Mark Shapiro

The worst part took me back, by the way, because the last time I was in a World Series, we blew the lead in the ninth inning of game seven and went to 11 innings and lost in the 11th inning.

That was 1997.

That's hard to believe, right?

Very different.

And I was a farm director, not a president, but very different.

I think it's more the things off the field, Mike, that kind of took me back.

And that is...

The opportunity to share it, you know, the opportunity to bring people with you, the opportunity to provide joy for people that care about you and joy for people that you've never met before.

I wasn't thinking about that coming into it.

And I wasn't thinking about that, you know, 25 years ago or whatever it was when I went through it.

I looked around me and I had, you know, 30 family members and friends from kind of all different aspects of my life, you know, with me.

And I made the determination early on that I'm not going to, you know, shy away from that.

I prefer to watch the game alone, by the way.

But I wanted the people I care about most to be around me, and that was meaningful.

And then as I started to be more open and aware, recognizing the millions of people that we were impacting and lifting,

I don't think I'd ever given thought to that.

You get so focused on just doing the job that you forget the impact it's having.

And then you start listening and hearing, and it was overwhelming to kind of hear, like, you know, my wife passed away this year, and this gave me and my kids an unbelievable, you know, unifying nightly ritual, you know.

To hear the sadness of just not having a game to watch tonight, you know.

be nice if they didn't end at midnight, but not having a game to watch tonight, you know?