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Up Your Average is the “no nonsense” podcast made for interesting people who think differently. Learn to navigate your life with unconventional wisdom by tuning in to Keith Tyner and Doug Shrieve every week.
Even though I gave up a home run to tie it, that may be the most chilling time on the
field that I was pitching that I had ever experienced in my 14 years because of the
admiration, the love for that man in Yankee, because he was Mr.
Yankee.
Donnie baseball.
Donnie baseball.
Welcome to the Up Your Average podcast, where Keith and Doug give no nonsense advice to
level up.
Your life.
So buckle up and listen closely to up your av.
Good morning.
Welcome to another session of Up Your Average, where we try to bring value to you every
time we get together.
Today, we're going to give you a little bonus session.
I'm a former baseball player in the olden days, believe it or not, 6'4 catcher, and just
love the sport of baseball during the day.
And today, we've got a former number one draft pick.
In the Major League, Andy Bennis joining us.
And Andy is gonna talk to us a little bit about some fun stories from the major leagues.
Evansville's a great hotbed of baseball with him himself and Don Mattingley coming from
there.
And so I hope you enjoy this all-star break uh celebration of Andy Bennis and great
baseball stories.
Good morning, Phil.
Hey, Keith.
Another great day to be alive.
Talk to us, uh introduce our guests today, would you?
Yeah.
Um, it's kind of funny.
I was reflecting on this this morning, but I've had the pleasure of knowing this uh large
gentleman to my left, um, probably for forty years.
He showed up at my house when he was fifteen years old.
He had asked my sister out on a date.
And um one thing led to another and they ended up uh getting married and having a long
thriving relationship, but
I've known him for a long time.
And so uh this is my friend, my brother, uh brother-in-law, Andy Bennis.
Andy, th I w I was kinda going with the St.
Louis vibe today.
So I didn't even think about that.
I played for four teams, but that was my favorite.
So nineteen sixty-eight.
what what year were you born?
Sixty-seven.
Okay.
So nineteen sixty-eight, I don't even know what road you go from Evansville, Indiana to
St.
Louis.
My grandpa
I'm the baby of all the grandkids, takes me to a composer game.
Doubleheader, old school doubleheader, Mike Terez is on the mound, and I had no idea what
I was watching, but from that day going forward I've been a Cardinals fan.
I think 'cause I was a good year to be a Carton fan.
Oh.
Being in the World Series.
Yeah.
They Bob Gibson was cheater on the mount, which he always was.
But how how do you think he ranks in all of baseball history as pitchers?
He's really good.
It's the
The game's changed a lot.
I watched him strike out the last guy in the sixty-seven World Series.
I believe it's sixty-seven.
And it's a it's a big what they would call a sweeper right now.
In my generation of playing, that flat pitch didn't really play because the the swings
were flatter.
It plays now.
The tremendous competitor, and one of the cool things about being a carter was we'd see
these guys a lot at the clubhouse.
And we'd have the opportunity to interact with him and Lou Brock and Red Chaneys and and
Musual.
Um Steve Carleton would come in some, even though they trade him.
So getting that wisdom was super good.
And listening to Lou Brock talk about base stealing, I would sit in there because I'm
holding these base stealers, right?
Right.
And so a lot of just a wealth of knowledge.
And man, that guy was gritty.
And he said he never threw at anybody.
They just didn't get out of the way.
So that was one of the things.
He's just a really he's a tough and nasty dude, but and you could tell on the on the
mountain.
So I uh a friend of mine was a championship wrestler, and when he would if you'd ask him
what you know, was it real or not, then he would throw you around or whatever.
But my feed on social media, I get fights and baseball.
So
Are the pitches literally retaliated?
Are are you gonna get beamed because of what happened in the previous inning?
There's a lot of yes.
The answer is yes.
And and some of the stuff that's going on today, people are like, Can you believe that's
happening?
Why is it happening?
And my answer is that guy on the mound that's throwing at that guy doesn't have to grab a
bat and go hit.
But it is it's a real thing.
I had hit John Smoltz hit one of my Matt Williams, who's our third baseman in Arizona.
in April.
And so I dropped a guy later in the game and they were smolts after the game said, I can't
believe he's throwing at a guy.
