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Hold My Cutter
The Medical Side of Major League Baseball: Dr. Pat DeMeo's Journey
What happens when the players break? Dr. Pat DeMeo takes us into the sacred space of the Pittsburgh Pirates' trainer's room at LECOM Park to reveal the hidden world of Major League Baseball medicine.
Growing up as a Yankees fan in 1960s New York, DeMeo never imagined he'd one day become the Pirates' medical director and head of orthopedic surgery at Allegheny Health Network. With remarkable candor, he shares the unexpected path that led him to this rare position – one of only 30 MLB medical directors in the world – and the steep learning curve he faced during his first years with the organization.
Behind every pitcher's devastating injury or miraculous comeback lies an intricate dance between medical science and the business of baseball. Dr. DeMeo pulls back the curtain on how these decisions unfold, revealing the seasonal rhythm that dictates his work from spring training physicals to draft preparations and trade deadline medical evaluations. His philosophy remains steadfast through it all: "I don't represent management. I represent the player."
The conversation takes a dramatic turn when DeMeo recounts saving a man's life on the field during spring training, performing CPR and using a defibrillator while players watched on bended knee. He describes Jung Ho Kang's catastrophic 2015 knee injury as "the worst baseball injury I've ever seen – worse than anything in football" and details the innovative surgical approach that allowed Kang to return to play when the odds seemed impossible.
From AJ Burnett's transformative impact on team chemistry to the emotional challenges of forming bonds with players who might be "here today, gone tomorrow," Dr. DeMeo provides a deeply human perspective on medicine at the highest level of sports. His stories reveal not just the physical demands of baseball, but the mental fortitude required from both players and the medical professionals who care for them.
Want more insider baseball stories? Subscribe to Hold My Cutter for conversations with the personalities who make baseball America's most storied game.
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We talk about a special edition of Hold my Cutter. This is a first inside the trainer's room at Lee Com. The former, I guess this is the McKechnie Field Clubhouse at Lee Com, because we're in the trainer's room, the doctor tells us we can't smoke any Rockies. At least here We'll go outside and do it. It's Hold my Cutter. We do have baseballs all over the place. But the great Dr Pat DeMeo is with us who, uh, heads the orthopedic surgery department at allegheny health network. A long-time medical director for the pirates, going back to like 2002, his stories are unbelievable. Uh, this is where it all happens, doc. Yes, many is where we wish some things didn't happen yeah.
Speaker 3:We're bringing good juju Right.
Speaker 1:Well, I want to talk to Pat DeMeo about your story. We love talking, pat, about how people have gotten to where Hold my Cutter is about baseball, the Pirates sports, pittsburgh, and how people got to where they are today. Your story, when you think about being a medical director, a guy that's in charge of all the stuff, all the medicine, essentially the medical stuff with the Pittsburgh Pirates, a major league sports franchise, when you're growing up and your accent is still very evident in New York, you couldn't have dreamed about being this.
Speaker 2:No, no, I mean, obviously I was. You know, growing up in the 60s. You know there wasn't a little boy in America didn't want to be a baseball player, right, and so you know it was America's pastime, it was the biggest thing ever, and we all played Little League. You know Pony League and a lot of other stuff, and you know so. To even think someday I would be able to mingle with Major League Baseball players.
Speaker 1:I would never even think of that. Yankees Mets obviously.
Speaker 2:Yankees. Well, I grew up so my dad was an old New York Giant fan and he pretty much stayed a Giant fan. So it's really the Willie Mayss days and then those guys on the willie mccovey's and whatnot, and then I grew up I don't know, I mean I just, you know, when I was little the yankees were pretty bad, right, they were in last place all the time, but I was just a yankee fan, I think mainly because of mickey mantel, okay, right, and uh, you know, I caught the tail end of his career, um, and so, uh, and I just I maybe just because of all the tradition and history that was there with the team. So, yeah, we used to watch the Yankee games on WPXI.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:In New York, Channel 11. And then, as my career progressed, I think people asked me how did I get to where I'm at? There was really no plan. It wasn't like. I said, hey, I have this diabolical plan and I'm going to plan this.
Speaker 2:Once I decided to go to medical school I wasn't really sure what kind of doctor I would be. Until I had enough exposure and experience I knew I wanted to be a surgeon. And then I narrowed it down to orthopedics. Enough exposure and experience and knew I wanted to be a surgeon. And then I narrowed it down to orthopedics and once I got into orthopedics I decided that you know, sports medicine was my passion and you know. And then one thing led to another and I think I was very, very fortunate in my career to have some really big mentors, and especially at the Cleveland Clinic my mentor was Dr John Bergfeld and he was one of the most respected sports manifestations in the country and that kind of was the springboard to kind of like the box you check to say, okay, are you, can you do a professional team? Right? Because, because you had that?
Speaker 1:did he make you aware that was a possibility?
Speaker 2:you just knew that you get into that program. How?
Speaker 1:do. How do you get a break to become this for a sports franchise, by the way. What happens?
Speaker 2:Well, I think you have to have your boxes checked right, you have to have all your credentials in line, which obviously I did and then there has to be some faith to it. Right, you have to be in the right place at the right time and there has to be a need. And there's only 30 major league teams, right, how do you get to be a player? You know there has to be. You know how many great players did you come up with in high school, college minor league baseball that you think, man, this guy's going to be a great major leaguer.
Speaker 2:But there was never that window. Right, they just they got shut out because there wasn't the opportunity. The same thing with us. Right, it was just that window for me. I was in the right place at the right time. Kevin McClatchy believed in me and you know he stuck with me. And you know David, you know Cam Bonifay and then David were, you know, really instrumental early in my career. And I will tell you this you know you don't learn how to be a major league baseball team doctor in medical school or residency, right, because this is a very insular world right, there's only so many major league baseball players.
Speaker 1:No way to practice this.
Speaker 2:Right. And so you know, having never haven't played the game at this level Right, for me those first four or five years was very big learning curve, and learning not just the medical side of the game, but the game of the game, the game within the game, and what these guys are feeling, what the stress is like. You know the pressure that they're under constantly. I mean those are things that you know people on the outside don't see, and so you have to learn how to understand what they're going through, understand what their problems are. It's not just oh, does your shoulder hurt, or your elbow hurt, or what's the MRI show. There's a lot of stuff that goes into it and the baseball side of it. Browning, I didn't know baseball like you guys know it.
Speaker 1:You played in high school.
Speaker 2:I played.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, I know.
