You Can't Fight the Devil in the Dark - Kevin Malone, Joby Martin & Denny Thompson

Denny Thompson (0:00)

Built 4 More podcast, Denny Thompson, Pastor Joby Martin. We got us a baseball guy in here, like baseball guy. Yeah, man. Not spend a couple years pitching, but like fabric of baseball guy. Kevin Malone, how are you doing?

Kevin Malone (0:13)

Good, good, Denny. Thanks for having me.

Denny Thompson (0:14)

Good. Thank you so much for coming, by the way.

Joby Martin (0:16)

It's a pleasure, honor to be here.

Denny Thompson (0:18)

Yeah.

Man, your story, I honestly, truly, I've got a whole map out of a run of show and all that kind of stuff, but I don't even really know where to start with your story. So let's start at the highest level. You were general manager, and can you pull that mic a little bit closer there. You were general manager for two baseball teams, correct?

Kevin Malone (0:46)

Yes, an assistant for the third, which was the Orioles. But in that situation, it was with Hall of Famer Pat Gillick, he was the GM, was put in the Hall of Fame a few years ago. But it was like we were code GMs, and he said to me one time, Kevin, you can make any trade you want, just let me know before you announce it. That's the kind of guy that he was. So I've been blessed to really be a part of running three major league teams.

Joby Martin (1:10)

What years were you in Baltimore?

Kevin Malone (1:12)

95, 6, excuse me, yes.

I have to think for a minute. 94, 95, 96, 97, and I left near the end of 98

Joby Martin (1:24)

I got a good Oriole story real quick. Go for it. I'm a freshman in college. My brother is a freshman in high school.

I went to VCU in Richmond. They live down in Chester, it's like 20 minutes away. My dad was going out of town for like a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, which never happened one time in my whole life. And he's like, hey, I need you to come home and watch your brother make sure he goes to school because he wasn't good at doing that kind of thing. I was like, yeah, no problem.

It's the year that Camden Yards is opening. And one of my fraternity brothers is like, bro, I've got tickets behind home plate, like eight rows up, seven rows up, something like that. Can you come? And I'm like, yes, if I can bring my little brother. Like, no problem. So there's no chance I can run this by my dad. It just ain't going to. I told him, so we were like, dude, there's no internet. I don't know if it existed yet. It's like, and so he skipped school. We go up to Baltimore. We stay in the sketchiest place I can imagine, Fraternity Brothers. We go to the game. It's a night game and they win. It was awesome. It's like opening year of the Camden Yards. I dropped my brother Russ off. We think we're scot-free.

Daddy walks up to Russ on Sunday night and he's like, how was that baseball game?

Kevin Malone (2:43)

By chance, he saw you on TV.

Joby Martin (2:45)

Sports center, bro. They had given out these little coolers and we had them on our heads like at the seventh inning stretch and we were like one of the cutaway shots.

Denny Thompson (2:55)

What year was it that Ripken set the record for most consecutive games played? Because that was close to then.

Joby Martin (3:02)

Yeah, Ripken was playing then. Yeah. Because I remember the count was still on the wall over right field. Yeah.

Denny Thompson (3:10)

Yeah. But when we talk about being a GM, like he was the GM for Montreal Expos during the best record in baseball and then the strike hit.

Kevin Malone (3:19)

That's what this ring is from. It says best record in National League. We didn't get a championship ring, so we got this to make up for it, which is cool.

Denny Thompson (3:29)

Yeah. It wasn't like the season just started. You all were what, 120, 130 games in?

Kevin Malone (3:34)

74 and 40 Yeah. Six games up above the Braves, pulling away, I might say. And we were planning on playing the Yankees in the World Series, but unfortunately, we had a strike and the season never started again. And probably one of the best teams in baseball that not many people knew about.

Six All-Stars that year. There's, I think, four Hall of Famers off that team already. Marquise Grissom, who was sent to Atlanta. He and I were very close, from Atlanta. And he won a World Series the next year with the Braves.