I'm like, I don't care, man.
You hit one of our guys, whatever.
I'm facing Maddox in September.
And the first pitch is a slow breaking ball.
I'm like, that's really odd.
I mean, I'm a pitcher hitting.
The next one was inside.
And I'm like, and it ended up behind me.
And he had Eddie, Eddie Perez was his personal catcher.
And I said, Eddie, just tell them to hit me.
And the umpire goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
And he goes, What's I go, this is from April.
They're like, they're, they're gonna get me.
And uh, and Eddie said Maddox is having control problems.
Yeah.
And so he ended up walking me and I get to first base.
And they're not holding me on.
And he whimps and throws the ball to try to hit me at first base.
And I've got to jump jump and get out of way.
But it
There's long memories and you never know.
And Jack Clark, when he was a teammate of mine, said there's a time and a place and it
used to happen.
You as a pitcher, you protect your guys.
If if they hit our superstar, we're not gonna hit their eight hitter.
We're gonna hit their superstar.
And when when the time is right.
And so, yeah, long memories and doesn't happen today as much just because
There's not really retaliation.
I was I was probably an average athlete, but the thing I liked about baseball is that
there's just a whole different mindset than other sports.
Like you go the boys have free time.
If you're a pitcher, you get a lot more free time.
But there's n there's a lot of social life in baseball that isn't in maybe in other
sports.
Right.
For a starting pitcher we have four days in between starts and
There's a lot that goes on in the dugout and talking about baseball and life and a lot of
times just nonsense, even though a game's going on.
Uh a lot of baseball talk when you're gonna face the team that you're playing at that
time.
But yeah, just guys being guys.
What's your favorite memory of Andean baseball?
my favorite memory, um, gosh, there's a bunch of You sat in the upper deck in nineteen
ninety three, the only time.
I was in the all star game.
And when you play in the all star game with Titana, you get four tickets on the field and
then you can buy extra tickets.
But I was in the National League and you and Kristen, my mother and father in law, and my
son Drew were in the literally the top of the upper deck in the back row.
Yes.
So you were there.
I was.
I was there and it was I think Camden Yard had opened the year before.
It had.
And this but they kind of started the trend of the retro ballpark.
Okay.
It's like
Everything went back fifty years to what it used to look like that had all the modern
amenities.
That was really cool.
But the the memory that I remember the most was you started your career with the Padres,
spent five or six years with them, and then at the after the All Star break, the Mariners
needed more arms tra on their staff and so they traded for you.
So you went up to Seattle.
As luck would have it, I was on a business trip in Seattle the weekend that the Mariners
played the Yankees.
Don Mattingley, who's also an Evansville native, was playing for the Yankees.
Andy was pitching for the Mariners.
And I got to see all three games that weekend.
Yeah.
And it was unbelievable.
And I was there with Jenny and Kristen ended up coming out as well.
But uh but that was like game five was epic.
Oh.
It was epic.
It's one of the top
They have it rated in the top fifteen really in in playoff history.
And so they'll replay it a lot.
But that game went, I think I threw six in a third or so, and we tied it in the eighth.
And then Randy Johnson comes in to relief.
He'd thrown a complete game two nights before, and that place was shaking.
It was unbelievable.
What was it called?
The the Kingdom?
The kingdom.
Yeah, the place was awful.
But that was awesome.
Yeah, it was really everybody at everybody on that team was an all-star pretty much.
They pretty much were Griffey.
yeah.
Griffey Edgar Martinez, Randy Johnson.
Uh the two what's crazy is the two backup shortstops in that series were A Rod and Jeter.
And we came back and tied the game because the Yankees didn't want to put their setup guy
in who was Mariano Rivera.
And so it was an epic uh series and just a really crazy deal.
Matt Ainley got his last hit off me in that game.
He kind of flipped a double down the left field line and he'd homered off of me in Yankee
Stadium to tie the game.
And so those were his last two hits and we were eight years apart and had never played
against each other because back then there was no interview to play.
So what was that like having uh the hometown guy Homer off of it?
It was really surreal and
They have a documentary about this.
And Mattingley said, you know, I was looking for a changeup.
I never threw changeups, but when I got up there, I tried to turn over a fastball, kind of
like a BT fastball.