Speaker 2:I know I wasn't even going to go to the next level, right, but that's not what professional baseball is, it's a whole different app. Yeah, yeah, a whole different app. And so, learning that part of it, having David Littlefield and Brian Graham those guys teach me the game and understanding and you know, there's kind of like a rhythm to the season, right, and understanding that because, okay, that's a great point Red.
Speaker 1:Steve Blass always talked about that. The three phases like spring training. The excitement of getting to the ballpark for spring training, you know, and then the excitement of playing, but then in the middle there's this lull the down and then it revs back up at the very end, and the rhythm for us is well right now.
Speaker 2:Everything's ramped up between training. We're going to get physicals done, so Major League Camp's going to break tomorrow. That's great, but you know what? I've got the minor leagues coming in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So now I have to be two places time, yeah, right, and answering phone calls all day long right between both places. But in the minor leagues it's a lot of work. There's a lot of players, right, you know, and then a lot of coaches too, yeah right, um and so uh. And then once spring training kind of gets settled and the minor leagues are playing their games, things kind of calm down a little bit and then it's kind of okay. Now they're setting rosters right and you know how thatle-down effect goes throughout the entire organization. You know, and you know who are they who's going to be the 27th guy? Who's going to be the 26th guy? Who's going to be the 25th guy? You know? Who's going to be the 12th pitcher, right? All those things that are being decided in the next few weeks, that last week.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, you know, they'll ask questions of me. You know, do I think this person can play or pitch back-to-back games? Do I think you know, like how many games do you think he can, you know, play? You know, do you think this person's going to play 90 games, 100 games? You know, what do you think? And those are just guesstimates, right, but at the end of the day you kind of get used to it over the years, understanding what it all entails. I don't think I could answer those questions in my first two years.
Speaker 1:Right, you have to build that up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you got to get that Even what they were really asking your first two years.
Speaker 2:Not really.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Sure Cause. I mean they don't speak your language, you don't speak their language. But they made it fresh out of it.
Speaker 2:Littlefield. Yeah, littlefield really cut. He understood, and he understood how to. How to? You know, I used to sit with them during the games and listen to them, and then I, and that's how I hear the language.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so then the season starts, Right. So this excitement of opening day and like kind of April and May, you kind of glide a little bit. But then all of a sudden you start thinking, OK, here comes the June draft and you know I have to go through a lot of work for that, Right. So there's going through all those medical records, which is easier now than it might have been, you know, a generation ago, because the electronic medical record. But back then if you ever walked into my office at PNC you just see five feet worth of paper. Right, I would go into all those charts and I would come up.
Speaker 2:I came up with a grading scheme that I would give that's still in use today, that I would explain that now, well, like a perfect score would mean that you had no injuries, uh say, the next category would be that you had, say, maybe a non-baseball specific injury. So anybody that's playing a sport, you know if you hurt your knee, hurt your ankle, either, whether it was surgery or not. But it's not baseball specific, it's just kind of a general orthopedic athletic injury. But then you start to get to baseball specific injuries the shoulder, the elbow, okay, and then that's a different grading scheme and so you've got to knock people down for that a little bit.
Speaker 2:But at the same time, if they'd come back from that and demonstrated that they can be successful, you don't want to penalize them either. Right, and I penalize them either right. Um, and I think over you know, the last generation, I mean, if you teams are now drafting guys who haven't had their surgery yet, but they know they need it, yeah, which I mean a decade ago that would have never happened, right? So I think that goes to.
Speaker 3:We did that with hunter barco, right, yeah yeah, explain that now so hunter barco is at florida. He is maybe a huge still in the draft it's looking better and better each and every year, but he's at Florida, probably going to be a top ten pick, but nobody takes him, nobody kind of puts their hand on him. We did, we get him in and we get to do that rehab and I think that's a huge benefit, absolutely, and it's a bet on our medical staff and we have a great medical staff.
Speaker 1:You can draft guys now who've had surgeries, maybe Tommy John Even before they're Tommy John.
Speaker 2:They're drafting guys that say, let's say you're an elite college pitcher and you get hurt in May, right, and you need Tommy John surgery. Well, if they had you pegged as a first-rounder, they're going to take you still thinking that you know, they may drop you a little bit.
Speaker 2:But there's a 90% chance you're going to make it back from that surgery, right? So so that didn't exist at that KVK. I mean, the numbers have just we've continued to get better and better at the surgical side, that is crazy to think that you would stay completely away from a Tommy John guy and now, heck with it.
Speaker 1:we'll rehab him. We know what we're doing. There's a track record there.
Speaker 2:And then, right after the June draft comes, what Trading deadline. That's another crazy period, because for every one thing the media may hear about, there's a hundred things that we're doing. Right, you're?
Speaker 1:constantly researching guys' medical records.
Speaker 2:You're constantly.
Speaker 1:So are you constantly passing medical records to different teams and you're giving some players? You're getting some players, but it's much easier now because it's electronic.
Speaker 3:You have the portal now. What did you do back in the day? Did you have to mail it, scan it?
Speaker 2:Telephone calls it's like one paper, two papers, it's nuts, I'm not going to say. There have never been times where we have been duped by other teams by withholding medical information, which is much harder to do now because of electronic records.
Speaker 3:They give us the access as players.
Speaker 2:now we got some players, like a guy by the name of Freddy Sanchez.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, there was some shenanigans that would take place. You end up with Freddy Sanchez because of that.
Speaker 2:They had to undo the trade they didn't divulge to us, but you know, they gave us a National, nationally batting championship. Turned out to be great for the Pirates Right.
Speaker 1:Exactly, actually it turned out probably better because if you look at the other players involved and it's out there, it's a public thing, right, right. But if you look at the players that would have been involved, the Pirates turned out way better trade for the Pirates. It did it did.
Speaker 2:And so then that trading deadline happens and then it's kind of OK. Then that training deadline happens, and then it's kind of okay. Then the season kind of just kind of goes on autopilot for a little bit, except with just injuries. And then, as you know, as you start to get into late August and the September call up, things start to get hectic again. And then you're trying to get everybody, you know, in September to make sure that, as the season's ending, you're making sure you're, you're, you're dotting all your I's and crossing your T's and guys are going to get the correct diagnostic procedures they need before they go home and things like that, because you don't want to have those loose ends. And then you know, when people go home, you know what it's like in the offseason it gets crazy. You've got to get away from this game and they decompress. And I think that's really, really important because you know, I don't think the public really understands, I don't think I could really even appreciate it, even though I see it. You know 162 games.
