Luis Gonzalez (Transcript)
Robby Incmikoski: Gonzo, for people who have never been to Chase Field for a baseball game, how would you tell them the experience is, and what should they expect? Should they come there?
Luis Gonzalez: Well, for one, it's a different experience because we're still one of the ballparks with a retractable roof, the opening and closing of the roof. One of the things that's really unique and different is we have a swimming pool out in right center field where people can rent for games. So it's a uniquely different experience.
If it's really warm out, which it is a lot of the times here in Arizona once we get to the summer months, the roof will stay closed. But in the early part of the season, this is where we really take advantage of those 75 to 80-degree nights and are able to open up the roof and the panels. The panels are located above the stands out in left field and in center field, and they'll open up and you get a nice breeze coming through there. It's just a nice atmosphere that you have at night here in the Arizona sun.
Robby: It's really cool. I'm curious—you got to the Diamondbacks their second year of existence, but what was it like for players playing in front of a swimming pool in the outfield? What was that like for you guys?
Luis: Well, it was different. Not only that, but we had what we called the runway, like a runway strip going from the pitcher's mound to home plate at the time. Now we have the turf in our ballpark. But back then, it was just something different, unique.
It was a new team in existence. '98 was the first year—they lost quite a few games. In '99, they went out and wanted to make a change and get some more veteran guys in here, and I was part of those they brought in. It was fun. I mean, sellouts every night. The newness of playing for a new team in the state of Arizona.
The unique part about a team like this is there was no history. So a lot of the people that were newly Diamondbacks fans were fans of other teams, because a large majority of the people that live in Arizona are transplants. They come from different parts of the country. When you hear somebody say that they were born and raised in Arizona, a lot of times you look at them like, really? We don't really see or hear about too many people like that, but there are some out there in existence. It's a rarity when you hear somebody say they were born and raised here in Arizona.
Robby: No doubt about it, which raises an interesting question, Gonzo. Most people can say with one swing of the bat you changed the culture, but really your actions after your single off Mariano Rivera in Game Seven of the World Series has really kind of cemented you as the guy who helped shape and mold the culture of baseball in Phoenix, Arizona. When you look back on your life on the playing field, off the playing field, what you've done for charities, how good a guy you are—pictures, autographs, all that stuff—how does something like that resonate to you, Gonzo, to have the biggest hit in the history of the franchise, but essentially, you help change and form a culture in a state that never had baseball before the late 90s?
Luis: Well, I appreciate that. I think as you know, I was blessed to play a game that millions of people wanted to play. I played for 19 years in the major leagues, and as time went on, I was a big historian of the game. I grew up in Tampa, Florida, watching the Big Red Machine where they used to spring train there. I idolized certain baseball players. I wanted to be one of them.
The next ones coming up, I knew what it was like to be on the other side of the railing or on the other side of the fence. I didn't grow up with a lot of money. My family was Cuban, growing up in Tampa, Florida, which was a hotbed of baseball at the time. We had a ton of guys from our area that played in the Major Leagues—still do now, the Pete Alonsos, the Tuckers that's playing with the Cubs, and different guys like that. We all grew up within a 50-mile radius, probably, playing in different little leagues and high schools.
For me, I always took it as I'm not going to play this game forever. I watched World Series games on television and things like that. I knew that I was fortunate enough to be the guy in Game Seven, bottom of the ninth of the World Series in '01. But I always took it with the same perspective as when my career is over, there's going to be other players. There are going to be other guys—bigger, better, stronger players that are going to either break your records or do bigger and better things in this game.
The impact that I wanted to make was with the people off the field. Because when you ever ask somebody about a player or a person, they never say "it was a great player" first. The first thing they say 99.9% of the time is "he was a good guy," and then they go "he was a great player." Or, "he was a bad teammate" or "he was a bad person, but he was a decent player." So for me, I always took that to heart. I always wanted to be a player that was accountable. I showed up every day, wanted to play every single day, showed up ready to go, and I wanted my teammates to, number one, have trust in me, and number two, rely on me. I wanted them to say, "This is a guy that I can count on. He's a friend. He's there for me whenever I need help." And they're the guys that I can lean on if I ever needed something.
Robby: What kind of dream was 2001 like? You were third in MVP voting. You played every game—728 plate appearances. Your OPS was over 1.100. How did that season go the way it did for you to begin with? And then to cap it off the way you did?
