Adam Wainwright - MLB on FOX, St. Louis Cardinals Legend

0:00The Braves Radio Network channel on the podcast park is brought to you by truest bank. When you start with care, you get a different kind of bank. I'd appreciate you coming on. How are you doing this morning? I'm doing great. How are y'all doing? Good. So before we do anything else, for those that don't know, you are drafted by the Braves. You spend time in the Braves Farm System and then this all ties together. You decide to propose to your high school sweetheart. Jenny still married, have a nice family in December of 2003. So while you're in the midst of doing that, what happened? Yeah, I was a mid conversation with my future father-in-law asking him for his permission to marry his daughter. And I was telling you know it's one of those conversations like, look, I'll be with the Braves. I'm just they were living up in North Georgia and Gainesville at the time. Like, I'll be just one hour down the road. We can come, you know, visit all the time. You can come see us all the time and get tickets or be great. Well, the phone rings, Dayton Moore calling and my mom's on the phone and she's all crying and

1:03like, okay, what's going on guys? And well, you've just been traded to the St. Louis Cardinals. So I had to look at him back in the face and go, well, we won't be one hour away anymore, but you could still come visit whenever you want, you know. So, but that was that was a was an interesting day for me, a big day obviously. But it worked out for both sides, I think, for the first year of it anyways. The 80 Drew had a great year of it. But I think, you know, the long haul of that, I think Cardinals ended up winning that trade maybe in the end. Yeah, yes, I think it's safe to say they did not just saying it because you're on the program. Did you ever get the in-laws up to see the archer maybe take the Budweiser tour or the bowling Hall of Fame perhaps at any point in your career up there. Budweiser tour for sure, never went to the bowling Hall of Fame. I'm not even sure I knew that was there. Right down the street, brother. Right down the street from the ballpark. Yeah, Lee, there were Shannon's, Mike Shannon's place. And then there was the bowling Hall of Fame sort of right in that area. But I do want to go back to some youth. I'm not lying about this.

2:05And I think I've told you this in the past. It's the greatest single pitch I've ever seen thrown. You own Carlos Beltran, but it wasn't just anything. It's a three-one game basis loaded, three-pitch at that. You throw him a fastball, you throw him a curveball, you throw him a curveball. Now, I'm going to ask a question that I know I've never asked of you. Do you honestly remember throwing that pitch or do you know about it because you've seen it as many times as you've seen it? I remember it and I have a great story for that. Actually, it was change up curveball curveball. People always look back at that and go, how in the world did he take a fastball right down the middle? Well, it was a change up, but it was masterfully called by the great Gaudier Malena. I'll tell you a quick story of it if you got two minutes. Sure. Got to tell a two-minute story. Okay. Well, so looking back on that series, Carlos, you know, they call him the Cardinals Killer back then. And he was such a great playoff competitor. He was hit in like 500 career in the postseason for the Astros and then for the Met. He was just doing great. And we've been looking at his film, though, and noticed that Carlos

3:09was extremely aggressive early in the count. And later on in the count, once it gets back into more of an even count and then to a 3-2 count, extremely patient. Almost didn't swing it anything. And you know, it was like he was the, he'd go 0-2, 1-2 really quick. But then he would just put the bat on his shoulders and get back into those good hitting counts. And so Yadi and I met before the game. Said, Yadi, you see what I'm seeing. I think we get ahead of Carlos. We need to throw him a strike. He said, yeah, I think we get him 0-2. Maybe not 1-2, but if we get him 0-2, I think we throw our best located strike. And I think it's going to work. And so we got on the same page with that. We get him, oh, we started, we started 0-0. The bases are loaded. So Yadi comes out to the mound and says, all right, he's going to be very aggressive like we talked about on the first pitch. So let's just locate a good sinker down in a way.

