Hold My Cutter
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Hold My Cutter
David Volk Reflects on Baseball's Impact Beyond the Game
What if baseball could bridge generations, foster lifelong friendships, and offer solace during the most challenging times? Join us on "Hold My Cutter" as we sit down with David Volk, a passionate Pittsburgh Pirates fan living in San Francisco, to explore this very question. David invites us into his world, filled with cherished memories of attending Pirates games with his father and the sentimental memorabilia that keeps those memories alive. With stories that cover everything from family history to unexpected personal connections forged over America's favorite pastime, you'll learn how baseball has shaped and enriched David's life in ways beyond the game itself.
As we navigate through heartfelt moments, we uncover the profound impact of baseball as a bond that unites families and communities. Discover how David's act of gifting season tickets became a means of honoring his father's love for the game during trying times, and how philanthropy extended a supportive hand to families in need. From the electric atmosphere of unforgettable games to the joy of connecting with baseball legends, this episode captures the essence of community and the sentimental power of shared experiences that transcend generations.
The conversation takes a poignant turn as we reflect on the lessons learned through caregiving and the unyielding human spirit. With moving stories of love, loss, and resilience, we honor the legacy of individuals like Deb, whose journey with ALS inspired a community to rally together. Through David's lens, we see how baseball not only creates treasured memories but also serves as a beacon of hope and strength through life's adversities. Tune in for an exploration of how baseball's magic extends far beyond the field, touching lives and leaving an indelible mark on the heart.
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okay, welcome to another episode of hold my cutter. We're here at burn by rocky patel, just down the road from pnc park, where our guest has decided that we would smoke the white label. I don't know why it's called the fort, but for whatever reason michael mckenry has nicknamed. He's got a nickname for all these sticks, all these cigars that we smoke.
Speaker 2:You know, brownie, they say guys with big trucks are overcompensating. He comes in with a little cigar. I'm just saying he's not overcompensating. You're just saying, just saying you can make that what it is. It's a confident man, a very confident man.
Speaker 1:Some of our guests on Hold my Cutter receive gift cards to David Allen Clothing. Go to davidallenclothingcom. Check out all that he has to offer and some of the best clothing in western Pennsylvania, right on Washington Road, in Pittsburgh and Mount Lebanon. David Allen Clothing. Thank you to David Allen and thank you to our guests. Speaking of David David Volk from San Francisco. Normally our guests don't bring us gifts, but now we're encouraging any guests and all the way from San Francisco is the Bordenavi's French bread.
Speaker 2:You know what I just said Baked yesterday, it's a big piece of loaf, yes, it is, and you'll be munching on that, david Volk, from in, from San Francisco, just to be on the show.
Speaker 1:Now, david, you heard about Hold my Cutter and in fact you were watching it one day and you decided to give us a call and see if you could be a guest. You jumped on a flight just to be here and you brought the French bread, it all kind of came together.
Speaker 3:I was honored to be asked, so thank you for having me here today. I'm just glad to be with you guys.
Speaker 2:Thanks for the loaf. You can leave standing orders. I'm back and forth.
Speaker 3:be with you guys. Thanks for the loaf Two loaves. You can leave standing orders. I'm back and forth a lot so I can probably bring one big suitcase for whoever needs one.
Speaker 1:Well, during the show you're going to—.
Speaker 2:I'll probably munch on it sometime.
Speaker 1:Munch on it. Okay, david Volk is just an interesting story. David Volk is a longtime Pirate season ticket holder. Of course, one of the things about Hold my Cutter is it's talking baseball, sports, western Pennsylvania, while smoking a good stogie amongst friends. That's kind of what our theme is. And David is a long-time pirate season ticket holder but has lived in San Francisco for how long?
Speaker 3:Well, most recently for 30 years. But I was born out in California, then moved all over the country with my family. My father was a naval officer and a Naval Academy grad, so we moved around a lot until my parents divorced and that found my sister and me out in California for the school year and in Pittsburgh for the entirety of summer. It's not a divorce custody arrangement that would pass muster nowadays, but they were making it up as they went along and that was the deal. We'd see my father and paternal relatives once a year for the entire summer. So in Pittsburgh, out in Irwin, and so it lent itself to becoming a huge Pirates fan in the process.
Speaker 1:Well, your dad was a huge fan, of course, oh yeah, and my grandfather worked at.
Speaker 3:National 2 for 40 years went in there in 19—.
Speaker 1:Were they all Volks, by the way? V-o-l-k.
Speaker 3:Yes, and Granddad Volk went into National 2 about McKeesport as a 14-year-old in 1914, emerged as a 60-year-old with a gold watch and a pension and I adored him and he bought a house out in the country he referred to it in those days out in Irwin and had his couple acres and he loved it. He's a very handy man and, you know, just taught me how to fix or do just about anything and so we would spend the entirety of summer with very loving, you know, paternal grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins, and it was just a, it was, it was just a idyllic situation and very loving. And then we'd go back to go to school in California every year but always looked forward to summer and always kind of hated to come back because it involved school and missing them.
Speaker 1:And your dad? Did he bring you to your first game at Forbes?
Speaker 3:Field, at Forbes Field, and I can't recall my first game, but I do recall one game in particular, which was 1969, and it was bat day and I believe it was against the Padres. Did you say bat day? Bat day, yes, and I believe it was against the padres and they're in that day. Bat day, yes, and and I I believe it was against the padres. I have, I still have, the scorecards my dad hand scored every game he ever attended.
Speaker 3:so I have all those, you have all those and I have the 1944 uh all-star game you kept the score also, which is which is very rare, because there were paper drives during second world war and a lot of people threw those in the paper drive to be shredded. And there's a hand-scored all-star game Forbes Field 1944 scorebook that I have at home.
Speaker 3:Anyway I'm sure that's going to be worth something, but I guess David Hunt expressed some interest at one point, but it's one of those things where it would be the last thing I'd sell. It's my dad as a teenager, oh my gosh. But back to the Forbes Field game that I recall so vividly. That was 69. I think it was against the Padres, but it was most certainly bat day, and if you can imagine today giving lethal weapons to 30,000 people in a ballpark Wait, wait, wait, they get real bats, oh no.
Speaker 1:You're too young to know. They did this up until I mean.
Speaker 3:Did they have a sword day by chance, and so my dad was very much by the rules and he, as we entered force field, I remember he picked what looked to be a short line, and I sussed out that the reason the line was long to the right or left of us was because that was the box that had rc marked on it, meaning roberto clementi, because it was too late for rocky calavito at that point. So I said, dad, can we go over there? Those are the clementi bats and said no, we picked this lane.
Speaker 1:We're sticking this line. Son, you're going to learn Down the road. When you're on a podcast, you'll tell them.
Speaker 3:I ended up with the coveted Don Clendenin bat Don with two N's. I still have it.
Speaker 2:We used to play with it in the neighborhood.
Speaker 3:It's all beat up you to make out the Don Clendenin, because those bats were seconds from Hillrich and Bradsby. They would paint them yellow because they were kind of flawed slugs that they would make into bats. They called them bloom bats. Yeah, right, right. So anyway, that's the. So, walking into Forbes Field, it was just the whole, the green grass, the whole thing. It was a shrine to baseball as far as I'm concerned. And then, so fun, got my bat, the, the. Then the highlight became.
