Chapter 1: What is the significance of the World Series matchup this year?
Kings Network. Welcome to South Beach Sessions. I am very excited that this man is in studio with me. I have known him since he is 17 years old, since he was drafted. I was at his mother's house. His his sister was making eggs and he was just a young man trying to figure it out. He is now.
one of, if not the best in the athletes in the history of South Florida, one of the best baseball players ever, and a media tycoon and a business tycoon. You laugh at media tycoon, but I don't know a lot of people that got to work especially after having some sort of controversy at both ESPN and Fox at the same time. I don't think there's a lot of precedent for that.
Thank you for being here with us, Alex. What do you regard in your baseball career as the happiest time? The best year, the best six months, the... the time that you were, because it doesn't sound like any one of those years might be as happy as your best year now if you're sort of slogging through it, trying to figure out what happy looks like.
Yeah. I think I would say two. I would say when I got the call from George Steinbrenner that he wanted me to join his Yankee team and to come team up with Derek Jeter and agreeing very quickly that I would move in the prime of my career as the better shortstop.
I'm saying that for you. You don't have to say, but you were the better shortstop by the metrics and you moved to third base. You went to third base because he's the captain and it was his team.
Well, and I think Derek would be the first one to tell you that if he came to Texas, he would have moved to third and You know, respect is something that I, I believe in. I gave him my word that I was going to play third base and third base only. And I just said, made it very clear.
I said, if there's ever a conversation about me going back to shortstop, I'm going to go back to Texas because I wanted to honor Derek and I didn't want any drama around the position. And I went over and worked really hard at third base and became a suitable third baseman. So I think George calling me over Steinbrenner and then obviously 2009 bringing
the world championship back to New York for the 27th world championship in one of the most franchise.
After struggling in post-season, in pressurized post-seasons, like after year after year, you're one of the best players in baseball. And now people are, you know, accusing you of mental frailty because baseball is hard. And sometimes people hit 200 in a 14 game sample.
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Chapter 2: What were Alex Rodriguez's happiest moments in his baseball career?
I think the media was obsessed with our relationship in New York. It was a very meaty story and negativity sells and big names sell and the Yankees sell and the controversy around the position sells. So it was a mega media story. And he did a nice job of being super disciplined. I wasn't as disciplined.
And it created some noise, but through it all, what I remember is great player he was, good teammate. We won a championship together. And now we're teammates again at Fox doing playoffs and World Series every year.
Were you at all surprised that that phone call came that he wanted to just have dinner and drinks? Is it something that's unusual or is it because this plays out publicly? There's a lot of there's so much vanity. There's so much insecurity. I don't even know if you're documenting. Well, if he's got a documentary, I got to have a documentary because I had a pretty good career, too.
I don't know how much competition there is between you, and I don't know what your issues are with the media. I'm curious what you think is the worst thing about sports media, because we can be parasitical.
Yeah. So, I mean, I think his documentary was fun. It was good to watch. But in many ways, up and to the right, I mean, there was a lot of celebration. Mine is going to be a lot of volatility, right? So completely different. More interesting.
No, no, no, no. Volatility for sure. I'm saying more interesting. If negativity sells, I'm going to say if volatility is better than just up and to the right all the time.
Well, yeah. So, yeah. And I think, look, it's interesting. When I was at my first couple of years at Fox, you know, then I got a much better understanding how the media works. And in 15 and 16, I was still playing while I was with Fox. And I said, holy smokes, I wish. And this is an advice that I would give to all athletes that are listening, especially the young ones.
I wish I would have done a media internship with Fox for a couple of years when I was in high school. to then reverse engineer and understand how the media works. I played, cause I was very, I was an infant when it came to dealing with the media.
I just came out of Westminster Christian and a few months later, after my high school prom, I was at Fenway Park as an 18 year old, when I should have been a freshman at the University of Miami playing quarterback and shortstop. I was facing Roger Clemens, completely over my skis. My knees were shaking. It was the first time I saw an upper deck I mean, we had 400 people at Westminster max, right?
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Chapter 3: How did Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter's relationship evolve over time?
We had a team full of that. And we had Ron Washington, the base coach, who made the game fun daily. I mean, I've never been around a coach. People are like, what's the magic of Ron Washington? Just think about this. I'm always the first guy there every day, and he's always the first guy there. Ron would sit there with his long white underwear, with his cigarette. Gets you going every day.
What happened to you last night, Big Hurt? A boy stuck it to you. And he would run and laugh. But that's the motivation he provided on a daily basis. I had fun again, man. A lifer, a baseball lifer. I had fun again. And that whole clubhouse was like that. It was about winning. It wasn't about who's got the biggest check. It was about winning. And we didn't care about anything else.
We had a lot of fun. And that's why we had a great team.
That's cool. Do you have a best Milton Bradley was crazy story? Because there are a lot of those. Yes. They're a lot. I had a great one.
Kid Maka was sitting there in the seventh inning one day. Milton had a bad day. He had struck out three times already. He walks off the field, goes up to the clubhouse. He says, I'm done for the day. And I was like, what, man? I'm done, Hurt. I'm done. So he walks up to the clubhouse, took a shower in between innings. We were about to start the inning, and no one was in right field. He just quit.
He just went home. And Michael was like, Frank, go. I said, Ken, it's over. He's going home. He took a shower. He's gone. He's like, what? So it was the longest in between anything because we had to get off the bench, warmed up to go to get out there. And that was the funniest Milton Bradley story of my time.
He just quit.
