 Hello again, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Yes Rear Here. I'm Jack Curry. And today, I'm joined by Jack McDowell, a former Cy Young Award winner who had a very memorable 1995 season with the Yankees. And Jack, as I welcome you into our show, the first thing I'd like to ask you is how are you and your family doing during these challenging times? We're doing like the 99.9% of the country, hanging out, waiting for all this stuff to disappear. That's encouraging to hear. Let's dig into some baseball. Since you've got the time to talk some baseball, I laughed at your text when I texted you. You said, I got nothing else to do. And what the hell? 12-year Major League career. You had a Cy Young, which I already mentioned. You had three years where you pitched 250-plus innings. You pitched in the postseason. When you reflect on your own career, what are you most proud of? I mean, looking back on it, probably the innings and complete games and stuff like that, because that's the kind of stuff that's disappeared. And for the wrong reasons, really. Because I think it's funny, because people talk about, oh, complete games. The complete games that are important to your team are the ones that are, hey, we've got a 9-0 lead after the second inning. Guess what? Well, Penn, you can go order pizza. Because I ain't giving up 10 runs. And I'm going to stick out here until it's done, and everyone goes gets to do it. Nowadays, man, you're out in five innings if you have a huge lead like that. So they don't, they preserve the starters and instead of preserving the team. I'm glad you brought that up, because 1991, you had 15 complete games. Since then, only one pitcher has matched that. Curt Schilling had 15 in 1998. No one has exceeded it. Where was that mentality born from? And I know you pitched at a different time, but it wasn't 1970 when you were pitching. But you were a guy here, your teammate said, he wanted the ball for nine innings. He wanted to be out there. Yeah, you just, that's what you did. You know, you were the pitcher. I always said it would be, it would be fun if baseball was, OK, you got the ball here, and other teams got one guy out of the ball, let's go. Last man standing wins. You know, it's 21 to 19, hang with him. You got to outlast the other guy. The funny thing was, when Charlie Huff came over to the White Sox from the Texas Rangers, we talked a lot and we talked about, you know, how you can become better, how you can, you know, get better. He's one of the best pitching coaches I ever had before he ever became a pitching coach. It's the stuff he said. And he said, you know what I do? My goal was, I knew in Texas, it was going to be 105, all summer, and guys were going to get tired. And that if I outlasted them, I was going to win some games. Last man standing was going to win. And that really hit home with me. I was like, yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Stay out there. You're going to get your wins, you know? These days, as you already mentioned, a pitcher approaches 100 pitches and most of the time the bullpen is already ready to go. David Cohen, one of your former teammates and your buddies said to me, if a guy's never thrown 115 pitches, he's never going to know what kind of pitcher he can be at 115 pitches. He might be as successful on pitch 115 as he was on pitch 75. You don't give him the chance to do it. He's never going to know. That's always been one of my theories as to why there's an increase in injuries is because no one's ever allowed to go over a certain number. Yet if they're struggling, they can still get up to that number. If you've ever pitched, you know that if you're struggling physically on the mound and you're a little bit off that day, the next day you wake up and you were so sore, you're like, oh my, something was off yesterday and everything was not working correctly. But then there's those days where everything's cruising and you're throwing like it's nothing. And then the next day you can probably pitch again, even though people freak out about that and not pay attention to that anymore, but because of that, you're not allowed when you're doing good to pitch up to 140 pitches to gain the strength to be able to handle that really hard 90. 90 pitches that you struggle your butt off to get to, you're not built up. They never allow anyone to build up to get the strength to do that. I believe that's one of the reasons why there's a lot more injuries. Jack, when you were traded to the Yankees, I went back and dug up some old articles and was looking and that spring training, you said, all eyes are on us. We're the team to be. What was the attitude of that 1995 Yankee team? Well, I mean, everybody's, yeah, he's just a good group of guys that wanted to win. And, you know, it was fun, even though the trade was illegal. Trade happened during the lockout. And I kind of work all that out, right? Yeah. And, you know, it was one of those things where you think the players, so you're just going to fight for one player