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Welcome to Off Day Dodger Talk. David Vase with you until eight o'clock tonight right here on a five to seventy LA Sports and we have a great show for you. Tonight. We are going to check in with Jorge Castillo, formerly of the La Times, now covers the Mets and Yankees for ESPN. We'll get into Juan Soto and the drama of him having the fomo of not being in pinstripes and not having as much fun playing for the Mets.
And we'll also find out whether or not New York has gone soft because Aaron Judge dropped maybe the easiest fly ball in the World Series. Maybe a superstar has never made that type of error in a World Series game at Yankee Stadium. Only Aaron Judge did, and it feels like New York has just forgiven him something they
would not do for a lot of other players. So, with the Dodgers going to face the Mets seven times in the next week and a half and going to see the Yankees on the next homestand a good time
to check in with horiy A Castillo. And since the Dodgers are playing the Mets tomorrow night at City Field, it was appropriate for us to reshare a conversation that I had with two of the Los Angeles legends of high school baseball from Crenshaw and Fremont High School in the eighties, the one and only Darryl Strawberry legendary met and our guy Eric Davis, Eric the Red. Both of those guys came back to LA to play for the Dodgers.
Didn't go the way they thought it would, but nonetheless, during twenty twenty and the COVID shutdown, those two guys did a rare interview together with me right here on a five to seventy LA Sports And since it was in the abyss of twenty twenty, I thought tonight would be a great night to reshare that conversation, So that's coming up at the bottom of the hour. Horia Castial
will join us in about ten minutes now. Since our last Off Days show, it went well with the Colin Yee highlight montage of the last ten game road trip the Dodger homestand did not go as great as that last road trip, the Dodgers were just four and five after taking two out of three from the A's and don't get me wrong, winning the last two against the
Diamondbacks humongous after being swept by the Angels. But there were still a lot of great moments in this entire homestand and Colin Yee did his magic again with this highlight montage.
Live from Dodger Stadium the series Dodger Baseball Column along with Jose Mota, I tomever it with mondays off this week, Grinder will us to come into this one. It's the first of three with the Athletics went to Old Miss and was drafted in the first round.
Again.
This ball swung out and hammered deep to right pat see you that ball's gone.
O'tani with his thirteenth home.
Run of the year. That didn't take verry long. Three pitches into the game and the Dodgers have a won nothing league A one pitch swung on and well hit the right field, this ball heading back toward the walls. Gone, It is gone. It's the first major league home run for his son Kim, and the Dodgers have tied it up three to three as Kim goes deep into the pavilion. There's lead first and second to won from Ferguson and Rookie swings and he hits it to right center field. Half balls go over the.
Wall, bounce us off the track around the third is Keith.
K He's in here comes so hey, he's up scoring a two round double for Mookie Beets. It's six to three.
I mean, you know, there's only so many moments who're gonna.
Get you know, we all went in play the game for so long, and so coming up in a situation like that, you know the opportunities.
I'm blessed for it, especially be behind show.
Hey, there's so many but anytime you can come through and help them, help.
The guys win, I mean, it's always fun.
Freeman leaves at second base, where presents the go ahead run on the bottom of the first and once he hammers one teep to right field way back in Don Max Month, seeing back to back at bats, has gone yard and the Dodgers lean it three to one. Three balls, two strikes to Dalton rushing. Alexander's staring in Now the A's right handers payoff pitch, so I'm not run about up the middle of ace. Heck, that's the first big league hit for the Dodgers number one prospect Dalton Rushing.
He got it in his second plate appearance, and he is down there at first base and hit him at baseball. It's a free one pitch and Otani just hammers won the center failed.
It is back.
It is gone. His second home run of the Knight.
Show.
Hey Otani getting it done for the home run to center field. It is fifteen to two, so he's ready to go into two. Two bombs it in there. This one of his squorter it down the left field side. That ball is gonna drop in fair. It bounces over the sidewall out of play for a double. Rushing will come around to score. It is seventeen to two. Aufman stops at third and Kim has a three hit game.
By from Dodger Stadium, It's Game two of the Freeway Series. Hi, everybody, alongside my dear friend hosse Mota, I'm Steven Nelson, and wherever you may be and how whoever you may be listening, welcome to a special Saturday at the stadium. For the first time in two hundred and sixty days, Clayton Kershaw is back on the mountain for the Dodgers, making his twenty twenty five season debut. Been averaging about eighty seven and a half miles per hour on his fastball.
He's tuned up for the year.
The payoff swinging in a miss strike three twenty two is back.
And the countdown begins in three thousand strikeouts.