Luis: I tell you, for me, it was about doing something you love to do, and you love being around the people that you're with. My teammates were awesome—every day was fun for me to come to the ballpark. I took my job serious when I was on the field, but off the field, in the clubhouse, I was an everyday, normal guy. I loved to have fun with my teammates, loved to be around them, loved to go to dinners with those guys. I loved the clubhouse guys, I loved the parking attendant guys, the door guys, all those people.
I considered our fans and my teammates family. We were all one, and I wanted them to relate to me as a normal guy. I never changed. From when I was a rookie with the Houston Astros coming up to the day that I retired, my last day in the major leagues, I tried to always have fun with my friends and teammates, go to dinners and do all kinds of different things. But I wanted them to know that I was the guy that, number one, was a great person, and number two, always wanted to win every time out there. That's the way I wanted to come across to the fans—that this guy cares about his teammates, but he cares about people too.
Robby: Gonzo, when I ask this question, I'm hoping at least some of these questions are ones you have not answered in the last 24 years of your life. I spent 11 years as a reporter with the Pittsburgh Pirates and have had the chance on multiple occasions to interview Bill Mazeroski, who hit the walk-off homer in 1960 and has a statue outside of his famous jump as he was running around the bases. That man is always so gracious and kind when he is asked about that homer. I ask this to you: Why are you so gracious and kind when people ask you about 2001 off Mariano?
Luis: God, I was blessed to be in that situation. It could have been any one of my teammates. But there was a plan for me to be that guy. God had a plan for me that day, I guess, to be that person. I wish I could bottle it up and have everyone experience that day. It's unbelievable. You dream about it as a little kid.
You play Little League ball and kick ball, whatever, any kind of sport. I'm a sports fan too. When you sit on your couch and you're watching games, you wonder what that moment feels like for that certain athlete. To find yourself in that moment, it was very surreal.
I don't mind talking about it all the time, because I want fans to almost feel what I was feeling in that moment—how much excitement and exuberance there was. There was a lot of stress getting into that moment, of course, but when it happened, when I got the game-winning hit, to have all your teammates running out there jumping on top of you and your family, your friends, everybody talking about it until the start of spring training the following year—it was very humbling for me.
Because I wasn't a guy that went out saying "Oh yeah, I was the guy that got the game-winning hit." No, I was one part. I was a decent part of that moment. But it took our whole team. It took a lot of other things to happen for me to be put in that situation.
Robby: Can we talk about the team mentality for a second, Gonzo? In the bottom of the ninth, you're down 2-1, you're facing the greatest closer in the history of baseball. Obviously, his legacy would be cemented in the ensuing 12 years that he would play the game. Of course, Gonzo, but he was still a dominant closer. No question about it. At that point in time, he was the best baseball had to offer. You're going into the bottom of the ninth at home, Game Seven. Now, granted, he had entered the game, if I remember correctly, he had entered the game earlier, didn't he?
Luis: Yes, because he struck out myself and two other guys.
Robby: That's what I'm saying. So you're like, "Okay, we got one shot against this guy." Like, okay, he got us one inning because he struck you and Matt Williams out. Finley singled, Bautista struck out. So he strikes out three of the four guys he faces in the eighth. Williams, Martinez, Posada go down 1-2-3 in the top of the ninth, thanks to the Big Unit. And now here we go. You got one last shot at Mariano. What's the mindset going into the dugout? Do you remember?
Luis: I remember coming in from the outfield and Mark Grace—and I forgot who the other person was—was yelling, "We could do this! We got this!" Everybody in the dugout started. It was kind of like a rally cry for us: "We could do this! We got this!" We felt like we outplayed them the whole World Series. They were just that good a team that knew how to win games late.
You know, we won the first two games, and then they won three, four, and five in New York City. But we blew them out in Game Six. So we knew we could do it. It was just, you know, you're fighting against the stream there when you're facing a guy like Mariano Rivera. We just, you know, we got a hit early in the inning. Just strange things started to happen in that inning for us, that everything just worked out for us.
Robby: Do you remember the sequence of events? Do you remember how the bottom of the ninth played out ahead of you?
Luis: Well, I remember being in the dugout and looking up at our boards in our ballpark—they have the lineup right up. I think any typical big player always wants to be in that moment. I kept thinking to myself, "Gosh, I'm looking up there. How many guys have to get on base or something to happen for me to come back up?" Because in the eighth inning, like you said, I was one of the strikeout victims, and I was like, "Man, if I can get one more shot at him." Because now I'd already seen him once in the game, and I knew, "Okay, I'm going to get in. I want to be a little bit more aggressive."