when all this stuff just went down. I'm like, I didn't even know until it went down. I said, well, am I really going to be a Yankee? Am I going to be a white sock and have to play seven years to become a free agent? No, I had to play seven years to become a free agent the last year with the Yankees. And, you know, it was a really strange situation. So, you know, I had to run in there and get ready. But, you know, it was a fun team. Probably the most, that might have been one of my more fun years. A lot of people look back at the one gesture incident and say, oh, he hated it there. He couldn't handle it there. It was one of my funnest years I had. And it was a lot of fun playing for that group of guys and for show Walter and, you know, being able to, being able to take Donnie to the playoffs for the first time. You mentioned that incident. I was going to ask you three or four other questions first, but since you mentioned it, late July, you're struggling a game against the White Sox. You're getting booted as you go off the mound. You decide to raise your middle finger to the fans. But Jack, after that happened, you were nine and four with an ERA of under three. Something locked in after that. What happened in that incident and how did you handle it going forward? The whole situation began because you go back and look at that season. And Jimmy Key was our opening day starter. I was our number two. And then after that, it was pieced together. You know, it was pieced together the rest of the year. Jimmy Key only lasted two starts. And then he was hurt. He was out for the year. But show Walter pulled me in and he goes, hey, Jack, I know that you're an innings eater and you don't care about your stats. You care about winning games. He said, we're going to need you to just eat up innings. You know, whether you're doing good or bad, you're just going to have to stay out there. That's, you know, we got too many young guys here that are just trying to figure it out. We can't put it on the bullpen. You got to do what you do. And, you know, I know you're a team guy and that's what you're doing. I was like, yeah, let's go, let's go do it. So there were a handful of starts for the Yankees where normally you're starting pitcher to be the heck out of there because they're getting knocked around and they're not on top of their game. But I would stay in there for seven or eight innings regardless. And the White Sox one was about, I think it was two or three below average starts in a row where I was getting food every time we're sticking out there for seven or eight innings. I'm like, are we not figuring this out folks? That, you know, I'm here sucking it up for the team and that was frustrating me. But then when it was the White Sox feeding me up, the team that traded me and I was frustrated with that. And then they're booing me again. That's just, I lost it. I lost control then, you know, after that was just lost for a little frustration. Well, some New Yorkers would love that type of emotion. And I think they probably did because here's a guy out here saying, hey, I'm trying my best. I have to ask you, I know the baseball project, some of those guys in that band are friends of yours. They did a song called Yankee Flipper. How soon after that happened were you able to kind of chuckle at that name? It was a New York post headline. Well, it was only a couple of days to tell you the truth. I was really worried that I was gonna get buried and that, you know, everyone was gonna come after me. And believe it or not, the fans themselves kind of jumped back on my side almost the day after that. You know, as I go into the stadium, you know, when you walk into Yankee Stadium, you're walking through fans every day. And they were just like, hey, man, we love you. Come on, let's go. Keep plugging away, keep going. They were all into it. And I felt like, wow, this almost turned me into a hero for some reason, you know? I remember we asked you, we said, Jack, you didn't sign any autographs. And you said, I never signed autographs on my way into the ballpark. One incident isn't going to cause me to change what my approach has been all year long. So you remained firm and true to who you were. Yeah, pretty much, that's kind of the way I am. You go back to September of that year, you're dealing with a back injury. David Cohn has told me that the two of you used to almost joke, some gallows humor. He was also hurting, his arm was dragging. That used to say to each other, I'll give you a cortisone shot, you give me a cortisone shot, maybe we can get through this. How hurting were you guys at that point? Well, Cohn had your typical tendonitis, soreness in shoulder, and just like, you know, end of the year, not going so good, soreness just about every start from the time we got him, but he still dealt. If you go back and look, he did great. My problem was the last start that I made of the regular season, the start before warming up, I felt something kind of, I just felt a sharp pain in my lat muscle, like lower lat