Pro Athletes

• “Athletes have every quality and skill needed to succeed after their playing day’s end. They have an impeccable work ethic and extraordinary self-discipline, display great courage and judgment under extreme pressure, grasp a complex playbook in a relatively short period of time, and fully understand the importance of teamwork. They also benefit from the fact that many of the most passionate fans in sports are successful businessmen who enjoy being in their company. These middle-aged men, as crazy as it may seem, pay $1,000 for an autograph scribbled on a piece of cardboard. Tapping into that group, the players can establish invaluable contacts lasting decades.”  The Agent: My 40-Year Career Making Deals and Changing the Game (Steinberg, Leigh; Arkush, Michael) – page 88
• “During a scrimmage against the San Diego Chargers in August of 1987, Mike’s second year with the Cowboys, he fractured his tibia and fibula, the bone in his right leg breaking like a pencil through the skin. Danny White, the Dallas quarterback, was so affected by the gruesome sight he asked to be excused from the rest of practice. The doctors inserted a metal plate and eight screws into his leg, which occurred without any input from me. Mike was gone for the season. The following March, while jogging on a beach in California, Mike broke the tibia again in nearly the same spot. A few months earlier, the screws and plate had been removed, but it was too early; the bones were not hardened enough, leaving the leg more susceptible to a second break. Mike would sit out another year, and another after that. He never played for the Cowboys again.”  The Agent: My 40-Year Career Making Deals and Changing the Game (Steinberg, Leigh; Arkush, Michael) – page 195
• “In 1987, Curt Marsh, one of the cheeriest players I represented, retired after six seasons with the Raiders. It was a testament to his remarkable endurance and will that he lasted as long as he did. He underwent twelve operations, including four on his right ankle and right foot. The pain did not go away once he quit the game. It never does. In September of 1994, his right foot was amputated. I was devastated. Curt, I am relieved to say, was comforted by his strong faith in God and has lived a very productive life. What happened to Kenny was just as frightening. In the spring of 1988, as he was taking a routine physical in Phoenix after the Cardinals acquired him for quarterback Kelly Stouffer, doctors discovered a serious kidney ailment. The trade was called off, and Kenny, only twenty-nine, was forced to retire. When Kenny called to say he flunked the physical and had only about 7 percent function in his kidney, my immediate reaction was, how was it possible the Seattle doctors were not aware of his condition before? Kenny might have died if he hadn’t been traded. He went to dialysis three times a week and in 1990 received a kidney transplant. He later sued the Seahawks, claiming his kidneys were damaged by the ibuprofen the doctors recommended he take to cope with any discomfort after ankle surgery. Kenny ingested about thirty a day. Amazingly enough, a wide assortment of pills was kept in large, open containers in the Seattle locker room; players were free to scoop up whatever they wanted. With Neil Lomax, the problem was a bad hip, misdiagnosed by the Cardinals as a groin injury. Neil started to limp during the 1988 preseason, though he managed to throw that year for nearly 3,500 yards and 20 touchdowns. By the next preseason, the hip was much worse, and the Cardinals put him on the injured reserve list. Perhaps sitting out a whole season would allow the hip to heal. It did not. In 1990, Neil retired, and a year later, he received a new hip.”  The Agent: My 40-Year Career Making Deals and Changing the Game (Steinberg, Leigh; Arkush, Michael) – page 197 
• “Dr. Lovell designed a program for baseline testing that checked the cognitive skills in athletes prior to a season. If the athlete was concussed, a second test was given that determined how much damage had occurred. For the first time, there was an objective way for a trainer, doctor, or coach to judge whether a player was asymptomatic at rest, on an exercise bike, and at practice before being cleared to play. Players told me they intentionally answered questions incorrectly when they took the original test so that if they were to suffer a concussion, any similar responses the second time would not raise concerns about their mental state.”  The Agent: My 40-Year Career Making Deals and Changing the Game (Steinberg, Leigh; Arkush, Michael) – page 202