4:11And then we'll try to get him to roll over. Well, Carlos was not going to miss the sinker down in a way. That was, that was a risky first pitch when you know he's going to swing to throw to Carlos Votran, who loved the ball out over the plate. So I get back there, it made sense at the time, but Yadi gets back behind the mound, calls time and says, stay with me, Pat says, just stay with me. And he put down change up, which is my fourth best pitch, right? And at the time, I'm thinking, that's brilliant. And now when I look back on it, I go, that's the idiotic. But I do change up and I started it kind of in like off the plate, almost add in and work it back to the middle. But the speed difference and the location of it, it's frozen. And you see in his mind, he steps out and he goes, I had fastball in my mind, I had curveball in my mind, I had cutter in my mind. I did not have change up in my mind. That's kind of what, when I look at his eyes, that's kind of what I thought he was thinking. And it gets enhanced because he's a future Hall of Famer. Yadi and Melina, by the way, hits the game, the go ahead,

5:14game winning home run. And we'll talk about him in a second on top of that. But do you remember if you heard the noise of that building going crazy at that point? Yeah, that's where I was about to get to. I've never heard anything so loud in my whole life honestly. It took playing for the WBC USA versus Venezuela in 238 to hear another game as loud as that game was. And when the bases were loaded, I could hear every fan earlier in that inning, I could hear every single fan. And they were not saying nice things to the rookie picture on the mound. And then, you know, I've never heard some place go so quiet so fast as that where I heard every little chip drop on the floor. You know, I heard all my teammates celebrating and I look back behind the catcher and there's Donald Trump with his lips poked out, looking at me like, this guy. Yeah, so it's a pretty iconic picture. If I ever meet the president, I'm going to

6:19try to get him to sign that picture for me because it's that'll be hilarious. I'm sitting there with my arms up, yadis jumping and then Trump's right behind it. I got to ask, why did Tony Larusa believe as a rookie? You should have been the guy in that position because you do it again. Nobody remembers this part. You threw the last pitch in a world series that year that nobody ever talks about. So why did Tony believe that you were the one who should be handling this part? Well, Tony and Dave Duncan, like just the legendary pitching coach, they, what they did so incredible was they brought me along slowly and then proper time. So I started as the longman. I started as, you know, pitching two and three innings every time I went out there. And then, you know, I earned a seventh inning role and then I earned a eighth inning role and then our closer isring housing went down and I didn't have a real save opportunity until, you know, the last three days of the regular season. It was just like, you know, but in those moments,

7:22I had earned those spots and I had succeeded in every spot that he put me in leading up to that moment. So when I finally did get the chance to pitch that ninth inning, that last three days the regular season, another reliever was warming up. He called down and said, sit him down, get out of him up. I came in. I threw three warm-up pitches, by the way. Came in. We went one, two, three. We won the game and we ended up winning the regular season the next couple days, I think. And it was everything you got from Tony, though. You had to earn it. There was never a time where it was like, all right, I believe in this kid. I think he could do it. It was, no, he's proven to me when in the seventh, he proved me in a long man that he could earn the seventh, he proved the seventh, he could earn the eighth, he proved me the eighth, he could earn the ninth. And then, you know, that was very much how he, how he did business. Adam Wainwright with us calling the Braves and Royals tomorrow on Fox at 7-15. He's with us on the loud security systems,

8:22News America line. For those that don't know, you and Yachtie Molina, the most successful battery in major league history, most wins and starts together. And I think it ties in the question I'm going to ask you to Chris sale tonight. He said he has never called the pitch, he lets his catcher call everything. Was it the same way with you and Yachtie for the most part? Definitely not. Definitely not. Yacht, if you ask Yachtie to catch the pitcher that shook him off the most, it would be me and you would shake his head about it. But I think most people, when when Yachtie was catching, most people did not shake a whole lot, you know. I didn't shake a whole lot either. I shook a couple of times in any, but Yachtie trusted me because he knew I was prepared. And I trusted him because I knew he was prepared and he had a reason. So if he went, if I shook and then he went back to it, then I then I always agreed with his pitch and with full conviction. You know, if here's the thing about shaking his pitchers, if Chris sale, and Mark Burley was this way also, it must be a left-handed thing. Chris sale, if he can throw what the catcher

9:27calls with 100% in belief and conviction behind it, then it's a great pitch. If he has any doubts about that pitch, then it's not a great pitch. Even if it's the right pitch call, if he has zero conviction in it or belief in it, then it's the wrong call. And so that's a personal thing. If he would rather look like, and I think this is his reasoning behind it is, I am so worried about the conviction or the execution of the pitch. That's all I want to think about. I want you to do the game plan and all that. And then that's great. But I was the guy who I wanted to know exactly why I was throwing it. I wanted to, I wanted to, I looked like, I read hitters, like that's what I did, right? Like yesterday, I was, I was coaching Little League and for my son and my daughter, you know, I'm the third base coach and I'm reading their swings and I'm going, hey, try to get

