Episode 161 — Rohn Brown: Charming Collegiate Leagues, Interning with a Future Hall of Famer, & Interviewing Former Student Athletes
Rohn Brown is a Washington Nationals fan from Mechanicsville, VA, whose love of baseball got started in the 1970s thanks to the Valley League. In the mid 80s he interned for the Richmond Braves, a team that featured a few names you may have heard of, including Tom Glavine.
Rohn and Anna chat about the charming differences between collegiate wood bat leagues and minors leagues as compared to the pomp and circumstance of MLB, and how interesting it is to watch prospects at the lower levels, knowing it may be several years before they make an impact with their parent club.
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Facebook: @rohn.brown.58
Twitter: @rohn_brown
Podcast: Lancers Past
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Read the full transcript
[00:00:00] Rohn: and I just love the intimacy of it. it was so basic. It was so raw. It was, there wasn’t anything to it. Um, when I mean that it wasn’t all the, the pomp and circumstance and the, the frills that you might see in a big league game, you know, one of my favorite sayings about minor league baseball is, you get to watch the superstars of tomorrow today. You, you, you can watch a lot of people that aren’t going to make it, but you will see some that will. And the fun of it is to watch these kids and see which ones will and which ones won’t.
[00:00:35] Rohn: It’s almost like a mystery that will not unfold for another five or six years, depending on how the person progresses.
[00:00:43] Anna: What’s up bucketheads? Thanks for tuning in and welcome to episode number 161 of the baseball bucket list podcast. I’m your host, Anna DiTommaso. And each week on the show, I speak with a different baseball fan about their favorite memories. What’s left on their baseball bucket list and what the game of baseball means to them. This week, I got to sit down with Rohn brown from Mechanicsville, Virginia. Rohn is a Washington Nationals fan who his love of baseball started in the 1970s. Thanks to the Valley League. In the mid eighties, he was an intern for the Richmond Braves, a team that featured a few names you may have heard of, including Tom Glavine and briefly John Smoltz.
[00:01:18] Anna: Rohn and I chat about the charming differences between collegiate wood bat leagues and minor leagues as compared to the pomp and circumstance of major league baseball. And how interesting it is to watch prospects at the lower levels, knowing it may be several years before they make an impact with their parent club.
[00:01:34] Anna: Rohn is also the host of an independent podcast called Lancers Past where he interviews former student athletes from his Alma Mater Longwood university.
[00:01:43] Anna: We get to hear a bit about his favorite parts of the show and about a recent interview he did with former MLB player, Michael Tucker. Rohn was a lot of fun. I know y’all are really going to enjoy this one, so let’s get straight to it. Now without further ado, sit back, relax and enjoy some baseball banter with Rohn Brown.
[00:02:01] Anna: Rohn, thank you so much for joining us today on the Baseball Bucket List. How are things in Virginia?
[00:02:07] Rohn: Hot and humid and dry.
[00:02:09] Anna: I can relate. Summer is here. There is no more, you know, I’m, I’m not holding my breath thinking are the triple digits coming because they’re here, but at least there’s some relief now of, uh, you know, knowing that we’re in the middle of it and it’s on the back half.
[00:02:26] Rohn: Yeah, it’s, uh, you know, all those nice yards that we had back in May are nice and green and we mow once a week, those days are gone for right now. So we’re into the, uh, into the hot, humid humidity has been up and down, but it’s been definitely dry. I haven’t had a good rain in a while.
[00:02:45] Anna: Yeah, similar to us here, but you know, the first question I always get started with right out of the gate is how is it that you became a fan of the game of baseball? Uh,
[00:02:53] Rohn: My dad took me to see Valley League games, um, as a young kid, uh, probably in the early seventies, uh, late sixties. Uh, we had just moved from California, moved back and moved basically back to my mom and dad’s, uh, homeland, um, in a little place called Madison County. And, uh, and my mom grew up outside of Harrisonburg, Virginia.
[00:03:18] Rohn: Um, so both, both my mom and dad moved back to Virginia in the late late 60s, and my dad, um, grew up in a little town called Madison, and they had a team in the Valley League. Uh, the Valley League is, uh, now it’s a wooden bat league, uh, that’s been real popular, they’re really popular, I know you’ve talked in your previous episodes about the Alaska League, and the Cape Cod League, and the Northwoods League, and the Valley League is just one of those.
