Hour 2: Buck Showalter

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
So you're saying with Hilton Honors, I can use points for a free night stay anywhere?

**SPEAKER_2** (0:04)
Anywhere.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:06)
What about fancy places like the Canopy in Paris? Yeah, Hilton Honors, baby. Or relaxing sanctuaries like the Conrad and Tulum?

**SPEAKER_3** (0:13)
Hilton Honors, baby.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:15)
What about the five-star Waldorf Astoria in the Maldives? Are you going to do this for all 9,000 properties?

**SPEAKER_4** (0:22)
When you want points that can take you anywhere, anytime, it matters where you stay. Hilton for the stay.

**SPEAKER_5** (0:29)
This is the Michael Kay Show podcast.

**Michael Kay** (0:32)
I got to get more Kay.

**SPEAKER_5** (0:33)
Listen live weekdays at 1 on the Espn New York app and your smart speaker.

**Michael Kay** (0:39)
Welcome back to The Michael Kay Show.
Every Monday through Friday from 1 to 3 here on Espn New York. We thank you so much for listening and watching on Espn's YouTube channel here in New York. Well, our next guest is one of my favorite people in sports. I learned more baseball from him in the years he managed the Yankees, and I've learned in any part of my life. It was like having a class at MIT about baseball, and I will be forever grateful to Buck Showalter for that education, and he's going to educate me more now as he comes on the show. Buck, how are you doing, my friend?

**Buck Showalter** (1:13)
Michael, how are you doing? I'm to blame.
You were an independent thinker, though. You didn't march through the drama that everybody thought you were. But I got to, you know, how do you find time to do everything you do? What are your sleep habits like?

**Michael Kay** (1:29)
I try to get eight hours a night.

**Buck Showalter** (1:32)
You've got a saint for a wife, then.

**Michael Kay** (1:35)
Yes, I do. So do you.

**Buck Showalter** (1:36)
And you got, I know, 43 years. Go ahead, young man.

**Michael Kay** (1:41)
All right. So we've been talking about this a lot. And you know, Buck, that I have a vindictive side. So if any job ever let me go, I'd want that job to fail. I just would.
Tom Thibodeau was fired. And now his team the next year wins a championship with Mike Brown. Now you weren't fired in 95 They wanted to get rid of your coaches, but you were not there when they won in 96
Tom Thibodeau has not said a word to anybody. So I'm asking you, you're the closest one that could even approximate what he's feeling. What did you feel like in 96, when the Yankees won and you weren't there and you helped build the program that win, that won?

**Buck Showalter** (2:19)
Well, I felt a lot of pride. My life is too short and I was able to grasp it at a young age. I lost my naivety in Arizona. I still had it when I left the Yankees.
But I remember being on the set. I was doing something for Espn when the Diamondbacks won Game 7 I remember walking back to the hotel in Phoenix and the city was, there were people on the streets and everything, nothing like New York and the Knicks. But I remember how quickly it moves on from you. And you live in a world, if you don't know the lately world, and you got to keep that in mind as a manager and a coach. And let's face it, the shelf life of coaches and managers, it's just not very long anymore. Guys like John Harbaugh.
And it also, I felt so good for Joe Tory because people got to see how good he was at managing a good hand. And he was a perfect guy for that situation. So, I tried not to have, I can't speak for my wife and kids, but I know for me, I felt a lot of good vibes for the people that were there that I knew, the Bernie Williams, all those guys that were, Paul O'Neill and Posada, all those kids, Jeter, that were a part of things to anti-ped it. And I felt good for them. And I tried to dwell on that emotion. And it was, also I had my hands were full out in Arizona, I couldn't dwell on anything very long, I can tell you that.

**Michael Kay** (3:50)
Now we had Mark Jackson on the show a week ago, and he kind of fell into the same thing. He got let go of Golden State and he watches Steve Kerr make them a dynasty. And he said he was, as you just said, he was happy for individual people, but he was not happy that they won without him because he was jealous. Was there any envy on your part that you were not on that float and you were not in the Canyon of Heroes?