The payoff to Paez is pummeled center failed. Indeed, we'll go back on the warning track at the wall, Dead has brand. What a swing from Andy Potz, a three run tank to death center ties the game and key K hammers of all the left faield no doubt about it. The Dodgers get one back. Keek K goes halfway up to the pavilion in left field, his seventh home run of the season, and it's five to four. Helpation at the plate to two. Oh Rushing will swing and that's
a rope down the right field line. HiT's a fair ball into the corner. Kick Ga waved around. He will score as the ball bounce out of play. It's an RBI ground rule double for Dalton Rushing and this game is tied at five. Will Smith can tie the game with one swing. This ball is hitting the air to left field. Indeed, this ball is good.
Just like that.
We are tied.
On this one.
One.
Old Tony wings and hits a high drive to the left field, heads up in the pavilion.
Show Hayes coming.
Solo home run show Hey, Old Tani his seventeenth of the season. He took Bookie hammers another ball left field in deep.
He's done it again.
Old Tani and Bets go back to back of the six. It's a seven to three ball game eight of the season for Bets. Second of the night, Dodgers not going quietly. Tioscar Hernandez was there but just couldn't make the catch. Oh boy, I fly ball right field. Ta Oscar on the warning track at the wall. He jumps and diddy Tao takes one away and Joss Naylor is saying, are you kidding me? Rounding birds home run robbery from Taoscar Hernandez and his return to the field.
Two and two the count of Peyton Smith. Ya Alamoto's pitch here it is waging to miss strike Cray got him the cutter. Nine strikeouts for Yoshinobu Yamamoto. He leads to a standing ovation leaves the tying and go ahead runs on base. In the top of the seventh, Kisparius set at the belt. The right hander kicks fires, tug and miss strike. Cray got him with a slider, calling a pressure cooker for Ben Kisparius, but Diamondbacks leave them loaded.
He leaves it second base while Miller goes into the stretch. The O two pitch to Tommy Edmund Hilt He swings and popes at the left field down the line. Dan is gonna be a base hit. Key touches third. He's gonna score up. All this played by the wall, and then the second is Tommy Edmund. The Dodgers get a run. It's three to two. Two wonder one see Leeds. It's a high drive to center field. That's gonna do it. Tawell going back, he's gonna make the catch. Otani tags
he won't score Emma. Dodgers walk it off for the fourth time this year. Max Mounsey's sacrifice fly wins it for the Dodgers four to three.
Final shore.
One two pitch to Tiascar. He swings hits a high flive all of center and t This ball headed back toward the wall.
It is done.
Left three run home run Taoscar Hernandez Emma Dodgers have jumped down.
In front three to one.
Oh, he got a hold of it. It was a slider, but it hung over the heart of the plate and Taoscar thrilled at the dead center field four hundred and thirteen feet.
Great job again by calling ye I love Montages and what a way to do it on an off days show the Dodgers four and five on that homestand but Tioscar Hernandez to the rescue last night with that big, go ahead, three run home run against Corbyn Burns. When we continue on Dodger Talk, we'll check in with joy A Castillo. Don't go anywhere. There's a lot to get to between now and eight o'clock right here on AM five to seventy LA Sports AM five seventy LA Sports.
And the Dodgers are going to see a lot of the Mets and the Yankees in the next week and a half, beginning Tomorrow night at City Field, a three game series between the Dodgers and Mets. First time these two teams have seen each other since last year's NLCS, and the first time the Dodgers will see Juan Soto since last year's World Series, and the perfect person to talk to is our guy from the La Times who got swooped up by ESPN and now covers the Mets
and Yankees. He is the best baseball rider on the East Coast and we're lucky to have him on the show tonight. That is the one and only Jorge cast deal. Jorget thanks a lot for the time, appreciate it.
Thanks Dave. What an introduction, man, what an honor.
Thank you.
I'm happy to be back with you.
Man.
See, I could hear it in your voice. You care more right now than Juan Soto does.
I'm hustling more right Is that is that my banguage is a lot better right now? You can't see it, but it's it's so much better right now.
Yeah.
So the Dodgers are walking into a city field that's not going to be paying attention to them. All eyes will be on Juan Soto. What should we make of what we're hearing as far as his body language is unhappiness? Is that all true? That Juan Soto has a lot of fomo right now?
I think when we what we see is that his body language is off, He's off.
It's not.