• “I once asked Steve Young how many concussions he had in his career. “You mean official ones?” he responded. “What’s an official one?” I asked. “That’s when you get knocked out and carried off the field. But I have many times every game where I get hit and am woozy for a while. I still knew what plays to call.” On a number of those occasions, Steve would keep his distance from the coach so he couldn’t be pulled from the game.”  The Agent: My 40-Year Career Making Deals and Changing the Game (Steinberg, Leigh; Arkush, Michael) – page 203
• “Also different in today’s NFL is the purpose of training camp. Years ago, offensive linemen arrived in camp with huge potbellies. Plenty of players smoked. They used camp to get in shape, although you would never know it by what they ate once they arrived, the most unhealthy food one could imagine. The training tables now list the grams of fat and carbs and the number of calories in every appetizer, main course, and dessert, and with the money, they could lose, few players risk reporting in poor condition. They rest for a week or two after the season ends and go back to their private gym or the team’s indoor facility. There is no off-season.”  The Agent: My 40-Year Career Making Deals and Changing the Game (Steinberg, Leigh; Arkush, Michael) – page 241
• “I realized steroids were a major problem long before many others in the sport did. I could tell by how enormous the players’ bodies became and their alarming mood swings between hyper aggression and depression. One of our clients, Oakland Raiders defensive lineman Mike Wise, became so distraught he killed himself in 1992, which was why I campaigned as forcefully as I could to ban steroids from the league forever.”  The Agent: My 40-Year Career Making Deals and Changing the Game (Steinberg, Leigh; Arkush, Michael) – page 280
•  “I was all-conference that year, and all-American the following two seasons. All of a sudden I was on a lot of scouts’ lists. I went off to college as an utter unknown; I left as a projected first-round pick. Not too shabby for a walk-on.”  Clearing the Bases (Schmidt, Mike; Waggoner, Glen) Kindle Location 155-157
• “Today’s kids feel tremendous pressure to develop as athletes and play on winning teams. Many will put years of tee-ball, Little League, high school, and college games under their belt, with parents yelling and screaming like life depended on whether you win or lose. Parents fight for positions for their kids on traveling teams and spend thousands of dollars on private coaching, equipment, tournament fees, and airfare. No one pretends it’s about fun for the better players; it’s about preparing them for the next level. Many parents of talented kids see their offspring’s athletic prowess as their own ticket to success. Look at those ballplayers on television making millions. Why not my son? He can play. If I can just get him to focus, to work harder, to spend more time on his drills. Sure, not all parents fall into this category, but today there is a definite tendency to push kids very hard, very early. Look, my parents took me to Little League games, they worked in the concession stand, and they sponsored teams. But they never saw me as a kid destined for stardom, much less their ticket to a life on Easy Street. They wanted me to grow up, go to college, be well-rounded, be what I wanted to be. They didn’t push me. Baseball for me was never a hyper-competitive, pressure-cooker deal as it so often is for so many kids today.”  Clearing the Bases (Schmidt, Mike; Waggoner, Glen) Kindle Location 309-318
• “It started in 1988. Something every veteran ballplayer eventually experiences. The beginning of the end. What used to be easy begins to become hard. Range in the field. Aggressiveness on the bases. And, most important, bat speed. They fade away, right before your eyes. Nagging injuries take longer to heal. The travel, the autographing, the day-to-day responsibilities you used to take for granted become burdensome. You start thinking the unthinkable: life without baseball.”  Clearing the Bases (Schmidt, Mike; Waggoner, Glen) Kindle Location 896-899