[00:03:43] Rohn: And so he would take me to games, uh, In Madison and in Charlottesville, I had a team as well. And I just, that was sort of my, I guess, my point that my jumping off point of my understanding about not just the game, but amateurs and big leaguers and the whole my, and then, you know, later on, it sort of gave a good base for my love of minor league baseball, because, you know, The kids that did real well in the Valley League got signed and they typically would go to the minor leagues before they go to the big league.
[00:04:14] Rohn: So it was a real good jumping off point and a lot of good memories seeing, um, I saw Billy Sample when he was a youngster, uh, Billy Sample, uh, played in the, for the Texas Rangers and went to JMU, James Madison University in Harrisonburg, and he was one of the first guys I saw in that league that made it to the big league.
[00:04:33] Rohn: So that was pretty neat. It
[00:04:35] Anna: really cool. I always think it’s so interesting when people get a feel for the game at the lower levels like that because it’s such a pure version of the game, in my opinion, you know, it’s, um, there’s not a lot of ego. There’s a lot of heart. It’s a lot of kids just trying to work their butts off to make it, you know, to the next level to, to, to fill their dream, whatever that might look like.
[00:04:59] Anna: So, um, I think when you’re introduced to the game at a younger age, yeah, At the lower levels like that, it kind of instills even more of a pure love of the game.
[00:05:12] Rohn: does it and the kids like you said they’re they’re in college Uh a lot of times when you go to some of those value league games, especially during the dog days of summer The only during maybe during the week The only people are going to be there are the real hardcore people in the families of these kids So you get to know the families and some of these kids, um might come from you know The west coast most of them are the eastern coast east coast But some of them there’s one kid that I saw the other day that we went to arizona state And he was pitching for a team in Culpeper, Virginia, which is just north of Madison in Charlottesville.
[00:05:47] Rohn: So you really get to know them too and understand that these are kids, especially as we’re older now, these are kids that are, that have lives other than baseball, that they’re in school. Hopefully they’ll get a degree or if they don’t, you know, they’ll sign or whatever. But it’s the human factor of baseball is what really, um, Got my attention early on.
[00:06:09] Anna: Yeah, yeah, I can relate to that. I mean, I think the, uh, the stories there, they kind of lay a framework that makes everything that’s happening more and more interesting and meaningful. So, um, yeah. It’s cool to hear that that’s how you you kind of got started with the game now being that you’re in Virginia You know, obviously no major league team there in that state.
[00:06:32] Anna: Do you have a favorite major league team?
[00:06:35] Rohn: Well, it’s funny you mentioned that because right now, I mean, obviously the Nationals are, I guess, are my favorite team. Um, number one, they’re the closest, but, uh, one of my friends, one of my college, uh, classmates, his son is the manager of the A ball team in Fredericksburg. So it, everything just sort of full circle comes around.
[00:06:57] Rohn: And so obviously, I, you know, he had, uh, Dylan Cruz on his team last year, who was, uh, one of the, you know, first round pick of the 23 draft. Um, and, uh, that that’s really neat to, to personalize that and to know that I can call my friend and say, Hey, um, I want to see a game and I’ll have tickets waiting for me.
[00:07:18] Rohn: That’s always good too. But, uh, and then early on, it was the Braves, you know, when the Superstation came out. Um, when Ted Turner owned the Braves back in the, I guess the eighties, uh, late eighties and then when they, they, they tried, they, they became pretty good in like the early nineties. Uh, you know, the superstation, I mean, you know, watching Dale Murphy and Bob Horner and Raphael Vargas.
[00:07:44] Rohn: Ramirez and Rick Mailer pitch. And, um, you know, all those guys come up and then to, to add, to add to that, the Richmond Braves were the triple a team right down the street. I mean, within a half hour from where I’m sitting right now, I could go see, see them and they were affiliated. The Richmond team was affiliated with the, uh, the Atlanta Braves until 2009, when they left.
[00:08:09] Rohn: To, uh, for a brand new stadium in suburban Atlanta. So it’s been sort of Atlanta slash the nationals. Um, you know, I always have a sweet spot spot in my how heart for, for the braves, but now it’s the nationals, so.
[00:08:26] Anna: Yeah, that makes sense. I can follow that. I really can. Um, I think that’s such an interesting dynamic that whole like East coast shakeup when the Nats came back and you have all of these like, you know, You know Cities and states in the middle of the major league teams and then you kind of throw a wrench in there like all of a sudden there’s another team that’s back.
[00:08:48] Anna: Um, you know, so, so people kind of have some trouble figuring it out, but it always shakes out. Um, I want to back up because you were talking about the Richmond Braves there for a little bit and, uh, of course they’re no longer in that city, but you do have some history with that team from what I understand back in the, uh, to the mid to late eighties.
