Sid Bream (Transcript)

Robby Incmikoski: All right, here we are rolling with Sid Bream, our 103rd or 104th interview for the book. Sid, let me ask you, how cool is it for you to have a piece of memorabilia, just a small piece in Braves history, on display at their current ballpark?

Sid Bream: Oh, Robbie, obviously that would not be there if it wasn't for the play that happened with me carrying that brace around. I'm just thankful to be a part of that for sure, because it has kept me around the game of baseball for over 33 years now. It has been something that when people see that brace, they remember the slide. Albeit against my old team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, but it has certainly been something that people remember, and I'm thankful for that.

Robby Incmikoski: You see a lot of cool pieces of memorabilia around stadiums all over baseball. To have a knee brace—how unique and kind of peculiar is that for you, Sid?

Sid Bream: I think it just shows you, Robbie, how slow I was with that knee brace. It did slow me down quite a bit. But it was just very ironic that one of the slowest guys on the team, going against his old team, knocked them out of the World Series. It's just an iconic piece, and I'm thankful that I have the opportunity to have it in there, and people can admire what it's all about.

Robby Incmikoski: Speaking of that, you look at the historical significance of that particular play. Sid, you live in Pittsburgh, you're known as one of the most generous, kind people to ever play the game of baseball. How do you kind of reconcile playing as hard as you can for your current team, which is your job, but then also knowing what it did to the other fan base for the next two decades? Obviously, you didn't know at the time that was going to happen. But looking back on it now, how crazy is it, the sequence of events, of how everything played out for you?

Sid Bream: Robbie, I tell you, that was some of the most difficult times for my wife and I because we anticipated being with the Pittsburgh Pirates after the 1990 season where we lost to the Cincinnati Reds in the playoffs. Pittsburgh management came out and said, "Sid Bream's our first priority to sign for the '91 season." So we're thinking, "We're coming back to the Pirates. We're going to get a multi-year deal."

But their thoughts on market price and going a little bit above being a priority weren't the same as mine, and so I had the opportunity to go down to Atlanta. But I can tell you, it weighed on me. I hit my first Grand Slam against Bob Patterson with the Pittsburgh Pirates, and if you would have seen me in the dugout, you would have thought that my grandmother died instead of me hitting a Grand Slam.

I loved my team. I loved Jim Leyland. I loved the Pittsburgh Pirates. But management—I don't really enjoy the management—but at the same time, I loved my team, and I was anticipating playing there. But as you stated, I'm going to give it everything I have, no matter where I go. It weighed on me that we knocked the Pirates out in '91. Those feelings kind of changed in '92, but at the same time, it was very, very difficult to take for a while.

Robby Incmikoski: I can imagine, because I know what kind of person you are, and how good you are in a community, and how good of an alum you are with both fan bases, really—the Braves and the Pirates. What kind of reaction do you get when people see you? You were a great Pirate. You were a great Brave. What is the reaction when you still have fan interactions even to this day?

Sid Bream: Even to this day, up in Pittsburgh, when people see me—I got a gentleman from my workplace that almost all the times that I speak to him, it's, "You know you were out, don't you?" I've spoken in Pittsburgh and in the middle of my talks, I've had people stand up and say, "You were out."

It's hurt the city of Pittsburgh because for 32 going on 33 years, they've had two or three years that they've been above .500. Pittsburgh wants to have a winner in baseball, and so it all goes back to the "Bream curse." I just saw a t-shirt—I don't know if you've seen it, Robbie—they're coming out now with a t-shirt saying, "Sid Bream messed up my childhood."

I love living in Pittsburgh, but at the same time, it brings back a lot of bad memories for a lot of folks.

Robby Incmikoski: But you know what? Ultimately, Sid, it's a game of baseball, right? It's not life.

Sid Bream: Absolutely, it's the game of baseball.