Speaker 3:In 1970 we couldn't get tickets to the first game at three river stadium, which occurred, uh, july 16th, but we went to the second game, which was the 17th, against the reds and, um, remember just being in awe of this multi, you know, used stadium and everything else and uh, so that began a tradition of trying to see a couple games a year. It was always kind of an act of Congress to get my dad or granddad to go to a game, because you had to go downtown, you had to park, all this stuff. So most of my Pirates games were on the radio Bob Prince or, if you guys recall you're not old enough, but you are there was a game of the week period, full stop, one game for major leagues, and I think it was on NBC, and when Pittsburgh was playing they were blacked out. But if you had the right antenna on your roof, you could get Johnstown and you could bootleg the game out of Johnstown, and so that was the whole thing. We had a big antenna, so you were a bootlegger. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 3:It was popular.
Speaker 1:Give me my booty.
Speaker 3:Piracy of another time. So anyway, that fostered an intense interest in the Pirates that continued to this day and fast forward to going through the ballparks. I was lucky enough to go to the 74 All-Star game with my dad, and those were the quaint days.
Speaker 1:That was the River Stadium Right.
Speaker 3:There was no demand for.
Speaker 3:So 74, we go to that game and that involved sending a postcard in to MLB to get tickets. There was no scarcity, there was no difficulty getting the tickets. So he took me then and then I reciprocated in 94, because by that time I was out working and that was a pretty coveted game and that set an all-time attendance record for, I think, a sporting event, but certainly a baseball game 59, 8 or something like that. They put in there for that 94 all-star game that ended with uh gwynn coming around after a moises aloo had knocked him around this close pit the plate and that end of that game. So but I was a grown-up at that point I was able to take my dad to the game after he'd taken me the game game in 74. So came full circle and then was able to attend the 06 game at PNC.
Speaker 1:I did not know. You went to the 74 All-Star game so you know, I'm growing up in central Pennsylvania. My dad took me once a year you were in Mechanicsburg, in Mechanicsburg he took me once a year to one game because he was in the coal business. He was a lobbyist coal industry Bring me. He'd bring me to Pittsburgh, we'd hang out at the old Hilton Hotel I would. He paid like a bellman. I don't know how much Tipped him, mr Seminatory, I'll never forget it, and he would go to meetings all day.
Speaker 1:My father went to meetings all day and here this little kid running around the lobby of the Hilton.
Speaker 3:Well, those are the days when nobody messed with kids. It was unbelievable we were all feral, we just, but it's so true somebody can walk us to the car and go have dinner that was so wrong when I was a kid right, david, I'll never forget.
Speaker 1:Uh, so fanatical fan. Now you know a kid and I'll never get him calling me into his home office at the house and he was as unorganized as his son is now and he had an office organized chaos oh, it was mayhem.
Speaker 1:This office just filled. He had his typewriter, he was a speech writer and and so he had an office. It's called Organized Chaos. It was mayhem. This office just filled. He had his typewriter, he was a speech writer and so he had stuff all over the place and papers everywhere. But he called me, which you weren't supposed to go into, even his home office. He called me and he goes hey, what's that letter right there, all these papers? I pick it up and he goes look at it, it's a PO box. Up and said, look at it, it's a PO box. He said I think that's from Three River Stadium, isn't it? I said what he goes, open it, open it Four tickets to the 1974 All-Star game.
Speaker 2:Like it was yesterday. What did you do in that exact?
Speaker 1:moment, the elation beyond words.
Speaker 2:You just went to shock.
Speaker 1:Oh, incredible.
Speaker 3:Similarly when he produced those 74 tickets. Just a lot of memories of the few games we would go to forbes field uh, I'm sorry, three rivers. After the two games I witnessed at forbes field as a younger kid but caught a lot of good stuff at three rivers, including luke walker took a no hitter into the ninth inning and joe ferguson, catcher for the dodgers, came up as a pinch hitter and busted up with a home run. But we had such bad seats at Three Rivers that my recollection is that home run went to right field.
Speaker 1:And we were up in one of the perches where you couldn't tell you lost the ball at a certain point.
Speaker 3:But pretty soon the rest of the crowd belied what had happened and busted up Luke Walker's no-hitter to become a one-hitter.
Speaker 1:So you only point to two games at forbes two games at forbes, that I reckon okay that's all I recall, but then quite a few at uh, uh, three rivers.
Speaker 3:And then, um, fast forward to pnc's opening and my dad became terminally ill in about the year 2000 uh, with lung cancer.
Speaker 3:And when I heard about the new park opening up, I was trying to figure out some way to again thank him for this gift of baseball for lack of a better term that he instilled in me, as did my grandfather, and so I bought him two seats behind home plate, which included a meal, and he was on chemo and I thought a variety of food and a distraction would be good for him, knowing that he wasn't going to make it.
Speaker 3:But he attended about in two seats. I went to a couple with him but two so that he could take a buddy to drive him and so forth, and that turned into a whole thing where, if it was televised, I could spy on him and see how he was doing. And then the ushers and the service people up in the home plate club conspired to. Every once in a while they'd call me and say your dad had kind of a rough night tonight or he had a great night or whatever. So I had a bunch of spies keeping an eye on him so it was just a nice thing to share with him.
Speaker 3:And then I figured what do I have any business having season tickets in Pittsburgh? And then I kind of figured out how to make it work. And the tickets I don't use go to the Ronald McDonald House. And if you're in the Ronald McDonald House you have three things going on You've got a very sick child, you're not from around here and you probably don't have the means to lease a house while you're receiving care, and sometimes these multiple organ transplants will take 18 months to get the kid back in fighting shape to get home. So that became my charity of choice and it's a perfect outlet for that. And then I exchanged my tickets so that I get mostly Sundays for kids days and stuff like like that. Anyway, I made it work through a combination of attending some games every year but also giving most of them away.
Speaker 1:How many games a year now do you think you get to in Pittsburgh from San Francisco this year?
Speaker 3:was pent-up demand, because I had about a two-and-a-half-year span where I didn't go to any games, for reasons we might get into later.
Speaker 1:But I try to get to about 10 a year, something like that. Um, we are. We will get into that in a moment, but I want to go back to the uh, the bat day. Yeah, when you said, dad, let's go over to the clemente line, do you remember, do you like all the kids probably wanted to get in the clemente line, right he?
Speaker 3:figured it out because the boxes had code stamped on them and the rc. Like I said, it wasn't gonna be rocky col Colavino, it was Roberto.
Speaker 1:Clemente, so you got the DC line and that's fine.
Speaker 3:My dad was very regimented, he was a naval officer, so he gets it honestly. And I get some of that too, where you just stick to your plan and you follow through on it. But it was still. I was a little crestfallen when I got the Don Clemente.
Speaker 1:You said you went to Second game ever in the history of Three River Stadium in July of 1970 against the Reds the Pirates, I think lost the first game. Did they win that second game? I think they won the second one is my recollection.