It doesn't seem like it's just that he's not producing, right. He's obviously not producing to a level that we expect from Juan Soto. Last year, he just came out of the gate with the Yankees. He was awesome from the jump. This year, he has not been great from the jump, and his body language just teams off. And you know, you hear things. You know, once when he signed back in December, everybody was here. I was hearing things about actually he wanted to go to the Yankees, and this
was a family thing. You know, the family pushed him to the Mets, and he ultimately signed the biggest contract in sports history. And he's a grown man. He's twenty six years old. He made a decision. So whether he has full more or not, he's on the Mets for at least five years until that opt out kicks, until he can opt out, or fifteen if he does, you know, opt in. So I mean, you made your decision. You're
here to play in New York. You play on a really good team, a team that was in first place for most of this you know, six week stretch, not in first place anymore. But those guys, they got to figure it out with Swans. Swan Soda has to figure out with them, and he needs to start producing because New York is New York. Whether you play for the Mets the Yankees, if you don't start producing, if your body language is still not great, if you're not hustling, they're gonna be on you.
Okay, So you covered one Soda with the Yankees last year, you've been around him this year with the Mets. Is there a noticeable difference as far as the way he goes about the way he plays, or is this who wants Soda is?
Oh, there is a difference. You know, everyone's pointing out. It sounds trivial, it sounds silly, But the fact is he is not doing the Soto shuffle right.
You know.
Yeah, he's always said it's a field thing, but you know, maybe maybe it's like a chicken oric thing. Maybe he's not doing it because he's not feeling right to play, or maybe he's just not feeling right with his surroundings. But we are not seeing that swagger that you know, the smile. He's smile, he's swaggering. He's looking back and he's staring at the picture we saw that I covered him. I also covered him in DC, and he was like that as a rookie. You know, he has a way
about him that we're not seeing right now. How he interact with his teammates. You know, you want again playing body language doctor and doing all that kind of stuff. It's just not the same. He doesn't have handshakes with everyone like he did last year with the Yankees. He had these handshakes, this one handshake with Aaron Judge. You're not seeing him doing that with Pete Alonzo and Francisco Lindor. It does look different, and maybe there is some fumma.
But like I said, man, he's a grown man. He made a decision he has. I think he'll be fine. Ultimately. This is the first month of a this is the first month and a half of look of a fifteen year contract. He'll be fine. Eventually, he'll start producing. Guys have had rough starts in New York. Francisco Lindor had a rough start here in New York. Colo show down, who's pitching right now today for the Yankees had a rough start in New York. Guys have it, They figure it out, and they move on.
Jorge Castillo, who covers the meds and Yankees for ESPN, formerly of the La Times, is our guest on off day Dodger Talk. All Right, the other part of the whole New York scene I wanted to get to because the Yankees will be at Dodgers Stadium next home stand Aaron Judge. You know, I grew up knowing that New York really gets on their players, no matter if they're
a superstar or not. I just can't get over the fag Jorge that everybody is giving Aaron Judge a free pass in New York for clanking that fly ball in what eventually cost the Yankees in Game five. If that was Alex Rodriguez, they would be reminding him every day. How does Aaron Judge get away with everybody just absolving him of his postseason sin?
Yeah, so it's not just that, right, And then the postseason he had he struggled again and I think he was turning the corner actually in that Game five until they dropped that fly ball. You know, he made it a nice catch earlier in the game, hit a home run. Blah blah blah. The reason why this happens with Aaron Judge and not like you said in Alisa Regaz He's a homegrown guy. He's beloved here in New York. He
stayed in New York. He could have gone for more money in San Francisco or San Diego, he chose to stay in New York. And right now you can make the argument he's the best right handed hitter of all time. The numbers are amazing, going back to the year plus down in the beginning of May of last year. This guy is Barry Bonds. I don't want to say as good as Barry Bonds was twenty years ago in two thousand and four when that was Pete Barry Bonds, but this is as close as we're going to get, as close.
As we've seen.
And I think that's why it's a mixture of that. The guy's amazing. He's been great obviously during the regular season, and he's a homebro guy who chose to play for the Yankees. And this is the New York's guy. You know, this is not a rod. A rock came in and was worth shooting with Derek Jeter from the jump. You know, a rock came in. He was a star elsewhere. He was a guy who not a lot of people loved.
People love Aaron Jodge he's respected across baseball, and I think that's why he's getting more of a free pass.
Jorge has Judge referenced that drop in Game five, or the Dodgers, or that being a motivating factor to his unreal start to the season.
No, Actually, I've heard a story during spring training about that whole fifth inning and how that really you know how I mean the way they just really gave that game away in that fifth inning. And I personally think if they win that game, the Dodgers are in trouble with their fishing situation. But obviously that didn't happen.
And you wonder.
