Cubs NUDE batting practice, EXPERT hitting tips & WS Game 7 | John Mallee, Eric Hinske, Ross & Rizzo

Summary

The Lovable Reunion — Cubs NUDE Batting Practice, Expert Hitting Tips & WS Game 7

Guests: John Mallee, Eric Hinsky, Anthony Rizzo, David Ross
Date: May 5, 2026
Podcast: The Lovable Reunion (iHeartPodcasts & The Volume)
Episode Theme: A 10-year reunion reflection on the Chicago Cubs’ legendary 2016 World Series run, with an intimate deep-dive into the central role of hitting coaches John Mallee and Eric Hinsky, clubhouse dynamics, never-before-shared stories, and the keys to building championship hitters and teams.

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Episode Overview

Anthony Rizzo and David Ross, along with 2016 Cubs hitting coaches John Mallee and Eric Hinsky, celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Cubs’ historic World Series victory by taking listeners deep inside the strategies, personalities, routines, and quirky rituals that fueled the championship. This episode is packed with untold stories — from naked batting practices to the mechanics behind two-strike approaches — and candid conversations about what truly built their championship culture.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Hitting Coach Dynamic (02:10–06:30)

• Rizzo and Ross emphasize the immense day-to-day impact of "your psychologists," the hitting coaches, especially pre-analytics era.
• The Cubs were among the first teams to employ two hitting coaches, allowing a blend of old-school and new-school philosophies (03:10–03:28).
• Chemistry: Their compatibility stemmed from a mutual love of baseball, the cage, and a little nightlife, which built strong personal bonds (03:48–04:23).

David Ross: “You guys were the masterminds behind it. This was before all the analytics really dove into the game. You guys kept it old school, but new school.” (03:10)

2. Building Routine, Trust, and Mental Toughness (04:39–06:39)

• Both coaches insisted on being present and “posting every single day,” teaching consistency above all else.
• Routines and direct, honest feedback became core to player development and mental stability.
• Each coach covered for the other’s blind spots: Mallee leaned technical and analytical, Hinsky brought lived-in, big league playing experience and emotional intelligence.

John Mallee: “Our job is when they get out of whack, our job is to bring them back — physically and mentally.” (08:14)
Eric Hinsky: “You have to tell a player what’s happening, why it’s happening, and how to fix and feel it — or you shouldn’t say shit anyway.” (30:26)

3. Quirky Traditions & Clubhouse Rituals (41:04–43:36)

• Naked batting practice: Rizzo and Ross discuss the infamous “nude BP” in the cage, a loosen-up mental reset for slumps and over-striding issues.
  (Ross: “Command, I’d go into the cage and hit naked… success rate, a hundred percent.” 41:21–43:00)
• Other rituals included painting toenails for team flights (per Joe Maddon’s rules) and group “star” chats on the cage floor after hitting.

4. Expert Hitting Tips & Routine Adjustments (05:25–32:19)

• Rizzo details how Hinsky taught him to stand close to the plate to avoid swinging at pitches he could never hit, which later transformed his ability to handle left-handed pitching (11:16–12:28).
• “10 auto-take rule” — passed down from Carlos Delgado and stressed by Hinsky — helped hitters get ahead in counts and supported a team-wide, plate-discipline approach (20:12–21:44).
• Emphasis on timing: The best hitters are never off time for long and are fearless about making small, meaningful adjustments.

Eric Hinsky: “The guys that have been the best… they’re confident, make adjustments, but they believe in their swings — and it all comes back to timing.” (30:26–31:16)

5. Championship Culture: Team Dynamics and Joe Maddon’s Influence (25:30–27:49, 45:13–46:31)

• Maddon’s leadership: No micromanagement, encouraged authenticity and relaxation.
• Off-field freedom (petting zoos, unique dress codes, celebrations) directly translated into on-field looseness and resilience.
• Dugout: The 2016 Cubs were rowdy, celebrated loudly, and built a “Motley Crew” brotherhood that both intimidated and invigorated.

Eric Hinsky: “If we create stress as a staff on this side of the lines, you got a big fucking problem.” (26:08)

6. Handling Slumps, Pressure, and the World Series Run (33:22–56:03)

• Coaches recall “knowing we were special” right from the hot 21–6 start in 2016, and how even team-wide slumps or losing streaks didn’t shake belief.
• Clubhouse celebrations and rituals — after wins or in postseason series (notably the “rage fest” flight home from San Francisco after beating the Giants in the NLDS).
• Candid recollections of the exhausting emotional swings, like Chapman’s blown save in Game 7, followed by the now-famous rain delay reset and the clutch final push.

7. Memorable Player Stories & Relationships (46:53–54:47)

• Each guest shares gratitude for the relationships and mutual trust developed over years.
• Anecdotes about quirkiest teammates — Zobrist’s wild routines, dugout “Shake Weight” celebrations, and constant inside jokes and support.
• Insights into two-strike approaches, never lying to players about struggles, and always being present for routine grounding.

8. The Legacy: What Made 2016 Special? (56:03–end)

• Both coaches highlight the importance of total unity: “Without every single player and personnel, we don’t win. There’s no way.”
• The Cubs’ victory was the sum of deep peer bonds, honest coaching, trusting routines, and a culture that truly celebrated playing every day.

David Ross: “Seriously, without you telling me... I’m not the player I was in 2016, and maybe we’re not the team we were...” (52:45)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We won the day and the night.” – Eric Hinsky on the team’s party reputation and work ethic. (04:26)
• “You have to play every day to be good in this game.” – John Mallee, on accountability and durability. (14:25)
• “I’m not afraid of a five-ounce ball. I beat cancer.” – Anthony Rizzo, on his fearless approach at the plate. (12:47)
• “I would go in the cage and hit naked… success rate, a hundred percent.” – David Ross, on mental resets. (41:21–43:00)
• “If you can’t tell a player what’s happening, why it’s happening, and how to fix and feel it, you shouldn’t say shit anyway.” – Eric Hinsky (30:26)
• On Joe Maddon: “No micromanaging. Let us do. It’s our show.” – John Mallee (25:40)
• On the post-Chapman home run in Game 7: “Still the loudest I’ve ever heard a stadium in my life. The momentum was gone. We were like, oh God...” – John Mallee (55:23)

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Important Timestamps

• 02:10: Introduction of coaches; the value of hitting coaches
• 04:26: Work hard/play hard Cubs ethos
• 11:16–12:28: Rizzo’s plate adjustment tips from Hinsky
• 20:12–21:44: “10 auto-take” and approach to counts
• 41:04–43:36: Naked batting practice stories
• 45:02–46:31: Maddon’s leadership and clubhouse culture
• 51:13–52:45: Emotional pre-Game 7 moments between Ross & Mallee
• 55:23: Coaches’ emotions during Game 7 rain delay
• 56:03–57:43: Favorite postseason memories; legacy reflections

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Closing

This episode delivers an authentic portrait of the personalities, routines, and honest, sometimes outrageous clubhouse moments that made the 2016 Cubs legendary. Listeners get a rare backstage pass to both the emotional bonds and the technical adjustments that yield championship teams.

Hosts’ Tone: Unfiltered, irreverent, deeply affectionate, and laced with trademark Cubs humor and camaraderie.
Audience: Baseball lovers, Cubs fans, anyone interested in peak team culture and the human side of athletic greatness.

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Final words:
“We cared so much about winning, and you’re locked in on other people’s at-bats — because we’re all invested in one another, standing in the box with you.” (Anthony Rizzo, 54:22)

Transcript

[Podcast Narrator]

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[Anthony Rizzo]

10 days, I'd put on £10. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth.

[Podcast Narrator]

Listen to Superhuman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Storyteller (OK Storytime)]

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[Interviewer (OK Storytime)]

All right, Sofia, tell me about how we started this story.

[Storyteller (OK Storytime)]

She moved in for two weeks, lasted five days, left a mess, and then pressed her ear against their bedroom door and burst in screaming. When kicked out to a hotel, she called her son in law's workplace, pretending his partner had been rushed to the hospital by ambulance.

[Interviewer (OK Storytime)]

She faked a medical emergency.

[Storyteller (OK Storytime)]

And spoiler, that was just the beginning. To find out how it ends, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Eric Hinsky]

If you're watching the latest season of the Real Housewives of Atlanta, you already know there's a lot to break down.

[John Maley]

Portia accusing Kelly of sleeping with a married man.

[Anthony Rizzo]

They holding K Michelle back from fighting.

[John Maley]

Drew Pinky has financial issues on the

[Eric Hinsky]

podcast Reality with the King I, Carlos King recap the biggest moments from your favorite reality shows, including the Real Housewives franchise, the drama, the alliances and the tea everybody's talking about. To hear this and more, listen to Reality with the king on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.