[00:09:08] Anna: Is that true?
[00:09:10] Rohn: Yeah, I worked, I was an intern in 1987 for the Richmond Braves. Uh, I left graduate school. I took a job in the Midwest. Things didn’t go well with it. Always wanted to get into baseball. So I, uh, like anybody, I cold called the Richmond Braves and told them I was wanting to come by and just say hello. And it turned into a, an internship.
[00:09:31] Rohn: So 1987 is when I did my internship there. Uh, we had, uh, Tom Glavin, who’s now in the Hall of Fame. Uh, we had Jeff Blauser, who was a good shortstop. Uh, a guy named Darryl Motley that played for the Kansas City Royals for a little while, was on that team. Wins and losses, that team did not do very well. As far as what I got out of it, it was like a graduate degree.
[00:09:54] Rohn: Uh, what I learned from it, uh, that I have friends that I, that I had from it were just, it, you know, I always wanted it to work in minor league baseball. Uh, because I learned back in the early eighties, late seventies, when Jim Bowden was making his comeback. And he, of course, he wrote ball four and all that.
[00:10:13] Rohn: I figured out that there was more to baseball than what you watched on television, that there was this, these minor leagues that were all over the country that provided a more intimate setting. And I wanted to experience that. I wanted to see what that was like, and I worked in it. And, uh, I, You know, like any intern, you start in March and you finish up in September and they cut you loose and you’re gone and maybe you can, they’ll hire you, but maybe they won’t.
[00:10:41] Rohn: So it’s almost like an audition. I, what I quickly found was that the, the prize was not necessarily getting the full time job, but it’s what I learned that, that, that year, you know, people talk about, you know, appreciating the process versus the result. And, and as a 20 some year old, uh, you don’t understand that yet until you get older and look back.
[00:11:04] Rohn: But that was, that was great. That was a great experience. Uh, the diamond, the current stadium at that time was sort of state of the art. It was built in 85. That was the, it was the third year. It was our third year of existence. Now it’s a, it’s a, it’s a concrete dump. To be quite honest, but it’s, it’s, uh, yeah, so we’re now we’re going to, they’re going to build a new stadium, but at the time it was, uh, it was a great experience.
[00:11:31] Rohn: Um, I got to meet a lot of good people, uh, not just big name people. Like, I met Hank AaRohn, of course, Tom Glavin, I worked with a little bit, but the people that who I worked on a day to day basis, those are my heroes. There was a, there’s a general, the associate general manager at the time, a guy named Mike O’Toole, um, is still a great mentor to me.
[00:11:52] Rohn: Um, and thank goodness, you know, I still live in the Richmond area and I’m able to tap into those friendships.
[00:11:59] Anna: What did you do there? Did you have a specific role or is it kind of more like a general internship wherever we need you? We’re gonna throw you
[00:12:06] Rohn: That’s a, that’s a great question, because we, we basically, we worked in group sales for a little bit. We worked in the press box for a little bit. We worked in individual ticket sales. So they. They allowed us to, to audition in different areas of the operation. And that gave us sort of a good, uh, holistic view of how it worked.
[00:12:28] Rohn: Uh, I, I was able to do VCU games, Virginia Commonwealth University. They share the facility with, uh, they still do, uh, there at the diamond. And I was able to do that. And, um, there’s things that went well and things that didn’t go well, but it was part of learning. And, uh, I. That experience was great. But yeah, it was a very, it was a very holistic, uh, experience.
[00:12:53] Rohn: Uh, it was almost like ordering off a menu. You got a little bit of like go to a Mexican restaurant, you get tacos, burritos, enchiladas. I got it all, you know, the whole thing. So it was, it was, it was really something, um, something to really not just put on your resume, but it’s all, it can be a life changing, um, experience working in baseball.
[00:13:14] Rohn: Uh, I’ve also found out, Anna, that. I did not want to do that full time that, you know, that it’s good to have that experience to know what goes into putting a game on, um, all, you know, 12 months out of the year, but sometimes you want to look at those experiences as. Fun and not necessity. If you know what I mean?
[00:13:36] Anna: Yeah, definitely There is something to be said about taking something that you love and making it a job It’s a it’s not always the right answer. So I think that makes perfect sense Now, one of the things I know from our correspondents before we hopped on this call is that you are a fan of minor league baseball, uh, summer collegiate ball way more than any of us.
