03

  The guys around the court come up to and come up to my house. Because everybody knows my uncle, right? They come up to the house. And they told my uncle they dealt with the situation or whatever. But then they all come to me and ask me like, hey, aren't you supposed to be going back to school? When are you supposed to be going back to school? I'm like about a month and a half, two months. And they're like, we don't want to see you back in the hood no more. Like, all my homeboys, like, about seven to 10 of them are dead, for sure. And about the other 10 are in jail. So like, they all came to me and they're just like, we don't want to see you back out here. Like, this is your last time coming out in the hood, playing basketball.

• 1:18:34Speaker 03

  Like, if anything, go by your other grandma's house. Like, go in the nice place. Like, don't come here. You already out of here, bro. You in the States, you playing, bro, we watch, we see your stats on online, like. We don't want to see you out here doing this no more, bro. Like, that's done with. So, that was my pivot in life, yeah, for me.

• 1:18:53Ryan Clark?

  Well, bro, this has been, this has been amazing, man. We appreciate you. I'm glad we finally got it done.

• 1:18:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:18:57Ryan Clark?

  Uh, best of luck the rest of spring training and the season, big dog.

• 1:19:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:19:01Fred Taylor?

  Hey, I gotta, um, I gotta show you a photo really quick. I be doing my research.

• 1:19:07Speaker 03

  Oh, is this your cousin from the Bahamas? Nah, this is my grandma, my mom, and my little sister. I took them to get some, some ice. Yeah.

• 1:19:16Fred Taylor?

  AJ, man.

• 1:19:17Speaker 03

  So AJ.

• 1:19:17Fred Taylor?

  AJ the best.

• 1:19:18Speaker 03

  Hey, yeah, I've been dealing with AJ for a while. How about y'all call Beyonce?

• 1:19:22Fred Taylor?

  Watch out, man.

• 1:19:23Speaker 03

  Let me get my phone for you. I got you. How about y'all call Beyonce?

• 1:19:27Fred Taylor?

  I had hit my brother, uh, Jason Flowers, his dad is crazy.

• 1:19:31Speaker 03

  Oh, Jason Flowers?

• 1:19:32Fred Taylor?

  Yeah, yeah. You know, the islands, everybody win.

• 1:19:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:19:35Fred Taylor?

  Flowers, yeah.

• 1:19:36Speaker 03

  I definitely know Flowers.

• 1:19:37Fred Taylor?

  Yeah, we super tight.

• 1:19:39Ryan Clark?

  Hey, man, you know, also too, bro, you special, though. You got us out here at spring training. They building bridges behind us.

• 1:19:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:19:45Ryan Clark?

  They got construction, uh, going on. I mean, same type of construction you guys are doing with the team, man. I love the fact that, like, you have a positive feeling about what it is. And mentioning, like, you know, you talked about Louise and you talked about different dudes who were Spanish, but that, that's your brothers. Like, we play a sport. Where most of the people look like us.

• 1:20:09Fred Taylor?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:20:10Ryan Clark?

  Right, in baseball, the days of Bonds and Vanilla, uh, Ken Griffey, Ozzy Smith, like, those days are over.

• 1:20:19Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:19Ryan Clark?

  You know what I'm saying? So to see y'all putting together something like that, that makes you comfortable to be the best you, man, I'm excited about that.

• 1:20:25Fred Taylor?

  Yeah, sir.

• 1:20:26Ryan Clark?

  My dog.

• 1:20:26Fred Taylor?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:20:27Ryan Clark?

  Thank you, sir.

• 1:20:27Fred Taylor?

  Hey, you can, uh...

• 1:20:28Ryan Clark?

  Appreciate you, bro.

• 1:20:29Speaker 03

  Thank you, man.

• 1:20:30Fred Taylor?

  There's a... You can always get that lot next to flowers, that's John's lot.

• 1:20:33Ryan Clark?

  When he walked up, Crady, I'm like, man, that's...

