 Thank you Gary Cole is with us and you know people talk about when you join the Yankees you have that Yankee moment Guess what? You already had yours. You had it with the sign you had everybody with the sign That was an incredible moment and your dad kept that for years, right? Yeah I put it in my closet and then when I signed they came over for dinner and my mom my him and my mom came over for dinner to celebrate And he brought the sign with me so And I had it and I just knew I had to bring it to New York so Garrett a lot of the stuff you set up on the dais was impactful But I think one of the sentences that stood out for us was pressure is a privilege You know that in coming to New York that pressure is going to be amped up You're the highest-paid pitcher in major league history. How will you in embrace those expectations? Well, I feel like I've had expectations not these ones specifically but expectations that have been high for a long time You know going to college a lot of what you heard was you know, oh, maybe you should have signed whenever you played bad and Or people second guessing your decision and then I became the first overall pick And I had to deal with that kind of pressure in the minor leagues, you know with the social media these days I don't even know. I don't even know how some of these guys do it I mean it was like kind of just coming around when I was coming up. So And then Pittsburgh same thing After AJ left I was kind of the head guy and and you know, we we didn't play that well And so you try to learn from some of those things and then you get a wonderful opportunity to play with a couple side young award winners three Justin Zach and Dallas And pitch on a big stage here and pitch in some big moments in the postseason So I've kind of developed I guess a process of how I go about that And although this situation is obviously something I haven't experienced before I'm just going to lean on the things that I've learned previously and and You know try to adjust and and you know take a step left or take a step right wherever I need to along the way So take us through the thought process. There are two schools of thought you could easily say well He's a lifelong Yankee. He wanted to be a Yankee sign easy or you could stay home in Southern, California Angels Dodgers made offers. What were the tipping points and said I got to be with the Yankees well I think ultimately my heart You know, I talk about following my dream and You know, I guess someday I might have a family So what better way to tell your kids to chase after the things they love than to do it yourself and set an example in that way but also you know The bright lights of New York and the big city and you know being about as far away from home as I guess I could be Our challenges that that our family is going to be able to meet But at the same time from an organizational perspective There wasn't a box left unchecked And that's just the way Brian runs things and that's the way the Steinbrenner family has done it for decades And so there was really no concern that you would always be competitive always be surrounded by great talent great teammates And a really great family atmosphere from the inside out from the Yankees organization How Steinbrenner just said that he wanted you and Amy to know that they were committed to you and obviously going to nine years It shows that what has to happen across these next nine years for this to have been a successful and a productive marriage for both sides Well, I think I think we need to win. I think we need to win a world championship and and ideally more than one that's for sure You know the organizations that the organization does such a good job of putting us in a position to get to October by surrounding us with great players And you know, it's our job to just go out there and and perform to the best of our abilities and compete for our teammates and compete for our city And so we'll do that and the numbers will follow the numbers will fall But we'll be out there on the field competing our butts off And trying to bring I mean, let's try to get let's try to get 30 30 of them I guess right let's try to get over 30, you know You've been talked about as a sponge a guy who loves knowledge deep into the analytics biometrics all of that stuff How much do you think or do you think it's important for you to share that with your teammates? What you know? Yeah? I mean, I think I think the game is just you know, it's such that's a large sample size We play so many games. We have so many of bats. He throws so many pitches over the course of the season So it's hard not to ignore some of the statistics and some of the trends that show up The analytics did a really great job of kind of illustrating What my strengths were and a lot of the stuff that I had learned along the way Up until I was kind of open to the analytics We're actually kind of verified by the analytics, right? Obviously Some tweakage in in my repertoire and maybe some pitch selection on again what strengths to lean on But you know, I I truly feel that you can't really lose the art of the game I mean because you can play the game over and over and over again But essentially you're playing against human beings So when you get into a seven-game series and you got to face somebody twice, you know, I Mean so what if he's swung and missed at pitch X for the last six months, you know It's really important what he did, you know five games ago when you faced him And that's when the chess mass comes right? That's when reading body language And trying to perfect the art and staying within yourself and taking as much information as you can Trusting your teammates really really becomes important. So it's a balance So there are a few times maybe when the data says go with the slider and you know in your head I got to throw up. Did you say I'm feeling a force in fast you got to trust your gut I mean your catcher's right there looking at the body language. You're right there Knowing what you're executing You know where where you're most likely to miss in those situations how Those situations match up with the strength of the hitter. So there's a lot of different variables There's also just kind of your gut, you know, you play this game Long enough kind of like you guys broadcast long enough. You have a you have a good gut You know what questions to ask and and you know, sometimes I just know what pitches this row So you got to trust those things and also just trust that your teammates are there, right? You got to go for it. If the guy puts a good swing on it. Thank God you got a good defense behind you You knew the Yankees were going to make a lucrative offer and they did an offer that you ended up accepting But they had a secret weapon with them out on the west coast They brought Andy petted out there with them to be part of the conversation. How impactful was that? I imagine you might have felt like an 11 year old again. I did it initially at first for sure I mean Yeah, I think he's certainly one of my favorite Yankees probably the city one of the city's favorite Yankees And he tends to win if not, he tends to win in October I know the meeting was in November, but we can you know when when Andy when Andy pitches anything Whether it be to come to the Yankees or a game in the postseason He usually gets the W and he did again this time two quick questions We'll let you go Jersey wise when you were 11 whose Jersey were you wearing at that all at that world series? I was wearing Derek cheaters Jersey Yeah, okay, and then 45 you got that for loop void big negotiation because he seemed willing to give it away He was he was not willing to give it away but Yeah, we spoke on the phone. We had a really nice conversation and and You know, I'll let I haven't spoken to Luke to know if he wants to you know really reveal exactly what happened So, you know, but we exchanged maybe a gift or something and he was very kind to to give me the Jersey So I'm really thankful for that. Yeah, it's so good to meet you. Congratulations. Thank you very much for having me All right, let's get it over to Michael and Meredith standing