So it was off my fastball.
And I threw it in the middle of the plate and he hits this home run.
And even though I gave up a home run to Ty it, that may be the most chilling time on the
field that I was pitching that I had ever experienced.
Yeah, in in my fourteen years because of the admiration, the love for that man in Yankee
because he was Mr.
Yankee.
Donnie baseball.
Donnie baseball.
It literally that place erupted and people threw their beverages onto the field.
And there was like a stop in the play and they're chanting Donnie Baseball.
And I mean, I had chills even though I gave up the home run.
I'm thankful that just tied it.
Wow.
The admiration for him and I thought.
Wow, what a legacy this guy is leading.
Uh really cool because he did it the right way.
And they appreciated that.
His brother was my assistant basketball coach and and so his cousin was on my little
league team, Evansville East.
And and he wasn't he wasn't in the same league as Donnie, but we you know, we knew East
Little League versus North.
We knew all about Donnie at a young age and then playing high school sports against him
and
being average and watching the stud just He was awful.
Yeah.
And his brother would trash talking to us.
But the the the rumor, or what his brother said when Donnie I don't remember how much
older Randy is than Donnie, but he Randy was a good athlete.
Yeah, and he would have episode.
He said they would throw golf wiffle balls to little Donnie and he'd just jack him as a
little kid and it's like his eyes had to be stuck.
We were eight years apart.
And so they would say, Hey have you followed him
I was I was in grade school when he got drafted and in and started to move on.
So I didn't really start following his career until he got to the big leagues because I
was so much younger.
Yeah, so much younger.
Yeah.
Now I as a young dad, I kinda gave up sports because I just have time for running
business, all these things.
But somewhere Is it that or you just weren't that good?
No no not just not.
I was never good.
Yeah, no, I was naked.
w we're all washed up athletes.
My stories are better than the reality.
He literally woke me up in the ninth inning with the Rangers game.
Was that at eleven?
Right.
Yeah, 'cause I'd already gone to bed.
And and so but it seemed like in the nineties it went from
You knew the whole team forever to you gotta kinda watch every year to see who's on the
team.
Is that when that happened uh with the the shift in the lineup because of free agency and
things?
Yeah, free agency changed a lot and a lot of guys are changing teams obviously, and each
year was gonna be different.
You didn't have that Ozzy and Tommy Her and Jack Clark and Penalty.
You didn't have those same groups uh later on.
There were there were guys coming in and out.
And you had to learn new teammates.
And, you know, you you had guys getting traded a team that you wanted to throw a ball and
hit them in the neck.
Now, I will say we talked about, you know, hitting guys, but I always would aim.
I mean, we're we're guys, we're dads, we're husbands, right?
And you never wanted to mess with anything above the shoulders.
Okay.
I mean, every once in a while a ball would get I mean, we're you don't throw it where you
want to all the time.
If you were gonna hit a guy, you wanna kinda hit him in the ribs so it would hurt, but
nothing that would be life altering.
And by the way, I got thrown at a lot.
A couple of my couple of my good buddies, uh Daryl Kyle was pitching against me in
Colorado and he hit me and I'm like, it didn't even I picked up the ball and the umpire's
like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
I threw it back to him, I go, it didn't even hurt.
And the next it hurt really bad.
So the next in the next morning we're playing golf together.
He's like, sorry, dude.
They told me to hit you and I go it really hurt, just so you know, even though I said
that.
I think I've told my dad that one time when he's whipping the I didn't hurt.
Yeah.
Uh yeah.
So so when you think about funny moments on the Cardinals, what what are a couple of ideas
that come to mind?
Well, some of them I can't share, but most of the most of the funny things would happen
late at night on a bus ride to the airport or or or to the hotel.
Uh guys have had a few cocktails and you have the back of the bus h hooting on the front
of the bus and then it's it's it's pretty funny.
Um, but some of the things are are very real.
Um if a if a team's not hitting.
You know, one time Dave Duncan came in and
You know, our pitchers were pitching really well.
And I think it was nine ninety-six, and we were really good.
We're in the LCS.
And he goes, Come on, guys, we've got to score some runs.
And Brian Jordan, who played in the NFL.