10:28the top of the ball if they're swinging away under it, you know, just give him a quick thought. I just, I like that chess part of pitching, you know, and, and, and if Chris likes just the execution side of it, that's a personal thing and that's personally okay. Is whatever it makes, whatever it is, it has to make you be a better competitor. And you were also different in regards to being a closer because you had multiple pitches. You know, we saw Mary Ann or Vera Trevor hop and these guys, everybody says, I was one pitch, one and a half pitch, but you had an arsenal. So I think now about what you said about throwing a change because I did, I thought it was a fastball. The fact that you threw them a change up, you had that in your back pocket, the fact that you're catching new, even as a rookie in that environment, that might have been an inherent advantage. And I asked, what was the decision made that will pin no more? You're going to be a starter. How did that conversation go? Well, after the season was over, I was in the locker room, packing up my locker in Tony, walked through the locker room and says, come into the office, I walk in there and we had a long

11:32conversation, wanted to know how did I go from being the worst pitcher of the year before and the big leagues to, you know, a really quality guy and a guy who got the last out of the world series and I told him that story and then he says, all right, so what do you want to do next year? I said, well, I'll be honest with you. I want to, I want to pitch the first nine or I want to pitch the ninth. I don't want to pitch anything in between. And he said, I respect that answer. I think it's a fair answer. He goes, we got to figure out what Is thereinghausen's going to do and then we'll go from there. And so that was kind of my like, you know, you put me in a spot that I succeeded in. I had great time doing it, closing his man, closing his fun. That is a adrenaline pump like you can't believe. But also knew I wanted to be a starter deep down. So one of those two would have been great. I did not want to go from closing the world series out to pitching the seventh inning again, you know, and he understood that if he respected it. And

12:35that was the thing with Tony and so many great better managers and even young managers, they just want to hear the truth out of the other guys mouth. Adam Wayne Wright with us going to be on the call with our friend Adam Amin and AJ Persinski tomorrow night on Fox 715 first pitch, Royals and Braves. He joins us on the loud security systems, newsmaker line for again, those that don't know you have arm surgery. You come back in 2013. You lead the league and victory shutouts and innings pitched realizing everybody's different. Their bodies are different. What advice do you give to guys that are coming back from a surgery where maybe it's not as invasive as it used to be, but it's still a surgery on your arm? Yeah, I actually think we've after surgeries, you know, it's this. When I pitched 2011, I had Tommy John 2012. I think I threw 198 innings and that's only because they wanted to set me up for game one and the postseason I would have had 200 something innings. If so many guys have pitched full seasons after just 12

13:38months off, I do think we baby it a little bit more now. I don't think it's absolutely necessary. Every situation is different, but I do think that we take it really cautiously and I just I think you probably add three four sometimes even five months too much to the rehab process. I think there's definitely a way to have guys, you know, back sooner, but totally get it. A lot of money involved. I want to make sure you're guys good. And also the timing of the thing, I tore mine in spring training. So I came back to following like spring training as a full 12 months off. You guys do it in mid season. It adds a little bit of complexity there. So I kind of understand that process, but you know, I think so much of standards for pitching. And I was talking about this with the Cardinals pitching coach the other day, Dusty Blake. Standards just have to go back to being high. You know, I don't think I think pictures nowadays, I think the standard has become if you pitch five or six, you've done your job. And it used to be,

14:42if you didn't go seven, you kind of went home with your tail between your legs, you know, and so every day is different obviously, but I do think standards from a minor league age and on have dropped a little bit as far as how deep guys need to go into games and what not. There's still a couple of really great pictures out there who are going deep in games and carrying their team with a great chance to win VP into the games. The key is, or I think the big change is it's now instead of like in in in counts where you used to go for like I'm just going to get this guy out one two instead of going two two. Now guys are trying that extra strike out pitch on one two and two two. Now we're going three two. And if you go those too many of those three two counts, that's where you go from going seven and each to five and each. So I just think standards have to change. I think mindset has to change a little bit. I think it probably will circle back everything in the game seems cyclical and comes back around. I think we'll we'll have

