Nolan Ryan, Backup Catchers & The Books That Stole My Baseball Heart | Tim Brown | Ep 247

You need to panic. No. Panic is a part of this for me. I can't do this if I'm not uptight. So just sit over there and let me be uptight. Okay? Fine. Dear silly little show. Hi, everybody. It's another episode of Your Dark Companion. We are glad to have you with us on this, the Third. Third. August 3. And this is episode number which? Two forty seven. Number 247. 247. Just like the sports beat we stick to. That's right. Just like patrolling the sports beat. Yeah. The guy we have on the show with us today knows a little something or two about that because he used to do it back in the day. But now, like, some others have done and others have done very successfully over the years, He is now, working his way through the world of writing books, and he is quite, quite successful at this. In fact, I wanna talk about two of them today. One that he's got out now and another that has stolen my baseball loving heart Mhmm. Like nothing ever has before. He is Tim Brown, the noted author. Joining us today from where? I'm in Raleigh, North Carolina. Raleigh, North Carolina. Yeah. How about that? After forty years in LA, I've been here for a couple years now. What got you out there? Well, the story is my, I semi retired and didn't have to live near a major league ballpark anymore or a major airport. And my wife has a twin sister who lives here. And so this is our semi retirement landing spot. How's it working out for you? Are you adjusting okay? I am, it's lovely. The summers are really hot, man, like really hot. Really, it's like the first place I've ever lived where summer is my least favorite season, but the air conditioning's working and the golf is good, so I'm enjoying it very much. People are very nice here. Well, as long as the AC stays on, you should be in pretty good shape. Right. Right. Those of us here in the remote yet burgeoning outpost of Dallas fear the coming of summer every year. Mean, It's rough. We fear it royally because we know what the next few months are going to be like and this summer down here has not been a disappointment. But we didn't get you on here to talk about weather with you. We got you on here to talk about a couple of these books that you've written, especially your newest one, and then this other one that I just finished, a couple of weeks ago that, has vaulted its way into the probably top three of best baseball books I have ever read. Oh, that's great. Thank you. We'll get to that in just a second. But your other book is Nolan. And around here, Nolan means one thing and one thing only. That means you are dealing with the great Nolan Ryan. Now how did this come about? Nolan Ryan is a guy that we're all very familiar with. If you follow baseball at all, you know all about him. And he's a guy who pretty much puts everything out there. And if you follow baseball, you do know a lot about him. How did this come about? Yeah. Well, so the there there were two parts of this for me. One was I was a seven year old boy in White Plains, New York, when the Mets won the World Series in 1969. And so that was the team that made me a baseball fan, and those were my early heroes. And so I have followed Nolan through what it felt like was my entire life. And even my first year covering Major League Baseball was 1989, and Nolan was still pinching. And in fact, covered a few of his games when he pitched either against the Angels or at that old ballpark in Arlington. And I just found it fascinating. And so I've always had this curiosity about him. Then as the years went by, particularly the last ten years or so, I would watch as starting pitchers would raise their caps to a standing ovation after five and a third, or no hitters would die on the top step of the dugout and not in the batter's box because of pitch counts or innings limits or whatever. And I would sort of mutter to myself, Where have you gone, Nolan Ryan? And I moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, and thought, You know, I still have this real great curiosity about this man who's now closing in on 80 years old. And I got in my car and I drove to Alvin, Texas and started researching the book about who this person was. You know, even when he pitched, was unusual, right? What he did was a little bit more than everybody else. And now, by today's standards, what he did is almost unfathomable. And so I wanted to reassure people that this picture, this person existed and that he was real and that it really happened just well, he retired thirty three years ago. The game changed that quickly. So that was my the important part of it. I thought that as I went, the his relationship with Texas really intrigued me. The Alvin experience there, the sort of small town in Texas that produces a person and a pitcher like this, a ball player like this intrigued me. And so I just kept following my questions. And what resulted was, was Nolan, the book. How well did you know him before all this? Did you know him at all? No. Not really. I I was a guy who would stand with a handful of other reporters after he pitched once in a while. I actually knew his oldest son, Reed, who was the president of the Astros for a while, and even then, I didn't have a friendship with him. We were just acquainted. So I went into this pretty cold as far as the family went. By the time he got here, he was already pretty much a legend. I mean, I