[Podcast Host (Various)]

The story I told myself can then shape my behavior and that can lead me to sabotage the possibility of connection this Mental Health Awareness month. Tune into the podcast Deeply well with Debbie Brown. If you've been searching for a soft place to land while doing the work to become whole, this podC podcast is for you. To hear more, listen to Deeply well with Debbie Brown from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[David Ross]

Anthony Rizzo, David Ross, John Maley, Eric Hinsky. Take one. Welcome back to another episode of the lovable reunion podcast. Me and my partner David Ross joined by the best duo I've ever had, he's ever had, John Maley and Eric Hinsky, our hidden coaches in 2016. Welcome to the show.

[Anthony Rizzo]

What's up boys?

[Eric Hinsky]

Thank you, thank you.

[Anthony Rizzo]

I'm so pumped to have you guys. This is. This is the crew. This is the guys that are in the batting cage, the hitting coach. Life is. Is on another level.

[David Ross]

They're basically like your. Your psychologist. Every single day.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Every single day. And two good ones. Yeah, two good ones.

[David Ross]

20, 2016, we had a.252 run differential, which means we outscored our opponents by 252 runs.

[John Maley]

Is that good?

[Anthony Rizzo]

That was pretty good.

[David Ross]

You guys were the masterminds behind it. This was before really all the analytics really dove into the game. You guys kept it old school, but new school. You were the best duo at a time where really, it was like the first time there was actually two hitting coaches on the teams.

[John Maley]

Yeah, that's true.

[David Ross]

Why? How did you guys work so well?

[John Maley]

Well, his eyes are really close together and my eyes are.

[Eric Hinsky]

His are really hard. So that matches up good. I look like a skinny thing and he looks like a whale in the head. A shark. Not a whale. Excuse me. Shark.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Hammerhead.

[Eric Hinsky]

Hammerhead.

[John Maley]

Hammerhead.

[Eric Hinsky]

I'll tell you. Go ahead.

[John Maley]

Well, we met, and right away we knew we loved baseball. We loved being in the cage, and we like to drink a little bit. So that's a match, you know, made in heaven. Melee, now five years sober. Congratulations on your show.

[Eric Hinsky]

Thank you.

[John Maley]

Very well done.

[Anthony Rizzo]

I'll never. Well, now I've got it. Like, the stories are already popping in. We're in Milwaukee and he's like, meet me at what, the bar. Mail's gonna go up real quick. Come down, we go, we buy. You know, everybody gets two beers and we're at the table. Males comes down. I'm like halfway through with my other one with my first one. Males comes down, and he's down two and back to the bar. Before he got to. We used to. We used to be able to put him back. The boys.

[David Ross]

We had a good time.

[Anthony Rizzo]

We had a good time.

[Eric Hinsky]

We won. We won the day and the night, let's put it that way. That would be the 2016 Cubbies with Joe Madden letting you do your thing and being your own person. And we went hard during the day. We played hard. We worked harder than anybody.

[John Maley]

Yeah, we did.

[Anthony Rizzo]

And you were the first one there, cleaned up in the cage. Like. Well, it's a thing we talk. We just talked to Addie about, like, some of the things you've learned. It's about posting every single day and bringing your A game every single day throughout a season. Like, you were the. Probably the best I've ever been around from a coaching standpoint of guys that show up and are ready to work every single, single day. You guys, you guys did a lot for.

[David Ross]

I don't think people understand how much hitting coaches mean to you as a player every day, day in and day out. Because especially with YouTube, this was before the day of everyday hitters meeting. So we would just do a meeting, a series, if that. But I would walk into the cage every single day and I'd say, what do we got? Whether it was with males or ski. And they knew exactly what I needed, exactly what I want. Okay, this is what you're going to do off this guy. This is what he's going to try to do. And I'd be, all right, let's do it. And that was my scouting report. And then I would. I would do my own homework. But the routines that you guys helped me learn as a big leaguer was, especially you, ski. You were before Melee.

[Anthony Rizzo]

But do you know anybody's routine? Can you give me Riz's routine?

[John Maley]

Right after he flipped to him, go,

[Eric Hinsky]

oh, I flipped him.

[Anthony Rizzo]

It was hard.

[John Maley]

I know it's hard. I was in the box with you

[Eric Hinsky]

real quick, just on the dynamics of Eric and I. You know, Eric stood in the box. I'm a big believer. And you had to stand in the box a little bit, too. I respect guys that came before me. I played professional baseball, but I really didn't stand in the box. And having that experience and the anxiety and all those things that I never could experience as a player, even though I played professional baseball, never at the level you guys played at, the things that he brought to there were. So it just offset what his strengths were, were my deficiencies. And one of them would be experience. Now I have experience coaching, but I didn't have experience standing in the box. And I would always get with Eric if someone was out of line or something, because he has. He has a lot of these. Very confident, very positive guy, very respectful, but he'll come at you and tell you the truth, and guys respect that. I mean, there was one time David and I got into it. One time, you know, you tell David, can I say this story?

[John Maley]

You go in there, I said, that

[Anthony Rizzo]

was walking down here.

[Eric Hinsky]

There was one time, I remember this, I come in and when David is the nicest human being you'll ever meet and helps everybody, he's so into the game, funny as shit. But when he played, the days he played, you better look out, because he was on one and there was no playing games. He was going out to win, and he's going to find a way to beat you, no matter what it took. And Everybody knew it. And you had to really be careful in how you address him. So I would go over to David and tell him, okay, so. And so is coming in. And I would tell him, he's got this, he got this. And he goes, well, how the fuck is he going to get me out? And I said, whoa, slow down, David. All right, so the next time I go, he's going to throw you a bunch of sliders. Well, how hard does he throw? Tell me what he's got. And I said, okay, David, he's got this and that. Because he would get. And remember, he's catching, right? So when he comes off the catching, he's got John Lester in his ear about something, right? And him and Johnny are going. And he's yelling at Johnny, do this, do that. Because he really took control of that situation. He had to come in. He's leading off, there's a new pitcher coming in. He's sweating rockets, taking his shit off. He's yelling at you, Lester, on the other end of the dugout. Throw fucking strikes or something like that, right? And then he's got. And I'm going to try to talk to him before he goes up there to hit in a big game. And you can see where that goes. And then Eric was such a balance of the approach stuff, and he knew the mechanics. And I could get into a little more of kinematic sequencing because I had to come up through that, being through Houston. And that was a new wave of the hitting coaches. You had to be able to talk that language. Of course, what Eric was. One of his strengths, I thought, was he.

[Anthony Rizzo]

And I couldn't hear that language.

[John Maley]

Like my.

[Eric Hinsky]

He couldn't hear that.

[Anthony Rizzo]

I couldn't hear that language.

[Eric Hinsky]

David couldn't hear that. And Tony said, just tell me, do I land square to the plate, or do you want me to open my hips first? You know, that's what they wanted to hear so I could break it down, so I could talk to the upstairs people, digest it. But Eric's. One of his biggest strengths, other than experience, was the ability to break it down in its simplest form, to give it to a player. Hey, get your foot down earlier. Hey, start sooner. You're late. You're not getting any hitting position on time. And that's really. At this level. Most of these guys, that's all they need. Our job is when they get out of whack, our job is to bring them back. We got to bring them back physically and mentally. There was a time, one more scenario, because I thought about this I don't know if it was Amir Garrett or I'll just tell you a little bit about who Tony was. I don't know if it was Amir Garrett. We were playing at Pittsburgh or Cincinnati and he hit a home run. He threw him a left handed pitcher. He threw Tony at fastball, up and in right at his neck and he hit it over the fence down the line. I don't know who it was, but for two years I've been telling him to stop swinging at that pitch. Stop, I can hit that pitch. I can hit that pitch. And then two minutes later he goes up there and hits it over the fence. He says, see, I told you I could hit that pitch. But he only one for 40. He could do it, but he's one for Finn. I went back the next day and I said, hey man, you're 1 for 40 off of this pitch. You can't hit that pitch. Stop swinging at it. I mean, those are the conversations and his. He'd go, what are you, dumbass? Don't swing at that pitch. You can't hit that, you dummy. You know what I mean? And that was the balance. And I think just watching Tony and the way David played and how much they cared in the character and Tony playing hurt and David just concussions, he's all over the place and just went away. His ability to lock in the game and take over the, the game is I think one of the reasons that after we won in seven, they picked you up and walked you off. So we really appreciate it.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. I, I go back because you talk about your dynamic like just you're talking about your career. Ericinski is the only one that has three rings. I think you got Yankees as a player, one of one, Red Sox as a player, and Chicago Cubs as a coach, so.

[David Ross]

And he's loved in Philly. And he's loved in Philly too.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Why?

[John Maley]

Because I struck out the last out of the world series in 20.

[Eric Hinsky]

You had to bring that up.

[Anthony Rizzo]

No ring for that. But talking about a guy that knows approach, like exactly what you said he would tell me, Ross, you're just, you're, you're starting late, bro. You got to get started early. Like little things like that help me. And there's never been a more awkward situation than playing with a guy in Atlanta and being teammates. And then you get over to Chicago and he's flipping to you the cage and free training.