Yeah, I like that.
And then he gave that up.
Yeah.
He was a rifle guy.
Yes.
And he was our right fielder.
And when Dunk said that, he literally went and jumped over the couch and grabbed a hold of
it.
Now, Dunk was a tough dude.
But he was not gonna take order.
And everybody had to intervene.
But things like that.
I mean, you remember you remember fun things.
You you remember uh some of the things guys did on the field.
Guys screw up, uh we'd have a guy round first, he'd fall down and, you know, have to go
back.
He was gonna have a double, maybe a triple trip or whatever.
And the next day on the field, we'd have spray paint on the infield with
with an outline of a body and like R I T soda.
So things like that.
I love it.
Yeah.
Things like that are what you remember.
Uh just the funny things.
You don't remember as much about the um the games.
You can remember at least for me, but I remember my teammates, the interactions because
you live with these people.
You're with them more than you're with your family.
And so you're you really you really get close and the good teams get close.
Teams they would say take twenty five taxis to the ballpark.
Yeah.
Those teams usually didn't win because it's all individual.
And the good teams have to work together and trust each other.
And that's one of the things I learned.
Tom Pagnasi, and I'll make it quick.
I'm pitching a game, it's hot.
I'm not pitching well.
He's putting down all all his fingers and calls timeout and he comes out and he says, What
are you doing?
What's going on?
I'm like, pitchers can be a little bit.
And I'm like, it's hot, all those things.
I'm like, it's just not happening.
And about that time, Joe West, who's a tough dude in the the punt, I he came out and he's
like, What's going on, Pags?
I said, Can you take him and get away?
I don't even want to talk to him, right?
And this is like 40,000 people at Bush Stadium.
And so they go, he goes, No, I want to hear what's going on.
And Pags said, Andy, I got a few things for you.
Number one, you don't have that, I keep putting fingers, you don't have that many pitches.
Number two, and I'm gonna paraphrase, the ones you have stink.
So Joe and I, I'm gonna make it easy on Joe and I are gonna go back behind home play.
We're gonna talk about this mound visit.
Throw whatever you want.
Your stuff's not that good.
And I'm like, okay, game on.
I'm filling ninety six with a ninety mile an hour slider.
And I unfortunately I was thinking I wanna wedge the ball in a face mask or bounce it from
short options.
Yeah, just to make my point.
And so he's back there sideways, catching everything and throwing it.
At the end of the inning, we go in.
I that was probably my best inning because I'm like, okay, game on, right?
We get underneath and I'm like, I'm gonna drop it.
I mean, it's gonna happen because everything like that's gonna happen in a ton of.
And he said something that impacted me the rest of my career.
He goes, You need to learn to trust people.
And I'm your guy out there.
Trust me because I.
care more about you than anybody here.
And I want what's good for you.
And when you're on a team that doesn't win, it's all about you for the most part.
Right.
And what my stats are and all that.
And that was a that was a big impact.
From that point on, I'm like, okay, my relationship with the catch changed.
And it was really cool because I threw a Pag Nazi and then a Mithini.
And I had full trust in both of those guys.
And so there wasn't a whole lot of shaking from then on because we we really worked on
here's our game plan, this is what we're gonna do.
We're gonna go after these hitters here.
Now let's go do it.
That's that's beautiful.
Trust is important.
So tr trust and and going back to what you were saying before that, Andy, the the the
teams that gel are the the teams that win.
And so there's gotta be trust amongst the teammates, but s somebody
It seems like beyond the manager, somebody on the bench has to get that trust started for
a team.
How does that work?
Right.
There are just natural leaders.
And some guy great Indiana guy, one of my favorites, Scott Roll.
Okay.
Scott didn't talk a lot.
So he was a leader by example.
And if if you looked at a guy and said, one of our kids, who should I model my game after?
He's the guy, because he played the game the right way.
But he was a
Albert was like that.
He was a leader by example.
It doesn't it's not always the guy that you think's gonna be the leader.
However, you and it typically is a position guy because they're out there every day.
But those guys really uh create a unity within the team.
And guys may be on the fringe and then they start buying in because they know if we're
gonna accomplish a goal, it's gonna be together.