think when he first got here, this figured to be just a one or two year thing, just a little kiss on the end of his career. And it turned out to be much, much more than that. And for a guy who was not here for that long a time, It's always kind of amazed me over the years that he is such a part of the Rangers franchise now. And I the way he was, the way he was as a guy and and really just the legend that goes along with him has a lot to do with that, I think. Yeah, I loved that last chapter of his career, right? He became a star in Anaheim, right? And then he did a lot of the legwork toward getting toward the Hall of Fame in Houston. But that last chapter, those final five years, I think really, when I went looking for what he meant to Texas and the other side of that, what Texas meant to him, I kept going back to those five years in Arlington, Texas, where the franchise was going under. There was a good chance it was actually going to relocate. It was irrelevant. It was a team that had never won a playoff game, never been to the playoffs, never won a division title. And I think my impression was, before I got into this, was that they signed him, and if it was just for the team picture, well, that was gonna have to be good enough, and that was gonna be fine. But what I learned was, not only did restore or actually sort of create the Rangers as a franchise, but there are people there, Tom Greave being one, John Blake being another, who insist that without Nolan, you don't get, first off, the Rangers don't stay in the Dallas area. They don't get a new ballpark. They don't start winning divisions. They don't get to the World Series when he's president in 2010. And they don't win a World Series three years ago because of his choice to stay in Texas and to finish his career there. And obviously, was a terrific pitcher for them for at least two and a half or three of those seasons. So what you see of the Rangers today, love them or whatever in the moment, it all goes back to his choice to sign with the Rangers back in the late eighties. And it really does speak to the kind of guy he was and or is. And I'm not surprised by this, but there I I talked to people over the years who thought that this was not gonna be a good signing for the Rangers or it was not gonna be one of great significance because they thought Nolan would come down here and be just a figurehead or he wouldn't put his, you know, heart and soul into it and clearly none of that played out that way. I mean, when he was here, he was into it, and there was never any question about that. Right. I think that anyone who thought that Nolan wouldn't put his heart and soul in it, regardless of the results, you know, you couldn't speak to the results, Didn't know Nolan very well. He was not gonna show up and put on a uniform and and wave to the crowd and and be a lousy pitcher. He was going to you know, all you have to do is look back over the course of his career. And one of the questions I get a lot now is why was he able to pitch for twenty seven years? And obviously very effectively for almost all of them. And my answer is, because he wanted to, because he was willing to put the work in, because he took pride in it, because of where he grew up, the sort of people he grew up around. His idols or his role models were hardworking men who worked oil fields or on a farm or in a cattle business. And I think he approached his career like his dad approached his job in the oil field. And also the other job his dad held, which was delivering papers every morning. Those were his examples of how you conduct yourself, the responsibilities you take on, and what you owe to those things. And so when I look at Nolan's career, I see a workman like career, right? The numbers are sort of all over the place. He won a lot of games, lost a lot of games, struck out a lot of batters, walked a lot of batters. But I see a guy who showed up and made his starts and finished an awful lot of games. Along the way, pitched for a lot of mediocre teams with a lot of poor offenses, and I think you can explain some of those numbers through that stuff. But, Nolan Ryan was, if he was gonna put the uniform on, he was gonna put the work He was gonna put the work on and work in and he put it in here, not only on the field, but off the field as well. I mean, he was here, he became a just a a a major, major figurehead for the team. I mean, the Rangers were more closely associated with him for the four or five years that he was here than any other previous player. And some guys came through here and stayed for seven, eight, nine, ten years. A couple played their whole career here. Right. And Nolan Ryan was here for four or five years, and he was more symbolic of the Rangers than they were. Right. You know, it's funny that years years later, fifteen, twenty years later, the the Rangers polled their fans, about what they most identify with with the organization. And these were teams with Josh Hamilton or pick your guy. And overwhelmingly, it was still Nolan. And by then, Nolan was in his 60s and nothing more than the president, which is not nothing, not on the field, obviously. And still, the franchise was known for being Nolan Ryan and probably still is to this day. You know, it's crazy because all those years when he was in the front office, people would come to the ballpark, and it was almost like they were expecting to see Nolan, and if they did, that was gonna