Speaker 2:It's unbelievable, I mean forget about the physical toll, the mental toll. Right, how do you get yourself mentally prepared?
Speaker 1:162 games a year Right, but not including spring training Right. And then we forget about these 30, right.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, we don't talk about these 30.
Speaker 1:So you know, you played all the sports. Explain that from a doctor's, orthopedic guy's standpoint about the difference between baseball and these other sports, because there's a mentality sometimes in Western PA they call it a football town and these guys aren't tough enough. It's not hockey, but talk about that grind. I would say this to anybody.
Speaker 2:You can walk into the Steelers locker room. You can walk into the Pirate locker room, athlete's an athlete yeah, that's a good call. I mean these guys are pretty big.
Speaker 1:They're not wearing pads. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But they're not tiny little guys, they're built to rotate Right, which is different. And I think in baseball you're going to see more attritional type injuries. So the wear and tear of throwing thousands of baseball over the course of the year, the wear and tear on your back rotating your hips from the rotation of the swing, thousands and thousands of swings during the course of the season. So, yeah, I think that it's much different types of injuries, but it's not that acute thing like, oh, he blew his knee out, and every once in a while you do see that, right, but it's it's rare. I mean, you see, you know, um, you know o'neill cruz break an ankle, or uh uh, jung ho, jung ho gong. Yeah, the knee.
Speaker 2:Yeah, polanco that burger polanco but I'll tell you what jung ho's was the worst baseball injury I've ever seen in my life what worse than the kendall injury?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, no, wait a second the kendall injury.
Speaker 2:Of course, we saw ankle dislocation but he didn't break anything okay. So it's just soft tissue, um, and, and you know, obviously it was open so you had to worry about infection, but he did really well with that right and it really wasn't a whole lot to fix Right. The injury to John was that I've never seen and that's worse than football. The injury I've seen Get out. Now his entire cartilage was displaced about a centimeter and a half. What I think about? Like if somebody took a piston and just drove it through his knee. And so we had to. Not only we had to reconstruct the ligaments, but we had to tunnel up underneath the knee and push that cartilage back up from the bottom. Where did it go it? Just it drove into like a die punch, what it's? Just like this. I'll show you the x-rays, um. So I've never seen anything like that and you know I will tell you what's amazing.
Speaker 2:And first of all, you know you're only as good as the weakest member of your team in anything that you do in life, whether it's sports or what I do as the chairman of the department. I have a great team. I have great partners, great colleagues. You know if I pick up that phone they're going to be there at a moment's notice and they're going to give me their A game. So I had my. You know my colleagues like Greg Altman come in and help me with that surgery, and you know it was, but honestly, did I think he was going to come back from that. I'd put I had to put it probably 80, 20,. No way he's ever coming back from professional sports. So that's a testament to him too, though right, I mean, at the end of the day you could do the best surgery in the world, but somebody has to have the mental makeup.
Speaker 3:You got to get through that rehab. You've got to get through that rehab Right. And they've got to say, hey, I can do this Right.
Speaker 2:So I give the kid a lot of credit, I mean, for what he went through. That was pretty tough and then, like the day, like Ryan Boldel song got hit in the eye with that.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean I was like, oh my God, I'm an orthopedic, what do I know about eyes? I'm like holy man, I've never seen anything like this. But thank God he gets to the ER at AGH two blocks away. The ophthalmological traumatological surgeon was in the OR one floor below, met him up in the ER as he arrived. Oh my gosh. And so you know to have that level of support from your colleagues, not just in the Department of Orthopedics, but from the entire enterprise. You know you pick up the phone, they're going to be there for you. That really matters.
Speaker 1:I didn't realize that that injury of Jung Ho-Gung's was so late in the season, september 18, 2015, against the Cubs PMC Park. Slide takeout slide by Chris Coghlan of the Chicago Cubs. Pirate fans will remember and they'll hold a grudge forever, I'm sure the manager of the Chicago Cubs I can't believe that statement. Joe Maddon kind of kiddingly said something about plantar fasciitis. That was disingenuous, yeah.
Speaker 2:Wow yeah, the guy had a traumatic knee injury. That was obvious to everybody in the stadium and you're going to call it plantar fasciitis.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow.
Speaker 2:So so Very unprofessional.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can. You can fight your opponent.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Wow, so that that happens in September he's done for the. Who knows what impact that has the rest of the way on the pirates. They ended up going to post-season one game playoff and lose it. But then you mentioned Ryan Vogel song game playoff and lose it, but then you mentioned ryan vogel song.
Speaker 2:The pitchers at the plate gets hit in the eye. Um go back to the uh july 4th. Can I tell you, no, please, heck, yeah, please, yeah, aj, aj right, this is aj bernett yeah, and you know, he's just the character. I love it. Yeah, yeah, okay, uh, but I didn't know him that well and his first day, first spring training.
Speaker 2:He's bunning and then he gets an orbital fracture. Right, I'll never forget, yeah. So now we're on the plane together going home Not planned. You're escorting him back. I'm not really escorting him, I'm going back because I have to operate myself and so I just finished the major league physicals and I was going home for a week and then I was going to come back on minor league physicals.
Speaker 2:And so AJ was on the plane because he had to have surgery and our surgeon was randy baby, same one that took care of brian, and so randy the next morning, you know, I'm in the or and I'm operating in the same space as randy, right? So I have two rooms running here. Maybe he has one room here, and so, you know, during the survey I check in and say how's it going. So he said it's going great, it's going to be no problem, we'll fix it up, no big deal. So now I'm in the recovery room. That's unbelievable.
Speaker 1:Like during the surgery no big deal, that's so good, but wait, wait, that's so good Side baseball stuff.
Speaker 2:It's really better. And his wife is sitting next to him and he's got the patch on his eye and I just went up to him and I said hey, aj, I just want to let you know everything went perfect, you did great. And he opens his good eye and he looks at me and says don't you have some shoulder surgeries.
Speaker 3:So AJ, that's. So great. So AJ, that is so great, go do some surgery. Yeah, go get yourself done, get out of oh my gosh so great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know I mean I have so many favorites over the years I can't it's hard to distinguish them. But I mean guys that you know really respect. You know Kevin Young's, jason Kendall's, brian Giles, guys that play hard.
Speaker 1:You know guys that you know they just Now you this is maybe a silly question, maybe not, but you develop relationships more so through injuries, correct?
Speaker 2:Yes and no. I mean I will tell you this and you would appreciate this as a physician. I mean you don't really become a physician unless you actually are empathetic and care about your patient 100%.