I don't want to take pitches or anything, because I was a guy who usually took the first pitch, you know, just to gauge speed and look at stuff. Against Mariano, that's probably not the smartest thing to do. You want to be a little bit more aggressive, because if you get a mistake from him, you have to take advantage of it.
But once we got a couple guys on, I started looking. I go, "Okay, if this happens, I may be able to come up with either bases loaded or second and third." You start thinking somebody's gonna win the game. And then all of a sudden, boom, you're up at the plate.
Actually, I was on deck, and Counsell was up at the plate, and I was thinking second and third. I'm on deck. Fifty-seven homers, 142 RBIs on the year. I go, "They're gonna pitch to Counsell. They're not gonna walk him to face me," especially being a left-handed hitter, and Counsell's a left-handed hitter. Lo and behold, he got hit by a pitch.
I was on deck thinking, "Okay, Counsell is going to win this game. Where am I going to go? Am I going to run to him at first base or run to the plate to celebrate?" All of a sudden, he gets hit by a pitch. And I found myself in that moment.
Robby: Do you remember walking to the plate? Like, do you remember going from the on-deck circle? What happened in your head after you saw Counsell get hit? You're like, "Okay, I got my second opportunity." Can you just walk us through what was in your head?
Luis: Yeah, in my head, believe it or not, walking from the on-deck circle to home plate, there were a bazillion things going through my mind. Number one, all the fans are now standing on their feet. It's getting extremely loud. Joe Torre goes out to talk to Mariano, and they decide to bring the infield in.
So now, as I'm walking to the plate, I'm thinking, "Oh my gosh, what is my family in Tampa thinking right now—my mom, my aunt, my grandmother, everybody?" My wife's in the stands. She's probably a nervous wreck.
All my coaches—you think in your mind the journey that it took you, because you played this scenario out as a little kid. Now as a grown-up, I was 33 years old. You find yourself in that moment, you're like, "Oh my God, this is something I dreamed about when I was 6, 7, 8 years old, 12 years old, 15 years old." And now I'm a grown-up adult, and I'm living a kid's dream right now, even an adult's dream, to be in this spot, right here, right now.
And the other thing I went through in my mind was, "Don't screw this up. You get one shot at it." Fortunately for me, the first pitch, I fouled it straight back, and I was like, "Oh, my goodness, am I going to get another pitch like that where I can get the bat on it?" Once the infield was brought in, I was just trying to get something out in the outfield.
To be honest with you, in my dream, I dreamed about hitting a home run, but the reality was, I was just trying to win the game any way I could, just try to get something in the outfield. I was fortunate enough to get just enough of it over Jeter's head to land right behind the shortstop area to fall in for a base hit.
Once it left my bat, I knew it was falling in because I saw where Jeter was playing in. Once it leaves the hitter's bat, you can almost sense and know that it's going to fall in for a base hit. I was just jumping up and down. I never practiced how I was going to react to it. I always dreamed about being in that situation, but it was an unbelievable moment to be in that situation.
Robby: Do you know what your first thought was as soon as you made contact with the ball and knew it was going to fall?
Luis: Oh, my God, yes. It was like, "I can't believe this is happening to me." Out of all the bazillion people that have played this game, I mean, what? It's only happened, what, four or five times in the history of the game?
Robby: Yeah, bottom of the ninth, Game Seven.
Luis: And you often wonder, why me? Why was I the one put in that situation? But I still to this day have the ultimate respect for Mariano, for that Yankees team. I love all my teammates. They're like brothers to me. It never gets old. I mean, here we are, 24 years later—it happened in '01, and what are we in, 2025—and people still ask me about it. So it never gets old.
It would have been worse for me if I didn't come through with it. I wonder what my path or my journey would have been. I probably would have changed as a person, but now it just gives me a better story to tell when people ask about it.
Robby: No doubt, and I don't think you've fully... Please forgive me with due respect for pushing, like, "You could get tired of answering these questions." But you're so polite, generous, and respectful. I never do. I'll be honest with you. Why is that, Gonzo? Because the same question about the same moment, and you can give this audience, but you're so respectful.
Luis: You know why? Because I was doing something that millions of people dreamt about—being in that moment or being in that spot. If I can talk about it, or have people just kind of live through me for that moment, and kind of close your eyes and picture what was going through that person's mind or how they were feeling—it never affected me. I mean, obviously it might have been different if I didn't get the hit, but to talk about it, to this day, when people come up to me and talk to me about it, it's an incredible feeling.