be the biggest and best thing that could possibly happen to them on that night. Right, right. When he would sit behind the plate and watch the games next to Ruth or whomever, maybe one of the bushes. Yeah, that was a big deal. And still, I was at the ballpark for They gave away the uniforms or the jerseys, the bloody jerseys about a month ago. And I was at the ballpark signing books that night. And it was crazy. Everybody's wearing these jerseys and very excited. They packed the place. It's still the place of Nolan Ryan. He never threw a pitch in that ballpark, and yet still is, you know, still is the guy who is the statue out front. And they nearly put out a bobblehead of him, I believe, punching Robin Robin Ventura. Yeah. But they wound up not being able to get Ventura's sad. But Yeah. I think they weren't able to get Ventura's approval, not surprisingly. But the fact that that's still marketable and people are ready to go nuts and get that. Put him in the headlock. So instead, I think it's like a Josh Young lasso bobblehead. Yeah. Well, there are plenty of people out there that that, you know, for them, the metaphor for Nolan is him doing this to Robin Ventura, you know. Yeah. We're taking that ball to the face and bleeding us. Yeah. That that's another thing. The bloody jersey. Yeah. Yeah. And all my years going to Texas, I I don't think I walked into a sports bar or a restaurant where I didn't see one of those or both of those photos. And did you get a good amount of cooperation from him on the book? Yeah, you know, family was reluctant at first. I think we talked about the fact that I was not close to them when I started the project, but you know, as I was coming up on the book's deadline, I reached out one last time and sent them a couple chapters and said, Hey, you know, I understand that, you know, you're just not going to open your life up to just any old person who walks in the door, But this is going to be the tone of the book. This is what I'm thinking about. And they invited me down to Round Rock and to hang out for a few days, and they were ultimately great. Answered all my questions. Nolan and I talked on the phone a couple times after that. And I think, you know, I don't want to put words in their mouth, but I think after, you know, a good solid couple years researching this book, They felt like I had earned it. You know? I I did spend three weeks in Alvin, which, you know, I think sets the record for someone who doesn't actually live there. And and I just think they appreciated the fact that I had I had worked hard enough to to try to understand who Nolan and the family was and and all those relationships we talked about. So, they were but, ultimately, they were great. Can't wait to read it. I'm sure everybody else can't wait to read it as well. Well, thanks. I enjoyed doing it. A couple of months or so ago, I guess now Mhmm. A friend of mine showed up at the house one night and handed me a book. And I was not expecting this, no reason to or anything like that. He just gave it to me and said, check this out. And I did. And I went into it not knowing what to expect. But this is it. It is called The Tao of the Back Up Catcher and it's written by Tim. And I started in on this book, and long story short, I don't read real fast or anything, but, for the next two or three weeks anyway, it was about all I wanted to do was just read that. And within, I don't know, 35, 40 pages, it had worked its way into my top three baseball books of all time. And I do read a lot of baseball. And the reason it did is because I knew when I was reading that that I'd never read anything quite like this before. That I'd never read anything that seems to get inside the game and approach it from the inside out like this book seemed to do. But I don't know how well I can deliver a concept of or deliver the concept of what the book is really about, so why don't you do that for everybody? Yeah. Well, in a nutshell, I'll tell you how it was born. So in 2018, I was doing a podcast for Yahoo Sports and, I was in LA and the Phillies came to town and I was trying to figure out who I wanted as a guest on this podcast. And I'm going through the, I'm sorry, the brewers were in town. And I'm going through the brewers roster and I thought, hey, this Kratz guy looks kind of interesting. He was a backup catcher named Eric Kratz, and he'd been with 12 different organizations and he was getting close to 40 years old and he was having kind of a nice season. And I thought, you know what, it's kind of interesting. So obviously he was available and we spent a good hour talking about his life, his life in the game, his life outside the game. And we just hit it off. And so, that was the year that the Brewers went to the NLCS, lost in game seven to the Dodgers. And in Milwaukee, they were calling it Kratztober, and it was all very sweet. There's this guy who had existed on the periphery of the game forever. And late in his career had sort of found this sort of minor stardom, this B list stardom in Milwaukee. I think he'd hit six something in the Division Series and people were all very excited and had basically won the number one catcher job for a few months for the first time since he was a professional ball player. And a few months, you know, I don't know, six months later or so, Eric and I were talking and he said, Hey, people seem to like my story. I'm going to retire soon. What would you think about