muscles in my ribs. And I was like, ah, that's weird. And I threw, you know, and I think I threw like seven or eight innings, I was fine. The next game I went out there, I felt it again, and it ended up being a three nothing shut out against the Yankees, but man, it was the next start, I couldn't even move my arm. And it ended up being like a golf ball, sized lump on my lat muscle that my bone had to rub over it every time I got to my arm. And that was very painful. So I didn't start the last two starts, I think two, maybe two or three, I forget what it was, three starts of September, try to get ready. See, we didn't know if we were gonna be in the playoffs or not, but I, you know, they didn't know how to fix me. They couldn't give me a quarter zone shot because it was too close to my lungs. And so they just like hang with him and see what happens. And when the plus season came, was the first time I picked up a ball from then and the day before that my first start, but like how do you feel, I'm ready, let's go. Yeah. Ready to go. That's probably one of the things. In this day and age, I've never even been able to smell the field. That's probably why when I asked David Cohn and he had a long career, I said, this is some of your toughest teammates ever. And you were the first name that he mentioned. And you guys are tied together, Jack, in 1995 from that game five and this quarantining situation that we're in, we're seeing a lot of old baseball games. I've revisited it and watched game five of 1995. How prepared were you to be called out out of the bullpen from that game? Had Showalter kind of given you a heads up that that was looming? Yeah, I mean, I think it was one of those things where, you know, we kind of both like, oh, you know, I'll be out there. John Whetland had had a tough time against Seattle that entire year. And even in the playoffs. And so that was one of those things. Mariano Rivera's first year wasn't who he was. He, you know, he has stuff yet, but he wasn't established yet. And I always laugh about that because the, you know, when you see the little meme about Mariano that more people have stuffed on the moon than he's allowed postseason runs. And I say, well, thank you for the two. I got, you know, striking Edgar out of his runners when I first got taken in there. But no one ever knows about that. Because apparently I only threw one pitch in that game to Edgar. That's the only one you ever see. That's the only one you ever see. You described that pitch after the game as a horrible split finger. And you said earlier in this interview, you were a guy who told it like it is. After that game, Jack, you said, there's really not any solace to be taken from this. There's only one team left standing. And that's all that matters. When you put the uniform on in spring training, that's what you play for. The rest is a waste. Talked to Don Mattingly the other day and he said, I was content that we got to the postseason, but there's pain that still exists from 1995. Do you feel the same way that even 25 years later, there's a regret? I mean, I didn't have the greatest of postseason records at all. And that was the most frustrating thing because that was the only thing I wanted to do was win a championship. Everyone asked me, what's your biggest accomplishment in sports? And I said, win a national championship in Stanford. Because it's the only time winning a championship is the only thing that you can do in sports where you've accomplished everything you can accomplish. I don't care how I won the scion. Super. OK, I got an award. Oh, that's great. Guess what? Lost 10 games, gave up 20 home runs this night. You can always do better as an individual. You can always have a better year. The first time that as a pitcher, the first hit you give up, you can add a better year. You're going to throw in 35 no hitters. So it makes no sense to be pushing for yourself. The only thing that you go, wow, we've accomplished everything we could possibly accomplish is a championship. And that's kind of been my motto in coaching too. I try to fire that down every once everyone's throat. It's all about championship, not about you. It's about winning as a team. Jack, they didn't offer you salary arbitration after the 95 season you end up going to the Indians. Were you surprised that they didn't offer you salary arbitration? It was a tough scenario because, well, I was free. That was free agency. So I was a free agent that time. I was my first free agency. And there was only two offers out there. It was me and Kevin Brown both had the same two offers, one from the Marlins and one from Cleveland. And it was like, who's going to go where? What's going to happen? Who's going to take those two offers? No, there's no collusion or anything going on, no. Just two offers. And who went to the World Series two years later? Those two teams. And I didn't know what to do. But I kind of panicked and said, I better take this while it's out there. The Yankees hadn't offered a specific offer yet. They also didn't