Speaker 2:And you do a great job of that. But if you don't, you're in trouble. Yeah, the hardest thing for me to learn in professional baseball was the here today, gone tomorrow. Right, because now you, we become friends, we book, I know your wife's name, I know your kid's name, you know. I mean I may not socialize with you, but I mean I know you well enough to know you personally and have a relationship with you. But and then part of the game is you're here today, gone tomorrow. And I guess if you're in the game, you understand that mentality because you've done it your whole life to get here and so you accept it. But for us as physicians it was very hard for me to get used to that. Right, and they just go move on to other organizations or other clubs where they retire and you know they have good lives and you know. But you don't. You just you're so used to seeing somebody all the time being friendly with them in this state.
Speaker 1:And you can't just turn that off. No, you're going to develop relationships Right.
Speaker 2:And so you still, and still, to this day, when you run into somebody like Two years ago at the stadium, the bullpen coach for the for for Arizona, Mike.
Speaker 1:Oh, like fall fetters, my gosh Mike better since he left his clubhouse over 20 years ago.
Speaker 2:But I walked across the field, I saw him and give me a big hug. Oh my gosh, that's kind of mean something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean it's kind of like well, geez, you know the impact that you make on guys, that yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, speaking of that, I mean you get the image, you get the MRI and you have to go in and deliver the news. And you did that with me and I'll never forget it, how empathetic you were and how you presented it. Obviously, I have five knee surgeries under my belt, but I'll never forget you gave me options, you gave me a way to think about it and you kind of we both kind of said like you're going into something, that's going into arbitration, there's a good chance. I wasn't coming back, but you laid it all out. Obviously, this wasn't year two, three, four, three. You'd been in it, but your baseball knowledge and the way you presented it put me at ease. I don't even think my wife was there at the moment.
Speaker 1:Well now, Ford, can you slow that down, because we need to tell us exactly what happened. I'm in.
Speaker 3:Miami, I have my first four-hit game and I go to break up a double play. What year? This is 2013. Okay, I just get hot. I struggled most of the year. April had a good month, Then May and June. I really didn't play well, probably put too much pressure on myself. Got hot In a week in July. Russell Martin was kind of banged up so I was getting to play more slide in that base and my knee just sticks, ended up finishing the game. We won the game. Um, I take a lot of pride into finishing that game because russell was hurt too and he was sitting on the sidelines with his entire gear on. I'll never forget I was like dude, you can take that off, you're not coming in, it's like you can't.
Speaker 1:Despite your injury, you're gonna.
Speaker 3:I was like I'm finishing it walk so I knew someone was seriously injured yep, and then I hobbled to the plane the next day, or I hobbled through and actually passed all the tests because doc wasn't there. So I passed all my tests with with their doctors there they're like, oh, we think he's good, stay on the roster.
Speaker 3:And then the next day end up having image my knees this big and my meniscus is torn in half and it's stuck underneath my patella okay, but you didn't know what was going on so you go back back to that conversation with Fat to Mayo, now and then as soon as I get back straight to images and I'm waiting in the room I think my wife's out of town, she's flying in and it's just me and him and he lays it out and I guess he has a whiteboard. But his brain has a whiteboard and he's laying out options for me, like we can do this, we can do this, we can do this, we can do this. He's like I do think you can repair it. It's going to take time.
Speaker 2:He just gave me a list of options and gave me a decision.
Speaker 3:I try to do that. Not everybody does that. It's a whole thing.
Speaker 2:I think one of the things that experience has taught me is that I don't necessarily know what the players think. I don't have an idea. Is he arbitration eligible? Is he free agent? You know what's the roster makeup. What has the manager said to him about his future? I mean, you don't know any of that, right, but he talked to me like he did, but I want, so I tried to put myself in the player's position and say, look, I'm not going to come here and just tell you what to do. I'm going to lay this out for you. There's different scenarios here and then I can help you make the best decision for you.
Speaker 2:Right, because you understand exactly where you're at in this whole major league odyssey. Right, that you as a physician don't really understand, and I think that's what really sets you apart as a sports medicine physician. Right, you have to understand the psych of the athlete. What are they thinking? How can you help them be successful without being authoritarian? And if you have that trust and that rapport with your athletes, I think that you'll have much better outcomes. Look, if you want to ask me what I and I don't know if I really should even say this, but I'm going to know, at the end of the day, you know the generational changes that have occurred. You know there's so much interference today by the agents where they're dictating where they want the medical care to be delivered, and yet they're not experts, right? Nor do they care about the Pittsburgh Pirates, right? Like I'm here, I care about this team, right? This is my team.
Speaker 3:But he also made you feel like he cared about you too, right yeah?
Speaker 2:I care about the organization.
Speaker 3:But you also cared about the players.
Speaker 2:Yes, of course, and there is a separation at times Ever, ever, ever. I don't represent management. I represent the player.
Speaker 3:And you could feel that Right, and I think that's something that's People ask me that.
Speaker 2:Like do you ever feel pressure from management? The answer is no, because I've never let them, but I'm going to do what's right for the player. But having said that, I have seen several times in my career really good players go to outside uh facilities and have bad outcomes that have, quite honestly, ended their careers right, and you know I'm not going to say those names out loud, but I mean it's. It's disheartening because they, these athletes, were trusting their agents who they thought had their best interests at heart. They send them to this place and you're wondering what's this guy thinking? And I can't really stop them. It's it's, it's what their choice is, right, I mean, I've had, you know, I try to counsel them, but you know, and so they put their blind faith in somebody that they don't know and then it costs them a career and it's, and it's sad to see that happen, right, Really sad.
Speaker 1:Oh, that happened right. Really, my gosh. Yeah, that's got to be another.
Speaker 3:Another great thing he did for me is you got me into I don't know if there's a medical study with you and dr andrews with stem cells right, and I still believe, and I ended up having a stem cell on my other knee and both these have been great. I haven't taught enough and you know what?
Speaker 2:let me tell you something about that but he's always on the cutting edge.
Speaker 3:Yes, he brought that I was very interested.
Speaker 1:You got to be up to speed on all this, yeah like he's putting.
Speaker 3:You're putting your name with dr andrews, you guys are collaborating, they get that done and he he just. But I had I was so fortunate um to have dr andrews in my career as an ally um, and not only, you know, an ally, but a mentor he didn't have to tell me that, by the way, you know, you never had to tell me that, but he was always transparent and that that speaks volumes to this man's character and so you know, dr andrews, you know, look it will.