doing a book? And I thought, to be perfectly honest, I thought, well, a book about just Eric Kratz will sell very well in Telford, Pennsylvania, where he's from. And I'm not sure about anywhere else. It's a great story, but I don't know if it carries it. So but the more I thought about it, the more I thought, hey. You know what? Rather than tell a story about one backup catcher, what if I were to tell a story about all of the backup catchers and who they are and where they exist, what drives them, what sort of lives they live, what they represent? And, you know, it hit just at the right time for me because I think there was a period where I began began began to really see those who struggled with the game before I saw the stars, and I and I began to relate to it. You know, I think we all have ideas of who we're going to be, you know, when we're in college or just breaking into a business. I'm gonna be the next Jim Murray, the next Red Smith, the next whomever. And maybe you don't. Maybe you reach that, but probably you don't. And so I was thinking about myself, and I was thinking about, what I appreciate about the game and the guys who play it. And, again, I I I really began to relate to, the twenty third, twenty fourth, twenty fifth guy on the roster and and how they went about their business. So, basically, I wrote that story about, who these people are, why they are who they are, and what happens after the day when you wake up in Asheville, North Carolina or Round Rock, Texas and realize that you're not gonna be the next Johnny Bench. And what do you do with that? What happens to the next ten years, fifteen years, even twenty years? What becomes important to you? What sort of what sort of ball player do you become? What sort of person do you become? What what what are the things that you bring to the game? How do you win a game in the twenty one hours around the game? And so I spent a solid year and a half just talking to backup catchers, and I had a great time. It's really incredible because for those who don't understand what the backup catcher is all about and why he matters. He is a guy who goes to the ballpark every day knowing that there's a really, really, really good chance he's not going to play. In fact, usually, if he is going to play, he's told about that, you know, a day or two in advance. But but other than that, he is the last guy on the roster. He's not going to be a he's probably not a real good hitter most of the time, so he's not gonna be called on to pinch hitter or be a DH or anything like that. He really is the last man on the roster and he views the game from a very unusual viewpoint. Yeah, well, most of them have been around for a while, right? I mean, that's how you have those jobs. And one of the things I really loved in talking to, say, a guy like Theo Epstein, if you've got a 26 man roster, 25 guys fit into some sort of mold, into some sort of analytical body, right? There's some sort of model that you've made that this is how these 25 guys fit, and this is why we're going to win games with these 25 guys. There is one guy on the roster who does not fit into that construct, and that's the backup catcher, who does things that nobody sees, that becomes to other people, other guys on the roster, a priest, a therapist, a drinking buddy, a father figure, an assistant hitting coach, a relationship advisor, whatever you need, because he helps sort of push, the other 25 toward whatever that goal might be. And, I just really came to respect, you know, they don't make the money the other guys make. They are constantly checking the designated for assignment list to see if they're on it. They're probably carrying a bat bag from three transactions ago. And I really, like the people around them even, the wives and the children, the fathers and the mothers, are also sort of put into that world. And I just really, it was just so human to me. It so real. And think it was a real interesting human study about who we are with the crumbs of the original dream. If your original dream was to be Johnny Bench, but you're Eric Kratz, what do you do with that? And and I I wanted it I wanted people to to realize that it's not just about baseball. The sorts of people that I've heard from since that book came out, it might be a policeman, it could be a stay at home mom or a stay at home dad. I have frequently frequent exchanges with a bass player with a traveling band. All these folks who view themselves sort of in this backup catchery role who have come to understand that they're important too. You know, just because they didn't get their uniform dirty that day doesn't mean they weren't part of the win. And the backup catcher has to connect, or the good backup catchers have to connect with everybody on the team. I mean, not only just the pitchers, but everybody on the team, he has to connect with them in some way. And these guys are able to do that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and particularly the pitching staff. When your game is, know, the 03:00 bullpen session from the starter from two nights ago, then you put all of yourself into that, right? And there is, they've spent so much time watching baseball, right? So they watch the manager manage and they decide what works and what doesn't. They watch the coaches coach and they know what works and what doesn't. They see guys at bats. They see pitchers who are tipping pitches or are falling out of their