You know, at that time, Garret.
Cole was healthy. He's thirty four years old. Aaron Judge just turned thirty three years old. These guys aren't young. You know, the window. We talk about windows all the time in sports. Sometimes we overstate them. Sometimes it's true, you know, to win with those two guys, Garrett Cole was out for the season. Now, you know, you don't win a World Series now very soon this year, next year. And you know, I went around asking different guys. Aaron
Judge said, hey, we lost. It doesn't matter how we lost. I mean, whether I believe him or not. Whether you believe him or not, that's another story. But he said, hey, a loss is a loss. We dropped that close and it's stumped. I'm sure other guys in that clubhouse talked about, yeah, the way we lost that stump. I don't think Aaron Judge is you know, dropping that fly ball in center field is motivating him anymore this year. I mean, if you looked at what he did in the regular season
last year, it's basically the same thing. The guy who's took a video.
Game for him right now. And what he needs to do.
Is stay healthy because if he stays healthy, the Yankees will make the playoffs.
And once he gets to the.
Playoffs, he needs to do maybe not exactly this, but he needs to be a star in the playoffs. That's the next step for Aaron Judge. And if you just starting the playoffs, the Yankees are a real straight in an American league that's pretty weak.
No doubt. Maybe a rematch from last year's World Series a LA seventy seven and seventy eight in the Brooklyn Dodger days, Jorge should be fun this weekend. It'll be even fun, even more fun at Dodgers Stadium when the Dodgers return home to play the Mets and Yankees. We'll see you out there for that and appreciate your time. Thank you for taking time out of a busy night in the Big Apple.
Appreciate you, Dave, Thanks for having me on there.
He goes Jorge Castillo from ESPN. He is one of the best. You want to follow him on Twitter at Jorge Castio. When we continue here on Dodger Talk, you will hear our conversation with two of the legends of Los Angeles baseball, Darryl Strawberry Eric Davis. They were together and we'll share that conversation with you again right here on AM five to seventy LA Sports from New York Dodgers Mets tomorrow night, Kershaw Day at City Fields, and our coverage begins at three o'clock with first pitch at
four to ten. I wanted to reshare a great conversation I had with two LA baseball legends. It was done in twenty twenty during the baseball shutdown due to the pandemic. Here was the great Darryl Strawberry and Eric Davis together again right here on AM five to seventy LA Sports.
I say, how you doing everyday? What's up?
D old timer? What do you do baby?
How you coming on?
You say good? We're good.
We old timers out, so we call each other old timers. So it's good to be with you, David. Yeah, it's really good to be with you on the phone with my best friend growing up in California and playing a little lake together, Eric the great Davis Man.
It is so great to hear your guys voice. And I know Los Angeles was really excited when we put this together. When you guys come back to LA, do you still feel the same love that you had when you grew up here?
It don't never leave, David, because that's kind of DNA. Even though we started somewhere, and he started in New York, I started in Cincinnati, and then we went places, and he came to LA and then I ain't up coming to LA, and we went to all the places. LA will always be home, and so the jumilation of recite when we get when we go, it's just as anticified when we see the La Dodger fans and the Laker fans and.
M nerators was there when we were there, So you know.
We had a whole lot of but it was extraordinary and then it'll be part of what we do for the rest.
Yeah, it is.
It is remarkable, you know to sit back and think, you know, coming up and growing up in California and being a Laker fan and Dodger fan, myself and Erica, and you know, having our careers, you know, shot off somewhere else and and then you know, have an opportunity to come back home and play, and like Gerrek said, it will always be home. It's I mean, la, I
mean he grew up on the free mind. I grew up in Crenshaw, and there's so many great baseball players that come out of Southern California and all of us got a chance to see each other and play against each other, and it's but there's nothing like home. There's nothing like Harbor Park. There's nothing like the program or who we were being eric and what we built around there for so many years in our old neighborhood when we became professional athletes.
You guys put together a documentary a few years back about Harvard Park down there in South Central and even me in the San Fernando Valley used to hear about how you guys would be working out down there right before spring training. What did that park mean to not only you two guys to reconnect every off season, but what did it mean to the community for you guys to be there every off season?
Well it started for me. It was uh and it was great that she was able to hear it down in the San Fernando vellay. That means we have some good marketing people.
You know.
They was about the spream news, but it was something that we really really took pride in because like the conversation me and Shaw would have and it really consummated itself from the history of so many black baseball players from South Central Inner City and our era. We heard about them and we didn't see them, and you know, some of them went on to do great things and
they moved away and and so forth. But we wanted to make sure that our voices and our face was seen in the same areas that we grew up in. And by us starting Harvard Park where we did, it did two things. It created a culture gap because there's so many players coming from so many places in South Central and it reminded us of where we came from to always keep pushing, to keep wanting more and to keep doing better and to keep letting the kids around that area see us to know that dreams do come true.