[John Maley]

Like, what is this?

[Anthony Rizzo]

What is this dynamic?

[David Ross]

So you play a lot or maybe you just didn't play at the right time. Because I've had like 15. Yeah, I play with as my coaches,

[Anthony Rizzo]

so yeah, maybe I'm one of them.

[David Ross]

Ski, Eric was here. What was your first year? 13 or 14.

[John Maley]

14.

[David Ross]

But 14 as our first base coach. And I was still young and still trying to find my way. And if there's honestly one person in my career that I could put a stamp on is Eric hensky. Because in 2014, him and I. I know you are him. And I would talk every single day, every at bat and he would be like, he, you swing at that. I know why you swung at that. And then he would say, okay, well think about this scenario. They're not pitching to you there. Runner on second. He would run through all these scenarios. And then it had me started thinking more of a hitter of when I went up to the plate and what they were going to throw me. And literally by halfway through that season, it was like, hey, I know why you swing that. Nice, nice. It was more of like encouragement and also teaching. And then in 14, everyone always asked me, oh, why do you stand so close to the plate? It's because he told me he's a left handed hitter. He's been in the box. He's like, dude, I used to always swing at the pitch from the lefty and off the plate. 100% of the time I'd swing at it. So he's like, just move up. You won't hit it, you won't swing anymore. It'll hit you or you'll move.

[John Maley]

Yeah.

[David Ross]

And for I made him a career off of hitting lefties or getting hit by lefties. True. And that's because Eric, we put him

[John Maley]

on the plate because first of all, the shift, remember we had a lot of shift talk. He would get in his dome, he'd start grounding up the second a little too much. And it's like because he was chasing either right handed cutters in or lefties that were sinking it down and in on him. Right. So if you put your dick on the plate, make the outside pitch middle and then just stay gap to the gap. You won't swing at anything that starts in. But I learned that from standing in the box. And when I got to Anthony, I was like, oh, he's a big hairy left handed hitter that I relate to very well. Let's see what he does with this. And I didn't know he was going to get hit 40 times a year. Whatever it was. 30, 40 times a year.

[David Ross]

This isn't about me. But number one, number one, left handed hit by pitch of all time.

[John Maley]

I bet.

[Eric Hinsky]

Can I jump in on that?

[John Maley]

Yeah.

[Eric Hinsky]

So Anthony got hit with 30 sometimes that one year.

[David Ross]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Eric Hinsky]

And we're in the playoffs. And I said, anthony, please get off

[David Ross]

the plate because you always wanted me off the plate.

[Eric Hinsky]

Get off the plate because if you get hurt, we're going to have trouble winning the World Series, buddy. And they'll gladly bean you right before they'll let you hit a double or a homer off them. I promise you. That's why you get hit all the time. And he looked at me and he said, males, I'm not afraid to get hit. He said, I survived cancer. I remember you telling me I survived cancer. I'm not afraid.

[David Ross]

Drop the cancer card on you won't beat the boom.

[Eric Hinsky]

I'm not afraid of a five ounce ball. I beat cancer. And ever since then I said, my man.

[David Ross]

Wow.

[Eric Hinsky]

And that was really something that stuck with me for a long time. That was really cool.

[David Ross]

Yeah. I mean, with, with ski there in 2014. So on our team plane, it was religiously, it was me, Hinsky, Tim Buss and Peter Chase. Nate would sit with us, our video guy, Nate Halm, and we would all be kind of in the front of the plane and we would just be enjoying the plane ride. The longer plane rides were better. So we're flying out to San Diego and we're all hanging. And Brandon Hyde is our bench coach at the time. So Brandon Hyde comes back and says, hey, skipper, who was Rick Renery at the time, wants to give you a day off. And we're facing Eric Stoltz. I hated playing in San Diego at the time because I got traded. I stunk there and I'm like, really? Like, I don't want off. And Eric's. We've been probably a little overserved. And you're like, no, you play every day. You face every lefty. You play. That's how you, that's how you earn respect in this. You post, you post, you post. And I go to hydra. I go, no, I'm playing to go tell Rick I'm playing. I'm not. No days off.

[John Maley]

That's because nobody wants to see the backup first baseman in there. Everybody comes to see Anthony Rizzo play.

[David Ross]

And you instilled that in me.

[Eric Hinsky]

Yes.

[John Maley]

You gotta play every day to be good in this game. You have to.

[David Ross]

I go out that game and hit two home runs.

[John Maley]

Hell yeah.

[David Ross]

And I was like, that just instilled that confidence in myself of like, this is why you play every day.

[John Maley]

I always had respect for guys I played every day because I couldn't hit lefties that well. And I'd be in the lineup a lot against these nasty ass lefties. I'm over three. And then here comes the lefty out of the bullpen. Another slider in the dirt. Fuck me. I'm out again. Zero for. And I always had that respect for you, how you could handle lefties. Stay behind the ball, hit it to both gaps. And I was just like, damn, this guy's on another level. And we're going to win the world series.

[David Ross]

You build these relationships with your coaches, and as a position player, the hidden coaches are on their own level. Like, you have all the other coaches in the locker room in the clubhouse, but the hidden coaches are literally two or three guys now, sometimes even teams have four, but they're like, on their own island every day. They're getting worn out by the front office every day. Why the is this not guy not hitting? What is going on with this guy? Why is Rizzo not hitting? Why is Rossi.

[John Maley]

Very true.

[David Ross]

Worn out. And then they have to come from all the guys up top that think the game's easy from the box. With all due respect.

[John Maley]

Yeah.

[David Ross]

And you guys need to filter that to us.

[Anthony Rizzo]

With all due respect. Say whatever I want. Right.

[David Ross]

And the best hidden coaches I is you two. And James Rowson. And James Ross was my first hitting coach, and I just had him with the Yankees that you guys were so good at taking all the noise that you're getting hit with on a daily basis, because at some point, someone's going to be in a slump, Right. No one's going, well. You're losing sleep over a player every single day.

[John Maley]

What do we say? No matter what, there's always got three.

[Eric Hinsky]

Three. Three guys hurting.

[John Maley]

One foot off the bridge.

[Eric Hinsky]

We get win 10 to nothing. And at the end of the night, we don't sleep because we got to figure we got to get you back. You're out of whack. We got to get you back. 14 you were. And I came in 15 because I was at Houston. I left Houston to come here to coach the college.

[Anthony Rizzo]

We got here at the same time.

[Eric Hinsky]

Yeah. And Theo called me, and I was going to bring in a hitting guy. And he says, hey, do you have a hitting guy in mind? I said, yeah, to help you. And I said, yeah. And he says, well, I got a guy I want you to think about. And I said, who? And he said, eric Hensky. I knew you as a player, and I like players that coach especially would Be my assistants. Because, again, for that same reason, yeah, I think it's huge. Because I learned a ton from him, too. Right. And all along, even though I was the voice a lot of times in those things, because he respected the chain of command, in a sense, but he always would tell me things, always would talk to me, and always. And puts things in my mind, and it made me just keep moving. So when I interviewed him, I said, okay. I said, theo, I'll just talk to him. I'll get back to you. And we went. We met somewhere in Arizona.

[John Maley]

Sat down, sports bar somewhere.

[Eric Hinsky]

Someone had a drink. And I talked for 10 minutes. I didn't ask him one thing about the swing.

[David Ross]

Was it love at first sight?

[Eric Hinsky]

It was.

[Anthony Rizzo]

It was.

[John Maley]

We were at the Thirsty Lion, I remember.

[Eric Hinsky]

Yeah.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Over by the field. Nice.

[Eric Hinsky]

And then. And I just talked and I said, are you a good dude, man? Are you good people? I need a good person with me. I need somebody I can trust that's going to have my back when shit goes south, because they're not going to give a fuck upstairs sometimes. And we need to stay a unified group. If we're wrong, we'll admit we're wrong together. If we're right, we're going to stick together. And he said, of course. That's exactly who I am. And he played. And we just talked about everything else but baseball after that. And I told Theo right after. I said, I'm in. I'm in because I need the person. The other stuff we can all learn. He played, he showed in the box. He hit. He knows, you know, if he needs to say, kinematics weakens. And your torso's got to go. Your pelvis got to go before your torso. He can say that.

[John Maley]

What he's telling me. He's telling me I taught him a lot. Like, everything I know about hitting or biomechanics in general at all. I learned all from this dude. How to run a meeting, how to be a big league hitting coach, the entire thing. I swear. I got the job in Anaheim. I was like, where's nails? I'm the head. I don't want to be the fucking head guy. I need this dude because I'm way better as the assistant when you're around.

[Eric Hinsky]

Thank you.