[00:14:00] Anna: Major League Baseball. And, you know, I think obviously your time with the Braves there in Richmond and some of the other things that we’ve already talked about earlier in the episode kind of give me some clues as to why that might be, can we dive a little more into that as to, you know, what it is that, that you find about minor leagues and summer collegiate leagues that are, you know, make it more, uh, More of a true
[00:14:27] Anna: baseball experience.
[00:14:28] Rohn: I would say minor league baseball is probably my, my first love. Um, my favorite baseball moment was in 1981. I was up in Reading, Pennsylvania. I was up there with my mom and I think my grandmother or something, it’s, it’s a big outlet capital at that time. You know, people go there to buy, you know, discount things, the outlets to go up to the reading outlets at that time.
[00:14:51] Rohn: That was the thing to do. So I went up there with them and I found out that Reading had a home game that night. And so it was a double a team of obviously the Philadelphia Phillies. Uh, Julio Franco was about 19 years old, I believe. And I got to see Julio Franco play in double a, and also Greg Walker was playing for the opposing team, um, the Glens Falls White Sox, and you had Rohn Kittle that was also playing for the.
[00:15:21] Rohn: The opposing team of the of Glen’s Falls, and I just love the intimacy of it. Um, it was so basic. It was so raw. It was, it was just, there wasn’t anything to it. Um, when I mean that it wasn’t all the, the pomp and circumstance and the, the frills that you might see in a big league game, it didn’t take an hour to get there.
[00:15:44] Rohn: You didn’t have to pay 20 to park or whatever. Um, It, and I’ll tell you how primitive it was. The box seats were folding chairs and then I got to, you know, talk to people and ask them who the prospects were. And then later on, when I would go to a lot of the games in the Appalachian league, what, which at one time was a rookie league that had affiliates, I would go down to a place called Pulaski, Virginia.
[00:16:10] Rohn: And I found that same vibe down there. And I got to see these kids, you know, one of my favorite sayings about minor league baseball is, you get to watch the superstars of tomorrow today. You, you, you can watch a lot of people that aren’t going to make it, but you will see some that will. And the fun of it is to watch these kids and see which ones will and which ones won’t.
[00:16:32] Rohn: And then I took it another step further. I always like to sit behind a home plate because I like to talk to scouts. And I like to hear what they’re talking about. And sometimes they’ll reveal more information than others, but I want to know what they’re looking at. And that to me, it’s just a. It’s almost like a mystery that will not unfold for another five or six years, depending on how the person progresses.
[00:16:58] Rohn: And there are people like Julio Franco that I think we’re pretty much can’t miss, uh, type guys. Um, but there are some that. Like a Brett Butler, uh, Brett Butler played, you know, came up with Atlanta. He was a 22nd round draft pick that nobody thought that he would make the big leagues or, or Mike Piazza that was drafted in the 52nd round as a favor.
[00:17:21] Rohn: Uh, you know, from Tommy Lasorda, uh, to the fan, to Mike Piazza’s family. I mean, sometimes that happens, but it’s just the. It’s just the simplicity of it and the intimacy of it. And you can really soak the game in. There’s not a lot of distractions from the, and I love Bill Veck, but the exploding scoreboards or the, um, you know, trying to find a seat with, uh, you know, 45, 000 other people in the same facility, I just, I just liked the. Those factors and those characteristics of Meyer league baseball and plus it’s convenient. It’s, it’s inexpensive. And, um, I think some minor league teams have gotten carried away with all the between innings music and stuff that goes on, but. At the, when I saw it at the beginning of it, it was very raw in my, and this whole discovery was, uh, started with when Jim Bouton made his comeback, uh, back in like in the seventies, I believe.
[00:18:22] Rohn: And I was reading Ball Four at the same time. And, and I found out about places like Savannah, Georgia, and, uh, you know, and, um, um, there’s a team up in, um, You know, in Portland, Oregon, it was an independent team. Anyway, I found out about this whole minor league structure and I just found it fascinating. So I hope that sort of tells you what, what you’re asking for.
[00:18:45] Anna: Yeah, definitely. I think there’s a lot there that, uh, you know, is similar to what I find endearing about minor league games. There’s, um, you know, to your point, The ramp up time it takes for a prospect to go from getting signed to actually making his way to the major leagues if he does get there is, It’s way longer than any other sport, right?
[00:19:09] Anna: You know, like that’s one of the things I hear about people who don’t like baseball is that the draft is just almost a non event In their eyes because any other sport you draft a guy he’s going to make an impact the following year But in baseball, he’s got to be developed. He’s got to be you know trained.