So it was remarkable. It was something that we did from the bottom of my heart. That number one, it had ever been done before that, and it's never been done prior to that. So having a good twis of the fifteen year run. And if you haven't seen the documentary, then you've missed something real special. But watch the documentary and watch how many different baseball executives and players and managers and scouts came from just that was part of
Harvard Park. So for me, just being able to resonate everything around that for our community really gave us the worth all to want to be there, to let them know that we still care.
Darryl, for you, how much did Harvard Park mean to you? And to be able to go back and you get to la with the Dodgers a year before Eric did. Did that all of it bring it full circle?
Well?
Yeah, of course it brought it full circle. But Harbor Park was always Barbara Park for us, you know, because there was a community of us growing up in and we will always want to go back and be a part of that. We want to be a part of people. I think that was the most important thing for me and Eric. You know, yeah, we were million dollar ball players, but here we were working out in the ghetto with
trash cans. So we were making a statement and everybody was wondering, Yeah, everybody's wondering why these guys are not up at U c l A. Or USC were, like, we didn't grow up in Westwood, yeah wherever UCLA is, And we didn't grow up in See. We didn't grow up and you know, we didn't go to those schools.
He went to Fremont, I went to Crenshaw, and we played on parks like these, and the reminder for us going back there was to make people understand that these parks like this breed major League Baseball players like myself, Ic Davis, Chris Brown, you can go on along the list. Eddie and Ozzie and all the different guys that come from southern California played in some of the same places we played in out in Compton, you know, we played
out there. But Harvard Park was very special to us because there was a neighborhood full of trouble, full of crime, and we were the only guys that were and they had gangs in that area, and we were like the only guys nobody would ever touch think about touching coming in that neighborhood. They would walk around what we were doing there, and they thought it was just amazing that we would be a part of a community like this that we know so much about and know the trouble
that was there. But at the same time, we realized that this is home for us, and we need to let young people and young athletes see that. You know, you can come out of here and be very successful.
Eric Davis and Darryl Strawberry are joining us on Dodger Talk. And the one thing that I said about you two guys before you came on, not only were you really great baseball players, you're great people. Number one and number two. You made everything you did cool, from the high top shoes that you wore to working out at Harvard Park. Do you feel like some of the swag in the style is missing from baseball all these days the way
you guys used to do it. And like I mentioned Harvard Park, you guys made it cool to want to be there.
Oh there, let me just add them real quick man swag is not something you give yourself. Okay, this generation creates their own swag. That's why you have so many people that are branding themselves. Swag is something that someone else gives you.
Okay.
If they saw dyl Strawberry, they was like, there he is watched, They went to watch, they went to sit down. His name was ringing. When we were ten years old. That swag. When you went to Prinshaw to watch the the basketball team play, you was trying to figure out where was he there? He is right there. That's your swag. When other people talk about you in that light, that's your swag. Now you have guys now that give themselves
nicknames and doctor themselves up. They instag, they show, they do a lot of different things to create the attention, but their game don't highlight their swag. Swag is something that somebody else gives you. So what you saw was the natural essence of what we was all about. Style and charisma is something that we was all about from a kid, and it wasn't something that transcended or turned
into once we got to the major leagues. And so by us liking the things that we were doing and entertaining the people from a young age, that created our swag, and then that just materialized over time because the better you performed, the better swag you got, you know what I'm saying. So him being an ultimate and me being an ultimate, we was driven by that. Swag just consumed us.
And that's what people really know about you, is about how you performed, not what you say on Instagram or Facebook or whatever.
Daryl, you're on Instagram, you see all that. Yeah, I'm sure you agree.
With Eric, Well yeah, yeah, but I understand that in there. It's clearly clear about that. You know, the swag. Swag is what you know. It's not something that we label ourselves to be. Is it what people make you out of because of they watch you and they see you and and we didn't really have We had a different style about us. Us swag was like you know, from the ghetto. You know, we wasn't nobody gave us a spoon and gave us anything. We had to work for it.
We had to work hard. We come from some very difficult times and situations, and you know, we had to build who we were. We had to we had to fight our way through neighborhoods and you know, the gangs and everything that was around us to play ball and stuff like that. So you know, we we developed, we developed who we were by stepping on the field and performing.