[David Ross]

Whenever I was out of whack, I'm comfortable. What the fuck? And I knew this is the best part about these two. I knew when I was off. I knew anytime you came to me, it was from love and because you cared, because I knew you were grinding. If I was off the littlest bit, the slightest bit. You were grinding on video, trying to figure out what it was, talking to Nate and talking with the. The higher ups about, okay, this is what we need. What's going on. This is what he's feeling. Let's try to put this in. In words. And for me, it was like, all right, I know you have my back. I know I could talk to you about sequencing and all that stuff. And it's like, at the end of the day, when you go up to the box, like, that's what you want. You want your hitting coaches up there with you. You want your guys, your players up there with you.

[Anthony Rizzo]

You guys were locked in on every at bat. Like, you're taking that at bat. Because I sat at the bench a lot. Like, he'd be struggling. I'd be like, riz, imagine going up there with my swing.

[David Ross]

I remember we were in the cage, and I'm just like. I'm down on myself, and I'm just like, fuck. I just can't. I can't get my. My. My barrel in the zone long enough or whatnot. And Rossi looks at me, he goes, bro. He goes, you're asking me for hitting advice. He goes, I'm a.200 hitter. Imagine I'm a backup catcher. Imagine having my swing.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Imagine trying to go there and compete with my swing.

[John Maley]

Russ, he would just flex.

[Eric Hinsky]

That was him. Although he hit the home run in game seven. And he came back and he said, mels, he threw it in daddy's loop.

[John Maley]

Threw it in the loop.

[Anthony Rizzo]

But this the fact, because I sat next to you guys a lot and all the cheering in there, but you're locked in. We talked earlier about the 1o take, and I want to go back to that, but, like, you knew. It's like, okay, here comes a slider. They went ball one to Riz. Here comes that back foot slider. He's going to take it now. He's two. Zero and locked in. And like, the league, I think, caught on later on. But, like, that was one of his routine that started like. Like have the at bat. You guys talking about, like, just that.

[David Ross]

Which is kind of contradicting now because a lot of the. The new school data is like, swing early. Yeah, OPS is higher on the first pitch. But Ski, you taught me passed down by Carlos Delgado, I believe the 10 auto take. And I'm not kidding, for about 10 years of my career, I would 10 auto take. And the thought behind it was, you see another pitch, I'm hitting third or fourth usually in the lineup. So if they throw me, say they throw me a fastball first, they're probably not going back to a fastball. So then you can see a fastball and their spin. If they go spin early, they. You're going to see two pitches. Worst case, you're 1 1. Most of the time, I was 2. 0 because they were. They didn't want me to do damage and I would look like a genius. Like, they. They throw me a bastard change up or a bastard pitch, and I'm taking it, like, spitting on it. I'm like, yeah, like, almost doing like a little Soto on them. Like.

[John Maley]

Well, it came from me because in my career, I played for 12 years.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Rookie of the Year for Toronto, by the way. Shout out.

[John Maley]

I can't tell you how many times on a 10 pitch, it was a change up, down and away from a righty. And I thought it was a regular sink or something. I was going to go deep on it. And I rolled it over and I was motherfucking myself to first base, jogging down the first baseline or sprinting because I was so mad and there was steam coming out of my ears. And I'm not going to do this ever again. And the next at bat, I did it again. So I gave it to you. I'm like, 100. Auto take, bro. I swear, 85% of the time, you're going to be 2 0. And if you're not, you're 1 1. Who cares?

[David Ross]

And I made it my identity. Like, literally anyone who played against me or knew me knew I was one on one. Everyone knew when I got traded to New York and Hyder was the manager of the Orioles. Our first game, we're in Yankee stadium,

[Eric Hinsky]

you swung 1 0.

[David Ross]

No, no, no. I take 10 and he's from the dugout. Nice. Auto take.

[Eric Hinsky]

That's right. He knew.

[David Ross]

He's the manager and he knows me better than anyone. And I just give him a little smirk. And then eventually it's like you start playing games. Because I knew the Orioles had to know that I took all the time, and I took probably 95.

[John Maley]

Or like when I was with the Diamondbacks. You'd. You'd be in a 10 count. I'd be coaching the Diamondback side. You'd stare right at me, stare right at him. Foot up and down, am I taking.

[David Ross]

And those are the games within the game that no one knows. But that's from the relationships we built. And honestly, if I didn't do that, if I didn't make that part of my Identity. I don't think I'm as good of a player because I bought in fully to the 10 auto take and I swear most of the time it worked out. I mean, I don't know what the numbers say, but the confidence in the psych part, he used to tell me

[John Maley]

all the time, stop telling that. What the hell, bro?

[Eric Hinsky]

I got tired of watching. Three years bases loaded and he's taken.

[John Maley]

I don't know if this is coincidence, but three years I was his assistant hitting coach. I believe he was a three time all star.

[Eric Hinsky]

I believe you're right.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Sorry about it. Sorry about it.

[David Ross]

Hold on.

[Eric Hinsky]

Well, the thing is, you could hit with two strikes. Now, you were one of the top hitters in baseball with two strikes. And that's a whole other ball game in itself.

[Anthony Rizzo]

No doubt.

[Eric Hinsky]

Because the ops falls off the map with two strikes. Right? And the ops grows as a count. Grow. So 02 is whatever. 581. 2 2, 2, 3 2. If you can fight to get to another pitch in that at bat and get to a 32 count, you're on offense again. So we don't even consider three two zero.

[John Maley]

Did you just have an interview with the hitting coach?

[Anthony Rizzo]

This is why I went ski.

[David Ross]

What do you, what do you guys. How do you guys know before a game that guys were locked in, especially in 16? Like, what made that group to you guys so special? Because you guys are watching from a different lens than the players.

[John Maley]

The fact that we started 21 and 6. Yeah. You guys were ready to go in April. It was freezing. I was like, these dudes are killing baseballs. We had no problem scoring runs. I mean, from jump it was. We knew we were special.

[Eric Hinsky]

The lineup was so deep that you knew you didn't have to be.

[David Ross]

The guy was hitting seventh and had 96 runs.

[Eric Hinsky]

Yeah. So when you, when you, you know when you're on a team and you got three or four horses and then you sprinkle in the young guys that are learning and all of that, that group got to carry it where we were good one through nine, you know what I mean? And our catchers could hit. He hit, Miggy hit, Wilson. Right. You were an animal. Vers right. Of your lefties.

[David Ross]

Kb, kb, D Dex got it all started.

[Eric Hinsky]

George, George Solaire. I mean, just think about it. So you knew we were going to hurt you somewhere. And we did two things. We pulled the ball in the air. So we hit homers and we walked. So that was. I was hired for.

[David Ross]

You're speaking like a 20, 26 and then they.

[Eric Hinsky]

Then they. I don't want to get into the rest of that, but yes, that's how. That was the recipe. And we had the people to do that in Schwarbs. So you had guys that you didn't walk, you walked, you didn't chase and then you couldn't strike out. You had 270 with two strikes.

[David Ross]

That's crazy.

[Eric Hinsky]

The league average was 182 at that time, or 176. You hit 270 with some juice.

[David Ross]

It's not about me though.

[Anthony Rizzo]

That's it. Ray man over here. The point is, Ray man over here. Dropping.

[Eric Hinsky]

No, but I'm saying it's okay to work and get behind in the count because you know you're good.

[Anthony Rizzo]

It's a safety net where other guys

[Eric Hinsky]

aren't in that position. They get the two strikes, 140. They got to go early. It is what it is, especially the young guys until they learn themselves and learn to attack their strengths in the zone. You know what I mean? Well.

[Anthony Rizzo]

And I want to get off. Like, I hate talking about Riz. So let's get off his topic. It's not about you. We do this every segment, every show. It's like we get on Riz's. Dude, who cares? You already had. You're retired. Nobody cares.

[David Ross]

It's not about me.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Joe talked to us before 16 about the B hack and all that. I want to know from a coaching standpoint, what were Joe's strengths? Like, how was he? How did he manage?

[John Maley]

No micromanaging. No micromanaging. Let us do. It's our show.

[David Ross]

Everyone was free, man.

[Eric Hinsky]

Everybody was.

[David Ross]

That's what made it work.

[Eric Hinsky]

You think about. We can get into the whole dynamics of the environment, but the environment. Including Tim Buss, who's here today.

[David Ross]

Absolutely. He's on.

[Eric Hinsky]

He's. And people don't realize what that. What that takes. And if we really got into this, this would be a 25 hour show just to go through. Forget what happened in the game, the prep that went into that or the environment that was created there.

[David Ross]

To me, the hotel, the bus rides, the plane rides.

[Eric Hinsky]

There's so much stress in between those lines. If we create stress as a staff on this side of the lines, you got a big fucking problem, in my opinion. So with Joe, with the petting zoos, and if you think you look hot, wear it. All of those things instead of. We used to have to wear suits. And then how are you gonna get your suit tailored, cleaned? Because we want to be better than everybody. Because we wear suits. No, you wear what makes you feel hot and what you're comfortable with. Remember on that note, you had to get on the plane and painted your toenails.

[Anthony Rizzo]

We'll go to Miami. That's right.

[John Maley]

My daughter painted his.