Robby Incmikoski: Do you almost take a measure of—and you're not a bombastic guy by any stretch, so I'm not going that direction—but just like, "Hey man, baseball is baseball, and I play the game hard, and unfortunately, that's how it turned out"? Do you kind of say, "Hey, man, look, it's nothing personal. It's just the game of baseball"?

Sid Bream: Again, that's what I hope people understand. Unfortunately in today's society, that doesn't go over too well. If you consider what happened to the guy in Chicago that tried to catch the ball from Moises Alou—I had somebody that called me up and told me on my phone that he was going to kill me and my family. It's happened not just here, but everywhere—people just go way overboard. They forget that it's just a game. But that's the way I hope people will take it. Some people are a little bit too crazy.

Robby Incmikoski: Sid, I've interviewed Maz many times, and he's so gracious in talking about the homer in 1960. I just interviewed Luis Gonzalez for this book to talk about 2001, and both guys are so gentlemanly and so gracious and so respectful when they're asked about the most shining moment that defined their career. And that's not to say that this did or didn't define your career, but how do you stay gracious and respectful, Sid, when people like me come up and ask you questions about that slide?

Sid Bream: Robbie, it all stems from my faith. Christ has told me to be humble, and so for me, it wasn't—God had me out there for a purpose. I really, truly believe that because of that play, I've been able to go out and speak all over the place, because it still stays in people's minds.

But God tells me to be humble, and so that's what I try to do. I also realize that without fans, I didn't get a chance to do something I absolutely love to do. When I think about the game of baseball and the love that I had for it and the people that would come and see us—to me, if we're not gracious, we've missed the whole point of the game of baseball, in my opinion.

Robby Incmikoski: I know you mentioned it comes back to your faith, Sid, and everybody knows that about you. But what kind of led you that direction? Because you could be the other way and decline interviews, you could not answer these questions. What lessons do you hope to teach people or even younger kids, Sid, who aspire to play major league baseball for a living?

Sid Bream: What is your identity? That's one of the main things for me. My identity, at times, was in baseball—baseball was my god. But God had to take me out of that and help me to realize that baseball wasn't my identity; my faith in Jesus Christ is my identity. And he calls me to be kind. He calls me to be loving.

For individuals, obviously Robbie, one of the things that goes on today is a major leaguer goes, the high school kid goes, the Little League kid goes, the T-ball kid goes with how they act out on that field. Some things that take place today—I am not real appreciative of the attitudes a lot of our professional ball players have nowadays, and they're showing kids the wrong sense of what it means to be a professional ball player.

The more kind you are, the more humble you are, the more of a servant you are, the more people are going to take notice of that. And that's the way that they're going to try to live their life as well.

Robby Incmikoski: Sid, how competitive was that series in '92? What was it like playing in those games?

Sid Bream: The Pittsburgh Pirates had a great team. They had a great manager. Going up, I think we went up 3-1, and they came back and won two games in a row, and it went to that seventh game. Doug Drabek pitched a masterful game, and in the ninth inning—two to nothing going into the last inning—do we have a chance to win this ball game? And unfortunately for the Pirate fans, we were able to come back and get it done.

Robby Incmikoski: Sid, can you just give me a little bit of what was in your head when Francisco Cabrera made contact? What was your read on that play?

Sid Bream: I was in the best situation possible as far as the base runner was concerned. I don't know if you remember watching that play—the time before I'd hit a double off of Doug, and I was on second base, and they tried to pick me off twice because of my leg strength and my quickness with my knee.

But with Stan Belinda there, knowing that he was concentrating on getting me out, I got a little bit bigger lead, a little bit bigger secondary lead. I had the best situation—it was two outs, I didn't have to worry about where the ball was hit, so at the crack of the bat, I was able to take off. That was all in my favor, for me to only beat it by about four inches!

I tell a lot of people when I go out and speak, Robbie, "Good grief, Bobby should have had somebody out there to run for me, and they would have been into the dugout by the time that I got to home plate." But I really, truly believe that just like there were divine appointments in the Bible for individuals like David and Samson and a lot of other people, God had me out there for a purpose so that I could share my faith with individuals throughout these years.

