ゲイリー・シェフィールドがいかにして野球界で最も恐れられる打者の一人となったか
The art of hitting. Yeah. You still feel like you can hit a fast ball today? 100 miles an hour? No. No. No. Okay. No. I’m going be honest with you. No. See Barry I Barry said it’s like ride the bike. Barry ain’t going to hit nothing. Barry 60 something years old. He ain’t going to hit nothing. That’s my dog. He called me on the way over here. I thought Yeah. He talked highly of you guys. I appreciate it. No, he ain’t going to hit nothing. No. Yeah. Can you break down? He I mean he gave us a unique breakdown of when he steps in the box what he’s looking for. Can you give when you’re in the box? Well, there’s a technique that I I came up with, you know, with Tony Gwyn and kind of like developing something bigger for me. And it’s the uh basically if I if I focus on your head, I don’t I don’t worry about your decept deceptive um pitching style. So, if I keep my head focused on that tunnel and I draw a straight line to home plate, that’s my tunnel vision. and I put you in that box and I that’s and so I can easily define if the ball is in or away because I’m looking right down the middle but my direction of hitting is right center. So all my alignments in place now with the different arm angles and I focus on your forehead now that strike zone smaller for me and then that’s what I used to hit down the tunnel. Damn, that’s great. the art of and what happens in that as well. 98 becomes 93. Really slows down that way. 100 becomes 95. Slows down for you. Yeah, it slows down. Yeah. Uh, smartest pitcher you ever faced? Greg Maddox. Yeah, that’s without a question. He’s a genius. And because the thing is Greg used to play these games with you like he tried to speed you up to slow you down to speed you up. No. See, when you understand hitting, you never let somebody slow you down. You stay sped up so you’re not late. Okay. Now, I’m I’mma let certain balls get deeper, but everything else, but lower half is the same. So, Greg Mattis like to throw a a back door like Pedro Martinez. They like to throw that back door sinker to get you leaking out over the plate so they can bust you inside. I never took the bait on that. I was like one of those guys where I’m not even worried about inside. I dare you to come in here. You see, I want to react to what you’re doing inside here opposed to me anticipating that cuz if I anticipate in I’m going to like I told you, I’m too quick to and I’ve hit balls foul. I don’t even know how I do that. You know what I mean? Like 500 foot foul balls. Yeah. When I when I hit it, I’m like and then I look where it go over the dugout and out the stadium. I’m like I don’t even know how I did that. So that’s why I had to always let the ball back up and get deep on me because I have to trust my hands and everything works and operate after that. In 1992, that’s when they traded me. And I remember like yesterday when Bud Celic um called me in the office, uh we just finished working out and I come in and he says, “Um, first thing he says to me, uh, we traded you to the San Diego Padres’s. I ain’t even really care to hit nothing else. I got what I wanted.” And then he said, “Um, you know, whatever you need. You got anything to say?” “No, I ain’t I don’t have anything to say. I’m going to show you with this bat.” Right. And so now, and I come to find out later, Tony Gwyn’s wife, Felicia, she was saying how excited Tony Gwyn was. Oh, really? Yes. That’s big. And when Tony Gwyn is excited, Oh, man. That’s my biggest flex in baseball of all time, winning a batting championship on the same team as Tony Gwyn. M talk to us about I mean that’s that’s really when you broke out. That’s when you kind of came into your own. You’re able to win the batting title. Second in MVP voting behind Barry Bonds. Fred McGriff. Oh, third. Third. Who was Who was second? Terry Pendleton. Terry Pton. They called me. Was he in Atlanta at the time? Atlanta. Okay. They called me though and said I won. So I flew to California to win. Yes. They told you you won. Yes. And you ended up finishing third. Third. Talk to me about that. How how did that happen? You’re talking about turning bitter after that. I was like I used to hear all the time about errors and making errors. I had made 14 errors that year. Okay. And I won the batting title. Okay. I lost the home run title. I still hit a home run that last game, but Fred hit two. Okay. And then Darren Dalton drove in six runs. I drove in three. That’s how I lost the the uh triple crown. Wow. The