[00:19:28] Anna: He’s got to get used to the cadence of the schedule and the travel and all of that stuff. And, um, so I can understand how that might be less exciting to some people, but to me, I think it just makes it more interesting and more impressive. Honestly, that. That that’s what these kids know they’re signing up for and so to sit in the stands and kind of try to put eyes on who you think is going to be, you know, the guy who does breakthrough, who gets to the next level, whether it’s double A, triple A, or all the way to the majors is, um, it really just adds a lot of like human emotion to games that otherwise don’t seem to matter that much.
[00:20:08] Rohn: Yes. And there are situations, you know, the kids that go to college, uh, like Dylan Cruz or Paul Skenes, the guys that are drafted, you know, real high, they may be in the big leagues and a couple, like the next year, but, but most people now are, want immediate gratification. And, and that’s not, you know, if you sign a kid out of high school, it.
[00:20:31] Rohn: It, it follows that same pattern you were just talking about, or if you sign a kid out of a Latin American country, out of the Dominican, out of Venezuela, uh, the, you know, you’re going to have to watch them develop and not just develop as ballplayers, but be able to learn the language and learn the culture.
[00:20:49] Rohn: And that’s something that I think Americans do not understand with the kids that come over from other countries.
[00:20:56] Anna: Definitely. I watched a documentary on, on that process, uh, a couple of months ago and now the name of it is escaping me, but it was, it was very eyeopening to kind of understand, you know, what it must be like to be thrust into a country you’ve +never been to, speaking a language you don’t understand.
[00:21:14] Anna: it just seems like, uh, exponentially harder when you’re, when you come here from, from a different country. But, yeah, I love watching those stories. I think that’s just one of the, one of the funnest parts of the game.
[00:21:26] Anna: I want to back up because you talked about the Appy League there for a little bit. I know you’re kind of situated very well to, to see Appy League games and, you mentioned, you know, it used to be a rookie ball league not too long ago, really just a handful of years ago. Have you noticed a change in maybe, obviously the level of ball is going to be a little different, but like, have you noticed a change in the overall demeanor, the overall presentation or enviRohnment or experience of those games?
[00:21:56] Rohn: I have not been to a game since they went to a more of a college wooden bat league format. However, I do know that the attendance is actually up per game, um, that a lot of the, and again, I’m sort of, of generalizing here, but based on my knowledge, I think the local people that live in these communities don’t really care about the difference.
[00:22:21] Rohn: Um, they may not see it like You or I would, I, I think that, uh, another, another really neat thing about the, this new league is that they were able to develop their own branding and logos and nicknames because before it was, they basically inherited the parent team’s name. So you had the, you had the Pulaski Yankees and you had the, um, You know, the Bristol, uh, White Sox, I think they changed names quite a few times, et cetera.
[00:22:50] Rohn: And Danville Braves. Now you have the, um, and I can’t remember all the Danville Otterbots. Um, and you have all these funny, funky names. Uh, then Bristol, you have the State Liners, which is a pretty, uh, if you know anything about the city of Bristol, half of it’s in Tennessee, half of it’s in Virginia. So it’s brought a lot of.
[00:23:12] Rohn: A potential, uh, uh, you know, sales as far as, um, you know, hats and caps and all that kind of thing. And, but just a, a sense of community, you know, people don’t, they’re not going to go see the Pulaski Yankees. They’re going to see the Pulaski River Turtles. I think that’s their name now. So I have not been to a game.
[00:23:32] Rohn: I know that there, a lot of the facilities in that league are, are decent, are pretty good. Yeah. Um, I particularly love the stadium in Pulaski. I mean, that’s, to me, it’s, it’s a nook and it’s a, it’s got a lot of nooks and crannies. It’s not a, I mean, right and left field fences are not the same because of this big hill and right field.
[00:23:52] Rohn: And you have a little, a couple of houses that, you know, That sit above right field where the people who live there can watch the game. And if you, you know, jack a big home run in the right center, it goes on somebody’s porch. I mean, you know, you can’t get that in the big leagues and, and, and there’s a lot of minor leagues you can’t get in that as well. And I just, I just really love that, that little park, a Calfee park there in Pulaski, Virginia. Uh, so I don’t think as far as the, I think it’s all. Honestly, it’s, I think it’s per the better, but I mean, if you ask some of the people that live around there, I think that they would say, well, yeah, we like it a lot and we go to the games.
[00:24:30] Rohn: They don’t have as many home dates. I don’t believe, but the, but if you look at the per game attendance, I think it’s a little bit better. Um, now with the Pulaski situation, they were affiliated with the Yankees and there’s something about the Yankees that always draw a lot of people. Uh, I don’t know.