Robby Incmikoski: That's amazing. Now, with your knee, I don't even know the answer to this question—was it just for stability? Why you had that brace?

Sid Bream: Yes, I'd had an ACL tear. I was on first base in Three Rivers Stadium in 1989, and Glenn Wilson, one of our outfielders, hit a line drive to third base. I thought it was a hit, so I took off to second base, but the guy dove and caught the ball. When he caught the ball, I planted on that turf, and my knee twisted but my foot didn't, and so I tore my ACL at that point.

Then I came back—my left knee didn't have an ACL, but I found that out in 1987 when I tweaked it. They said, "You haven't had an ACL in that knee for a long time. It scarred over." That was the knee that I jumped off of to dunk in high school basketball, and it was still strong at that point. So they didn't go back in because my left knee adapted. Because my legs were strong, my left knee adapted.

So in a month's time, they had me back playing baseball. I was on second base in Houston, and a base hit was hit. Geno Lamont sent me around, and I tried to plant on my right knee in order to switch directions on Craig Biggio. I tore more meniscus, and then I started to train a little bit more. Then I just said I can't do it, had the ACL reconstruction done.

That neoprene brace was supposed to help the stability in your knee in order to protect the ACL a little bit. That's why I had it on. I tried to go without it sometimes, but I just didn't have the confidence in it. So I continued to wear that knee brace, but it changed the way I played the game.

Robby Incmikoski: In what way? You had to adapt the way you played, obviously, right?

Sid Bream: I love being aggressive, Robbie. I could go first to third with the best, quickest of them on my team because I love playing the game of baseball. But when you can't push off with your right knee to come back to first base or go back to second base, you had to get a closer lead.

At the same time, as a first baseman, I would love to charge the pitcher when he started to bunt. If he made any kind of a bad bunt, I had a double play on him. With my knee, I couldn't do that.

Being on second base, I couldn't decide, "I'm coming into the plate, I'm gonna plant and change speeds, do a hook slide to the inside or outside," because I just didn't know if my knee could handle it. So I was always determined I was going to slide, no matter what took place. That's how I had to play the game at that point. It just kind of took me out of the kind of baseball that I love to play.

Robby Incmikoski: That makes total sense. Sid, when did you learn they wanted the brace? What was your reaction when they said, "Hey, we're going to put this on display amongst other famous pieces of memorabilia in Atlanta Braves history"?

Sid Bream: I received a brace in Pittsburgh because I played the 1990 season with it on. Pittsburgh is the one that got me the Don Jordan brace to begin with, and I had actually two of them, but that's the one that I did the sliding on.

At one point in time, they just came up to me and asked me. First of all, they asked me for shoes and my brace. So I gave them both the shoes and the brace that I wore during that time, and then they took the shoes out, and now they just have the brace there.

Robby Incmikoski: Sid, when you look around baseball, guys might donate a hat, cleats, a jersey, a helmet, a bat, a ball, a glove—that kind of thing—but a knee brace, that's so unprecedented. How does that hit you that you have a knee brace on display, not one of the more normal pieces of baseball memorabilia?

Sid Bream: Again, Robbie, people want their bats from franchise players. I was a good player, but I wasn't a franchise player. That's the ironic aspect of me being on second base against my old team scoring that run. At one point in time, it was the fourth most exciting play in major league baseball history. So that piece is what a lot of people remember—that big brace when I come lumbering around third base.

Robby Incmikoski: Did your teammates—and I'll never mock a major league baseball player, ever make a joke at their expense for not having one tool as good as maybe others have it—but did the players give you a hard time at all about your speed?

Sid Bream: Not only from them, but from every place I go and speak. I just have fun with it because I was slower than molasses at that time. Before my knee brace, I ran a pretty good 6.7, 6.8, which is pretty doggone good for a big boy like myself. But that totally changed the game for me.