Like people always say, "Oh, my God, you're probably tired of hearing this." And I go, "Really, I'm not, because it's an incredible moment." It brought the first major championship to the state of Arizona, and people still remember that to this day.
Robby: They might say to you, "I'm sorry to ask you, Gonzo," but how much do you think about what it means for you to spend 15 seconds talking to them and they're going to remember that 15 seconds forever, as a fan, to talk to you about the moment of joy that they'll never forget that you made possible?
Luis: Well, that's the big thing with me, because I wanted them to experience what I experienced. That's why I said, if I could have bottled that moment up and given it to everybody just to feel what I felt in that moment. I mean, there's only—how many guys have had walk-offs like that in the World Series?
Robby: You, well, Joe Carter was Game Six. So Maz—
Luis: Yeah, Renteria, Game Seven. I think Renteria. So it's only three or four.
Robby: Yeah, it's only been a few of you.
Luis: So there's only a handful of us. I think they said one time there was a stat that there were more people that walked on the moon than people that have gotten the game-winning hit in Game Seven. So I am one of those rare people, so I want people to experience that or ask me about it. I'm still living—if I passed away, then nobody could ask me anymore, but I'm still alive and very excited about when I get to talk about that situation.
I got to live it with the greatest—your teammates are your family. You know, you have your family that you go home to at night, but you live with these guys day in and day out. You go through the ups and downs of struggles, the successes together. You pick each other up when things are going good, and when things aren't going so well, you try to help each other out. To be able to be a part of a team like that, they could never take that away from us. That is something that we will have for the rest of our lives—that World Series.
Robby: That's amazing. I got one more question. We're going to move on from this, but I'm just looking at the box scores. So I'm looking at the pitchers. I see Clemens, Rivera, then I look at the Diamondbacks. I see Schilling and Johnson. Then I see Jeter, O'Neill, Williams, Martinez, Posada, okay, you just go—Alfonso Soriano. Then you see Gonzalez, Counsell, Finley, Grace, some great baseball players. Jay Bell pitched in that situation. I mean, yeah, there were a lot of—that's one of the greatest games in the history of baseball ever.
Luis: It was a lot of experience on both sides of those teams. If you go down every player there, you look at how many years they ended up playing in their careers, pretty impressive. There wasn't a lot of rookies playing in that series, and there were big-name pitchers, big-name players.
Not a lot of offense in that World Series—every game was pretty much close, except for Game Six, where it was a blowout game. But every one of those games seemed like they came right down to the final two or three innings. The three games in New York City went down to game-winning homers.
I think the way the whole scenario played out, it was made for a movie. I mean, we won the first two. 9/11 had happened. The next three were very fitting to be won over in New York. They had gone through so much, so much emotions and different things like that. And then for us to win it back at our place—we visited Ground Zero as players. There was a lot of emotion, a lot of security, a lot of high intensity, a lot of stress. Everything was involved in this World Series.
Robby: This is astounding to listen to you talk about this, and the 9/11 aspect—I didn't even get to that. Like, didn't even ask that, Gonzo. And again, I'm not trying to wear you out. We'll do this once, and I'm leaving you alone after this forever.
Luis: No, it's all good. It's all good.
Robby: I mean, remember George Bush throwing out the first pitch, how emotional that was at Yankee Stadium. What was that like being in the other dugout for that?
Luis: It was crazy. Well, not only that, but after the games, you know, you go in a day early to go to the next city, right, because you have your press conferences and different things like that. So as a team, we were asked, "Hey, do you guys want to go out to Ground Zero?"
There were a couple guys that didn't want to be a part of that, just for personal reasons and things like that, but a large majority of us said, "Yes, we want to go." Because, look, these are the biggest games of our career, but we did not want to forget and pay respect to what had happened. We wanted people to know, "Hey, we're all about playing baseball, but this is real life, what happened here with the towers coming down and things like that."
So we went to the command center, and we went to the firehouse across the way, our whole team, aside from a couple guys, and we spent some time there just to say thank you and just to be around those guys. Schilling gave a speech in the command center. I don't think there was a dry eye in there—it was pretty emotional. And then for us to play in the World Series and have the president come out and throw that first pitch—strike—was pretty awesome.
Robby: Your number 20 is the first number ever retired by that franchise. How special is that for you, Gonzo?