last game of the season. The last game. So I knew I won, but we came in third place. Okay. So they tell me that I won the award. So me and my dad, we fly down and we’re sitting in the lobby just waiting to walk in and give the speech. Next thing you know, they say, “Oh, been a change.” I see Barry Barnes and his dad walk by. And I said, “Well, what what happened?” They said, “Well, they probably gave it to him because he had more stolen bases.” So they told you MVP, you go there. Yeah. And then the happened. happened. And when that happened, I tell you, I kind of lost respect for the award. Yeah, I did. Because it’s I know Barry Bonds, you got to you know, like that’s like having a Michael Jordan. You got to you got to slay the giant. Hell yeah. Now, yeah, he’s putting up phenomenal numbers. But he didn’t put up the numbers I put up. Damn with the B championship. But here’s the here’s the craziest thing about that year. I want you to look up how many times that me and Tony Gwyn came to the plate. And I’ll tell you off the top of my head, almost 1,200 times. Guess how many times we struck out. That’s what you need to find out. Tony Gwyn struck out 17 times. I struck out 35 times. That’s it. Combined teammates with,200 played appearances. That’ll never be done ever again. And nobody talks about it. Talk to me about yeah his greatness and and what he meant to you. I mean again one of the greatest hitters. I mean to me it was like when Kobe called me and recruited me to the Lakers. Like you get the guy wanting you on the team similar to you with Tony Gwyn. What did that mean to you? And what did what kind of relationship did you guys have? Freedom. I had freedom because the first day I got there, grab me by my shirt. Come with me. How much older is is is he Tony is probably six years. Okay. Six years. Yeah. Six, seven years. called me. Let’s go. I went in the cage. We started talking. He said, ‘What’s your philosophy in hitting? Say, see ball, hit ball. He said, that’s what I like to hit. Nobody’s in here overthinking the game. Se ball, hit ball. Attack fast ball. So now he was showing me a drill that he put the he was on the left side on his right hip and he was showing me how he can get to that ball right off his right hip and then he put it on my hip. I couldn’t do it really. I couldn’t do it. But you have earlier in your that was your you were too fast through the throw earlier. Yes. Okay. And so I was going around it. He was going through it. And then he was showing me the technique to that. He said, “Every time you hitting off the tea, I want you to visualize the the pitcher’s forehead and draw it right down the line to the tea.” And when I started doing that, my visual tightened up, got tightened. Now you can’t fool me. So now I’m starting to pick up these little traits and these little nuggets he giving me. And I like I could just go out there and just flat hit without even thinking about it. But once I start understanding the art of it, what I was doing, like he was showing me the art to it, the mastery to it, the dedication to it, like yeah, you just hit two home runs yesterday, but we back to work again today. What’s his what what is his work ethic like? He’s probably there before anybody shows up to the park. He shows up at 1:30, 2:00 every single day for a 7:00 game. Damn. and just get his preparations all set. He got the field to himself. He’ll go and work in the cage first and then he got the field to himself. And I just watched this man every day and I said, I want to be that dedicated to the the my art. And when I started working with him, the dedication started coming to me. Now I start getting more greedier, more hungry. I didn’t I didn’t gravitate to lazy people. I didn’t gravitate to guys take shortcuts. I don’t want nothing to do with them. We had nothing coming. And now I’m on a different level on So he’s mentally unlocking a whole another side of you. Another side of me that I didn’t know about. And I’m telling you, every day I watch this man hit. It inspired me to be great. And it did. And that’s my biggest flex. That’s amazing. You know, batting championship with Tony Gwyn on as your teammate on your team. Rest in peace to the great Tony. Rest in peace.
FULL EP: https://youtu.be/_nrg1vbXytM
Gary Sheffield takes us inside the mind of one of baseball’s most feared hitters. He breaks down his approach at the plate and shares the game-changing lessons he learned from Tony Gwynn.
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