And so uh we had some we had some really good
leaders over the over the time.
Uh Jay Buner.
It wasn't Griffey.
It was Jay Buner in Seattle.
I forgot about Buner.
And he was the guy.
And he was a guy that would really get on guys if they weren't there and locked in, or
he'd pat them on the back if they were having a hard time.
And um so really he's the guy that welcomed me and Vince Coleman got traded over about the
same time.
And both had an impact on what happened there in the winning.
And so
It's not always the the guy you think.
I I know from watching sports over the years that when teens are buying all these great
athletes, a lot of times it doesn't work because they can't get that.
Tell me, tell me, were you on the team when Vince uh got famous?
Or is that uh that was before me.
That was in eighty maybe eighty seven.
They were playing they were playing, I think, Minnesota.
I don't know how talent the stats.
I played you are you talking about with the with the tarp?
Yeah, that's what I said.
Yeah, I'm like I wasn't I wasn't in the big leagues yet, but I'm thinking I know this tarp
comes up and then it rolls out.
And he's the reason why they don't have tarps like that anymore.
I'm sure it's it's crazy to me how how you could get caught up in that.
I mean Yeah, so th those you who don't know, he got ran over by the tarp machine.
Like they the
Just ran over him and I think he was one of the great base dealers, but if people that
know his name, they don't think about that first.
He played left field and he was a runner.
He could play great defense and he was a leadoff guy.
So his game was I need to get on base.
I'm gonna steal second, Ozzy's gonna move me over, and Tommy Herr is gonna figure out a
way.
And it might just be a drought out to the second baseman.
And we get a run, and we might not even get a hit if you walk.
So that's that was Whitey Ball in the eighties.
And for him to get run over by that was not like me, right?
It was like I could see me getting run over at him get out of the wood.
But this thing is moving at a snail's pace.
It's not like it's not like the freeway you know.
The the Cardinals were a lot of fun.
I I don't watch them as much now as I did, but I remember in the seventies and eighties
there was lot of fun because
Gary Templeton was playing shortstop and he had a little attitude about him.
And I don't remember if he flipped off the fans or whatever.
And then that's how you get Ozzy, right?
Right.
Yeah.
And Tempe and I were teammates in San Diego.
He went to San Diego for Ozzy.
Yeah.
People don't realize Gary was a much better player.
Right.
But they just didn't want him there.
Yeah.
Uh yeah.
He was the one time he was an all-star and he said, if I ain't starting, I ain't
departing.
If I'm not the guy to start, hey.
Find somebody else.
But he was a good teammate and played hard.
Yeah.
And uh but he ended up not being the same player.
Uh basically his his knees kind of gave out hard.
I thought he was probably playing on the turf as long as he did, but he was a phenomenal
player.
I I I think a lot of times people don't understand the wear and tear on athletes.
I was on a flight last week and a former pacer was on the flight and I looked up his age
and he was my age, but he was well
He was walking a little bit older than me.
I could see the former uh Cardinals, the big red, uh when they were playing football in
St.
Louis.
And some of these guys, the linemen, I mean, arthritis, they can't move.
Some of will be in walkers.
It's really sad.
And playing on that turf.
The turf now is more bouncy.
Okay.
The old turf was concrete.
Yeah.
And carpet on top of concrete.
Carpet on top of concrete.
And so we'd even if you if you go out to run in between starts or whatever, you'd have to
get on the warning track where it was kind of spongy.
It would it was hard on the knees.
Now granted, we're we're throwing off the dirt.
But these guys that were running out there every day.
I don't know how they do it.
Some of these guys are they're playing 150 out of 162 games and on the turf, it was
brutal.
Plus it's hot.
I mean, it's hard to play in St.
Louis in the summer.
And a lot of the places that you know you get hot and humid, but it'd be 150 degrees on
the turf.
And it's hard.
These guys, I don't know how they do it.
I guess they're getting paid to do it, so that's what they did.
But now as we're as we're wrapping up today, I don't I don't want you guys that watch this
to think we're all about the Cardinals, but we do have a little bias here.
So Andy, thanks for hanging out with us.
Uh Phil, what a great time.
Yeah, that's really awesome.
Thanks a lot, guys.
You bet.
Go cards.