mechanics, because they watch the game. And it's why, I think, at the time I wrote the book, 14 or 15 of the 30 managers had spent time as backup catchers, and now I think about 10, but it's still a crazy percentage, right, when you consider Yeah. There's 10 positions on the field, if you count the DH, and one of those positions is managing, as of today, 33% of the games in the in the big leagues. That's that's a lot. I always get into arguments with people about what is the most difficult position in sports to play. And down here, we got a lot of football loving yahoos who like quarterback and everything like that, and I don't dismiss that at all. But if you ask me, the most difficult job in all sports to do is be a catcher because of what you have to know. What you have to know to play that position is just an incredible amount of mental stuff. Like, you gotta know everything about every pitcher on your staff, what's working, what's not working, what it looks like when it's working, what it looks like when it's not working, and what to tell the guy when it's not working. You know? You gotta be able to do that with everybody. You gotta be able to set the defense and make sure that everybody is in the right place because you're the one guy that can see everybody out there. And if there's gonna be a physical element to the game, it's probably gonna be in a play at home play. And sometimes you might wind up on the bad side of that. It's just a fascinating, It's just fascinating position and for these other guys who probably at some point, pretty early in their careers I'll bet, start at least toying with the idea of becoming managers, you know? Yeah. And that's their training ground, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. They think about the game an awful lot. And again, they have seen what works and what doesn't work. And and, you know, they they do a lot of what you and I did. They you know, we we watch a lot of baseball. They watch a lot of baseball. And they have to think through the game while I think everybody else is is sort of taking a break. But yeah. And and they are. They're they're they're tough guy. They're such tough guys. And, you know, I I really appreciated that aspect of it. Just the the physical element alone is an awful lot to carry. You know, trying to also be an offensive player while playing that position, you know, we we see the fact that there are very few catchers who, are real impact bats. And and if you do happen to find one, that's a real gem. And also, by the way, chances are pretty good they're going to try to move you out of catcher at some point to one of the corner infield spots to try to keep your bat in the lineup. It's interesting. The job has gotten somewhat easier in, You know, there aren't the collisions at the plate we used to see, but also catchers. I I I bring this up because I was thinking about Bill Plummer earlier today who, as a as a 19 year old was rule five to the Cubs and he was he was the number two catcher on the Cubs behind, Randy Hundley in the late sixties. And Randy Hundley played in a 160 games that year. Bill Plummer as the backup catcher had two at bats all year long. So at least today's backup catchers get a little bit of playing done. Yeah. And, of course, these guys have to do all of this from an extremely unnatural position, which they have to be able to assume just as easily as you or I sit down or stand up. Yeah. And that's that's another amazing thing about the position of catcher for me, the the amount of of flexibility and bend these guys must have in their bodies. Yeah. You know that that when I really start thinking about that is teams that make long runs in October, and you always you always just play your number one catcher if you've you've got a guy who's clearly a number one. And they end up catching all of October if particularly if they're gonna go to the end of the World Series. And, man, by the end of that run, they are just exhausted. They're just dragging themselves through the day and trying to show up at 07:00 with with something. They're it's very impressive because it it's really hard. This is Tim Brown. He writes great sports books, and if you get a chance to read one, you should do this. Now if you need to chill out for a second, Tim, you can because right now, it is time for us to take care of the dreaded and feared mid show read. Nice. Let me ask you this. 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Next Tuesday. Next Tuesday. Yes. Yes. So The spots are available now. The auction is live until the tenth. She said spots are available now and the auction is live until the tenth. Heard her say that. I heard her say it too. Mhmm. And now I'm telling you, so join us for that. Okay. Alright, let's get back to our guest, Tim Brown. He writes books and has for some time and he's damn good at it too. How do you decide what to write about, man? You must do you have a thousand ideas or possible ideas or possible thoughts of, hey, maybe there's a book there that flash in and out of your mind at all all times? Or how did your your process work? Great question. I think that what worked for me in a thirty some year career works for me now. If I find something that I'm curious about, that I'm interested in, then I'm just gonna write it. And I'm just gonna trust the fact that that's gonna be good enough. If I'm not passionate about it, I'm just doing it for the buck, or if it's