Speaker 3:And then there was another side right there where I have a tremendous aunt who remains a huge Pirates fan and she somehow finagled her way down to the Reds exit and got my idol Johnny Bench's autograph.
Speaker 1:Wow, I have that in my house. That was presented to me.
Speaker 3:If I could digress quickly, a little tip of the cap to Steve Blass, our mutual friend.
Speaker 1:You might have heard of him.
Speaker 3:I don't know him Mildly, funny story.
Speaker 1:There's nothing mildly funny when it comes to Steve Blass.
Speaker 2:That's why he's here. That's why Joe Boo's here.
Speaker 3:In the late 60s. That's why he's here. That's why Joe Boo's here. In the late 60s, another aunt and her husband were living in Swissvale in an apartment building that Steve and Karen Blass were living in what?
Speaker 3:In the early days of his. So this might have been 67, 68, you know, something like maybe 69. But at some point they all attended a dinner party or a cookout in the parking lot or whatever. It was very loose, loose and it was, you know, young couples and so forth. So my aunt sent me a to david best wishes, steve blasts autograph and it was the first autograph I'd ever received because that predated the johnny bench one, you know, when three rivers opened. So I created this little shrine and a bookcase and everything else and had you know thing and I described it to steve in later years and uh, he said, well, clearly it wasn't. You know, it needed to be on a marble pedestal, it needed to be lit better and so forth, so he was a little disappointed, I didn't pay more homage to it.
Speaker 3:But fast forward to 71 and the Giants lost to the Pirates, which allowed the Pirates to advance to the World Series. And I was going to school in October in California, in San Francisco. So if I hadn't been tall I would have gotten a terrible beatdown at school for my Pirates beat because I was very vocal about my I love the Pirates and all things. So they left me alone because they didn't want any problems. So fast forward to Steve's exemplary two complete game wins in the series.
Speaker 3:So there I am, an 11-year-old, I'm collecting baseball cards like a maniac. I have this guy's autograph on my shelf Only autograph, you know that. And the Johnny Betts there were two of them, wow. And so then fast forward to you know the punchline, which is, if you'd ever told me in that moment, when I'm, you know, elated that my Pirates won the World Series against the heavily favored, you know, 420 game winner Orioles, that I would meet this man, let alone count him among my friends, I would have said there's no way that happens in the world. But here we are and I'm I'm fortunate enough to know Steve and you and others who I just thought these were all sort of deities who you never got to meet. You just got to admire them and watch them play a game that I love, and and so it all kind of came full circle.
Speaker 1:We talk about this a lot, michael McHenry and I. The ties that bind what baseball has done through the generations. Just the perfect story about that, how it's passed down from generations. Right, and here you are and you're going to these games. You're meeting people like Steve, who's become a good friend of yours.
Speaker 2:Can I throw out some elephant in the room? Why San Francisco?
Speaker 3:Because my parents, when they divorced my mother, had hailed from California. My dad was a Pittsburgher, so the deal was, my mom went home after they divorced, and so that was when I was eight and my sister was five, and you know, again, very loving, it was one of the most amicable divorces I've ever witnessed, because they never spoke ill of each other. The whole objective, I think, was to help raise these kids in a loving setup. We weren't spoiled, but we were, you know well, uh, cared for and, um, it really wasn't a terrible situation. I mean, the fact that both your parents were sort of instantly happier was better than the discord that occurred. So, anyway, that that's how all that came about and then you're still there.
Speaker 3:Well, pretty much I'm all over the place. My work is in Chicago and then I try to get back here as much as possible. But up until about a year and a half ago I moved back here to care for my ill girlfriend, and she's since passed. But I just decided to sort of leave my house and I'm still catching up on my house, because you can't really leave a house for three years but I did it, and so I came out here to take care of her, and so I've kind of lived in a bunch of places, but I still get my mail in San Francisco, so that's a good way to describe it.
Speaker 1:David, was it Blass who told you about beer sales at Forbes Field? You were too young to have decided to partake.
Speaker 3:I learned it belatedly, but my accounting of this and somebody can quickly disabuse me of this, but my understanding is, Forbes Field never had beer vending or beer sales of any type, but there were many taverns around where you could carry it in and I don't think you had to sneak it in there's a BYOB, yes. My understanding is, if you wanted to bring a six-pack of beer in that you'd bought at the tavern across the street. That was fine.
Speaker 2:That's a college party nowadays, Right?
Speaker 3:right. I'm not sure anybody rolled a keg in. Maybe somebody did, Probably, but no, I think that that was the way it went. I mean, I know there were no beer sales but I think it was okay to bring your own. But you can check that out with Blast, Because somebody said they made a reference to. You know, extra inning games. There's almost beer flooding down the stairs from people spilling it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have heard that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's no cutoff if you bring it in yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true. That's a good point. There's no analysis, no more yeah, exactly no more beer.
Speaker 3:They actually let people on the field to watch the game too, right Way deep oh, way back when, oh, originally, yeah, yeah, there was no outfield fences, so the people's there was like a rope line, yeah. And then there are also pictures of Exposition Park where they did it that way too. It was just like a cow pasture where they kind of roughly demarked the outfield.
Speaker 2:I don't know why I kind of wouldn't mind that coming back.
Speaker 1:The great thing about it is like you could just keep running and the outf had to run a jump over the rope and then scramble through the crowd to find the baseball.
Speaker 2:But it was a magical place.
Speaker 3:And the way that the first base and I assume the third base too, but the first base field boxes kind of jutted out toward the first baseline such that if Clemente or any right fielder dug something out that was rattling around in the corner down there, the throat of the plate would go over some of the people's heads. It was really interesting. And there was never a no-hitter pitched in Forbes Field. That was another thing because it had so much foul territory and it was just cavernous. And then there's the whole thing of the last three home runs that Babe Ruth hit as a brave, I want to say because that's late in the game. He hit them at Forbes Field and one of them cleared the roof on the right field and the roof was like starge Alaskan terms. In order to get it over the roof it had to be. Just they're still looking for that ball.
Speaker 2:And that's probably when he had a pinch runner too. He was a lot older then, right the Babe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, probably, but I think he was able to trot around the base three times there's a waddle A waddle.
Speaker 3:Sorry for that digression. No, no, that's great.
Speaker 1:That's the whole point of it is to talk about memories and I was going to ask you about. You mentioned a couple of games, but is there one baseball moment? You attended a game? It could have been in the last few years.
Speaker 3:Well, I think the most exciting, visceral, impossible to describe or do virtue to on a video, was 2013, in the blackout that rivals, I mean and, for example, I witnessed in person a lot of people say they were there, but a million people say they were there and they weren't but the famous play between Cal and Stanford where they did five rugby passes.
Speaker 1:Wow, you were there.
Speaker 3:And that was very exciting, but nothing at all compared to the blackout.
Speaker 1:Wildcard game.
Speaker 3:I've never been part of that much humanity that was in such an agitated, excited, ebullient state.
Speaker 2:It was like a Roman Colosseum. If I could imagine what that was like.
Speaker 3:Obviously they're fighting to the death, it felt like our life was on the line.
Speaker 2:And then Kutch's mom doing the anthem.