Speaker 2:It will never be, dr andrews, equal in the history of masley baseball and what his contributions to this game have been.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think he should be like in the medical wing of the baseball hall of fame yeah yeah, because his what he did was he saved so many countless careers by not only performing cutting edge surgery but studying the results of those surgeries and learning from those results and improving those results. Um, so it's not just saying, okay, I'm gonna do this, this, this and that right, it's improving that over time and being able to measure that right. And I think the other thing that Dr Ingers has done really big is prophylaxis. Right, how do we cut down on these injuries? Why are we seeing so many of these injuries? You know and it's multifactorial I don't know that I have the answers to that. I certainly think we're putting more torque on arms today than we did. Okay, you know, guys are throwing harder, they're bigger, they're stronger, they're spinning harder. I mean, you know it's going to affect us, right. But is there something that you know we can do early?
Speaker 2:I think, if you look back 15, 20 years ago, dr Green used it a lot of studies on youth baseball to help cut those numbers down. So that you know and I can't tell you how many kids I've seen over the years and I said look, it's not really how, it's not, it's not important how good you are at 16. So good you are at 26. Yeah, yeah. And if there's one thing I did learn from from the players, from people like you, and if there's one thing I did learn from the players from people like you, is if you sat in the locker room with most of them and you said, greg, hey, are you the best player in Little League? Are you the best player in your high school? Most of them are going to tell you no, and you're going to look at them and say, well, you made it to the major leagues.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, right.
Speaker 2:How about the other guys? Well, the difference is, every year I just got a little bit better. You know, every year I just got a little bit better. So it's it's important to tell people you might not be. Look, my son, pj, played baseball in high school with david bednar that I think he was going to be an all-star pittsburgh pirate back then. Of course not right, but god bless him.
Speaker 1:Every year he just got better, yeah, right that's right tons of stories like that now you talk about the relationship you have with. You know, michael McHenry points out, here's one instance where you're going through these scenarios and telling each player you know, these are your options and that's what you do. You've got to have great table manners and you talk about, you represent the player. But you talked about the different factions. You've got a player, you've got an organization. You've got Allegheny Health Network. You've got it all.
Speaker 1:Don't forget mama the wife oh my gosh, I did, I just, but it's because most of the time, and that's the last thing so how do you juggle all that?
Speaker 2:well, you know it's. It's kind of interesting. You asked me that because I, you know, obviously I've tried your big residency program, fellowship programs, so there's a lot of teaching involved and when I tell the fellows every year does everything.
Speaker 2:When I call it, when I talk to the fellows, everybody say listen, I want you to have your own high school team. Okay, it's important to learn how to have confidence to manage a team right. The first time you're out there you're scared Am I going to make the wrong decision? When they send this kid back in, should I hold them out? I mean you know nervous. There's no cookbook on what's right. I mean you have to have some experience with it. Right, and you have that. You know you have to be, you have to understand. Your job is to prevent catastrophic injury Right To harm to the athlete. I said when you're in high school you're going to talk to the player, the parent and the coach. When you come to a professional team, you're talking to the player, the player's family, the player's agent, your general manager, your manager, their coaches. It just goes on down the list. So it's the same discussion you just amplify it.
Speaker 1:I can't imagine having to do all that. You almost have to be a politician to a degree, don't?
Speaker 2:you. You have to make it simple enough that they can understand it.
Speaker 3:But you have to talk to each one different, because you have to have more empathy with the family than you do with the organization, because they want it cut and dry.
Speaker 2:I mean the first thing. The organization says, well, when can you play? That's right. I mean, that's the first thing.
Speaker 3:Because you have to make a move and that's not insensitive. Yeah, exactly, I tell people all the time. The greatest gift I got was when I got hurt in college. My college coach very hard nose, he's the snake. God rest his soul. But he said to me he goes, you don't exist and I go what he goes, you don't exist until I can see you physically go back on the field. Every day he would walk by the trainer Is he ready? And that's it. But he wouldn't say my name. It really was like I didn't exist. But that it really was like I didn't exist. But that put a different mindset in my mind that if I'm hurt I can't play. But if I can play I'm going to go play. Because he got me back on the field faster than probably any human, because he made me think I could do things I couldn't. But also I didn't feel like I existed. So I worked twice as hard.
Speaker 2:It brings up an interesting point, mike. I mean, you're a professional athlete. You played at the highest levels throughout your career. I have been asked so many times by people and I'm not a baseball expert, I am not a baseball coach, I'm not a baseball what's your baseball life.
Speaker 2:I'm a, I'm a doctor and I know what I know and, more importantly, what I don't know. Okay, but I think people have always asked you know if you, if you have a son, he's a really good baseball player? And People have always asked you know, if you have a son, he's a really good baseball player and he has a chance to get drafted high, would you send him to college or would you send him to the pro game? And I think my answer today would be different than what it was a decade ago, because I think that the pressure to win in college is greater than it is in professional sports.
Speaker 3:One hundred percent.
Speaker 2:Really, because at the minor league level, it's all about development, right, and everything you do is being monitored how you eat, how you work out, how you train. You have professional strength and conditioning coaches, professional athletic trainers, professional physical therapists, professional nutrition Right, so you are getting a professional environment in terms of your development. Colleges don't have that type of resources to do those things. Number one and number two the college coach. If he doesn't win, he's fired, right? Yeah, he's not there to develop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true you're there to pay his mortgage. Yeah, yeah, that's true, right so so, true, so so maybe at the major league level it's different.
Speaker 2:yeah right, certainly the pressure here to win is enormous, but the minor leagues is about developing talent to get to the major leagues. College is not necessarily so. So I think I think you'll get better training in a professional environment than you would in a college environment just because the universities don't have that kind of research to put to baseball because, it's a non-revenue sport you sport.
Speaker 1:You know, pat, how about going through all these situations when you know a guy uh might be hurt not sure that kind of thing and the dance, uh to work with management, the player, but now the media is involved too, and fans.
Speaker 2:Well, I always how hard, is that I? You know, to me it's pretty simple if you live in the media, you die in the media.
Speaker 1:And I kind of have a—, but you have to keep things under wraps.
Speaker 2:Yes, Well, I think I have a professional relationship with most of the writers and I tell them point blank look, there's HIPAA rules. I'm not going to violate somebody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes it easy, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:And look, there are times when players say things to the media that may not be completely true, uh-huh, okay, and I have to just sit there and say, well, it's not my place.
Speaker 3:You think that's because they don't know.
Speaker 2:You're talking about the—.
Speaker 3:I think they want to— or push the envelope.