being assigned to me or something, I just don't feel like I can do it. I trust what I'm curious about, and that's basically it. It really started many years ago with Jim Abbott. I wrote a book about Jim Abbott. Mhmm. And he came to me, and that's what really got it all the book end of this thing started is, you know, I had covered him. We were in my first year covering Major League Baseball was his rookie year with the Angels, and I was covering the Angels. And so we sort of broke in together a little bit. We were both trying to find our way, and we had maintained a relationship over the years. And he called me one day, years after he'd retired, and said, You know what? I think I'm ready to write my book. Would you do it with me? And so that's what got it going. And of course, how could you not be passionate about Jim Abbott and that story? I just sort of trust my instincts on it. If I'm starting to feel like I'm chasing something that's interesting, that I don't know about, that I'm educating myself about, I just keep going with it. Had Jim Abbott ever talked to you about that when you were on the beat? Sometimes you'll get in there and be talking to a guy and he'll say, man, someday I wanna do a book, anything like that? He was really, know, he'd been approached about it many times, movies, books, things like that. And he was never wanted to be viewed as trading on his story, trading on what he was trying to do, that he was uncomfortable with that. And he came to me with the very best motivation to write a book, which was, I want to honor my parents, and I want my daughters to know my story when they're ready to hear it. And so, I mean, that was just so pure, so that's why we did it. I can scarcely think of a better reason to do it than that, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. How do editors work in your process? Well, they save you from getting sued. There's that one thing. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. Well, basically, you send them a ton of words and a ton of pages, and they send it back to you and tell you how terrible you are. Sort of it, you know, I think that because of all my years working for newspapers and websites and things like that, I write pretty clean, but, you know, there are conversations about the shape of the book, the narrative arc of the book, where things are, what belongs, where. And that's where I sort of lean on the editors more than as line editing sort of thing. Is their involvement like a day to day thing as you're going through the course of doing a book? Sort of depends on the guy. My first three books, I met him when the publisher bought the book, and then I didn't hear from him again until I gave him the book. My last experience with the Nolan book was quite different. I talked to the editor there once a month, just let him know how it's going, what concerns I had, who I was still chasing, what he might be thinking about it. So, it was more, but again, pretty minimal until the book is done. When you're doing a book, do you map, kind of draw a roadmap for yourself first? Or do you just sit down and start writing and follow it as you go? Or what's the process there like? More of the second part of how you described it. I'm not a huge, I'm not as organized as I should be. I've gotten more organized as I've gone along. I respect that. I'm a character of chaos too. Yeah. I wish I was better at it. I really do. But I just I feel like I don't want an outline, a real specific outline to get in the way of whatever flow is happening or not happening. Do tend to reread the book from the start every time I sit down. So I become very sort of alert to how it's flowing, what it feels like, what I'm missing, things like that. Does that make you really hypercritical? Yeah, I think it does. Certainly as I've gotten older, I've gotten more comfortable with being critical of what I've done, a lot less possessive of what I've already done. I will get rid of paragraphs at a time and not feel harmed by it at all. The Nolan book, when I turned it in, the publisher felt like it was about 10,000 words too long. And so, that was difficult, that was finding 10,000 words in what I'd already done. And lost an entire chapter on Nolan's catchers, which broke my heart because of how connected I am to catchers. But it was Oh my goodness. That must have been tough. It was the only place I could go. Wow. I can't that that would kill me. I know. I'm still you know? For a guy who wrote the towel of the backup catcher, that's gotta be devastating. It was it was brutal. So how do you get ideas? Do do they just come to you out of thin air, or do you, make mental notes over the years and go back and write a book that you wrote that you had a mental idea of three or four years ago? Or how does does that part of the process work? Yeah, again, I have sort of a running list in my head about things that are, again, I'm curious about or that I think could play. The publishing industry has really changed. If you look at the top 10 in The New York Times every week, it's on the non fiction side. It's a lot of books about politics. There's a lot of books about celebrities. I was never a guy who sort of ran to the stars when I was writing. I, again, you know, of as reflected in the Catcher book, I sort of liked the guys who were behind the guy. So, you know, but I have to be sort of aware of what sells and what doesn't as well. So, the Nolan