[Eric Hinsky]

Joe had a rule. If you wear flip flops, you have to have your toenails painted. And I remember this story. And then David said, so his daughter was painting his toenails. And your son said, daddy, can I paint your toenails? Don't you ever ask me to paint my toenails. I'm sorry to bring that up too soon. No, you're right. But the environment on the other side had to be. Be relaxed. It had. Everybody was their own dudes. But we were a close group, right? And. But when we got in between those lines, it was on.

[David Ross]

It was serious.

[John Maley]

You know what, Joe? There were some dudes how to listen. As a coach, I never knew how to shut up. I was always talking, right? And he's like, step back, listen to that guy for a while. And then the last thing he says, ask him back that same sentence in a question and let him keep talking. And that taught me so much. Dude. Taught me so much. The guys bent like Joe Madden forever. You taught me how to listen and helped me all aspects of life for sure.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Well, you've guys had, I mean, you've guys moved on. Obviously had great hit. I mean, you guys both coached Ohtani.

[Eric Hinsky]

Yeah, I can, can I get into that with him and Ohtani real quick?

[Anthony Rizzo]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Eric Hinsky]

So I. He went with the Angels.

[Anthony Rizzo]

KB was a. Ohtani, kb Riz Trout, Stanton, Stanton, Altoona.

[David Ross]

You had Mike and Giancarlo.

[Eric Hinsky]

I had Giancarlo, Stanton and Mike. He was Mike and Giancarlo. Yeah. If you go down the tree, it's pretty, pretty cool. I'm most proud of, I think seven guys that were hitting coaches for me became head coaches in the big leagues.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Damn, that's cool.

[Eric Hinsky]

That came through my sister. So I'm very. No, thank you. But I'm very proud of that because they helped me get so much better and I learned so much from them. And I always try to pick a guy that has a different experience or things so I can continue to grow by far. Ohtani. So Ohtani, when he first came over, he couldn't hit a heater right. Big left handed hitter, had a huge leg kick and Ski was, you know, we're talking about centripetal force and. And I didn't have him yet. And then Ski's like, just get your foot down, dude. If you get your foot down, you hit the ball hard. Get your foot down. And that's when he got rid of the leg kick and he went to the early stride.

[David Ross]

Yeah, yeah.

[Eric Hinsky]

And that came from Eric.

[David Ross]

I remember that.

[Eric Hinsky]

But then he spring training, his spring

[David Ross]

training wasn't, wasn't very training.

[John Maley]

It was terrible. He hit like 100, had a huge leg kick. He couldn't get to anything. And I just told him like, hey, I referenced like Chris Bryant and Freddie, Freddie Freeman. 65 hitters that have leverage and they don't need to generate with a huge leg kick, right? So I'm like, you have to be in the ground to be able to, you know, make a decision on time to hit the baseball.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Right?

[John Maley]

Isn't that what we're doing? We're trying to get on time in the ground to make a good hitting chokes. Right. To make a swing decision. So he's like, okay, let me try it. In batting practice, it was this between series, the Dodgers are playing the Angels and doesn't batting practice. He hits homer after homer and bp, he's like, all right, I'm in. And that was it. And now He's.

[Anthony Rizzo]

You getting 700 million. Getting that.

[John Maley]

I should, I should get.

[Anthony Rizzo]

You should get.

[John Maley]

Just a show.

[Eric Hinsky]

We.

[John Maley]

Come on, bro.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Come on. Shall we? Shall we?

[David Ross]

Come on.

[Anthony Rizzo]

That's. Well, you guys resume like, that is just so epic. And I, I, I bring that up because I'm just like, what stands out? You guys make great hitters.

[John Maley]

Like, what?

[Anthony Rizzo]

I wasn't a great hitter and I grinded, you know, what we talked about. But you guys have seen a lot of good hitters. What stands out in the good hitters that you've seen, like, championship caliber at bats and some of the best that you've been around. Is there any anything that you would. If you're teaching your son right, right.

[John Maley]

Mine is timing. They're never off time. And if they are off time, they have the ability to like, ride their front knee and keep their bear on the zone forever because they're so mechanically sound like they never get off sequence. And it's crazy to be able to stay behind a baseball when it's coming at you 100 and then it's, you know, 82 off of that and the same arm speed. But they never get off time very much. And if they do, it's rare. And like Mike Trout, Anthony Rizzo, Chris Bryant, like, not David Ross.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Not David Ross. It's not about me.

[John Maley]

Yeah. It's just Mechanically, they're sound, and they're just on time, and they're, like I said before in the ground, and they can make good decisions.

[Eric Hinsky]

The guys that have been around have been the best. They don't have any fear to try to make adjustments, but they're very. They're very. You got to tell them. As a hitting coach, in my opinion, you have to tell. If you can't tell a player what's happening, why it's happening, and how to fix and feel it, you shouldn't say shit anyway. And every time the guys are hitting, they pop a ball up in the cage and you're underneath it. Yeah, no shit. What gave that away? It's right there, right? You know what I'm saying now? If I look back at you males and I say, why am I underneath it? Then tell me if you know. You know what I mean? And I think it all comes back to timing and what the best guys have been around, the confidence. They believe in their swings. They know they can fucking hit. And it just comes down to approach and being on time. And then they get that one hit, and all of a sudden they say, I'm back. And nothing's changed. Mechanically. Now we will, as coaches occasionally say, hey, when you were going really good, Your stance was 2 inches further wide.

[David Ross]

You would say it to me.

[Eric Hinsky]

I know. Or it would be this. Because sometimes. And it was maybe true. But I don't think that was the answer. You tell me your hands are here or here. Come on. You know what I mean? Are they dropping lower?

[John Maley]

No, right here.

[Eric Hinsky]

By your heart, the inverted C. Inverted C. Something small. But if you tell them that sometimes, like, you're fine, you're doing good. Well, two. Two ways to do that. I need something to hold on to, bro. I even tell me I'm good. I won for 28. I ain't good.

[Anthony Rizzo]

I ain't good.

[David Ross]

I ain't good.

[Anthony Rizzo]

You can't lie to players.

[Eric Hinsky]

You can't lie to players. You gotta tell them the truth. I ain't good. Right. So, hey, when we look back, and then we'll go do all the things now, they got ways to measure. You were standing four more inches off the plate. It's all. It's so much easier to be a hitting coach today in the sense of knowing if you're right or wrong about what's happening. Yeah, Like, Anthony, you're laid on a fastball. Like I remember with Bryce back in 18. 18 or 19. It was 19. When he got there, the first half, he was struggling, and we look back and he wasn't able to pull the ball. I thought he was late all the time. And he said he didn't feel like he was late. And we did a bird's eye view where you take the. All the.

[David Ross]

Who's this talking about?

[Eric Hinsky]

Bryce Harper.

[David Ross]

Okay.

[Eric Hinsky]

And then we did an over the top view and it showed here and his contact points. And I said, what were you best. Whatever year he won the MVP or was Almost won the mvp. I think he won it. And then I showed him where he was making contact on fastballs in relation to home plate. They were all out in front and now they're all back here. And he goes, I'm late. And I'm thinking to myself, yeah, no kidding. But it's okay.

[David Ross]

But how you portray it is.

[Eric Hinsky]

But you trade.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Here's coaching.

[Eric Hinsky]

I ain't making it up. Now why you're late, I don't know. You're in the box. Why are you late?

[David Ross]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Eric Hinsky]

And he said that he had worked really hard on going the opposite way in the off season. So he's backing balls up. He was blocking his front side and he wasn't able to release the head. So everything was played back here, which, you know, was a lot of ground balls and bad things. The game out here, you're lifted naturally, and get it in the air.

[David Ross]

The hardest thing to do is repeat. It's so easy for a little bad habit to creep over time. Right? So.

[Eric Hinsky]

And our job is to pay attention to that. So we have like a. Nowadays we have a two week checkup where we look back in and see all your measurements and say, okay, did you realize you were standing further off the plate here? Did you realize 16?

[David Ross]

Yeah, we didn't need it.

[John Maley]

We didn't need it.

[Eric Hinsky]

We won.

[David Ross]

Yeah.

[Anthony Rizzo]

So on that, like, when did you guys know we were loaded? Like, we were good? 15. We go back to 15. It's like that, that San Francisco series that we swept San Francisco, they were defending world champs. It like was the light bulb, was like, oh, we're really good. But there's, there's some time where you're like this, these guys are a beast. I mean, you said starting the season,

[Eric Hinsky]

starting season 16, you're talking about 16.

[John Maley]

16. Yeah. I kind of knew instantly. Well, I knew in 15 and at the end of 15, like, like you said, the Giant series. But going into spring training, even the guys that weren't in the big leagues, I was like, these guys are really, really, really good players. And our team was so stacked and I really think I remember we started off 21 and six, and I don't know about like, one. We had one bad stretch. Didn't we lose like seven games in

[Anthony Rizzo]

a row before the All Star break?

