MLB ALL-STAR GAME

July 6, 1998

George Brett

Travis Lee

Tim McGraw

GEORGE BRETT: We won. We all had at least one home run on our team.

MODERATOR: The team of Costner, Grieve and Kingman.

TIM McGRAW: They were awful.

GEORGE BRETT: Well, I played my first All-Star Game in '76. Then I played 13 straight and hadn't been to one since. Back when I started playing in All-Star Games, they never had the workout open to the public. It was for the media. I'm glad to see Major League Baseball making a deal on this. The FanFest I thought was great. I was over there this morning. Tomorrow I'm going over and playing catches, we throw the ball across Denver, going to take part in that. Going to the gala tonight. It was really a lot of fun to come back here and see some guys that I played against, compete against them again, put on a uniform, 40,000 people in the stands, and go out there and try to perform. It got the juices flowing again. It's been a long time since the juices flowed like that. It was a lot of fun. Hopefully, they'll let us try to repeat next year. Travis won't be, because he won't be a rookie anymore. Not only that, but I got a chance to meet this guy. I got a chance to meet him (referring to Tim McGraw). I met Travis briefly before. Now I think I have a new friend in life. It was a great experience for me.

GEORGE BRETT: I faced his dad. I might have got one off him. He was pretty tough on me in the '80 World Series. Wasn't he?

TIM McGRAW: He was.

GEORGE BRETT: Well, I think you swing a little different in the home run hitting contest than you do in the regular season. I've been fortunate to watch him play. Saw him play twice this summer in Arizona. One game I saw, it was when Ramon Martinez pitched. The first guy up got a base hit, then retired the next 27 in a row.

TRAVIS LEE: Two sliders.

GEORGE BRETT: I've seen him play. He's a good hitter. He's going to be one of those hitters that can hit over .300 consistently in the major leagues. 15, 20, 25 home runs, driving 100 runs. There's no doubt in my mind that he has that capability.

TIM McGRAW: Probably as soon as I got out of high school and I went to college and tried out. No, I was obviously involved in sports all my life. Thought that's what I wanted to do. I was always a little small, so that always had a lot to do with it. I got a guitar, started playing clubs in college, that's what I wanted to do, found my passion.

GEORGE BRETT: Surprisingly enough, it's a lot like baseball. Before I played every game, I was scared to death. I was nervous every game I ever played. As soon as you get in that batter's box, you just calm down. When we were taking swings in the cage before we went out on the field and got our ten swings, I was nervous in the cage with all these guys watching. Once I got out there and I got in that batter's box, all of a sudden it was like, "I belong here, I belong in this batter's box." I just felt all the confidence in the world. The first round, I swung the bat real good. The second round I swung at two balls I shouldn't have swung at. Unfortunately didn't get any home runs. Fortunately, the team really stunk it up good. It was a blast. It was so much fun.

GEORGE BRETT: Well, I got a chance to see John Elway play when he was in high school. He was drafted by the Kansas City Royals. We were out playing the California Angels. The Royals, what they would do, they would bring out their picks before they signed. John at that time hadn't decided if he was going to go to Stanford to be a quarterback or if he was going to play professional baseball. So they put him in my hitting group, along with Jamie Quirk and Clint Hurdle, the three youngest guys on the team. They said, "Talk this guy into playing baseball." We didn't do a very good job, thank God, because he probably would have taken my job. He hit about six home runs that day in Anaheim Stadium. He was taking groundballs with me at third base. I thought I had a pretty good arm, but his balls were -- had a little more velocity on them, a little more zip. He had a chance. I really think if John would have devoted himself to baseball, there's no doubt in my mind he could have been a major league player. How good, I don't know. But he's a good enough athlete. And a guy that is good of an athlete, playing baseball all through high school, since he was eight or nine years old, could make the adjustment, I think, make it to the major leagues. There's a little more pressure on John Elway in Denver than there was on us.