[00:24:46] Rohn: It’s, it’s just a. It’s an American thing, I guess. It’s almost like the Dallas Cowboys were at one time. I don’t know. But, uh, and the Red Sox too. They all, and the Cubs, they all draw, no matter where they are in the United States, they always draw crowds. So I think Pulaski might be down a little bit, but overall, to answer your question, I think it turned out to be a positive change for these communities.
[00:25:12] Anna: Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard. You know, that’s been my understanding as well, is that especially the communities they kind of feel like they have a little more ownership in the team now You know as you pointed out they’re named things that usually have a tie to the community the kids are obviously going to be closer to to being hometown kids than they would if they were just rookies from all over the the country and world So I haven’t made it out to the Appy League.
[00:25:39] Anna: I I want to, it’s on my list, and, um, uh, hopefully we’ll be there in the near future, but I’m glad to hear that, you know, the reports from up that way are, uh, are sounding pretty good.
[00:25:52] Anna: What comes to mind if I ask you what your favorite baseball memory is?
[00:25:56] Rohn: Well, yeah, I mean, when I was at a Redding, I think that ranked right up there. Um, It’s just, it was just, and then I went to a lot of games in Lynchburg. Uh, Lynchburg was affiliated with the Mets for a long time. So they had like Daryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden come through, Lenny Dykstra. Um, and then when they became AAA, they were down.
[00:26:19] Rohn: In the Eastern part of the state in Norfolk. Uh, and, uh, and they, you know, they did really well there. Uh, I would, you know, I would probably go back, but my first big league game, I think was pretty, it turned out to be pretty interesting, uh, went to a Washington Senators game and this was before they moved to Texas and I don’t know the exact year I’m thinking probably early seventies and back then, you know, Frank Howard was the.
[00:26:45] Rohn: Was the big draw. He’s there was this big 6-6, 6-7 guy that hit home runs and, um, and they were playing the Oakland A’s that had this young pitcher named Vida Blue, um, and to, I don’t remember a whole lot from that game, but that was probably one of the first ones that I went to. But, uh, my, my favorite had to be going to Reading, though. Uh, it’s just, I mean, if you’re talking about just one game, I’ve been to a ton of games in Richmond, obviously, when they were with, with, uh, the Braves, and now they’re the double A team of the San Francisco Giants, and it’s, um, it’s okay, but it’s just, it’s just not like it was when you’re first experiencing it, and you’re first seeing it, and you’re first discovering what this whole animal called minor league baseball is.
[00:27:32] Rohn: And then, you know, When you find when you get friends that are actually playing in the league, that makes it even that makes it even better and to watch them move around. And, you know, are they going to get hurt friend of mine who I worked with for a number of years? His son was drafted by the Saint Louis Cardinals.
[00:27:46] Rohn: He played in the happy league in Johnson City and to watch him hit a really good rookie year. And to watch him go up and then he got hurt and then he was next to, you know, he’s released and now he’s a pharmacist.
[00:27:58] Anna: Ha
[00:27:58] Rohn: So, I mean, that, that’s just, you know, you just can’t, you can’t make that stuff up. Uh, not that it was a stretch that he’s a pharmacist, but just the, the stops and starts and the turns and the ups and downs that these kids have when they’re trying to reach the big leagues is just, um, It’s very interesting.
[00:28:17] Anna: Yeah, definitely. And Reading, too, a place I have also not been to, but I’ve heard nothing but good things about that park and that fan base in particular. I mean, I don’t know if it’s always been that way, but I would assume so, that, you know, they, they seem to be based on stories, very in tune, very involved, very curious about what’s actually happening on the field and, um, Seems to me like you you kind of have a penchant for the old timey kind of raw slash pure forms of baseball and I think Reading is a great example of that from what I understand.
[00:28:53] Anna: I want to segue here because I know that you also have your own show that’s Affiliated with your your alma mater Longwood University, which um, I’m not sure if that’s true You know, I went to a school in Bowie’s Creek, North Carolina called Campbell University.
[00:29:08] Anna: yeah
[00:29:09] Anna: I played soccer there. We had many athletic competitions versus Longwood But from what I understand the premise of the show is that you basically interview alumni from Longwood and I’m most interested in There’s a specific former major league player that you’ve had the opportunity to interview, Michael Tucker.
[00:29:32] Anna: Can you give us like the biggest takeaway from that series of interviews?
[00:29:37] Rohn: Yeah. So let me back up a little bit. Um, when I, when I started the podcast, I wanted to make sure that it was something that was mine and it was, it was not, that was not directly affiliated with Longwood. They, I, so it’s, it’s basically an independent podcast that I do that’s not affiliated with the university.