Speaker 3:The whole thing just coalesced and it was, it was. You know they nailed it. Yeah, it was, it was incredible. So I'd say that was probably it. But but many, many, I mean that that 94 all-star game was exciting, because here I am, I'm taking my dad to a game and great ending national league wins. You know, that's just, you can't script that. And they unveiled the clementi statue at that all-star. That's right. That's the other little footnote there.
Speaker 1:So anyway, you've talked about the people that you've been able to meet. Do you become good friends with scott bonnet? It was longtime clubhouse manager. Oh yeah, aka, he's bones.
Speaker 3:I mean, he's the best he's. I count him as one of my very best buddies and um I was honored to be in his wedding and he's a great human, isn't he? Yeah, no, absolutely. He's the real deal in all respects. I would do anything for him and I know he'd do anything for me.
Speaker 1:And you've met others, not only in uniform, out of uniform, including Bones. But what about, aside from Blass, other people, acquaintances?
Speaker 3:well, another, another uh sort of uh overlapping, uh diagram is I got to meet maz at fantasy camp and so the way I got to meet bones is through fantasy camp.
Speaker 2:Okay wait, wait, wait. I don't see a fantasy camp. Where are you at?
Speaker 3:you're coming back well, I did my 10, I got, I got I. Okay, I did I. I got my 10, I I I'm. I guess I'm in the hall of fame by virtue 10 years although campers, in fairness, don't refer to it as the hall of Fame or a ten-year guy, they refer to it as the $35,000 club. You got a way to play it Because that's what it costs over those years, but no, so back to the Mavs thing.
Speaker 2:Hey, see, he avoided my question.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he did.
Speaker 1:I'm recruiting. I'm trying to win a championship. He's trying to win a championship here.
Speaker 3:I'll catch for you, I caught every inning of every game for my team and I will still do that Wow.
Speaker 1:I'll be in worse shape.
Speaker 3:You'll have to put me on an ibuprofen drip.
Speaker 2:My first year there. We had an 80-year-old catcher.
Speaker 1:He turned 80, caught every game. Well, to have fantasy campers come into it.
Speaker 2:It sounds like you might work a deal out here, McHenry pay.
Speaker 1:I'm going to tell Blass who's in charge of this whole thing.
Speaker 2:No, it's NIL NIL. Yeah, I know, I know we have a budget. Hold my cutter Volk has been recruited. Hold my cutter.
Speaker 1:Boy you talk about money laundering.
Speaker 3:This is bad, so I'll be back for one or two, okay cool. And one thing it's such a great thing. This is not a plug for Fantasy Camp, it's a sincere endorsement. I've made such amazing friends as a function of being there that there are times when I will go down there mid-Fantasy Camp and just to socialize with my buddies in their room at Pirate City.
Speaker 3:Oh, how cool is that, we'll fill a bathtub full of beer and we have the fun just great funny times, and so that's the kind of bond that we've created, and we have a text string where six or seven of us, every couple of days, we'll ping each other on something. It's not limited to baseball, it can be popular culture, whatever, but it has this weird unwritten set of ground rules where you kind of know what you can and can't say on this thing and you keep it to a minimum. But sometimes you'll be having a terrible day and you get one of those texts and your day turns around instantly.
Speaker 1:That is so neat.
Speaker 3:Or some baseball trivia or whatever. So back to the meeting people, the Mavs.
Speaker 3:Thank you for sharing that no no, I appreciate that, but it's great, but it's great. And then I'll circle back to fantasy camp in a minute because I want to acknowledge something. But the Maz thing, to your point of who have I met. It was just a dream come true to meet Maz. One by and of himself, he's one of the great human beings ever put on the planet, On top of all his legendary feats and fame in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 3:But, more importantly, my dad, Maz, was inducted into the Hall of Fame in the 01 class. My dad said to me, knowing he wasn't going to make it, he died in August of 01, he turned to me one day and he said you know, I feel better knowing that Maz got into the Hall of Fame. It meant something to him because Maz was one of his very favorite players and he viewed that as one of the great injustices of all time that he had to go in because nelly bryles is almost single-handedly responsible for lobbying for maz to come in under the veterans mechanic yeah um, and and the shorthand reason for maz being overlooked.
Speaker 3:I had always heard, as the baseball writers are predominated by New York writers and New York never got over that. You know the vaunted Yankees being beaten by this second baseman from some. You know city that many people have never been to. I'm sure it's more to it than that. But Maz deserves to be in the Hall of Fame by any objective measure. And so anyway. But my dad, it was really touching when he said, the gist of which was I can die a happy man knowing Mazeroski finally got into the hall of fame and I told Maz that in a, in a quiet moment, and he gets all sorts of adulation and I didn't expect it to register, but he said that means a lot to me. He said the fact that somebody picked me as their guy and then I was able to make good on know getting in the hall of fame, it means something to me because you know what a, what a blubber fest it was when he did his acceptance. He was, he's one of the most modest yes incredibly gifted people.
Speaker 3:His hand-eye coordination is is unrivaled. I mean, maybe jack wilson rivals it because he can bowl from both sides. But but maz is an amazing, you know, physical specimen in terms of his abilities, but one of most modest, normal people you'd ever want to meet. And so, anyway, that's the dad-mas story. That's amazing, and there are many others and I'm probably missing somebody, and I'm sorry if there's somebody that feels like why didn't you mention my name? Well, you've got a new friend in me.
Speaker 3:The good news is well, thanks, mike, I appreciate that, and we have a whole catcher thing comments. Oh yeah, I have immense respect for that. But um, no, back to fantasy game.
Speaker 2:It's one thing I wanted to mention very quickly, which is um we lost at a very tender age and at least when I'm 64 60 is a tender age.
Speaker 3:Um chad bowers was a yeah, a hall of fame guy.
Speaker 2:There was no kinder thoughtful I don't know if he could not not smile, oh no he was just a great, great person and, again, weird baseball intersections.
Speaker 3:But he died at the Stargell Foundation weekend in Wilmington, north Carolina, and he got the exit he deserved in that he was at a cocktail party and he crumpled and he was gone. There was no, you know, hanging on for two days or whatever. But we as a fantasy camp, if you want to call it community or brotherhood or whatever you want to call it, because there are women there too, so it's a misnomer. But the, the family, fantasy camp family, that that one hit hard because gone way too soon, 60 years old, um, he had season tickets, I think just about every franchise in town was incredibly generous on all fronts, he was a philanthropic guy, he was a kind guy. So anyway, all that, by the way, saying here's to chad we miss you and love you and you know godspeed again talk about the, the relationships that are developed.
Speaker 1:It's just a, it's an odd.
Speaker 3:It's an odd thing but it's really lasting and, and you know, it's incredible what baseball has done with the pirates and we're so lucky you know not, I'm not just saying this just because michael's here, but but I think, pitt, think Pittsburgh would stack up against anybody in terms of veteran involvement, very significant veteran involvement, like have you ever told me that a Mazeroski, or whoever you want to name a Candelaria just rattle off any number of names of guys you watched as a kid would be there and trying to teach you things? A Manny Sangian, you know, I grew up loving Manny and he taught me a great little trick which is and he said it's perfectly legal, but nobody thinks about this. But his whole thing was if he caught a ball for a play at the plate, it wasn't in his mitt, secured by his meat hand, it was in his meat hand, in the glove. So if he got knocked ass over tea kettle, he probably still had that ball in his hand. It didn't squirt out of the end of the glove.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're leaving a lot of room for error Now maybe that's common practice amongst you guys. It's different now, because they want you to avoid contact.