I mean, it just clearly showed that, you know, when we played little together and you know, and Eric was a short stop batting the leadoff and I was hitting third, Chris Brown was hitting for you imagine a lineup like that with guys in there, and you got to face those type of hitters like that, and then we get to the big leagues and then we take it to
a whole nother level. You know, Eric takes the game to a whole another level as a as a player that you know, hits over thirty home runs, still eighty bags, you know, doing things like that, doing doing things that players was not doing and in the air and the time that we came up and players today are not even doing that the kind of players we were back in the day. So you know, that's what really gave us, you know, brought the attention of who we were because
we were different. You know, we come from a different place and we played the game a different way.
How much did you guys take from where you came onto the into the minor leagues and onto the major league stage. Do you feel like everything you guys went through off the field helped you be better players on the field when you got to this type of situations where there were a lot of attention and pressure gets a little bit higher. Did you feel like all the pressure of trying to survive was bigger than anything you were going to face in the big leagues.
Uh, the pressure and how to survive in South Central was way harder trying to make it to the major leagues.
Yeah.
Yeah, just going to school, the towsand tribulations, I mean, having a fight that had your letterman jacket or your or your Walla Bees or your biscuits or or someone trying to take you another code or your bomber jacket going here and there. I was more afraid of my mama than I was anybody on the street. And if I came home and I didn't have my bomber jacket, I was going to deal with my mama. And so right on the street was second nature to me and Gondirl the same way Ruby was that tough the rocks
for all of his siblings and stuff. So knowing that going to play a game that that you grew up playing on dirt with glass and different things of that nature. See, they give the guys from Latin America that create about where they came from and out they played. We did it the same way in the parking recreations. That's why Straw was so intimate about us playing at Harvard Park, Ross Snyder, Jackie Robinson all dirt in fields. We didn't have the grass and fields and all those types of
things and stuff. So when you got to the point to where, uh, I'm gonna tell you a story. Actually, we had a County MAC team and like eighteen of our guys off our County MAC team to got drafted right, and we won the Pacific Regionals at Compton and we went up to Seattle, Washington, right, and so they put us on. After we landed, they took us to the field and we just started laughing because the guys was like,
y'all laughing, what y'all laughing? We got we playing here, and they was like, yeah, the most home runs in the tournament was seven. We hit six the first night and we broke the record. Because we were used to playing in open spaces where guys could play all the way back to the swimming pool or something. So when you saw a nice beautiful field, they was gonna get it, and they got it. So knowing all of that and then taking that into the minor leagues, it wasn't if for us it was wintered.
Yeah, was that the same experience for you?
David Strong hit the ball in that ballpark that they still looking for they ain't found it. It's almost forty.
So you know, doubt it was.
So it was so incredible. I mean, it was so incredible for us to grow up, you know, actually where we grew up in South Central and become you know, major league baseball players. I think, like Ed was saying, most people, we don't know. The challenges were more difficult for us, you know, walking to school and being challenged by people from different neighborhoods and things like that that we had to deal with. Putting the uniform on was easy for us, you know, because think about it, we
both played basketball. Eric played for Free Mind, I played for Current Shall. We played basketball. Then we go crossover and we go into baseball, and we get into baseball, and playing baseball was just really easy for us, you know,
but we were so determined. Me and Eric was different than everybody else because we saw guys get drafted before us, and we saw how they were when they responded when they came back, and we just used to say to ourselves, they have not seen nothing until we get into the league, because we're going to be totally different, different type of players because they didn't have Most people didn't have the
ability that me and Eric had. We had such a high level five two two ability to play the game and i Q for the i Q was so high for the game and understanding the game the way it should be played at such a different level, and I think most people would never really recognize that. They didn't recognize us until we actually entered into the big leagues and realized and started playing the way we started to play, and they was like, Wow, I never seen anything like this.
Would you know these two guys play at such a high level like we did.
I could say this flat out. I mean, I'm not as old as you guys, but I watched you guys play, and I would say that you two guys were two of the best players I ever seen play baseball. But all I hear about is how good you guys were at basketball. So did you guys ever go head to head at Fremont Crenshaw. Did you guys ever play guard each other? I thought maybe might want to switch. I thought, maybe you might want to switch.
I can do with him on the I was and and uh, and the star was a quarterback at Prinshaw. I got recruited to to play football. They didn't even know I played basketball or baseball. So the the ability to be more time talented has left a whole lot of our black athletes because of it's such a high profile sports now that they're putting all their marbles into basketball or all their marbles into football. We could our marbles into sports and then let our talents take us
where we wanted to go. But it gave us options. The Straw could have went to any school he wanted to. I could have went to almost any school that I wanted to. So the options of being multi colleged helped us. In baseball, I was able to jump over the fence because I could have dump backwards.