[00:29:56] Rohn: However, um, I obviously, I talked to these people after they have left. So I, Michael, uh, Michael was real interesting. He played 12 years in the major leagues. The biggest takeaway I got from them was how well he knew some of the biggest names in major league baseball. And I’m not just talking about knowing them, like, Hey, how are you doing?
[00:30:21] Rohn: Knowing them. But knowing how they played the game, uh, in one of the episodes, and I did a two part episode with Michael because it went so long that I felt like I had to break it up. And, um, so one of them concentrated more on his Major League experience. And he talked about how when Barry Bonds was playing, he was, I think Michael was with the Reds at that time.
[00:30:43] Rohn: So he was playing with King Griffey, King Griffey Jr. I think, yeah, he was with the Reds. And they were playing against, um, Barry Bonds. Anyway, Barry Bonds was on one team, and Junior was on the other, and Michael was on one of the, one of the teams, and Michael was able to watch the two of them have almost like a game within a game.
[00:31:04] Rohn: It was almost like how they tried to one up each other in the game. And, uh, Michael would say they would tell him, he said, okay, you’re going to get up there and you’re going to get a slider on an O2 pitch. Sure enough, that’s what he got. And he drills it, you know, drills a double on the wall. But just the, the knowledge that, You’re able to pick up that Michael was able to pick up about the dynamics between these superstars on different teams and how they want up to each other.
[00:31:32] Rohn: Um, also, Michael was in the Arizona fall league with another Michael, a guy named Michael Jordan, and you may remember Michael Jordan, uh, retired temporarily NBA and wanted to play baseball. And so he played most of the year in Birmingham and double A. And so Michael Jordan and Michael Tucker were on the same team in Scottsdale for Arizona fall league, and they would play basketball against each other.
[00:32:00] Rohn: Cause Michael Tucker was a good basketball player in high school. He’s one of those guys that probably could have played, uh, college bet basketball someplace, maybe the D one or D two, maybe at our level, you know, Campbell or a Longwood perhaps, but he chose baseball instead. And so. You know, Michael Tucker was talking about his relationship to Michael Jordan.
[00:32:21] Rohn: And then they bumped into each other in Las Vegas or someplace. And they, they talked again. I had no idea about that relationship until we started the interview about, uh, about Michael Jordan. And, uh, so that was, that was really, really neat. but he talked about Bobby Cox, talked about how Bobby Cox was a players manager and how Bobby would tell them, look, you know, we’re not going to think about winning all the game.
[00:32:46] Rohn: Winning each game. We’re going to think about winning the series. So you have a three game series against the Dodgers or whatever. Your goal is to take two out of three of them from them and just keep building on that and building on that. I said, Michael, you’ve been traded a lot. What, how did you, how did you cope with that?
[00:33:04] Rohn: And he basically said, well, I’m going to. I wanted to know it was good to be wanted. It was good that another team wanted you, especially during stretch drive. You know, if they were in contention and the team you were playing on, he played for Kansas city twice and he said both times he was in Kansas city, they were in rebuilding mode.
[00:33:21] Rohn: And so when he left Kansas city and went to, I think he went to Atlanta after that, that was great because now he was in contention to play in the playoffs. And that was, that was a good thing. But, um, But yeah, I would encourage people to listen to that if they, if they want to listen to Michael, uh, talk about his, not just his big league career, but his, uh, his encounters with MJ.
[00:33:44] Rohn: It was pretty neat.
[00:33:45] Anna: Sounds like a, like there would be some good stories there. That’s pretty fun. So the name of the show is Lancer’s Past, correct?
[00:33:52] Rohn: Yes, ma’am. That’s right.
[00:33:53] Anna: All right. And people can find it wherever they find podcasts or is it
[00:33:57] Rohn: Wherever they, yeah, wherever they find podcast, um, if they’re lazy and they just want to Google it and put Lancer’s past podcast, it’ll come right up. Um, I’m coming in on a hundred episodes. Uh, so probably before the summer’s over, we’ll have our hundredth, uh, 100th episode. And, um, it’s just a great way to connect with, uh, with student athletes, former student athletes and coaches, and find out what they’re doing now, because sometimes that’s more interesting than what they did before.
[00:34:27] Rohn: And with, with Michael, with Michael Tucker, it’s pretty hard to beat because he’s got three kids that have done real well athletically. But I mean, when you have a 12 year MLB career, you’d have to have something big to top that.