Speaker 3:Well that's a whole different thing.
Speaker 2:I'm an old school guy and I actually tried to create contact, depending on where the hop would take me because it was kind of that gray area. But going back to Manny, he was a guy that would jump in in spring training when we weren't trying to create contact. This was way before the rule when Buster Posey got hit, but he'd jump in in the middle of spring training and start showing us he could barely move. But that passion, that enthusiasm, it was just absolutely contagious.
Speaker 3:And he's one of the amazing people too, in terms of he'd give you the shirt off his back. He's a deeply faithful man and he's just a fine person.
Speaker 2:We should call that sourdough. The man against the man.
Speaker 3:Which reminds me of a Steve Blass joke we can't get into. Anyway, I apologize if I'm missing somebody.
Speaker 3:I hope we get to him at some point in this. But I just am honored and flattered and very lucky to have met the men I've met, many of whom are my heroes. It's been an amazing life and I often tell people I started doing this, going through this mental process, maybe 10 years ago, as I started to lose some people in my life and I can, honest to God, say that if I walk out there and get hit by a bus or, you know, have a cardiac arrest, that I did not get cheated in life at all. I've been exposed so many kindnesses and so many lucky breaks and so many just tremendous experiences that I didn't get shorted in any aspect of life. You also paid it forward.
Speaker 1:Well, it wasn't by luck either, because he's such a good, good human being. What is luck anyway? That's right, luck is the residue of design. One of my favorite sayings has always been.
Speaker 3:It's attributed to Louis Pasteur, but it what is luck anyway? Well, talk about the effort and what you did for your girlfriend Deb who you lost to ALS April 11, 2023.
Speaker 1:You decided that it was going to be up to you to take care of her. You left California and you came to Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2:How did you guys meet?
Speaker 3:first. Well, that's a great story. So thank you for that acknowledgement, Brownie, and I wish I could still be taking care of her. She was an amazing person, is an amazing person in my mind because I think of her every day. But no, so the way we met gets back to baseball too, michael. So we have a. In fact he was a guest on your show, mike Fetchko, who's a character, and so Mike Fetchko and I befriended each other. I think what happened there was a Western Pennsylvania fundraiser dinner with Maz as the honoree. This was before I knew Maz, but Kevin McClatchy, who I'm a friend with through a whole other California thing, but basically got to know him from PNC opening on, and Kevin's been nothing but great to me through the years, as has been his June his assistant, who remains his assistant she's a great lady, and she's been great to me too.
Speaker 3:So Mike was the emcee, or at least on the dais, of that event it was a big thing at maybe the Doubletree or whatever, and they gave away prints of Maz's home run run around the base or whatever. It's an artist who's local and forgive me for not remembering his name, but every attendee at this rubber chicken dinner fundraiser got this poster and a tube. So I'm in line at US Air to fly home to San Francisco the next day and I see a guy in front of me with a poster tube and I said hey, you must have gone to dinner last night. Unmistakable, had like a yellow cap on or whatever he turns around. I said you not only went to the dinner, you were up on the dais. I said you know David Volk, I'm Mike Fetchko and so so this was you know, whatever it was, oh, two or three or whatever. So Mike said I lease space from the pirates on the federal street side, like where ARA has their offices and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:Mike used to have an office because he packaged you know what he does from prior shows very gifted guy and knows a million people. So he said I have an office. He said you must feel like you're at odds when you're on the road all the time. If you ever want to just have an office, have an assistant, get a letter printed out, whatever, use the phones Just very open invitation and very kind of him to do. And I took him up on it and be careful what you ask for. And so I would camp out there before games or whatever. And that became a great friendship.
Speaker 3:But then fast forward to. I took Mike. This is after my dad's gone and I don't recall the exact year, but I took Mike to a ball game in the same seats that I kept through these years and Mike at some point sees a gaggle of women across the room and amongst them sees a woman that he needs to talk to about a business thing. It's, it's as simple as that. It's just like oh, there are some women, let's go talk to him. It was a come over here for a minute. I got to say something to this woman. So he goes over there and we hi, hi, hi hi, we're all saying hello, and then he's talking to the woman on the side and all of a sudden he looks at Deb and looks at me and he says you're both single, right. And before we could answer. He said you two need to talk. So there was no premeditation. There was no.
Speaker 1:He's just like that he just raps.
Speaker 3:So Deb and I started to talk and we just kind of instantly hit it off and for quite a long period we were just friends who would get together when I came to Pittsburgh or if I had some dinner to go to or whatever. She was great, she was known around town, she knew a bunch of people and she was just a great companion. And then much later we got romantically involved. But that's why I blame Fetchko and also the other extenuating circumstance is Deb was not a baseball girl, she was a big Steelers girl. So the fact that she was at a baseball game was a really rare bird. It was girls' night out and she might have gone to one Pirates game every three years. So that was dumb luck. And then the fact that my buddy Fetchko decides to be a smartass was great. And then it all kind of went from there.
Speaker 2:I think that comes naturally. It all kind of went from there.
Speaker 3:But then I would invite Deb to games when I'd come to town. I'd say you want to go to a? And she, very quickly she was no dummy, she was a very, very smart woman and she quickly learned baseball. But at some point she said we've gone to six or seven games, we've done other things. But she said can we do something other than go to a baseball game when you're in town? So I got the memo at that point.
Speaker 3:We started to do some other stuff and she took me to some Steeler games and stuff like that, because her family had some seats forever at the Steelers, anyway, but that's how that happened. So again, I blame baseball for meeting the greatest woman I've ever had the honor of being with and I look at it as, for all intents and purposes, we were married because as soon as she got sick, I said I'm here, I'm not going anywhere, and it's a dreadful disease. I'm here, I'm not going anywhere, and it's a dreadful disease. I mean, she handled it with courage and grace and she could smile about the damnedest stuff very late in the game.
Speaker 3:And I just, I miss her every day and that's a terrible disease. There's no treatment for it, no cure for it. It's a death sentence when you get it. And so, in addition to taking care of her, which was not always easy, her family helped out a lot. We had a whole network of people helping, but I considered myself as kind of primary caregiver for her. I just, you know it was an experience that wasn't easy, as I say, but I wouldn't trade it for anything and I was honored to have known her and, like I said, I'd give anything to be helping her right now.
Speaker 2:Bless your soul.
Speaker 3:But thank you, and that was a whole thing where I met tremendous people through her and then, in her memory, we started doing what's called the walk to defeat als in pittsburgh, which is a long established thing that the als association does, and we started a team and we raised very significant money the first year we more than doubled that last year. We're going to try to make good on that.
Speaker 2:How would we get involved?