Luis: A dream come true. I mean, like I said, I played the game to be respected by your peers and your teammates. I always try to give everybody utmost respect. Like I said, when I was a rookie coming up, the same way I was—if you were a superstar on the Diamondbacks team when I was playing well, I never tried to change who I was. I didn't want to be that guy that people go, "Oh, this guy has changed because he's successful" or "he's been playing the game for so many years." I try to be the same person, even when I was playing, to be the same person that I am today.
Like I said, we have kind of the same group of friends—Chip and all those guys, the clubhouse guys. There were times where I would rather hang with those guys more than my teammates, because they were just everyday normal guys. They were part of us, of who we were. They were the fabric of who we are. I enjoy spending time with them, and I still do to this day. They're my best friends, some of my best friends in the game of baseball.
I played with a lot of great players, but some of the staffs and the trainers and coaches and clubhouse attendants, those are the guys that I respected, even just as much as I did the guys that I played with.
Robby: Can I ask you a couple more questions? I want to dig in a little deeper on this. When you go on the road—and I know you don't view it like this, and ultimately, Gonzo, you're a human being who just happened to be great at baseball, and had one of the greatest hits in the history of the game—but you could big-time your radio producers. You could big-time the equipment guys. And what I mean by big-time is just do your own thing and hang with whoever you want to on the road. But you take the radio producers out, you take the equipment guys out, you buy them dinner, you spend time with them. You watch basketball, football, hockey, baseball—you go and watch sports with these guys, right? Why? Like, what made that part of you, Gonzo? I've seen it firsthand, the time you spend with these guys who are regular human beings like me, who weren't great at baseball. But yet these guys are your best friends. Why?
Luis: Well, they're just as important to the organization or to myself. They're the guys that are there to put their arm on your shoulder when you're going bad, and when you're going good, they're patting you on the back.
But I'm a people person. I don't care if you're the richest guy in the world or the poorest guy in the world—if you're a human being, you care about people, that's who I want to be friends with. And I think for me, those guys cared about me as a person, cared about my family, so I care about them just as much. I'm friends with them, I'm friends with their families, my wife and my kids and everybody.
I always say we're no different than everybody else. Well, maybe we are, because people read this and go, "He's nuts," because I was a big-league player and things like that. But I still had to take the garbage out. I still had to clean, you know, wipe dry the dishes, or wash dishes, and things like that.
I don't know, it's kind of weird. I think I'm just different in that cut of cloth. I just always felt like I got it—because I wanted to be a big-league player. And it always bothers me when you see a young player and they go, "All I dreamed about is being a big-league player," and then they've got a group of people trying to get their autograph, and they treat them like shit, or they walk by. That pisses me off, because that's not who you are when you were a kid.
So I try to put myself in that kid moment, like, "Okay, this little kid wants your autograph," or even if you don't have time for him, wave at him, say hi, talk to him for a second. That's life-changing. I was that little kid. The big-league guys that are playing now were at one time or another those little kids that wanted to be there. So why change? Why change? You were the guy that wanted to get the autograph when you were a little kid. Now you're that big-league guy. Don't big-league all these little kids. These little kids are watching us, everything that we do, and they're the future of our game.
So I always try to give those kids respect and motivate them and pump them up, even when I'm taking batting practice. I'll come over—there were times where I was in the on-deck circle and there's a little kid sitting in the first row right behind me, and I turn around and go, "Hey, is he going to throw me a fastball? What do you think?" Just engage with the fans. To see the kids' eyes get bigger than saucers, and say, "I don't know, sir, I don't know what he's going to—" And I say, "Come on, you got to help me. I need help!" You know, just engage with them for a second.
And then if you did something good, when you're coming by after you score a run or you get a base hit, you look over at them, you point at them, or you give them a thumbs up, or you flip them batting gloves or a wristband or a baseball. That's what this game is all about. It's about people, about relationships that you have.
Like I said, I played the game—I love playing. I played for 19 years in the major leagues, but I knew that it was not going to last forever. And when I was done playing the game of baseball, I wanted people to, number one, before they said if I was a good or a bad player, I wanted them to say, "This was a great guy. I loved playing with him," or "I was a big fan of his. I love the way he treated people. I love the way he was around his teammates and friends and family."
