Mark Shapiro

You know, my grandmother, who's never watched baseball, watched every game down the stretch last year and loved it and was pulling.

To me, that means that they're falling in love with the players.

They're falling in love with the team.

And to me, that means that they're appreciating their values and their attributes and their character.

And so, Brian, I'd say that to you, that, you know, that's on purpose, like the character, the toughness, the resilience and the love of being a good teammate.

That stuff's not by coincidence.

That stuff's on purpose.

I'm going to strike out, like, 10 guys.

More, more, 15.

I agree with you, and you guys know that as athletes.

There's two pieces to that.

One is to know those guys are legitimately pulling for you.

There are professional environments where guys are more focused on their own performance.

It just happens.

thinking about how much money they're going to make.

They're thinking about their own stats and performance.

I'm not seeing that in this group.

It's not that they don't expect to get paid.

They are getting paid very well.

But I see guys that are legitimately pulling for guys and have so much happiness when they do well.