Speaker 3:Well, we have a walking team and you're welcome to join us. It happens right around the 10th of September every year and it doesn't happen in every city at the same time. They roll through the calendar, but you can count on it being at Point State Park it's only a mile so that ALS patients, if they can walk or roll it, they can feel like they're involved in it. And it's just a direct fundraiser. It's not a per-mile thing, but we seek pledges from people to back this. It's all tax-deductible. The ALS Association, in our case, really made an impression on us in that when Deb got to the point where she was having trouble navigating her house in Edgewood, they said what do you need? And we said we need a stair climber, we need ramps, we need all this stuff. And they just materialized over about four hours put all that stuff in no charge.
Speaker 3:They said when you don't need it anymore, call us and we'll take it away. So that alone, I mean you're during the headlights, you're dealt with this terrible diagnosis, you're getting your head around all of that. And when I eulogized her I said the two words I would use to characterize ALS is it's loss and it's adaptation, and that you're losing functionality, you're losing the ability to walk, speak, whatever the case may be along the road, and you have to try to stay ahead of that, because if you get too far behind it you'll never catch up. So it's what's the next need? And as she started to get bad, I started on on the sly buy wheelchairs and walkers and stuff and shove them in the garage. And when she all of a sudden needed something, I said well, just so happens, I have this whole stockpile of stuff. And she was furious for about two minutes and then she said I get it. And I was able to kind of stay ahead of that because I like planning a little bit and I'm pretty Regimented.
Speaker 3:A little bit, yeah, pretty regimented a little bit, yeah, so I get it honestly. So thanks, dad. But um, so we were able to get through it together and I saw her right to the end and and she had a great departure. She was surrounded by family and she had her dog's head in her lap and I was next to her and she got the departure she deserved.
Speaker 3:And, like I said, she was a force to be reckoned with and really can't get into her whole achievements. But she started a one of the two major talent and modeling agencies in Pittsburgh on a credit card, because nobody would make bank loans to single women at that point, and she just did it by sheer force of will and became somebody who has affected many, many people's lives. She discovered Joe Manganiello, she discovered a guy named Zach Quinto who's now got a very successful show Many others I'm missing, but she launched a lot of careers and so she knows a million people by virtue of that. And she was just a giving person who really nurtured people's careers. I mean, yes, it was a way to make money, but she had a humanistic element to her which really left an impression upon people and so a lot of those people have come to participate in the walk, pledged money.
Speaker 3:It's a whole ecosystem of fans of Deb and we call it Team Deb Doherty in her memory and we're going to keep it coming. As long as I can stand and push out air, I'm going to keep doing this.
Speaker 2:Is there a link to it?
Speaker 3:Yes, there is.
Speaker 2:All right, send it to me, we'll put it in the bio.
Speaker 3:Oh, I appreciate that very much and it happens once a year and it's just a great association. And then back to baseball again. There was a feature on CBS Sunday mornings that covered Bob Euchre's unlikely path from sort of a journeyman baseball guy to, you know, being well known for a million reasons. And he I found out when I asked him questions of the ALS association. Throughout that interview he wore an ALS association hat, but they must have edited it out and he mentioned that, or he didn't want to go there. But I found out that he lost a daughter in 2022, I believe it was to ALS, and he is understandably very interested in it.
Speaker 3:So I hope to meet him someday because I'd like to increase, even though MLB acknowledges Lou Gehrig for obvious reasons and has an ALS Lou Gehrig day on June 2nd, which has an interesting coincidence in itself, june 2nd is the day he replaced Wally Pipp in the lineup to begin his 2,130-game string, which Cal Ripken eclipsed, but it was also the day he died. So it's kind of a weird bookended thing. For Lou Gehrig, june 2nd is the day MLB does it, but it's left up to each team to observe it the way they wish and to varying degrees, teams have time or inclination to do it, and I'm going to try to somehow, through some avenues, try to get MLB to unify it a little more and give it a little higher profile, maybe along the lines of stand-up to cancer or something like that, because it's an absolute death sentence when you get it. I mean, people can beat cancer but they can't beat ALS right now, and we hope to make a world where people have a shot. Amen.
Speaker 1:John Shambi's done a great job in stepping forward, helping baseball take that next step by the way Right, so there's always room for improvement.
Speaker 3:I just hope that we can increase its profile.
Speaker 1:So that's Team Deb. Deb Docherty who, as you said, her agency. She had it for a number of years. Of course she was well-known around this time.
Speaker 3:It exists because the beauty of it is she's got two brothers who have complementary abilities and have jumped in there and taken the place over, so it's been seamless. And then she has an agency manager, jared pascoe, who has really grown into the job of really running the place day to day and it lives on, so it's a nice tribute to her. Oh, that's awesome creating it. So it didn't. It didn't die with her. So, um, yeah, it's a. It's a pretty neat tale and and it really is sort of a pittsburgh fixture. And she was right down there on market street, across from a place called froggies which was a notoriously great busy bar. I've actually heard of Froggy's.
Speaker 3:And Greg knows of it.
Speaker 1:He was around as soon as you mentioned Froggy's. It's hard to believe, it's no?
Speaker 2:longer there. You kind of live your life at Froggy's don't you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, froggy.
Speaker 3:So anyway, that's the ALS tangent not to go down a sad story.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you mentioned that because your story is incredible, the way you did for Gavin.
Speaker 3:I said in my eulogy, she absolutely made me a better man and she has propelled me. Her struggle and eventual passing has propelled me to make this my cause and my passion, to really see that ALS gets as much money as it can.
Speaker 2:And I don't want to get too deep with it, but if you're on my chair, how did you balance that? You said you left San Francisco for three years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, essentially.
Speaker 2:I have a best friend that lives here, owns a business. He took care of his dad for quite a few years before he passed and hearing his story just kind of blows me away. He's going to come on the podcast at some point, but I don't think people understand. It's not only tough, but you're also having to make a living. You have to do the things you've got to do. How did you balance?
Speaker 3:that. Well, it was just a lot and I guess not to get too deep about it, but I do. I am a God-fearing person and I think things happen for a reason sometimes, and my work is I run a company that's working on a children's brain cancer treatment. It's in Chicago.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's powerful.
Speaker 3:And so when COVID hit, deb got well back up a second. There's no straight test for ALS to say, oh, you have ALS and we're going to do this. You have to do it by exclusion. So they figure out all the terrible things you don't have, and then they're like hey, we figured it out, which is a crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah. How about the process of elimination? Yeah, you're like oh gosh, I don't have that Thank goodness, because you have hope.
Speaker 3:You've never prayed harder for MS, because people can live with MS, but they're just throwing stuff at the wall anything out?
Speaker 3:well, no, and she had an awful year before she got the awful news of all these. You know she got double vision. She got all these things happened to her, but she handled it with such a palm and such an amazing. She's just an example to us all. But so in 2020 the wheels started to get really wobbly and I decided I need to be in Pittsburgh more often.
Speaker 3:But 2020 was also beginnings of COVID and for a company doing clinical testing on children in cancer. All the health care facilities got jammed up to where we couldn't enroll kids in our trial. So we went zombie by necessity because we couldn't do anything. So that gave me a break because there was nothing for me to do. So my work was in a deep freeze and it allowed me to take care of her, and people at work cut me slack too and covered for me and so forth, and so it all sort of worked out to where I got a big window of time where I could do nothing but take care of her and my family.