Uh.
It was so many different garls that I took from the basketball court onto the baseball and Searan did the same time. I mean, he could run jump through all the different anchors of him being a quarterback was which his mom was so small. So you have to know how to diversify and put things kind of around you to allow each sport to give you saulting and and knowing all the great athletes that came from south Centralinia.
The ball was said h even for baseball at the at UH the Prince or Ellis Valentine and the guys and Artie Johnson and wanted to tire. It was so many different players that you saw, even from front with chet Lemon and Danny Paul and Barbie Tua. You had Uh the Dorsey and Manuel in Washington and Jefferson, so you had West. So you had so much talent where you had to measure up where you was gonna get sit there. You know, you had to cover the place.
So was the competition at such a little at lower level for us Pat Warner and those things were so competitive that when we got to play against guys our age, because we always played against guys older than us, and so so when we got to play against guys our age, they was in trouble. They they was in trouble right right. That's so true because you make that so clear. Because we grew up around so many different players and our coach, Earl Brown, who coached us in the Summer League. All
he talked about is all these other players. Oh, you guys not better than Eddie and Ozzie. You know, he just he just built us up inside to be better than guys like that because they came through the same place, playing out the accompidence.
Eddie and Ozzie.
They did this, and they did that. We used to say nothing, guys. Yeah, Willie calls so many kid, there were so many. Yeah, it was many of them a head of us, and you know, and he kept always, you know, putting it in our ears and me and Ed was like, well, we only to stamp on this because when we when we get out of here and we get to the major League, it's gonna be a different ball game because they ain't gonna be to do
the kind of things that we're gonna do. Like he said, you know, we could jump, you can get over he going over the watch. See I would have had forty home runs, but Eric got this war. I mean, if he had to go over the wall and stay stadium and take one of my home runs and then the other day, then the next day he throws me out at third base trying to go from first to third, and I was like, oh, you're supposed to hey, right
that David Starar's hard hitted. I told him to pull the ball like before he get going on the bus outside the little state. So I told him to be disrespectful by tagging up on merespectful when we was kids, but we was in the Apple. It was naturally televised im And then he took me to dinner and we had a good time after the game. So in between the lines, our competitor jus was just that.
Yeah, that's the one thing I always wondered about you guys. Did you did you know Straw got his World Series before you did? D Was there any of that kind of trash talking between you guys?
No?
No, never, no never. It was always the best, It was after the best. Yeah, I'm gonna tell you how humble dryl was and still is. As I might add, is that even when he went Rookie of the Year, we went to the Laker games, and we would always go to Laker games and everybody was telling Daryl congratulations and was hanging around him, but all he could say was wait till my partner comes.
Nothing became. And that's how humble he was, was that he was always saying, don't y'all think I'm good.
Wait till he come.
And so no matter where the situations we were, he always looked out for everybody that was around it. So they became my turn. I did the same thing. I looked up to all the guys from Brown and the guys that That's how our program was was. It wasn't just about man Daryl. It was about every one of
us who came to be hung her. And that was one of the reasons why we started the program, was to give so many different guys the opportunity to see how also when they made it, then they would do the same thing and the team would be going and going and going. So Strong was really the leader of that because he made it to the major league first, and he showed us the way and he helped us get there by how how hard he was. And it's
it's something that needs to be clarified. It's because when you have black athletes who are challenged, they think we don't work hard because we're so kind. But if you would have watched the weights and the and the running and the things that we did every day, then you would have saw that. But he lied in that. He was the first one of us. I can remember that started lifting weights and stuff when he had a personal trainer first, and I'm like, what you doing with that? No, dog,
we got to keep grunting. Okay, then I have to go. Because she led that. That's the kind of individual he was.
That's why he was so successful. Well that's true. Thanks he but that we were all like that together because we were like brothers, we were like the family. And the thing about it, David, is we cared about all our younger players coming underneath us, you know, like the Royce Clayton, you know, he comes from underneath us, you know, learning out there with us, and we taught him to have the mentality to be strong and learn how to
go through the adversities of sports. Is gonna be there and you're gonna have some learned to deal with it. So it was just it came from all of us, you know, it came from It really came from me and Eve because we were like the cornerstone and everything around there when it came to the program, because the program was about Harvard Park and it was about where we come out of and where we never leave. And I think that's what really made us great because we
never forgot where we came from. And there was no egos. You know, it was all about It wasn't about being selfish. It was about us lifting each other up and encouraging each each other. And like erk Sin, I wonder took get here, but I was like, you guys, wait, my boy is coming. He is bad. You guys have never seen anything like this here. I'm telling you you just
waiting until you see it. And once they got a chance to see it, they realized, like wow, these are like true guys that come out of South Central that really built their own legacy the way they wanted to build it. Now, some way somebody else should have said it should have been the way we decided that it was going to be. And we was going to help all these younger players, like I said, that were around us,
because all the young players at the program. People need to go watch Harbor Park, they need to go see that.