[David Ross]

Right before the All Star, yeah.

[John Maley]

And then nobody cares.

[Anthony Rizzo]

It checked out.

[John Maley]

We came in after those games and we're like, hey, I finished that.

[David Ross]

I finished the 16 all star break. Like. Like 12 for 15. Okay. It wasn't my fault that way.

[Anthony Rizzo]

We told the story about Lester. He came in and he said, we just gotta get the pitching going.

[David Ross]

Oh,

[Eric Hinsky]

but.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Yeah. Did you have a time?

[Eric Hinsky]

Well, 15, you know, what do you remember in 15 when we all said goodbye the last game at home?

[David Ross]

Toasted Danny Herring.

[Eric Hinsky]

Yeah, the whole number. The. The stealing fans, remember?

[David Ross]

Oh, yeah.

[Eric Hinsky]

I should get into that story about how we partied with the player of the game, jumped around in the thing, and I look up and there's somebody's underwear going around in the ceiling.

[David Ross]

After games, we would celebrate wins and we would turn it into a club. And music again. Another Joe Matt, Joe thing. Bringing it in and embracing it. And we turned, literally, our old locker room at Wrigley into a club. Smoke machines, drinking, strobe lights. Strobe lights, strobe lights. And we carried that to the new one, too. I don't think it's there anymore.

[Eric Hinsky]

So in 15, when we did that goodbye and I looked around the room, we all knew something was up. That was a good group. We all. A lot of us had tears in our eyes, and Dexter, we knew was going to leave. So I'm thinking, we got to get a center fielder now. But this group's got it. We got. And you look down, you look at Lester Arietta, all those. It's a joke what they got. And we got the pitching and the position players are all young and all. You mix in what the veterans would experience. So it was ultra talented. And then when Dexter came back, remember, in spring training, Theo walks him out in the middle of spring training, we're on the field or some shit, and he walks on. Here comes Dexter. We all thought he was just coming to say goodbye. And Dexter comes, runs out, and he says, boys, I'm black. You know what I mean? But. And then I couldn't believe it. And then after that, it was like, okay, it's time to roll, man.

[John Maley]

I know when it's a trade deadline and we're 22 games over.500, and in walked the roll, this chap. And I was like, we're winning the fucking world.

[David Ross]

There's Shots, bro. Right Now, I said this every year when you are the best team and you will get the best player. Game over.

[John Maley]

Theo did it, dude. When he walked in, I was like, oh, that motherfucker's in here. Good night, everybody.

[David Ross]

Bad man walking in. And we knew it, too. And he knew it. And he came in and he shot.

[John Maley]

He takes his wallet out of his pocket, over his shoulder, his asses up there.

[Anthony Rizzo]

So, going back to Anthony stories, we need. We need a good Anthony story.

[David Ross]

I want to tell. Well, I want to. First, before we get into that, I want to talk about the two strike approach that you're talking about earlier. Because, you know, striking out is such a big part of the game now. People don't care. And for me, I hated striking out. And I always try to strike out looking more because that means I take pitches. But with two strikes, I'd expand and it would drive my hitting coaches crazy. But I knew getting to two strikes that I could fight off. And if I could fight off that bastard pitch and get to the next pitch, I could do damage. So I was never scared to hit with two strikes. But when things got real dark and tough, I knew I had something in my back pocket at all times.

[Podcast Narrator]

Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the Enhanced Games. Some call it grotesque, others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Within probably 10 days, I put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth.

[Podcast Narrator]

Listen to Superhuman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Podcast Host (Various)]

Do you remember when Diana Ross double tapped Lil Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people? I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at It podcast. I'm Sam J.

[Eric Hinsky]

And I'm Alex English.

[Podcast Host (Various)]

Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make

[Eric Hinsky]

sense of how we survived it, including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill waxing all about crack in the 80s.

[John Maley]

To be clear, 84 was big to me, not just cause of crack. I've dabbed talking about crack all day, but yeah, yeah, but just so y'

[Eric Hinsky]

all know, I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where

[John Maley]

we've discussed crack, so I'm starting to

[Eric Hinsky]

see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table

[John Maley]

right now, so thank you for finishing that sentence. Yes, I don't think there's a more important year for black people.

[Eric Hinsky]

Really?

[John Maley]

Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people people in American history.

[Eric Hinsky]

Listen to look back at it on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Interviewer (OK Storytime)]

My mother in law spent years sabotaging our relationship until karma made her pay for it.

[Storyteller (OK Storytime)]

Wait a minute, Dakota, how bad did it get?

[Interviewer (OK Storytime)]

Well, it got bad enough that her son in law had to eventually arrest her himself. Oh, she moved in for two weeks, lasted for five. She left nail clippings in the bathtub, candy stuck to the furniture, and then she pressed her ear against the bedroom door and burst in screaming.

[Storyteller (OK Storytime)]

She did not burst in.

[Interviewer (OK Storytime)]

While they were she they kicked her out and paid for her hotel and they thought it's finally over. Days later she called her son in law at work claiming that his partner had been in some kind of freak accident and had been rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. He called every hospital in the city and his partner was making coffee the entire time.

[Storyteller (OK Storytime)]

She faked a medical emergency just to test whether or not he loved her son.

[Interviewer (OK Storytime)]

Yeah, and she sat in the hospital parking lot waiting for him to see if he would show up. When that didn't work, she walked into the son in law's police station and filed a kidnapping report against him.

[Storyteller (OK Storytime)]

She filed a kidnapping report against him in his own police station.

[Interviewer (OK Storytime)]

And spoilers. Karma's going to show up in the best way possible. So if you want to hear how this story ends, search OK Storytime on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to podcasts.

[Podcast Host (Various)]

The story I've told myself about love or relationships can then shape my behavior and that can lead me to sabotage the possibility of connection. This Mental Health Awareness Month, tune into the podcast Deeply well with Debbie Brown and explore the journey of healing, self discovery and returning to yourself. We explore higher consciousness, emotional well being, and the practices that help you find clarity, peace and self mastery in a world that can feel overwhelming. The world is becoming lonelier. We're not becoming more social and connected. We're becoming more individualized, but we actually need people in connection. If you've been searching for a soft place to land while doing the work to become whole, this podcast is for you to hear more. Listen to Deeply well with Debbie Brown from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or Wherever

[David Ross]

you get your podcasts a couple times a year. Male ski. You guys probably seen this a little too much over our time, but I would like to go into the cage and hit naked command.

[John Maley]

Yeah.

[David Ross]

Fully naked.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Fully naked.

[David Ross]

Fully.

[John Maley]

But shorts on. First.

[Eric Hinsky]

They start on.

[John Maley]

They start on.

[David Ross]

Basically

[Eric Hinsky]

go in.

[David Ross]

I would take my shirt off, and then I would do. I would. Because males was big on my stride length. So the shorts we had at the time, they had really tight elastic bands. They were almost like. I don't know what kind of. They had good, good waist. So I pulled my shorts all the way down. I was always commando underneath before I hit. And I would just work on my stride length off the tee. And males is feeding me. And it was so hard.

[Anthony Rizzo]

So anybody walked in. I remember walking in Pittsburgh. I got a photo on my phone. I'm like, well, there's Anthony's ass again.

[Eric Hinsky]

Well, there's another time when Font was throwing bpd, you were in the tank, and he was a BP thrower. You made him throw naked.

[John Maley]

And we were.

[Eric Hinsky]

I don't know where we were at.

[Anthony Rizzo]

We were.

[David Ross]

We were grinding.

[Eric Hinsky]

But any.

[Anthony Rizzo]

I didn't see that.

[Eric Hinsky]

So I told Tony, I said, tony, you're over striding again. He says, all right, we'll work on it tomorrow. Kez gives in a look. Next day, he comes in the cage, he's got no shirt on, as usual. It's regular shorts, no drawers on. Comes in the cage, put the ball on the tee. Put the ball on the tee. He goes, drops his pants, and he's standing there. You know how he always goes like this? Now I'm only using my peripheral vision. Thank God I can't see well out there. Size of my eyes.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Thank God they're close together.

[Eric Hinsky]

Thank God they're so close together. Thank you.

[John Maley]

So.

[Eric Hinsky]

And he would do his little wiggle, and he would hit. And then you just use your imagination and what that looked like. And then it worked.

[John Maley]

It worked.

[Eric Hinsky]

It worked.

[David Ross]

Success rate. Every time I hit, a hundred percent success.

[Anthony Rizzo]

And you're. This is full hacks. People at home have to understand.

[David Ross]

No, this is like, I would. I would pretend I was like, 2014 Javi Baez and just try to swing as hard as I could. Go down to a knee.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Yeah.

[David Ross]

You drop a back knee completely naked, like, falling over, getting back up barefoot, like.

[Eric Hinsky]

Yeah, but it worked. Then he'd pull his shorts up, and you two would hug and roll around on the ground. And he says, I love this shit. I love this shit. Remember that? And then we sit there and we lay all of our heads. Hinsky's mine and Tony's head. We just lay on our back and we talk. And we'd be in a little star in the cage.