Speaker 3:I mean, everybody helped. Her family helped. If I absolutely had to go home to do something like pay property tax or whatever, a sister would fly in, a brother would. So it really took a lot of people to do it, but I viewed it as being on duty at all times and it was always running in the background of my mind, but it was just a fortuitous. I mean, there are very few fortuitous things about COVID, but the fact that it gave me a tv time out to do all that was a blessing. And so about the time she passed and I, you know, was devastated and kind of tried to get my feet back under me we were able to kind of get going again with our company.
Speaker 2:So it all kind of ebbed and flowed and just happened in a in a good way well, it goes back to something brownie has said to me multiple times you can't wait to win, you have to prepare now to win. And then too, in the darkest moments, you can always find a little bit of light if you're willing to look. It sounds like you did.
Speaker 1:In a similar vein, talking about ALS and Lou Gehrig disease. A friend of mine who was a former member of the Pirates scouting department named John Niederer, who became scouting guy for the then California Angels. He had ALS and knew John very well and his son. He had divorced from his first wife but his son. I liked John Jr and I always liked him a lot. I thought he was a good guy. He was a bat boy for the Pirates for a while, but To see him care for his father the way he did, but a whole different light now that I appreciate him so much more, not that I didn't appreciate David.
Speaker 1:No surprise that David did what he did.
Speaker 2:But my gosh on full display.
Speaker 3:I appreciate that, because it's one of those things you just throw. I didn't give myself any choice. I said this is what I've chosen to do, I'm in this. It was exhausting, it was frustrating Because you just are task-oriented and past a certain point I'd have to get up about an hour ahead of her to get some stuff ready for the day, and then we'd get through the day and then at the end of the day I'd have equipment to clean and so forth.
Speaker 3:So I'd tuck her in in, kiss her good night, say I'll be in in a bit, and I'd have stuff to do, and so it made for a long day. But I, you know, I wish I could do it today. So but, um, the it's. It's interesting because, to your point of watching somebody take care of somebody, we, deb and I, were obviously very, very close and best friends and all that going into this thing. But the bond it creates is is is so profound and I don't say that in a self-glorification way, I mean just it's a you can't even put words around it. It's just because just practical things like modesty goes out the window, it's just, it's just the human condition laid bare, yeah, and there's no substitute for it and it just it's I.
Speaker 3:I would be a lesser person if I hadn't gone through that I guess is the way I'd put it, and so that's a gift she gave me, if you want to call it that, where, if I had missed that chapter in life, I wouldn't have, you know, gotten to experience, and then I would have been a lesser person. That's all I can say.
Speaker 2:You probably appreciate more things now, oh, like you never could have appreciated more things now, oh I can never appreciate.
Speaker 3:Well, more and less in that. She, for example uh, I mentioned a house in edgewood. We had to move her into a an apartment in fox chapel that was single level and you know that worked out perfectly too. Her brother found that it's very hard to find a single level apartment in pittsburgh with all the old people and all the but. You'd think there'd be a ton of them, but they're hard to find. So her brother john found that we in there, but in the process we had to have the mother of all garage sales at her house.
Speaker 3:So she basically saw every aspect of her life torn down, sold, and she was just as brave and dispassionate about it as you could be. So basically, you're seeing everything disappear and you're seeing your ability to disappear. Your hand doesn't work anymore, you're having trouble speaking, you can't walk anymore, you're relying on people to help you with everyday things. You know toothbrushing and toileting and so forth. So all that loss and she handled it with a plum. But back to your point where you know the sort of the stop and smell the roses every day is a gift thing, which I agree with. In spades, it also taught me that we get wrapped around the axle in terms of materialism or what have you. When you get right down to it, you just don't need that much stuff. She proved it to me in that you just need food on the table, a warm environment, you know, some help and, uh, somebody to have your back and that's that's kind of all you need I mean think about.
Speaker 2:How many times have you heard either someone that's made a lot of money or been very successful kind of wrap their arms at the end of it, say, say it's really just the people around me that matter.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it gets pretty raw and pretty basic Really raw and really simple. So, anyway, I don't want to be a downer on that, but I'm a better person, for it is all I can say, and I wouldn't change anything that occurred. You know, I just did everything I could for her left it all on the field and somewhere.
Speaker 1:I think she knows it. No doubt We'll jump on board Team Deb next summer. Well, thank you.
Speaker 2:That's the greatest gift you guys can give me. No doubt I just need to get through you guys. She was a wonderful person.
Speaker 3:You guys have a huge megaphone and I would just like to see her honored for the next 20 years.
Speaker 1:We talked earlier about your favorite. I guess it would be your favorite souvenir, your memento that you got from Steve Blass and Johnny Bench. What would third place be of all the things? Because you collect your father's scorecards as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, that's a big deal, just because I can see him doing it. And every game I ever went to with him he insisted on doing it. He taught me how to score a game.
Speaker 1:Is there one item that stands out? I don't have the patience for it. Of all the things you've gotten over the years, not necessarily.
Speaker 2:Do you have like a room?
Speaker 3:No, I haven't done that yet. Oh, actually, I can tell you what it is, because it was such an odd circumstance.
Speaker 1:You okay over there. Yeah, yeah, drop my cigar, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Such an odd circumstance that made it happen, Ralph.
Speaker 3:Eric On the and Deb was part of this. This was before we were serious and shortly after we'd met. But in 2010, it was the observance of the 50th anniversary of the 60 World Series and you guys were on the road, but they had a gala in center field in a tent.
Speaker 1:No, I was there.
Speaker 3:Oh, did you go that night? Okay, well, I'm sorry, no it was very memorable.
Speaker 1:The MC was very memorable. Once again, my apologies. Were you there. You were on the road.
Speaker 3:I've been lucky enough to spend so much time.
Speaker 1:I understand it all blurs together. You were a soothing voice.
Speaker 3:Oh yes, and bear in mind too, I'm with this woman who I'm fairly enamored of but not romantically involved with.
Speaker 1:I understand she's a beautiful woman, he's working things. She was a beautiful woman. She always dressed up well.
Speaker 3:So you might or might not recall that night went a little longer than people intended and they had a very ambitious live auction schedule and they didn't manage it particularly well for my selfish purposes, because I don't know if you guys know. You know who Burton Morris is?
Speaker 3:I don't know whether you do or not, but he did the poster for the 06 All-Star, very, very famous artist, pittsburgh-based guy, and so up at some point late in the night I'm with this woman. I barely know and I'm trying to not be that guy, but I was always a big fan of burton morris and they produced this very large work of maz turning a double play at second base. And so, again, this is in the wake of my dad dying and maz and the whole thing and liking burton morris, and so bidding starts. Your eyes are this big, well, this big. But I'm also thinking to myself.
Speaker 1:I don't want to be that guy You've got to be cool about it. I don't want to be that guy oh, that's mine, that's for me, right, right.
Speaker 3:So the bidding is crickets because most people left. They got tired. It was like 10 o'clock by the time they should have done the big ticket items and then the weekend at Nemecol and way down the.
Speaker 1:MC's fault, but anyway, so it was my fault. Yeah, I heard that. I did hear that it wasn't all.