book, obviously I wrote a star. The Catcher book, wrote no stars. So, don't know. You think about, well, what's a publisher going to buy, right? And then once they buy it, what's going to sell? But again, I just sort of lean on what I find interesting, and otherwise it would be drudgery. I couldn't do that. I couldn't write a whole book about something that was just to sell books. It wouldn't be any fun for me. Do you have an agent who hooks up with publishers and editors and all that? Oh yeah, yeah. He takes my money every time I get a check. But he's great, he's the best in the business, he does a lot of sports guys, his name is David Black, he's in New York. And he's been terrific. He's become a good friend of mine and very smart. And it's funny, he the number two guy at the agency is a guy named Mark Tivani, who was at Random House for the Jim Abbott book, and he was my editor for the Jim Abbott book. So, we have a long relationship, and trust those guys. They're great. See, this is a very murky part of it to me, a very murky world because I I never have quite understood how you guys do what you do and and who else is involved and how are they involved and and the whole process. Yeah, they're good with ideas, they're good with and obviously their main role is to take your proposal and take it to publishers and sell it to the publishers. And then they sort of fight on your behalf for whatever money may or may not be coming and any other issues along the way, they sort of stand in the way of me getting angry, basically. So you get an idea, and you talk to your your agent about it first. Is that how that works? Yeah. We kick it around, and they let me know. I mean, there have been times where they're like, yeah, I don't think so. And then there's other times where I'm like, I don't think so. And they say, no, I really think this fits for you. So, we kick around a lot of stuff. Now, during this process, the proposals I write are very long. They're as much as a third of the book. So, an awful lot of the work goes toward that proposal leading into actually writing the book. So, it's a huge commitment and a lot of the research goes toward that. So, by the time I sell the book, I feel like I'm running downhill because so much of the book is already written. And I feel like it also gives publishers an idea of what it's going to feel like, what it's going to sound like. Plus, you've written a proposal that long, they trust the fact that you're going to finish it, because you're already you're so committed to what you've already done. So, that to me, that's the key to the whole thing, getting traction on that proposal because then you know where you're headed. How long does the idea generally stir around in your brain before you decide whether there's enough there for you to take that's to your a great question. Not typically very long, but it's funny that you bring that up now because I'm thinking about my next project, and I've got a few things in mind and it's been a couple months now and I haven't really committed to anything yet. And it's because I'm sort of waiting for something to grab me and I keep going down these little rabbit holes of, well, this could be interesting, or this could be interesting, and this could be interesting. I'm sort of waiting for something to grab me in that regard. So, we'll see, we'll see. Did the tower of the backup catcher grab you right away? As soon as I thought of writing a book about all the backup catchers and relating it to life, to to real life, I love that book. Absolutely love that book. And and it's because, as we talked about a little bit earlier, it's really reflective of the way I see the game. And I spent so much time around the game that, you know, I felt like I could pull it off. I felt like that it was important to write that book because now I'll be honest with you. It didn't sell great because I think it's really niche y. You know? Oh, it's very niche y. Yeah. It's extremely niche y, and I love it. Pick pick it up and judge immediately, am I gonna read a whole book about backup catchers? And also, somebody wrote a whole book about backup catchers. But but I that's really, it's it's my favorite book. I I really I loved writing it. I loved thinking about it. I was very proud of of what came of all that. Yeah, it's so me, and as you get older, you get sort of romantic about things, and I think there's an awful lot of that in there as well. Now we need to touch on some of your other books as well, such as The Phenomenon, your book about Rick Ankiel, we mentioned that earlier. Tell us a little bit about how that came about. So, I didn't It was interesting because I did spend five years covering the Lakers in the early 2000s. And so I was away from the game for that period of time. And in that time, Rick came up as a huge prospect, had his big rookie year, then went to the playoffs, got the yips. The whole thing sort of became a disaster, and here's this mega prospect in this huge baseball town, and it was a massive story. But I missed it all. I was watching Kobe and Shaq win championships. And so, I mean, obviously, I was aware of it, but so years go by, I did happen to cover a game, a playoff game, when Rick was playing for Francisco to beat the Giants in the playoffs. And I wrote a column about that that night. But, several years after that, Rick and Jim share an agent, Scott Boris. And Rick retired and wanted to write a book