GEORGE BRETT: Well, my read is that Huizenga won a World Championship and then decided they didn't want to lose any more money, regardless of winning the World Championship or not. "I'm going to cut the payroll back and sell the team, get out before it breaks me." That's basically it. That's what he did, isn't it?

MODERATOR: This is the 15th anniversary of the pine tar game. What are your most physical memories of that day?

GEORGE BRETT: Probably the most physical is the choke hold Joe Brinkman had on me out on the field. I remember sitting between Vida Blue and Pat Sheridan. There was a big discussion going on on the field for ten minutes about my bat. I said to Vida and Pat, If they call me out for using too much pine tar on my bat, I'll run out there and kill one of those you know whats. As soon as I said that, Tim McLelland looks at me in the dugout. "There you are, you're out." I run out of the dugout, we've all seen that. I get out there, and I kind of forgot that Tim McLelland is six foot six. Obviously, I knew if I hit an umpire with my fist I would be banned from baseball, so I wasn't going to do that. When Joe Brinkman put the choke hold on me, then I was just trying to get away. It looks a lot worse than it really was. To be honest with you, for the next five or six minutes after we got in the locker room, I mean, I was pretty frustrated. I think everybody on our team was. But by the time we got on the team bus, we were laughing about it.

GEORGE BRETT: I laugh. I laugh. I ended up getting a promotion out of it. Did a promotion for Emory Air Freight. They shipped my bat from New York to Detroit five or six day later. Emory Air Freight says, "We could do a commercial with this." I did a commercial and made 100 grand. It wasn't a bad deal.

GEORGE BRETT: I've got my fingers crossed. I played 20 years. I gave baseball everything I had for 20 years. I had a lot of fun, played on some great teams. If that's enough to get in my statistics, then I'll be very happy. If not, maybe I should have played another year or two. But the class is very crowded right now. Nolan Ryan I think is the guy that's a shoe-in. Robin Yount, myself, Carlton Fisk. I think Dale Murphy is also eligible. There is going to be some disappointment felt by some people; hopefully I'm not one of them. I got my fingers crossed and hopefully things will work out for me.

GEORGE BRETT: I don't know. Will I be disappointed if it rains tomorrow in Kansas City when I'm flying home, or tomorrow during the game? I don't know. I really don't know how I'll react. It's like when you get three thousand hits, everybody says, "What are you going to do when you get three thousand hits?" I said, "I don't know." When you get three thousand hits, you just react. I think I'll react that day, this December or January when they make the announcement. I'll react accordingly to how I feel. How I feel obviously is if I'm in or if I'm out. A lot of people are confident that I'm going to go sometime. Obviously, you don't want to prolong this. You want to kind of get it over with, not keep going year in and year out with it. I've got my fingers crossed. Hopefully I've accomplished enough in my career, and haven't stepped on the media's toes too much.

MODERATOR: Last question. Too many homers being hit?

GEORGE BRETT: How many homers did you hit?

TRAVIS LEE: Seven.

GEORGE BRETT: There's not enough. I love home runs. I think home runs are great. You've got to realize, and I'm tired about hearing about expansion pitching, tired of hearing about the ball is juiced up and the stadiums are smaller. How about the athletes are stronger? Give the athletes some credit one time. These guys are strong. These guys work out year-round. Every team has strength and conditioning coaches. They're lifting weights. We didn't lift weights when I played. Weights were a no-no. If somebody lifted weights, the coach or manage would tell them, "Don't do that, you'll get too tight, not be able to throw." These guys are not only lifting weights and getting stronger, they're also increasing their flexibility. I think the more home runs are a combination of the three things I said. I think the most important thing is that the hitters are stronger and are better. Athletes are better today than they were 50 years ago, in my opinion. I hope these guys are saying that 20 years from now when Travis is here as the old-timer doing the home run hitting contest. "Hey, man, these guys are a lot stronger than when I played." These guys are strong. I think that's where a lot of credit should go.

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