Speaker 3:Anyway. So their loss was my gain in the following way there were only two of us bidding, everyone had like auction fatigue and I set myself a budget in my head and it started to go and it was way below my budget and all of a sudden you know guy's ahead of me and the gavel's about to go down. So I said you know whatever, another $500 or whatever. So I won the darn thing for a song. I mean, his agent was mildly annoyed because anyway. So then Deb turns to me and she says you know Burton's here Because she knew Burton, because she represented him way back. Wow, so she said, and Maz was there. She said you should have both of them sign. This is an original piece of art, big big thing. And so we all went up there for the photo. The winning person who won the picture, and Maz and Burton Morris signed the thing in the moment lower right corner. So I would say in terms of like a backstory and a cool, that's probably.
Speaker 1:That probably takes well, I've got a story. It's not because of its value baseball's so amazing and this is gonna maybe blow your minds. It blows my mind because you're aware that the other bidder, we decided to go ahead and get a second print because you guys got it up to a number, you got up to a number, we had to go ahead and get a second print because you guys got it up to a number.
Speaker 3:You got up to a number, we had to Okay. So in order to raise money, so I spent 500 too much on it. That's what you're telling me. No, no, no, so, so, so, basically, we had two people make me feel bad.
Speaker 1:Do you know who the other guy was at one? Well, no, who was it? My cousin.
Speaker 3:Wow, so you remember all this? Here's a story. It's crazy.
Speaker 1:You said 2010. Tell me A couple years before that. Tell me that side of the Brown family grew up in Uniontown, pennsylvania. I think they had nine ten kids.
Speaker 3:Big Mac was invented, but that's another story. Whatever what Big Mac was invented, joe Deligati, deligati, joe. Right, we'll wrap back to that Anyway.
Speaker 1:So they moved to California in probably the 1960s, whatnot, and they dispersed all over the place. My cousin Tommy is still a great Pirate fan in Houston, Lived in Houston, Always see him when we go to Houston all the time. Always see him when we go to Houston all the time. He gets on a Facebook message again from Uniontown from the 1960s. This is about 2008. He gets a message from somebody that says hey, didn't you used to live at 550 Crawford Street? Yeah, that's my home, he goes. Well, we moved into this house and we found a box in the corner in the attic and in this box is a scrapbook filled with just nothing but Bill Mazeroski stories and pictures of Maz and your family used to live. Could that possibly belong to you? And he said that's my sister's. Wow, Can you send it to me? Just so happened his sister, my cousin, was dying of cancer out in California. He gets the scrapbook, he wraps it up. He flies to California. She's so weak she can. She has to live on the first floor. He walks in. My cousin Tommy walks in to his sister who's dying of cancer, with this scrapbook wrapped up. She opens it up. Tears start flowing. She said my mad scrapbook she had not seen in 40 years. She said it was the best day, one of the best days of her life. She would pass away a few weeks later.
Speaker 1:Now fast forward to 2010. I'm the MC and I'm told I can bring someone. I know how big a fan Tom, my cousin Tom Brown, is. I call Tom. I said if you get down here on next Friday I'll pick you up at the airport. You got to wear a tux. I know you're not much for tuxes, nor am I, but we got to figure that out. So he stays at the Spring Hill Suites, right across the street from the ballpark, for that gala. This is incredible. He goes to dress the tux. I'd say I'll meet you at the press gate at 4.30. The gala starts at 5. I'll meet you at the press gate. I'll wait for you. He gets dressed in his tux. He's on like the fifth floor, Hits the lobby button, Gets down to the third floor, the elevator opens up. Guess who walked into that elevator?
Speaker 3:Bill Mazeroski Wow.
Speaker 1:And he told Maz the story. Now Maz is crying. So lo and behold at this function, at this auction you and my cousin.
Speaker 2:We never knew this story before Right, right. So anyway, that's crazy, crazy story that didn't blow my mind, so there's two of these pieces, yeah.
Speaker 3:And David and my cousin Tom have them, and then they made a reproduction of it and I was able to and this was another interesting three-cushion shot but they made a reproduction of it and I got one somehow and got it signed and then delivered it to the ronald mcdonald house because they have a big wow uh, activity room for people. And then again how weird stuff works. Burton morris's mother, bunny, is a very active volunteer at the ronald mcdonald house. So bunny sees it and says do you want to have's?
Speaker 3:So, anyway, it's hanging up there in the Ronald McDonald house, double signed by the artist and the subject. How cool.
Speaker 3:But one thing I just flashed on in terms of general this is not pirate memorabilia, but one thing that I'd probably want to be buried with if I had an option. My dad was a pretty good baseball player, as was my grandfather, and my dad played for Navy, not division baseball, not, you know, intercollegiate but he had a Wilson three-finger glove, so thumb and actually two fingers and to take care of your four fingers, two, you know, two in each run and it's in great shape and it's seen a lot of wear and I have that. Oh, that's special.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a keepsake right there.
Speaker 3:Because when I was a kid, that's the way you get back to kind of like the end of Field of Dreams where he would be, wearing that glove when we played catch, and we played catch with a ball.
Speaker 3:This is inconceivable to me today. But when he was walking into a game at Forest Field when he was in his 20s or 30s he all of a sudden hears a crack on the side he was late for the game Crack on the sidewalk and realizes that's a foul ball. And he looks up and he gets it and it had like a Ford Frick signature on it or something like that. It's back when they had two different balls. And so he put it in the drawer next to all his old baseball cards in a Velveeta wooden box and I said, Dad, do you want to play catch? And he's like, yeah, I've got a ball here somewhere. It's like the same one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's the same one.
Speaker 3:It wasn't a big deal, but we just beat that ball to death and it was unrecognizable. It would be nice to have that ball, but it's gone, so anyway, but his glove.
Speaker 3:I think is the thing Because, as he was getting late in his days, at one point he gave me his Naval Academy ring and I called my mom. I said you know, my dad gave me his ring and she said he knows he's going to die soon. He never took that ring off and so that was my mom teared up when I was talking to her and she said if he gave me that ring, he knows he's done.
Speaker 3:We still have that in the family, obviously, and everything else, David, I'll tell you what a treat this has been.
Speaker 2:This is absolutely an honor to be part of this.
Speaker 3:It's good to get to know you better.
Speaker 1:There's nothing like smoking stogies on Hold my Cutter, having some good chat and breaking bread with your friends.
Speaker 3:That was baked at 5 pm Eastern time. Bordenavi's in San.
Speaker 1:Francisco. So as we do this, we will break bread and continue when I picked it up at 2 in the afternoon in California it was still hot. Wow, wow, is that good, still warm. That is that good, still warm, still warm. That's a bad sign. Oh man, is that good?
Speaker 3:That's got great taste, there's a lot of regional snobbery about foods, but that taste is one that's very, very hard to duplicate. It's a little bit like New York bagels, where there's something about the water or the sourdough starter or whatever, but it makes for a good loaf of bread.
Speaker 1:Thank you for this, absolutely. And thanks for being on your favorite podcast and ours. Thank you, guys, for including me and thank you for being willing to help with the ALS. We will Hold my cutter.