Speaker 1:Yeah, push the envelope. Explain that what?
Speaker 3:do you mean Right?
Speaker 2:So, divide, you know whether it's between the agent and the organization or the player in the organization and they say something could also be performance-based. It could be performance-based, okay, where they see it a different way, right, and so look, and I just said my job, that's why we have this great pr team, right, that's what they do. They stick to pr. That's not part of my job, right, and what the pirates release is what they release. Um, sometimes it'll ask me to look at it, right, and that's fine, just to make sure there's nothing that's incorrect in that statement. But I'm never going to get up and talk about a player's health publicly. That's just not what.
Speaker 1:I should do. How about the difference between a player that you know is hurting but is not necessarily hurt, Like you can play through this?
Speaker 2:They all are Amen by 130 games. They all are.
Speaker 1:But isn't there a difference, though? I think the way I would phrase that is performance-based.
Speaker 2:Okay, I look at a player and say the most important I know you may be hurting, but is this impacting your performance? Because if it is, then you're hurting your career and I need to help you. Okay, if it's, if you can still play with this and not impact your performance, well then okay.
Speaker 3:Well, that's, that's hard right, exactly very hard right played all year 15 hurt and I wish I had to mail right, mean, but you have to.
Speaker 2:You know you're helping the athlete because you understand the situation he's in. Right, I mean, look, you know too, don't forget the other side of this. The people, like the public, sometimes gets awed by the size of the contracts and the money and these. You know we do not understand how hard it is to leave your family in the beginning of February and live out of a suitcase in a locker to at least mid-October. You're never sleeping in your own bed. You very rarely. Sometimes can't see your family, especially if your kids are at school. Ok, you're constantly traveling. You're on the road, road. You're going from place to place to place. The public puts so much demands on your time. I mean I I once said to somebody, you know, could you imagine if somebody came up to me right before right when I'm scrubbing my hands to go into the or, and asked me for, like, my autograph? I'm like, wait a second. That would be great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think we had a commercial there. That's a good commercial. I got my game face. That would be great. Yeah, I think we had a commercial there. That's a good commercial. I got my game face. That would be hilarious.
Speaker 2:And I try to explain to people. Do you understand? Before a game, these guys are mentally prepared, right, because their livelihoods are at stake. Yeah right, this isn't easy. Yeah, right. And if there's one thing I've learned from most of the major league players, and if it's funny, if you ask, like you know, of course they're going to say well, you know, making the major leagues was easy, staying in a major league.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, okay yeah, right, right.
Speaker 2:Well, for a guy like me, it wouldn't have been easy to make.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I mean so I'm not easy to get there.
Speaker 2:I'm very but but no, realistically, I mean and mean it's so, people, I think the fans I wish sometimes had a little more respect. Just for what, you know, he didn't sign my baseball. He's getting ready for a game, right, you know, and I think for an athlete that's really got to be hard, because there's a fine line. Right, you want to be everything to everybody all the time, but yet you have to have a little area where you have sanity for yourself, right, someplace where you can go hide and just say you know, I need to decompress. And that's where the veterans come in. Right, the veterans help you with that. 1,000%.
Speaker 1:It's funny because I watch you and how you interact with people, even outside this, because I watch you and how you interact with people even outside the or you know, outside this, in in your ballpark, in your offices, as you're approaching surgery. You are. It's really fascinating to watch because it's like he's an athlete a professional athlete, I agree and his focus and how and how he demands respect and he gets respect. But he demands respect and people fall in line when you are there at Pat DeMille's office and he's walking around. This is maybe a bad analogy Barry Bonds-like, but I mean this in terms of people that are in his field know how great he is at what he does and so they know that and it's just a fascinating thing to watch. But that's what you have to be. You have to be able to separate and you talk about a fan asking for your autograph, but you do. There are times when, yeah, you have time with people, also times when, man, I'm heading to surgery and this is it.
Speaker 3:I'm laser focused no-transcript different, that's exactly right you get like this, yes, but then you take it off, you walk into a room like there's no doubt in my mind. I think you were doing surgery the day you came and saw me, but then you're empathetic, I don't have my wife there, you're able to do that.
Speaker 1:You turn on the switch. It's crazy. Compartmentalize is fascinating, it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and again, I think having such a deep respect and appreciation for what it takes to do this at this level helps you with that Right.
Speaker 3:I mean because and that didn't come at easy. Like that took time to see.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I mean well, I mean I remember the first year I was here. I'm standing out here on the foul pole and Ken Griffey's 15 feet away. I'm like, wow, that's Ken Griffey.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's cool.
Speaker 2:One of the greatest players of my generation.
Speaker 2:I'm like, wow, whoever thought I'd be 15 feet away from Ken Griffey? Yeah, okay. Ever thought I'd be? Yeah, yeah, okay, um, so yeah, I mean those are kind of moments that are ever emblazoned in my brain. That were special things. Uh, for me, because I appreciate the game and I always did um, and you know, look, there's 30 teams, there's 30 medical directors. Right, did I ever think I'd get here? I, I never. I didn't know i't. I never thought about it that way, right, but when the opportunity came, I know I want to do it.
Speaker 1:Do you have a greatest? We ask players and people in the business their greatest as its broadcaster. If it's a writer, your greatest article, your greatest call players, your your first home run, the greatest moment in your career? Do you have a great moment when it comes to your time with the pirates Like cause?
Speaker 3:I'm thinking about Kendall uh and his return, yeah, but there's so many, I started to point to one, I'm sure. Watching the guys return, yeah, you must love that.
Speaker 2:Jason Bay was special, jason Kendall was special. I mean there's just so much. Oh, we just talked about jung ho gung, freddie sanchez, he came back on the field, right, aj was a riot. Okay, right, I mean, you know, I'll tell you what? Um, I've never seen you, maybe be able to answer this more than me.
Speaker 2:You know how important is keen chemistry, right? Uh. Some people say, well, it's really important, uh, but other people say no, no, it's about team power. I think somewhere. The answer is probably somewhere in the middle, but I've never seen a locker room change so fast the minute AJ Burnett walked through that door.
Speaker 1:That's interesting, right, that is interesting.
Speaker 2:I cannot agree more, really, I mean just he had that moxie that I'm not afraid to pitch to anybody, I'm not afraid to play against anybody. I'm going to make you guys believe that too, wow.
Speaker 3:I use the word identity a lot and Brownie doesn't necessarily love it. I think I can explain it the best. Based around him, he brought in an identity for our team.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:It goes to his shirt. Sit that down.