15:45some guys that understand that pitching is it's pretty good for their contract situation too. And you look at the wheelers and the scumbals of the world are out there actually pitching and not heaving the ball and and schemes of the world. They're actually pitching and not just even even though they have great fastballs. Those are the guys that are getting long term contracts are getting paid. So I think eventually people are going to understand that. Let's go through a couple of things quickly. You come up to the base and album pool halls is maybe year four, year five. And what turns out to be arguably the greatest 10 year run that anybody you've seen offensively in our lifetimes. Can you even attempt to describe his ability in the middle of that? Yeah, and I think a lot of people need to go and look at his 10 or 11 year track record and st. Loose before he went to Anaheim because people say like, you know, have you ever seen anybody like my trout? Well, I love my trout. He's a great teammate of mine on the 23 BC WBC. He's a reddable player, a generational type player. If you compare my trout first 10 years,

16:48our Bullows 10 years, you will be surprised at the difference. Albert's just on it and he was just on a different level. But if anything, I've ever seen, you know, like one year, I think it was 2007. And I think it was our home opener. I don't remember right. Hey, everybody was hurt. X time was hurt. Edmunds was hurt. Roland was hurt. And it was basically Albert in the middle of the order kind of by himself. And Albert hit three home runs. We won three to two. You know, it was like it was just the things that he did every time we needed a big hit. He came up with a big hit. But, you know, the consistency to hit 330 for 10 straight years with over 100 RBIs and 35 plus home runs every single time all the way up to 50 home runs. And then, you know, like the guy didn't strike out either. I think we have to look at it from a total baseball hitting standpoint. He would walk more than he was striking out almost every year if I'm not mistaken. He was walking like over a hundred times. He was striking out like, you know, 50 times. I mean, crazy, crazy, crazy stuff. And if you don't believe me, man, go look at that in years.

17:54There's a lot of italics. There's a lot of italics. So Nick and I have talked about this a lot. And I'm not asking you to speak for him. But we call him adult do overs. Albert leaves goes to Anaheim. I don't know what the difference in the money was. But do you believe if given an adult do over, he would say, if I had a chance, I would have liked to have stayed in St. Louis. I think everybody would have liked to stay in St. Louis. I mean, I think we look at situation realistically. We won an 11. He left in 12. We lost an LCS in game seven when we had three games to one lead. We sure like easily could have won that World Series. 2013, we went to the World Series and lost the Boston when we were up three games to two. 2014, we went to the NLCS lost the Giants again. Game six. And 2015, we won 100 games. I'm just looking at those years realistically. And it's not a knock on anybody else who was on that team because we had some great players that played first place for us. But if you had

18:58Albert Pruholz into the mix of that, what that does to an opposing pitching staff is dramatic. And I think you probably can add at least two more World Series to that great. But now you're talking about one of the greatest, you know, dynasties of all baseball time all the time, which was pretty good run anyway. So we went to five straight NLCS and a couple World Series victories in there, two out of three. I think two out of four, if you look at it from 2004 to 2015 right there, where we had a really, really great run. I think if you had Albert in there, you're winning at least two more World Series. And that's being very like, it could be three or four more. You know, just that's just the difference that his bat made in the middle of that order. I don't know what it looks like towards the end of his career, but I know that for the prime of his career, it would have been pretty special to be any bounce back to get those numbers at the end. Adam Wainwright is with us on the lot's security systems newsmaker line calling the braves and royals with Adam Amin and AJ Prasinski tomorrow on Fox. So you look at consistency. That's the

20:00braves way as well, aside from maybe the past couple of years, do you find those because of injuries or maybe just down years to be blips? And do you think they bounce back this year? Well, I think we're going to see bounce back years from Aussie Albies and some of the guys that we know are better than maybe the output was last year. I think you're going to see. I think if they can survive through the first half of the season, just you're going to get, I mean, it's not even a half a season for some of the guys. They're going to get strider back sooner than that. Obviously, they're going to get a couple of the guys back and sooner than that. They're going to get their short start back sooner than that, hopefully. I think if you look at it realistically, the offense that they have, it's capable of doing 23 type things again. I mean, that that offense that they were putting out in 2023 was otherworldly. I faced it. It was impossible. Like, there was just home run,

21:00extra bass at speed everywhere. You got a Kenya back healthy this year. I think he's going to challenge for the MVP again. I think as long as he's pitching and hitting, it's going to be tough. Obviously, but I do think he'll challenge for it. I mean, he's a potential 40, 40, 50, 50 guy. I mean, he's just got so much incredible talent. He got one of the best first bass in an all baseball. I mean, the great third bass, when great young nucleus is still there. I think their offense is strong enough, just like it was in September when they had it. I think they won 60 percent of their games in September last year with a pitching staff that was pretty banged up and everybody was taking kind of spot starts here and there. You got to say, young winner, leaving the way. That's not nothing. I think it's very possible that if the NL East lets the braves hang around, they could challenge for a deep playoff run. I do believe that.