[00:34:39] Anna: Yeah, exactly, exactly. What’s left to check off on the baseball bucket list, you know? What’s the the number one thing you want to do, place you want to go, person you want to meet, something like that?
[00:34:51] Rohn: Yeah I would love to go down to the Dominican Republic on a, some type of, with a baseball team or some type of excursion there that sometimes they have, like, these, uh, these trips already planned and see these kids that are playing baseball, not just at the academies that MLB teams have for them, but even before they get there, You know, what, what about the kids down there is giving them the drive to, to play the game.
[00:35:24] Rohn: What, you know, what type of, not so much what type of facilities that they have, but what’s their enviRohnment like? Um, you know, we read the stories about, you know, rags to riches stories, kids come out of Dominican and they have a makeshift glove and they’re, you know, and they got a, you know, broomstick as a bat and all that kind of stuff.
[00:35:42] Rohn: And, but I, I want to, I want to see what, what it’s really like. I mean, what, what these kids come from and what they do and what kind of instruction they’re getting in, in their homeland. Um, and then, I mean, I’d like to go to some ballparks, like to go to St. Louis because those fans are very knowledgeable, uh, and they’re, they’re, they’re really, it’s a really good baseball city.
[00:36:08] Rohn: It’s got a lot of history. I like to go to Fenway. Haven’t been there. I haven’t been to Cooperstown either, but I would trade all those to go to the Dominican.
[00:36:17] Anna: I’m gonna put you in contact with my friend Shane. He runs a company called JapanBall and uh, Listeners have heard me talk about it before, I’ve traveled with them, um, but he does exactly what you’re talking about. He, he puts together these trips to, to specific parts of the world and, um, one of them is the D. R. and I’ve had the chance to talk with some folks who have taken that trip after the fact and, um, You know, it is, it’s exactly as you described it. You got kids playing baseball in the street with like cardboard gloves and trying to, to hit a baseball with a broomstick. And, um, one of the things that really struck me talking to somebody as they flew in was just the sheer number of.
[00:37:01] Anna: ball fields you could see from the plane. They were just, you know, seemingly everywhere because that is one of the biggest parts of their culture. And, um, I can definitely understand why that’s going to be at the top of the bucket list, because I think it’d be so cool to experience exactly, exactly what that would be like.
[00:37:19] Rohn: It sounds like spring training on steroids.
[00:37:23] Anna: Uh, man, that’s fun. I, I can’t wait to, to chat with you after you’ve had a chance to do that because I, I have many questions.
[00:37:32] Rohn: Oh, you need to do it yourself then.
[00:37:33] Anna: I will. I will. Eventually I will. I’ve got some other stops I want to hit first, but yeah, it’s definitely on the list. Gotcha. Gotcha.
[00:37:41] Anna: Rohn, this has been such a blast. I really thank you for making the time to do this before I let you go.
[00:37:46] Anna: Is there a place we should send folks if they want to, um, find you online?
[00:37:51] Rohn: Well, I don’t have a, a website per se, uh, but they can go on, uh, on Facebook and go to Lancer’s Past podcast. Uh, you can hit me on Twitter as well. I don’t know what my handle is right now. Um, hey, I’m 62 years old, you know? Um, but they can, you know, they can, they can They can Google me, uh, go to the, probably the best thing to do is go to Facebook.
[00:38:14] Rohn: I check it regularly, probably too much, but they can go there and check that out. And then one day I’m going to have a, I want to have a website and have, you know, more to offer. But, um, yeah, this has been a lot of fun and I, you do, you do a great job with this. And I’ve, I’ve listened to several of the episodes and, um, it’s a lot of fun to listen.
[00:38:36] Anna: Thanks for saying that, Rohn. I appreciate the time and I look forward to following along and then after you get back from the DR you’ll have to come back on and tell listeners how that was.
[00:38:46] Rohn: Oh, I’d be happy to.
[00:38:47] Anna: And that will wrap up this episode of the baseball bucket list podcast, special things to Ron brown for joining us today and sharing those stories and memories. If this sounds like something you’d like to do, if you think you might like to be a guest on the show, had the baseball bucket list.com/podcast and fill out an application.
[00:39:03] Anna: I’d absolutely love to hear from you. While you’re there. Make sure to spend some time on the site, sign up for a free membership, build your own baseball bucket list, track your ballpark visits and connect with other fans. If you find yourself enjoying the show each week, please take a moment to rate and review it in the podcast app of your choice.
[00:39:18] Anna: It goes such a long way in helping new listeners find the show. And I would really, really appreciate it. That’s it for this week. Thanks so much for listening. We’ll see you. Next episode.
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