Speaker 1:Now again, our debate has been this Pat that you have, AJ did change the club when he his presence. But if AJ Burnett falls on his face when he goes to that mound, that doesn't work, you can throw that out you got it, you can go ahead and be as cocky as you want to be.
Speaker 3:There, when you talk about chemistry, it takes a village. He was just a leader. We needed a pirate and we got a pirate. It's funny that he had a patch on his eye the first week he was a pirate because the man was a pirate. He came out, the city fell in love with him because he was hard-nosed from Arkansas, so he had that grittiness about him.
Speaker 1:He drove a lot of fast cars too. Yeah, yeah, I raced him one time on the parkway in his batmobile.
Speaker 3:I'm driving my car he's, we were. I mean, it was unbelievable. He was unapologetically him, and I think great teams have guys like that, but then they also have guys like kutch was probably the face and you had to look at all the young talent you had exactly you had you, you had andrew, you had neil pedro jordy, jay yeah I mean it was and, but I think aj was able to give them direction.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, the leader you know, and and russell martin too, I mean yeah, another he came in with the pedigree, yeah, and I think that was important too. He was here for two years. I don't think people talk about that enough, that two-year deal signing him here. You knew that that guy wasn't just coming here to get a contract immediately.
Speaker 1:It's going to be two years, but when you know, we started winning immediately right, how about the day somebody pat, somebody came into aj the day he was pitching? You know that story, of course, in the vote, oh yeah, oh yeah, into the clubhouse and he's got his stall and somebody, unaware you know, walks up to us. You're parked in the garage in the wrong spot. Aj ripped him, said I am pitching today, you, and it was like what spot was it I?
Speaker 1:don't care if it's yeah. I don't care if it's the owner's spot. I do remember that story yeah, and now to this day. Now they've got a special spot for the starting pitch.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love it, so I remember something about coffee too, but we'll get that out that's true, that is true but he learned all that from Doc Holliday right.
Speaker 1:Well, passing down that. Yeah, it goes back to the veteran things.
Speaker 3:I think the only way you have the great talent at the bottom is you have to have veterans at the top to pour into it. I mean, we're very lucky right now with Paul Skeens. I think he's already a veteran in the sense of the way he can pour into guys. But having that is so important. That's how you build that chemistry, because then you have a coaching staff but you have you have an actual team that's really staffing themselves. The coaches are overseeing and then they can really focus on how can we find extra wins, put them in the right spots, instead of trying to maybe navigate personalities.
Speaker 2:Everything else the team's doing that in its own right and I think to you know, to kind of answer your question a little more than I think about it. I mean how special it was to be able to sit with Bill Mazeroski and Bill Martin and Steve Glass and John Candelaria, and before the games those guys had that little smoking area where the public can't see them and you just pull up a chair and you just listen to them, right, and you just like, oh, my God S god suck it all in, right, like you know what I mean. And they played against all the great ones. I mean you know they played against the willies, the mickeys, the henrys, you know they. I mean that's, that's priceless.
Speaker 2:Oh, I will tell you one funny story. I don't know if you ever heard this before. It was at the pirates 50th uh, celebration of the 60 team, right, uh, and we were all up at the stadium in one of those world series boxes and, um, I had my wife with me and a lot of the players were there, uh, I'd say almost all of them that were still alive were there. Um, and uh, I'm sitting at one of those little high top tables and I'm sitting with bill and my lean in my way, okay, and I paid my pay, my link. Let me ask you a question After Bill hit that home run, did you guys have like a big party somewhere?
Speaker 2:Did you like rent out a restaurant or something? She scoffed at me. She said Patrick, you know Bill. I said what did you do? He said well, I picked them up in the car. He pushed me over to the passenger seat. We drove to the top of Shenley Park. He turned the car off, turned the radio off and we sat there for two hours in complete silence. Incredible, I said what yeah?
Speaker 1:I would have been dancing on the street, matt, well, matt has talked about that Everybody in Pittsburgh was partying except for and my wife Mylene.
Speaker 2:Wow, I did not know that, just sat silent for two hours the hero of the 60 World Series sat in the most famous home run in the history of baseball In Oakland.
Speaker 1:Wow, and just sat there with his wife in the car Unbelievable story To this day Yankees, still they moan about that.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, they still like it. Heck, we'll go to spring training games.
Speaker 1:You'll see people miserable in the other three.
Speaker 2:When else have you seen a ninth inning walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth in game seven, that was it, joe Carter did game six but he didn't get seven.
Speaker 1:Game seven, the only game seven to walk off. It's all the marvels. Hey, Pat, tell us about Ernie Withers. Oh wow, I get so embarrassed by this. I was with you, I was talking.
Speaker 2:You were on the golf cart. You were next to me right. Practice it, if you remember. You almost ran me over, no, Bones was driving. Bones was driving.
Speaker 1:That's.
Speaker 3:Scott Bonnet that makes more sense.
Speaker 1:And I'm leaning over. We're chatting and all of a sudden boom.
Speaker 2:So that practice didn't start to 11 30 that day and I had taken my bike. I were like 25 miles that morning, so my legs were dead, tired and bones comes up in this golf cart.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking, all right, I'm gonna sit down yeah, I'm sitting down and then brownie's standing next to us and we're just I don't know what we're talking about. We're just talking passing time and all of a sudden I hear jeff patonic scream in my name. I didn't see exactly what happened and then Bones pulled out about 10 feet with the golf cart. I saw somebody down in center field and you know, it took like 10 seconds to get there and the whole time I'm thinking, oh, is this somebody that went basil bagel, right it was a little hot that day.
Speaker 1:Are you thinking of players Dale?
Speaker 2:No, I knew it was a player because I wasn't wearing a uniform, okay, but I didn't know who it was. And when I got there, well, he was pulseless, he wasn't breathing, his pupils were fixed and dilated and he said this isn't basal vehicle.
Speaker 1:Again. This is on the field at the Pirate City Minor League Complex one morning last spring training. So I started.
Speaker 2:CPR. I said call 911, get the defibrillator and go inside and get Dr Franco, and I started doing CPR on him, probably within 30 seconds of him hitting the deck, and then one of our trainers, matt, came over, he put the paddles on while I kept up the compressions and then, you know, you just hit the button and you know if you're in my position. You've done CPR in the hospital many, many times. The vast majority of times, you know, unfortunately people don't survive. We hit the button Next thing, you know, I felt the pulse in his neck and his wrist God, it's unbelievable. And he wasn't breathing. And so I said get the EMBU bag. I was about to start bagging.