I'm gonna tell you something, Dave.
And and and just how how much Giryl and myself connect the two guys coming from South Central. We weren't put on an average pedestal girl was supposed to be the next Ted Williams, one of the greatest players and not one of the top three players of all time, and I was supposed to be. The players had carried that type of baggage as eighteen to nineteen year old. We had to live with that and and to move through the minor leagues and to move through the major league.
I can't call a player of my era and Straw's era that was dealt with that kind of pressure as a tangent. And and did we get there. No, But it wasn't because of the talent and the way we played. It was because of injury and the way I played and the way Daryl played, how how he got hurt. We would have had so much.
Fun and and winning.
Here in l A. He hurt his back, I had triple surgery. But if you go back and look at our records on the game that we played together, we were we We was tearing people up sports the way of of of changing the narrow behind something on the aftermon Uh. People ask me all the time, it would you change something.
And I'll be like no, because of the way.
That I went about it, the people that I went through what I went through with I wouldn't have changed how I played. I wouldn't changed the people that I played with. I wouldn't have changed our friendship. I would have changed how we run. I wouldn't have played all the bad things we went through, and I wouldn't changed men the good things, because everything that we went through is the reason that we're the people that we are today at fifty eight years old. So to me, that
story is still going on. There's still more chapters. Look at what he's doing now. And it's ironic that we both now don't live in California and we go back because of how the chapters in our lives have taken us other places to do things with people that we never thought that we would do, not just in baseball, but away from baseball. That's what I'm thought of it, you know, girls, part of the same thing.
I'm sorry, Yl, go ahead.
No I am. I'm really proud of me and Eric And when I look back and I reflect back on what it was like, how we were growing up and who we were in LA and we came out. We came out of California with more hype than any any player I think in the history of baseball being like Eric said, me being Ted Williams the next Ted Williams and him being Willie Mays. And I don't think anybody really understands what that's like, you know, to be able to carry that and have to have that on us.
And and the way we played in the game, and we played the win all the time. It was lights out, you know. And we wasn't just a one demential player, you know, we were we were players where you know, we hit home runs, we steal bases, we played the field, we run scored and we I mean, we did it all. And that that took a grind on who we were physically,
and then the body starts to break down. You start having the injuries, like their said, and you know, and of course you know, I come through the troubles of my life with the addiction part too, so that played another part of slowing me down even more. And it's a real reality. But like he's like he was saying,
who had made us today? When we look back at who we were and when we see each other, we laughed because we had such a good time of being who we were in California growing up there exactly We'll
never forget that. We'll never forget that what that's really like and what what it was like growing up there, because when you look at all the people that have come through Southern California and all the players, you know, I remember the players we played blank and ship them and I think that we did them in the playoffs and they were supposed to be hot stuff. Yeah Bush, Yeah, we beat them. We beat them out of the component and stuff. You know, it was just you know, it was us,
you know, us with me, Eric and Chris Brown. And Chris Brown was a part of us too in those days, you know, when we were growing up. But me and Eric uh put ourselves in a position. And I remember sitting there kind of you know, at the stage him and Eric was drafted and I was number one. I was still holding out. He said, man, dog, I gotta go. I gotta get going. You know, I didn't have any much hold.
Oh I didn't have any record.
He didn't know, he didn't taking but he knew what the thing about it was what makes me so proud of Ericus. He knew where he was going. See like those players, I knew where I was going. He knew where he was going. We knew that we wasn't gonna fall shore. We knew that one day we would be in the show, and it was just a matter of time.
That is a bucket list childhood dream. Talking to Eric Davis and Darryl Strawberry. Ronnie will podcast that interview again. It was from twenty twenty, but worth sharing again. Thanks to hory A Casti you, thanks to the straw and Ed for their help, and thank you to Ronnie Fossio. We will be back with you tomorrow at three o'clock for a pregame first pitch at four to ten between the Dodgers, and that's Cruse shaw Day right here on AM five seventy LA Sports. Thanks again Ronnie Fascio and
thanks to you for listening. We'll talk to you tomorrow. See you