about his life. And I felt like it was a really underreported story, not because the reporters in St. Louis or elsewhere weren't working hard, but because Rick wouldn't tell the story. You know, he was very, protective of those years. It was really difficult for him. So, one of the Boris people called me and said, Hey, Rick Ankiel wants to write a book. We told him that Jim Abbott's experience with you was good. Do you wanna talk to Rick and see about writing a book? And I said, Sure. So that's how that all started. We got on the phone, we started talking, and within a couple of weeks I was in Jupiter, Florida, and we were starting on the process. And it was really interesting to me because he had so much to tell, and it was so difficult for him. Think the process of it was, think until we started on the book, was almost ashamed of those years of his life, you know, where he had gotten the yips and couldn't pitch anymore, while also being very proud of returning to the minor leagues and coming back as a hitter and having a nice career as a big league hitter. But those years where where he lost pitching, I think he was embarrassed by it. And by the end of the process of writing the book, I think he was really proud of who he was then and how he was able to overcome this thing that's really real to people who have it. So that was really cool. That was really fun. And, know, Rick and I have become very good friends as a result of that. And I'm not sure he ever sort of let himself go other than with his sports psychologist, who was Harvey Dorfman, who was also Jim's sports psychologist. So, it all went round and round. And that was an interesting book just because of me having to sort of sort through the psychological elements of the YIPs and what they can do to a person. Did that present an unusual challenge for you that you'd never faced before? Yeah, absolutely. And I talked to a lot of folks, in that book, we talked to other guys who got the yips and how they dealt with it. It's very hard to explain to people what they are and what it's like to live with them. Those dark places where you go and question yourself and who you are and what you've been. And for Rick and for a lot of guys, you know, Rick Rick had a very difficult upbringing. His father was abusive. And, you know but at least with his dad, the fight was in front of him. He knew where the fight was. With the yips, it was this very murky, cloudy thing, and, you know, there there was no beating it. And so, you know, I I think he worked really hard to try to beat it, and then he worked really hard to become something completely different, which is an outfielder. I mean, what an athlete. I would put him top 10 athletes to ever play in the big leagues. Just an amazing athlete. And we mentioned earlier, Imperfect, the Jim Abbott book. What was that like? That was that was pretty cool. I was a train wreck. You know, the first time you do anything, right, you're you're a mess. And so I clumped around trying to get that done, trying to write better, trying to, you know, it's daunting the first time you write a book, you feel like everything has to be perfect and it's sort of scary. But man, that story, you know, his parents and growing up and being that guy, being different, and the way he tried to carry it. And, you know, I really what I remember from those years watching a young Jim Abbott try to become a great big league pitcher. And in every town we went to, there'd be a line of people, there'd be parents and kids waiting to meet him. And I think a lot of folks were looking at Jim with, let's say, this child who was similarly challenged. And I would look at the parents, and I remember thinking, man, this is harder on them almost, because they need to believe that their little boy or little girl is going to grow up and have friends and go to prom and get a job and go to college, and feel good about themselves. And to me, they were more affected by that meeting than the little boy or girl was because of that. They felt the weight of trying to raise someone who, in this world, is a little bit different. And so I think I was able to draw on my own personal experience of seeing Jim, not only the pitcher, but seeing the guy who carried this flag for a whole segment of society that needed a flag bearer. Alright, he is Tim Brown. Yeah. And you need to check out his books, Imperfect by Jim Abbott. Nolan, course, his newest book that's out there now, The Tower of the Backup Catcher, cannot recommend that one enough. And The Phenomenon. And The Phenomenon about Rick and Kiel. Tim, I can't thank you enough for doing this, man. It's been very interesting talking to you. I love your books. I've been a fan of your work for a long time even before you started doing books, and it's an honor, man. Thank you. Well, I appreciate that. You guys have been very kind. It's been it's been fun going down memory lane. Some some of these books feel like somebody else wrote them. They're so long ago. So this has been a lot of fun. Alright. That is Tim Brown. And if you like what we are doing here, what we need to do or what we need you to do, it's not what we need to do. It's what we need you to do for us. Get us out there on your social media. Like us. Share us. Do all that good stuff. I don't understand how it works. I'm an old guy, but you do. You're not an old guy. So help a brother out here with this stuff. Thanks for watching. Bye. Bye. Bye.