Anytime before 9/11 happened when guys would come in the clubhouse—you know, you were allowed to bring your relatives in, or friends and things like that. Before everything changed after 9/11, when I was a big-league player and you brought your cousin in, or your brother, I would go right up to him, because I wanted them to feel comfortable. This was a privilege to put on a big-league uniform. I wanted them to feel like they were part of that because their family or friends are with a big-league player.
And I wanted them to say, "Luis Gonzalez came up to me and said hi to me." I wanted them to have that encounter or experience, just to make them feel comfortable, like they were no different than I was or anybody else.
Robby: No doubt. How hard is it to have a 30-game hitting streak?
Luis: Oh, my God, it was so much fun. When I got to after game 30, I felt like I almost felt relieved when I didn't get past 30, because I was trying so hard to get to 30, because that's a huge milestone. But the following day, when I didn't get a hit in game 31, I was probably—just the mental part of it, just trying to answer the questions or avoid the questions every day because of the superstitions that you might have and different things like that.
It was early in the season in '99 when I first came to a new team, and people were just starting to know who I was in Arizona. To get out of the gates that well and have that 30-game hitting streak kind of put me on the map with the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Robby: Yeah, no doubt. In 2001, at what point in time did you start to believe as a team that you could win it all?
Luis: I think in spring training. Most of the guys were still there from the '99 team, and we lost in the playoffs with that Todd Pratt home run to center field against the Mets. Steve Finley, nine times out of 10, he makes that catch in center field, and he ran right into the wall, and the ball was maybe less than a foot from getting over in center field. He'll make that catch—I'll bet my house on it that he would make that catch nine times out of 10. But it just wasn't in the cards for us to win that year, and it just didn't happen for us.
When '01 came around, we felt really good about our team. Bob Brenly took over as a manager, and from spring training, we held each other accountable. Good teams are the ones where you don't need the coaches—they just kind of guide the ship. When you have players that hold each other accountable—you do something wrong, you don't move a runner over, when you come in the dugout, a player will say something to you, or some player will let you know—that's when you know you have a good team. And we had that kind of team.
Robby: Wow. I'm going to end this on a light note, and there is no correct answer for this, just so you know. I'm doing a feature because a lot of fans don't know about "the ass," and you're the 14th person I'm asking this question to. What is "the ass"? And what gives a guy "the ass," just in general, around the game of baseball? So it's kind of a light-hearted, separate feature I'm doing for the website.
Luis: Well, I played with Matt Williams for a long time, who's a third base coach now. He would get the ass all the time when he'd line out to somebody. Baseball is a long year. You have a lot of ups and downs, and when you would have a young player on the team, you're always trying to fit in as a young player.
So whenever Matt didn't get hits and he lined out or something, he had the ass all the time. So we would always—veteran team, when a young kid came up and Matt would line out, we would all sit in the dugout and watch, because Matt would always sit on the far end of the dugout, furthest away from where the coaches are and the players. He'd go all the way to the far end and sit over there, just pissed off at everything. And we'd wait for a young kid to go over to him, even if he lined out, and go, "Hey, way to swing the bat." And then Matt would just jump his ass.
We would always tell the kid, "Hey, man, that's not the guy you want to say that to," because Matt wore his emotions on his sleeves every time. He was a very intimidating guy sometimes when he played. I remember playing with the Houston Astros—he was with the San Francisco Giants, and when you get to third base, the third base coach would come over to tell you something in your ear, you know, if there was gonna be a contact play or any type of squeeze or anything like that. Well, Matt would come from third base and stick his head in between you and the coach every time. So you couldn't have a conversation because it was his area too.
But getting back to what you said about the ass, there's a lot of players that get the ass. They line out, they'll go down and smash their bats, or break things. They try not to do it in front of a lot of people, especially the younger kids. But sometimes this game—it's built around a lot of failure. The great players are the ones that know how to handle it better and learn how to turn it around quick.
The .300 hitters—the seven times that they fail, the three times that they're successful are the times where there's runners in scoring positions and big times of the game. That's what makes them the all-star, superstar players.
Robby: Hell yeah. Last thing—you know Chip's college roommate is Paul Hogan? You've been out with him. He says hello. A friend of mine with the blonde hair—he had a group for two years in a row, 2013-2014, brought about 25 people from Pittsburgh to Arizona and rented the pool. Well, after the second year, they uninvited him because they had a little too much fun at the pool. Have you ever seen a group get uninvited from the pool for drinking too much and having too much fun?
Luis: Hey, if there's any group, I would imagine it would be Chip's group. I'm sure that would be uninvited for that.
Robby: That is fantastic.