• 1:20:34Fred Taylor?

  Paradise Island?

• 1:20:35Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:36Fred Taylor?

  When you get that big check, it's gonna be waiting on you.

• 1:20:38Speaker 03

  All right, say that.

• 1:20:39Channing Crowder?

  When he gets the big check?

• 1:20:40Fred Taylor?

  Yeah, I mean, it's, it's right there on there.

• 1:20:42Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, man, he got the check already. Oh, I feel like the motherfucker hurt. They hit my dog all the tracing on him, man, my dog trying to get move.

• 1:20:48Fred Taylor?

  The big check.

• 1:20:49Ryan Clark?

  I'm trying to get that big, big check.

• 1:20:51Fred Taylor?

  He don't hit Uber in over there, man.

• 1:20:54Ryan Clark?

  We did my dog some of that show hay money where you can push him up off.

• 1:20:57Fred Taylor?

  Nice little corner lot for you.

• 1:20:58Ryan Clark?

  I remember where I was when Kobe passed, man. Like, it's crazy that... Like, where were you when they told you? Cause you said you was going to see him that day, right?

• 1:21:08Speaker 03

  I was in Cali, yeah. I was literally at the hotel, getting dressed. Like, when I, like, I heard the news, I was getting dressed, like, literally, to go to the Mamba Academy. I was literally, like, I was sleeping, woke up in the morning at like 10:30, 12 o'clock, like, it was like mid, midday. And I was like, oh, yeah, like, finally gonna get to talk to Kobe. Like, bro, this is like my dream. It, like, I get to talk to him. And I get, like, I open my phone, I got, like, a bunch of missed calls, a bunch of messages, like, then someone's calling me and they're like, "Did you hear the news?" And I was like, "What you talking about? What news?" Like, I'm expecting, like, a family member to, like, cause this is my friend, like,

• 1:21:50Speaker 03

  all my family and nobody I know calls me like that, outside of my family. So it's like, they called me and I'm like, they're like, "Kobe died." And I'm like, "Bro, you lying, bro. I'm gonna call my agent, cause he's the one who's gonna take me over here right now." I call my agent and he's like crying, like, on the phone, cause my agent's from LA too.

• 1:22:08Ryan Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:22:09Speaker 03

  Like, so he's like... Yeah, bro, like Kobe's gone. I was like, what are you talking about, bro? Like, and I just busted out of tears, bro.

• 1:22:15Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, I was.

• 1:22:17Speaker 03

  It was it.

• 1:22:17Ryan Clark?

  I was, I was in the airport, bro. And I'm crying. I was on the plane. I know the lady next to me was like, what is wrong with him?

• 1:22:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was.

• 1:22:25Ryan Clark?

  And I was, I can imagine you getting the opportunity.

• 1:22:28Fred Taylor?

  January 26.

• 1:22:29Speaker 03

  26. I was literally.

• 1:22:30Fred Taylor?

  The day before my birthday, I was leaving Nassau. I was on the plane. Somebody texts me. I was returning from a birthday trip for golf at Bob Mar. I got the text. And I'm like, why, why I'm on the plane? So now I'm nervous.

• 1:22:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:22:45Fred Taylor?

  I'm sad and nervous and scared and the whole thing. But I'll, I'll never forget that day, man.

• 1:22:50Speaker 03

  No, that was a day.

• 1:22:52Fred Taylor?

  It's January 26, 2020.

• 1:22:53Ryan Clark?

  They knew you were supposed to meet him, man.

• 1:22:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, because January 24th was the brunch. The 25th was the Grammys. And then that next day I was supposed to meet him. So I was just like, damn.

• 1:23:04Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:05Speaker 03

  That was crazy.

• 1:23:06Fred Taylor?

  That gotta be a lot.

• 1:23:07Speaker 03

  Bro, that was the craziest stuff ever.

• 1:23:10Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, about that long.

• 1:23:11Speaker 03

  It's rich people talk. Nah, I gotta go on.