Speaker 2:What's that? What did that mean? A mask okay to push, aaron okay and, uh, he took a big yawn, opened his eyes and said where am I? No kid. And then I took my balls wow, like, oh my god, 145.
Speaker 1:Can you explain that? What's the feeling? Like man, because you've been doing as you said before the first time. Are you expecting this isn't gonna work when you're doing it?
Speaker 2:look what's going through your mind. They're surviving v-fib in the field of like one and 200. Yeah, uh, now with defibrillators, they're probably better now than they were. Um, so I don't know what the exact statistics are today, but I will say this um, you know, you don't. It's like when you go into the baddest box, you're not. You know you're not thinking about.
Speaker 1:You know what you're eating is your adrenaline right going like crazy you're professional, you're doing what you're trained to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm a surgeon, I'm trained to do this stuff, right? It's not, it's like it's reflex for me, right? So I just first thing I did was okay, what's your name, how old you are, what medicines you are, any allergies, any drugs? You know all this pertinent stuff I needed to know, right. And then I just kept them calm and I waited till the paramedics got there. So, um, and to this day I mean I would say this to you I mean I tried, I try not to make a big deal of this, because I think I just did what I was supposed to do, right, uh, but it happened because it got a lot of this, because I think I just did what I was supposed to do, right, but it happened because it got a lot of attention, because it was the day of the first full squad workout. So media was there, tv was there, radio was there, print was there, it was another day, nobody's.
Speaker 1:By the way, we should explain that this guy was amongst a group from the chamber of commerce who were shagging. They have guests shagging fly balls and that's he was happened to be out there, so, I'm sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so he was president of the Chamber of Commerce for Manatee County and so, yes, and he had all the local politicians and stuff were there. So I mean, I think that it just. If it happened in the middle of Publix, nobody knows. Yeah, right, it was just, and I would do the same thing if it was in the middle of Publ. It just was happening that they were all there that day. I will say this though you did tell me to go talk to the meeting, I'm like there's no way. And he said why not? I said, well, he got to the hospital. I'm not sure what happened to him after he got to the hospital. Good point, I'm not going to start saying hey, I saved his life, unless I know it's really a lie the handoff.
Speaker 2:Let's.
Speaker 3:Yeah, let's make sure Important point.
Speaker 2:But no, he had surgery that night and then two weeks later he wanted to meet me and I just said, look, let's just do this in a real private place. I don't want to do this in front of people, in front of the media. I mean it's a very emotional thing. And so I met with he and his wife and I mean they had a good cry. I mean we hugged and cried for an hour.
Speaker 1:Unbelievable.
Speaker 2:And then we've become good friends and so you know, when he comes to Pittsburgh, I've taken him out to dinner, We've been out to dinner here with our wives and it's nice.
Speaker 1:It's an unbelievable story.
Speaker 2:He's a really well-respected member of this community. Yeah, has a lot of friends. I mean you saw him on the field today, a very nice man, and, more importantly, mike. What he's done is he's paid it forward. That's awesome. So he has spent. He's become a CPR instructor. He goes around and gives classes and right now I think he's up to 200. He's had 200 automatic defibrillators that he has a foundation that people donate to the foundation. He buys these frivolities, giving them to schools, to cops, the fire departments. He gave 75 to the pirate organization last year. So he's very excited about his philanthropy and what he's doing and paying it forward and I give him a lot of credit. I mean, you know he, he, he backed up. You know, you know he, he, he did what he said he would do and give him a lot of credit for that, but how gratifying Pat for you man.
Speaker 1:You know, what I mean.
Speaker 2:When all this no get out of here.
Speaker 1:But when all is said and done, we get to brag. We're talking about his home run, the walk-off home runs, all this great stuff. You've got to be sitting back, Of course. All this stuff you've done over your career as a surgeon, but this moment you've got to be sitting back with a glass of wine at some point and say like dang dang well, let me tell you what I told my wife.
Speaker 2:Honey, I pushed the button.
Speaker 1:It worked yeah, but man, somebody had to push the button. If it wasn't for god, he wouldn't be here because it was a bad drink, right? Is there a feeling you can describe when you start to see and feel a pulse Like holy smokes?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was like oh my God, this really worked. Man Like, oh yeah, yeah, I mean, I didn't expect.
Speaker 3:With a little bit higher blood pressure, of course.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and usually when you shock somebody, you usually do it more than once, right, yeah. So I mean, I think the fact that we got to him so quick and he was right, give our trainers credit too, because they had. They were all there on the scene, no doubt the equipment right there, you know, and all the players were kind of lined up on one knee and and you know, so it was kind of um. You know, I'm just glad it worked out well, I'm gonna embarrass you too.
Speaker 1:By the time we have left the inaugural do it band, man lupke, patrick de mayo endowed chair, what's that like?
Speaker 2:yeah, I look, you know I was can you say that faster before? No I can't I can't so it's a lot of money, it's an amount full yeah, you know, in the world of academic medicine, um, when somebody wants to give a gift, they call it an endowment and they name it a chair. It's not act like my kids.
Speaker 1:Look like I was getting a little bit bigger than that you're actually sitting in it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes no, but it's so. They call it a chair and it's in recognition. Uh, and so the what happens with that chair is that money that they donated millions of dollars will continue to grow over time, and the investments that had spent off will be dedicated to orthopedic research, and so long after I'm retired and I'm gone. The chair stays in perpetuity, and so talk about humbling path after that. It is one of those things that I never expected yeah right and honestly.
Speaker 2:You know, like I told you before, usually it happens after you're gone it was pretty cool you're able to see it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love that thing it happened while you were still here, so you can enjoy it.
Speaker 2:But no, I'm not going anywhere for a while.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you what an absolute treat man. He is humble, but to see him in action, he's a special guy man and we're lucky to have him Well, thank you for having me here, today.
Speaker 2:I appreciate you. Hold Mike Hunter, I got to tell you one thing. I don't know if I ever told you this, but when you were playing, you know what the girls used to call you Mike McCotty. Did you know that? Oh, yeah, man, wow, mike.
Speaker 1:McCotty, is that right? How about that? No, that's over In perpetuity.
Speaker 3:I was a believer of Homer right there, by the way.
Speaker 1:Thanks for sharing the mail on Hold my Cutter. We're going to do it again up in Pittsburgh at Rocky, because he's got some good cigars for us too. So we'll do that on Hold my Cutter, all right. Well, thank you very much, guys. Thank you, stay well.