[David Ross]

These are the relationships that we had.

[John Maley]

We had to slay the dragon, dude.

[David Ross]

We had to sell the dragon.

[John Maley]

You gotta sell your soul.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Was there anybody more quirky than Riz or, like, anybody that stood out from that 16 team that. That you guys got? Like, Javi and Okb was pretty zobras, dude.

[John Maley]

Zobra's nuts. Fucking nuts, dude. Shake, wait.

[Eric Hinsky]

Shake, wait.

[John Maley]

Put it in the tube, put in the portal and finish. What the fuck are you talking about, dude? I'd be like, yeah, that looks good. Sick.

[Anthony Rizzo]

We're asking him about that.

[John Maley]

Shake Weight. Shake Weight. Shake.

[David Ross]

We would be in the dugout, all doing the. Shake Weight. The whole dugout got, Shake Weight. Shake Weight.

[John Maley]

Shake Weight.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Speaking of celebrations, that was. That was one of my favorite parts. We had, like, our dugout from. I've never been on a team where coaches celebrated as much as we did in 16. We guys went deep and Skeet's like. And Nails was like, jumping. Yeah.

[John Maley]

Joe let us.

[Anthony Rizzo]

It was like, we start clapping and doing the dancing and stuff. Like, we. We were. It was fun to be in.

[John Maley]

Our other teams hated us. Hated our dugout. Yeah. Because we're loud.

[David Ross]

When we came to play, they knew, like, we rolled in there like the Motley Crew, bro. And we came in. We beat your ass, and we've left a mess behind us.

[Anthony Rizzo]

But we never, like.

[David Ross]

Respectfully, though. Yeah, very respectfully.

[Anthony Rizzo]

There was no animosity on the other team. We were just doing our thing. That's what I think Joe create. We were so. There was no outside noise for us.

[John Maley]

If you'd roll into Chicago and you got Arietta, Lester Hendrix, like, good luck.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Yeah.

[John Maley]

They were nasty as hell. Yeah. And we put up five. You're so.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Yeah, you're done.

[Eric Hinsky]

It's like we went out and we. It was us versus us. You know, that's the old saying. If we can not beat ourselves and just go out, play our game well, any good team, that's the way it is. Right? But we were able to do it every day. And I just remember losing in that seven games or whatever. And Joe, you know, and I just came from a place where everything was like this. If you didn't win, everybody was all, Joe's got this song on in his room. Don't worry, be happy. Sitting there with his feet up, drinking wine.

[John Maley]

Yeah. Win hard.

[Eric Hinsky]

Seven games in a Row. That's right. He said, you win hard, you lose hard. You got 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, that's over with. Time to go move on.

[John Maley]

Short memory.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Yeah.

[Eric Hinsky]

So with 20 minutes, that music would go on with Joe, and he would drink that wine and play that song. Everybody said, oh, okay, we're good.

[David Ross]

That's leadership, in my opinion.

[Anthony Rizzo]

101.

[David Ross]

When. When your head guy, you see him not caving. Everyone else, okay, I can relax. Especially in today's game where it is, males, you were kind of a pioneer of your industry of, like, of not having big league experience. Yeah. Now it's almost like a prerequisite if you played. You're, like, almost blackballed from being a coach. They want no experience, which doesn't make sense to me because the information is great, but the experience paired with the information is electric. There's nothing better than it. Yeah.

[Anthony Rizzo]

So that's why you guys were so dynamic, and it felt like you had two hitting coaches that could relate to two different mentalities of hitters. Right. And you guys did such a good job of balancing that and having fun. And our work and the work ethic. You guys really like the hitting coaches and, like, usually the strength guy, they're like the boys. Right. You know, they're usually part of the boys.

[Eric Hinsky]

And we're down in the cage all day. You hear anything from everybody. Right. And we're. We're all trying to figure out what do you see anything with him? And you guys did a really good job of talking to each other, too. And I think some of the best instruction you remember as playing is coming from your peers. Guys that stand in the box.

[John Maley]

Right.

[Eric Hinsky]

For sure. And we had a really good group where everybody worked together.

[David Ross]

And then I. I would make males. He would flip to me behind the L screen. But he's righty. So if you're a lefty with the righty arm, you get blocked by the big pull in the L screen. So I would never really see his arm action. So for me, my timing was big. You know, I'm pumping, I get the leg kick and all that stuff. So if I couldn't see the arm at all, my timing in the cage was messed up. If my timing is messed up off soft toss, I was a zoo. So I'd make a move out from the L screen to the side so I could see his arm flip, and then he'd, like, run back in.

[Eric Hinsky]

Yeah.

[David Ross]

And now, 10 years later, he's blaming me for his knee issues, which is meniscus.

[Eric Hinsky]

Torn meniscus So I would have to stand there and picture you're in front of a screen. So I'm thinking is our arms hanging out. My whole body had to be out. And he's only 18ft away. So as I flip it, I've got to release it and get back there. As he's hitting it 110 pounds.

[John Maley]

I think what I learned from him too, was routine. Players are routine based. I was like, crazy, right? But I wanted to be the face you saw when you walked into the cage no matter what time it was. And you taught me that you can't not be in the cage because they walk in there and they have to look for the hitting coaches. Their routine's up.

[David Ross]

Wow.

[John Maley]

So I made it a point to always be there. And that might have been, you know, nine hours a day in the cage, but for sure I was there for it.

[David Ross]

You were always the heart.

[John Maley]

I was always there. Hey. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. But too much absence makes the heart wander.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Knowledge. Straight knowledge.

[David Ross]

We want to talk about relationships. I'm going to test you here. What. What are our two songs? What are our two favorite songs?

[John Maley]

Every Rose Has a Storm.

[David Ross]

That's All Right. Now three.

[John Maley]

Okay, Adele. Which one, though?

[David Ross]

Olivia. Rodrigo. Driver's Driver's License. And Lady Gaga. Shallow.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Shallow. Yeah, he learned that on piano.

[John Maley]

That's right.

[David Ross]

We got. We got into New York, I think it was at 16. We got in real late.

[John Maley]

It wasn't Adele. You loved Adele. You loved a hit to her.

[David Ross]

Loved it. Loved. Still do.

[Anthony Rizzo]

I walked up to him, the gym two days ago. I'm like, riz. Riz. He's like, sorry, what? What?

[David Ross]

We got into New York one night, late, real late. And me and you went to a karaoke bar and we're just crazy singing Every road.

[John Maley]

Yeah, we killed it.

[David Ross]

Shut the bar down. Five, six o', clock, I go to the Essa Bagel. They're closed. I walk in, I'm like, tipsy. They're like, no, we're closed. I just hand them a hundred dollar bill. I'm like, give me some. Okay, thank you. They give me like three bagels. They are so. They love me there.

[John Maley]

Did you get any hits the next day?

[David Ross]

I. I did.

[John Maley]

Because you gotta post no matter what. How long you were out last night? Doesn't matter.

[David Ross]

You can't. For me, I loved. I really enjoyed going out and I knew the balance of playing every day. But when you did go out and you had those iconic nights, you knew the next day, like, you got to be accountable to Your teammates and your peers, and you better turn it on. There's no, like, oh, I'm tired. Like, that's the days you need to post the most. And those are some of my favorite days. Looking.

[Eric Hinsky]

Those are usually some of the better days guys do because they don't think so much.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Right.

[Eric Hinsky]

They get out of all of this and that. I'm just trying to see this ball. I'm trying to hit the one in the middle. Males. I'm Hit it off his forehead.

[David Ross]

Totally.

[Eric Hinsky]

Very simple plan. You're looking for a ball in the middle, and you're going right back there. And that usually lines you back up to where you need to be for two, three weeks.

[David Ross]

It lines you up.

[Eric Hinsky]

You look at guys that come back from injuries, and they're always hot when they come back. And you think they're not going to have any timing because they just. They don't expect anything. Right. I just want to compete here. I'm not supposed to get a hit. I haven't played in two weeks.

[David Ross]

Yeah.

[Eric Hinsky]

And then you're not thinking and you're just hitting. And then when you stop and you start raking, and then you go bad a little bit. And all of a sudden I'm doing this, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. And that's why I think having that time away from the park where you can get. And it doesn't have to be drinking all night or whatever, it's just getting away from the game. Totally.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Yeah.

[Eric Hinsky]

Hanging out and spending with your family and the guys that have the kids. And now you go home and take care of the family.

[Anthony Rizzo]

That's how you win. Care about the guys you're around. You get to know your teammates.

[Eric Hinsky]

It's respect. Right. If I respect you, I'm going to take a good secondary lead at second base because I'm trying to win the fucking game and you're dogging it out there.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Yeah.