22:02Okay. Do you have the belt ran strike up on? I do have that. Yes. Do you have the World Series last outball? Yeah, I think I got that one. Yeah, I think I got that one, but I got games seven and I don't get asked about the World Series. I only get asked about games that well. I know. Where do you end up that night that you guys went to World Series? Because you went in at home, I'm at patio's that night. I was doing radio in St. Louis and I had a beer. I say this all the time. I had a beer with a 20-year-old guy and an 80-year-old guy. If that doesn't epitomize what St. Louis Carnot fans are, your guys let the open up the building so people can go take pictures of the scoreboard. Where do you end up that night? I don't really fully remember it honestly. We were in four or five different places around there. I think we even hit patios for a brief second. We went to a couple of spots here and there and then after a while, you kind of look at each other like, all right. I'll see you tomorrow if they not lockers, you know, but it was, it was, it was not early that we went to bed. I'll tell you that.

23:04I will tell you, I saw, Nick has heard this. I watched Tony the Russo. I was right outside his office and Bob Gibson came by and he gave him the most incredible hug I've ever seen, but he's saying to Bob Gibson, now I'm in the club, now I'm in the club because they think the understanding is if you don't win a World Series with the St. Louis Cardinals, are you really a member of the St. Louis Cardinals? Now whether that's fair or unfair, but that seemed to be the manager, the guy who had been there and done that in Tony the Russo, realizing, well, I'm not going to be whitey, but I got to win a World Series. Does it feel that way when you put that uniform on that you have to be part of a World's Championship? Well, I can tell you that's when this thing kind of similar story. The night of the World Series Bob Gibson walked straight up to me and said, welcome to the Cardinals. So yeah, I think those guys, you know, there was such a luxury to an incredible blessing to have Bob Gibson and Lou Brock and Red Shandies walking

24:06around the first few years. My career is just unusual in there. You know, you got Ozzy Smith back in there now and you got Willie McGee walking around. I'm like, just the names, you know, Red Langford and those guys just, they're always there, you know, but there's just major credibility in like three credit that comes with sitting on a spring training bench with Bob Gibson watching the pitch, you know, there's just like, it doesn't get better than that. One of the greatest pictures of all time. So we were very spoiled for a long time having those guys and I think if you look at what happened these last few years of the St. Louis Cardinals, it's not a, I mean, maybe, but I don't think it's coincidence that in about four or five years span, we lost Mike Shannon, Red Shandies, Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, Bruce Souter, all of them. We lost all of those guys. They went, they wanted to be with the Lord. So it was a different dynamic, you know, and so I think now former players that have some street creds,

25:10name, credibility, we really want to get back in there and make a difference in spring training in that organization because it just makes a difference, you know, when you're with the Braves, when you see Chipper walking around, that at Instant Street Credence, Chipper, Maddox, and Gladden, and Smolts and those guys step around Steve Avery, like all those guys that we grew up watching, you know, those guys stick their head in the clubhouse, you know, that's pretty neat thing for, for guys. So before we let you go, what's more nerve-wracking, winning a world series, a game seven, getting the strikeout, or performing the national anthem, which you did in 23. Jeff, I need another shot at it because I go back and listen to it. The funny thing is I practice with that. And I sang it six times the morning of the anthem in practice. I sang it six times every time was a minute and 30 seconds. And I think I, you know, there's a two-second delay

26:11also out there on the field. You can't hear yourself at all, but I got out there and I was so nervous, I think it had to have been over two minutes. It was so slow, but it was, it was such a cool experience. I'm glad I did it. It was opening days, you know, not nothing in St. Louis. That's a big, big, big pressure. But my main concern was coming out there. I didn't forget the words. Everything was right in that regard. So it was a win and over and off. Well, a winning career and a winning broadcasting career. And we thank you, Adam Wainwright, for the time. And hopefully we can catch up as the season goes on because I know we're only scratching the surface with some of the stories that you have to tell. Yes, sir. I appreciate time to thank you. See you tomorrow, Adam. Thank you very much. Adam Wainwright with us on the loud security systems news maker line with Adam Amine, Ajay Prasinski calling the braves and the royals tomorrow at 715 on Fox.