know who the manager was going to be. Correct. So they had not hired the manager yet. So I was like, wow, they hired the wrong guy. And this scenario, this is going to be crazy. And so I bailed before all that happened. You go to the Indians. They win 99 games. But you just mentioned how the Yankees went to the World Series, end up winning it. Do you ever replay that in your head that if you had stayed in New York and they went on this little dynastic run after that? Oh, absolutely. All the time, all the time. And it was just one of those things. I had to make a decision. And with only two offers out there and being the top two free agents of that class, I knew, hey, you know what? It's going to be one of the other. And if I wait, someone else is going to get something. And I'm going to be sitting here going, OK, who wants me? You know, and after watching what happened the year before with all those guys, I'm going to go down to Florida to train because there were no offers. I just jumped on a solid offer at the time and took it. Jack, you were listed as 65180 and you pitched during the steroid era. When you reflect on those seasons, do you ever have any irritation that the playing field wasn't even? Well, I kind of all knew it was going on. And I tell people this all the time, I'm pretty truthful about the whole thing. Had it been put in my face, had someone said, hey, this is going to make you recover so much quicker. And this is going to make you, I may not make your stuff better, but you're going to be able to work harder. You're going to be able to do this. You'll recover quicker. I would have been like, OK, great, let's go. I wouldn't even have thought twice about it. You know, there wasn't anything about it. It wasn't like it didn't feel like you were cheating back then. It was just it was stuff guys were doing. So Jack, I have to tell you that in preparation for this interview, I was listening to Ape and the King from Stick Figure. That was your second band. Vue was your first band. How much of a role did music play in your life then? And does it still play in your life? No, I mean, I love music at the time I was a kid. I would sit there and I was a lyric guy. I like to sit there, listen to records, and write down the lyrics and put it back a little bit, write down the lyrics, so I'd get them all right. Because you didn't have your lyric sheets there. Nowadays, you can go with it all and find them. But back then, you had to listen to it and decipher what the words were. And I liked cool songs, songs that were written about guys who realized and things like that. That's what I really loved about it and became a huge music fan. Took guitar lessons when I was 11 and 12 and didn't do much with it until college. And I started again, I started up, basically I started up when the year that I signed, I signed in 1987 after my junior year and then went back to Stanford that fall to finish up. I had two years to go and I got back there and I'm like, okay, I'm done with my classes. What am I doing the rest of the day? There's no practice, there's no lifting, there's no, I'm like, I'll bring my guitar up here and we'll start messing around writing songs and that's what I did. I saw your performance in Milwaukee once. I think it was attached to an all-star game. I think that's why you were there with... Yeah, it was, it was the old all-star game where it was a tie, right? Yes, and I came away from that. R-E-M, that's who you sounded to me like at that point. I felt like you were a big R-E-M fan and that's what the music and the lyrics reminded me of. Yeah, definitely was a big fan of theirs and most people know that. The, yeah, and my guitar playing development over that time was a lot with the Peter Buck's guitar playing style, which is the arpeggio picking and that's what I learned a lot and that's what I kind of put a lot into the guitar playing that did all my records. So last question, I'm a huge Clash fan and when I was talking to David Cohn about you, he recollected that you and he went to a concert once and he was describing it for me and I said, wait a second, did you guys go see Big Audio Dynamite? Which of course, Yeah. Clash formed Big Audio Dynamite and Cohnie was saying, yeah, I'm not really sure. I'm like, Cohnie, this is big info. So did you guys go see Big Audio Dynamite together? Yeah, we went there early right around soundcheck to go meet him and then we knew, hey, we're in New York, we're kind of New York stars because we're baseball players. We'll be able to get in there and meet those dudes. Let's go. They let us in there to go meet him and talk to him and all that was a lot of fun. That's fantastic. They probably don't remember that, but we sure do. I would remember that. Jack, it's been a real pleasure to reconnect with you and take this trip down memory lane. I appreciate your honesty. I appreciate you giving some time and best of luck to you and your family as we work our way through everything. All right, back at you, man. Then tell Cohnie I said, hey.