He didn't quit. He's just like, I can't help you guys today. I'm done. I'm done. Went up, took a shower, went home.
So you're saying he didn't quit. He was just self-aware. He didn't have it that day.
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Chapter 4: What legacy did Frank Thomas leave in major league baseball?
First guy there, last guy to leave. But like I said, working out, wanting to be great. I've always wanted to be great. I didn't want to be good. I wanted to be great. And that pushed me my entire career. And that's why I accepted, like I said, from the media because they knew how obsessed I was. So they were happy to take jabs if I go 0 for 4 for a couple of days or 0 for 3, 0 for 4.
What's wrong with Frank? No other players went through that. It was just ā And I mean, I remember Jerry Manuel as my manager. I mean, that was his out most of the time. If team's struggling, Frank's got to do more, you know, because he knew I accepted that. You know, I was mad at him a lot of times, but he would do that. And that would just send the media right to me.
Like, what the heck's going on? You need to do more. I'm like, you know, okay, I'll deal with it. So we had a couple conversations about that. But, hey, I mean, he felt that a great way to motivate the team and get the team going. All he had to say was Frank needed to do more. And I had a good time doing it some days, and some days I didn't.
This is the part I don't get, though, Frank. I keep saying versions of it seemed like it was hard to be you. And you're not taking any of victimhood there. You're not taking the bait on that. No. Because I'm looking at it and I'm like, man, this guy could use some positive reinforcement.
It would be nice if this guy wasn't getting all the pride he was getting from the stat sheet and it came from human warmth of he's being surrounded, but all you cared about was the admiration and respect of your peers, it would appear, and that you had.
Biggest man on the field. You look at Aaron Judge right now, and I watch it, and I just shake my head. I mean, this guy's put up astronomical numbers year in and year out, and when he's in a slump, the world has stopped. He's not working hard. Something's wrong with him. What's going on? You look at his numbers, like, are you crazy? Are you crazy what this guy's doing?
And I feel for him sometimes because I know he's going through that same thing, and he's consistently done it over and over and over. His numbers are ridiculous.
This, have you explored when you say I had to be great? Good wasn't one of the options. Have you explored what's happening there? Like how much does that have to do with your dad? How much does it have to do in the childhood? Is there some not good enough in there? Like what's happening that's making you someone? It's not okay for me to just be good. I'm going to have to be better than everybody.
Well. is growing up with not having everything you really want. And knowing to be better than everyone else on the field, you can always have what you want. You can always fit in where you want to fit in by being that guy. And it drove me. It drove me to be obsessed to be great. I'm sorry. I tell guys, I tell my son now. be obsessed with being great. And he is. It's kind of crazy.
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Chapter 5: How does Jon Sciambi express his passion for baseball in broadcasting?
Yes, he is. I help other kids around if they want it. But I'm saying he's the one that's getting ā Day-to-day basis, yes.
What do you regard as the greatest things that you've overcome in your career? Like the ā Injuries.
Injuries. Injuries. I tell people, and this is going to blow your mind, all the numbers I put up were done in 16 years. I had 19 and a half years. I was injured three and a half years of my major league career. And I tell people everything I did was within 16 years. So I look at my numbers for 16 years.
If I'd have had those extra three and a half years of playing, you know, you're talking six something with, you know, crazy.
Frank, you're one of the all-time greats.
Well, I'm just saying people think I just played nine. I didn't play 19 years. I played 16 full years on the field. Rested three and a half years I was injured.
So the injuries are just because my will doesn't help me at all here.
No.
Usually I can will myself into ā No, and football hurt me.
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Chapter 6: What challenges do MLB players face with media scrutiny?
So 96. Tell me about that experience, the minor leagues. You didn't have a long time in the minor leagues.
No, I did. I did a short season A, but I landed in Boise, Idaho, and I was waiting, and I was like, what did I do?
Left Miami for it.
Yeah.
And I did it for a half season. So, I mean, short season A is what, 75 games. And I came back the year prior or that year I had been, I was doing talk radio here in Miami and I was also the Panthers pre-intermission and post-game host on the radio and I would travel with them. And so, and then I would do my talk show on the road with Chris Moore and
And so, so the Panthers, Wayne Huizenga also owned the Marlins. And I basically connected with the guy that did the hiring. And the next year they changed up the way the Marlins were formatting their TV and radio broadcast. And the fourth broadcaster was going to be a pregame, in-game scores, post-game guy, interviews. And eventually it led to play-by-play.
But what was the Boise experience like? It was overwhelming. The reason I ask the question is you're in your early 20s. You're on a career path that you could have been doing sports radio for a really long time and had that be a successful career and you aggressively chose something that was both culture shock and I imagine financial shock and all other kinds of shock.
Yeah, there was financial shock. Holy cow. I... I wasn't good enough, and it was just too fast for me. I mean, I worked with a guy named Rob Simpson who's continued to work in hockey. If you called Rob up now, he would say, yeah, he wasn't that good. Like, it just ā it was a lot. I just didn't ā I didn't know how to do it, and I ā It took time to learn how to do it.
Was it a hard decision, though, to make the decision you made? I remember the bravery in it, right? Because I thought, well, he's established. He's on the correct path, but he's choosing something that matters more to him. It's also more difficult, but it's something that he will like more than what he's presently doing and take more pride in being excellent at it.
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Chapter 7: How does Frank Thomas view the impact of injuries on his career?
But I do think the way people react to me is in part about that I'm able to bring authentic me to the air. And so they feel like they know me.