[David Ross]

When I respect. When I remember walking down the tunnel in Game seven, right to the cage in Cleveland. The cage is, like. Feels like a half a mile away. It's a long way. It's through the whole concourse, underneath the tunnel, and through that concourse, you have all the media. I saw David Ortiz walking by Game seven, like, saying, what's up? And I'm, like, zoned in, and I'm going down there. And I know that you two are there. And it's like just this calm presence of, like, looking at. I just remember looking at you guys and just being like, yep. Like, not more than five words. Were said. It was just like, well, that's.

[Anthony Rizzo]

That's the.

[David Ross]

Let's go. Did my routine, did my flips, hit a little bit off the arm.

[John Maley]

Last one of the year.

[David Ross]

And looked at you guys, and she's like, last one, let's go.

[Anthony Rizzo]

That was my, like. Without getting all emotional because this is what I do. But, like, I remember going down in Mayo's we. It was super quiet, and he got done flipping and he, like, walks towards me as I'm about to leave. He's like, rossi, Rossi. I'm like, what's up? And he just starts. You started in on telling me, like, what. You know, like, the nice things that you said a little earlier. But I was. I'll never forget that. I was like. I was like, bro, we got. I gotta get ready for a game.

[Eric Hinsky]

I'm getting.

[Anthony Rizzo]

I'm, like, emotional right now. But it was like. It meant a lot to me. I'll never forget, like, how you talked about, like, the year and me and. And, you know, the respect you had for me and what I brought to the team and all that stuff was. Was really cool. So thank you for that in that moment. But it was. It was cool to. Right before game seven, I'm trying to get locked in and freaking males got me crying, leaving the cage in pre game.

[David Ross]

It's what it took. And hopefully throughout as we interview everyone, like, I'm saying this again, I feel like. But without you two in my life, in my career, there's. I don't accomplish any. I'm not a world champion. I don't play for as long as I do because. Because of your guidance. And I feel very lucky, blessed, because seriously, without you telling me one Otto, take getting on the plate, you, Us. I know it sounds weird, but doing the stride work and believing in me. I'm not the player I was in 2016. And maybe we're not the team we were and you're not the player you were, but.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Well, I wish you guys would have helped me on the.220 batting average. I mean, like, career, you can't reach. Some people were just stunted.

[Eric Hinsky]

They were just stunted.

[David Ross]

It's just another really testament to the puzzle of 2016, where we said it in a episode before this, but it was like, without every single player and personnel, we don't win. There's no way. Without males, there's no ski. Without ski, there's no males. You guys fist bumping each other. We're bumping in the dugout, doing all

[Eric Hinsky]

this stuff, hanging on the dugout.

[David Ross]

Screaming. If pitchers even hinted at looking at our dugout, Ian Ski would be wearing them the out. And I would play with guys later on in my career. Garrett Cole was one of them. He's like, bro, I heard you all the time. Because we would just wear guys out and scream at them. And it wasn't a disrespect thing. It was just.

[Anthony Rizzo]

It was our thing.

[David Ross]

We cared so much about winning.

[Anthony Rizzo]

And you're locked in on other people talking about caring. You're locked in on other people's at bats. Because we're all invested in one another

[John Maley]

standing in the box with you, man, for sure.

[Eric Hinsky]

When Dex let off with that home run, you see Dex running down the first. They show him in the dugout going like this. Oh, yeah. He goes, you, Kluber, we're gonna be here all night. You. Sorry. But no, that's what it is.

[Anthony Rizzo]

With all due respect.

[Eric Hinsky]

All due respect, but that's the way it was. We felt that. You know what I mean? Because we knew. We stuck together. And then, you guys, I'm sure we'll get into what happened when the rain came. You know what I mean?

[Anthony Rizzo]

Yeah. What do you guys remember about that? We've asked everybody about, like, I know the coaches weren't in the room, but, like, we were almost dead. And then coming out of that. What did you guys feel when we got back in and out of the rain delay?

[John Maley]

Well, I poured a drink.

[David Ross]

We all did.

[John Maley]

Being honest. Yeah.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Yeah.

[John Maley]

I was like, I gotta.

[Eric Hinsky]

People don't know about that.

[Anthony Rizzo]

There's a lot of stress. There's a lot of stress.

[Eric Hinsky]

You're gonna end up telling.

[David Ross]

Oh, yeah. No, we.

[John Maley]

When we told them, who's the dude that hit the homer off Chapman. Still to this day, the loudest I've ever heard a stadium in my life. The momentum was gone. We were like, oh, God. Like, this is.

[Eric Hinsky]

The stadium was shaking. You could feel the ground moving.

[John Maley]

And I was just like, LeBron up there doing a good meeting down there in that weight room because we gotta win this thing.

[Anthony Rizzo]

We gotta win.

[John Maley]

I can't go home. And whatever I. Still, to this day, I. We're coaches. I don't even know what happened down there. Yeah, I have no idea.

[Anthony Rizzo]

It's all a blur.

[David Ross]

We're getting everybody's. That's how tight the boys were when

[John Maley]

we were in there.

[David Ross]

It was like, we're gonna fucking do this. We'll have Jay say it in full. But it couldn't have happened, though, without you two. And we thank you for being on

[Anthony Rizzo]

do you have a real. Do you have a favorite moment from 2016, season or postseason? Do you have one? Do you have anything that comes to mind?

[John Maley]

I like the Giant series.

[Eric Hinsky]

Javier the pimp. The home run at almost pimped it. Equato.

[John Maley]

And doing that was the Giant series. Contreras hit the ball up the middle. Yeah, go ahead. That was a rage fest in our dugout. We were going nuts. And then that flight home, everybody banged up. Yeah, that was a flight, too.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Yeah, that was a good one.

[David Ross]

Yeah. Because. Well, we won game four in San Francisco.

[John Maley]

Well, yep.

[David Ross]

Which clinches.

[John Maley]

But we had to go back to face Cuaito if we.

[David Ross]

If we didn't win, we had Quaido, and Quaido was nasty. He had a great career, but he was like, his best then. And we barely beat him. One nothing in game one. And we were down, what, four or five runs, and we came back in the ninth. And that was kind of the Giants Achilles heels, their bullpen. And it was the even year. All this was like, oh, we gotta play them in game five.

[Eric Hinsky]

That's right.

[David Ross]

So when we won that game, it was, like you said, rage fest on the way home.

[Anthony Rizzo]

And coming back.

[David Ross]

Those are the moments, though, that made us closer. I say this all the time to our teams. When I made the playoffs after, it's like, you think we're close now. Every single playoff game you win, we're about to get closer. Every series we win, we're about to get closer. And winning it all, it's like this. It's been 10 years. We haven't been together in years, hanging out like this. I love you guys.

[Anthony Rizzo]

It's so nice.

[John Maley]

I'm very humbled. Right.

[David Ross]

It's like, yeah. Yesterday that we were all together in this bubble of just happiness and the grind.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Yeah. Males are sober now. What the hell happened?

[Eric Hinsky]

Yes.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Five years. Five years. Thanks for coming on, man.

[David Ross]

We're so thankful.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Obviously, we love you and can't wait to party tonight.

[John Maley]

Let's do it. You know, we'll do anything for you guys.

[Eric Hinsky]

Anything.

[Anthony Rizzo]

That's a wrap. Thanks, boys.

[Podcast Narrator]

Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes. Athletes for a full year.

[Anthony Rizzo]

Within probably 10 days, I'd put on £10. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth.

[Podcast Narrator]

Listen to Superhuman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Storyteller (OK Storytime)]

My mother in law spent years sabotaging our relationship until karma made her pay for it.

[Interviewer (OK Storytime)]

All right Sophia, tell me about how we started this story.

[Storyteller (OK Storytime)]

She moved in for two weeks, lasted five days, left a mess, and then pressed her ear against their bedroom door and burst in screaming. When kicked out to a hotel, she called her son in law's workplace pretending his partner had been rushed to the hospital by ambulance.

[Interviewer (OK Storytime)]

She faked a medical emergency and spoiler,

[Storyteller (OK Storytime)]

that was just the beginning. To find out how it ends, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Podcast Host (Various)]

This is Saigon, the story of my family and of the country that shaped us.

[Eric Hinsky]

From iheart Podcasts. Saigon. You don't think I'm serious about a free Vietnam, One city, a divided country and the war that tore America apart? This is for Vietnam.

[Anthony Rizzo]

They're pouring petrol all over him. Freedom for Vietnam.

[Eric Hinsky]

There's a fire coming to this country and it's going to burn out everything.

[Interviewer (OK Storytime)]

Listen to Saigon on the iHeartRadio app,

[David Ross]

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Eric Hinsky]

Hey, it's Edwin Castro, also known as Castro 1021, and I'm Conky, his best

[Interviewer (OK Storytime)]

friend and business manager.

[Eric Hinsky]

And we've got a new show called the 1021 podcast. I'm taking you behind the scene how I became one of Twitch's most popular streamers. We also love sports, and with the World cup right around the corner, we'll be breaking down the biggest storylines ahead of the big tournament here in the USA. Listen to the 1021 podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.