• “I started to feel like I was getting in the way. I wasn’t contributing, and although I knew manager Nick Leyva was in my corner, I also knew he had to be taking heat about keeping me in the four-hole. The focus of the team during that period was basically me—and my home run total. This was uncomfortable, and the loss only made the situation worse. I started looking for real signs, and I also prayed for direction, as this was a life decision that would affect a lot of people. My hitting slump continued. I went 2 for 21 on the road trip, which along with the loss was a sign in itself. Then, during the Sunday getaway game, came the epiphany. The Giants had men on first and second, and Robby Thompson hit a double-play ground ball right at me. It went through my legs and into left to load the bases. Another sign, this one that I was losing it defensively. It was almost like I didn’t want to be in the game like I was afraid of the ball. In my prime, I would have taken a broken nose rather than let that ball go through me. The final sign came on the next pitch, a Will Clark grand slam. As he rounded the bases and ran in front of me at third base, I made my decision: This was my last game. Just recalling it puts a lump in my throat. I dreaded the announcement, the press conference, the cameras in my face, the interviews, a media circus, all that would go with it, but at the same time, and most of all, I felt relief. It was time. The weight would be off my shoulders. I saw a Phillies team free to rebuild, to move on without me as the ball and chain.”  Clearing the Bases (Schmidt, Mike; Waggoner, Glen) Kindle Location 953-957
• “That made my last base hit that bunt single way back in L.A. My first hit in my first full year in the majors, 1973, was also a bunt single. Bookend bunt singles, sixteen years apart, with 548 homers stacked in the middle.”  Clearing the Bases (Schmidt, Mike; Waggoner, Glen) Kindle Location  970-972
• “I had scripted a small farewell speech for the press conference, one I now see was pretty pathetic. The opening line, “Twenty years ago I left Dayton, Ohio, with two bad knees…” Well, it just flat stunk. What I was trying to say was that when I departed from home twenty years ago, the odds of me standing before a national TV audience explaining why I couldn’t play another game—I was done at 2,404—were off the charts. I had no chance of doing what I did, but it happened.”  Clearing the Bases (Schmidt, Mike; Waggoner, Glen) Kindle Location  988-992
• “The remainder of the 1989 season was easy enough to handle. We traveled with the kids, enjoyed being normal, and didn’t miss baseball in any way, shape, or form. That might be a little strong. Sure, I tuned in to the games now and then to watch my old buddies, and I watched a few innings of the postseason. But to say I was a fan would be a stretch.”  Clearing the Bases (Schmidt, Mike; Waggoner, Glen) Kindle Location  1014-1016
• “I was at a luncheon celebrating the release of my Road to 500 videos, an event attended by representatives of the Philadelphia sports media. Following the speeches, Stan Hochman, a writer for the Philadelphia Daily News, cornered me, and we got into a general discussion about the Phillies organization, past, and present. I told Sam I thought the organization wasn’t as attentive to details as it once had been, and that certain things—the AstroTurf, the dugouts, the clubhouses—weren’t being maintained as immaculately as in the past. I told Stan that we actually had a family of stray cats roaming under the stands after hours and that the dugout runway to the clubhouse smelled like cat piss. Needless to say, I said this without thinking, as I should have, that he was taking it all down, and certainly without meaning to disrespect the people responsible for stadium maintenance. The next day, Stan’s Daily News article reported—accurately, I’m afraid—what I had said. That afternoon when I arrived at the clubhouse, I found a sweeper, disinfectant, and other household cleaning articles in my locker, plus a bouquet of flowers. The worst part, of course, was that I had unintentionally offended several close friends, especially clubhouse man Kenny Bush and stadium operations director Mike Demuzio. I should have been smart enough to know that (a) the stadium was managed by the City of Philadelphia, and (b) certain friends might be hurt by seeing my words in print. I drove another nail into my coffin when I was quoted in a Philadelphia publication following my retirement as saying, “The Phillies are my team.” I meant simply that I had given my life to the Phillies—which I had. To this day, I cannot understand how anybody could think otherwise. But some in the front office evidently did. (P.S.: The dugout runway did smell like cat piss.)”  Clearing the Bases (Schmidt, Mike; Waggoner, Glen) Kindle Location  1035-1049
• “But just as I thought baseball and I had parted ways, a really cool opportunity came along in 1992: I was asked to be a part of an ownership group pursuing the newly awarded expansion franchise in South Florida. This would mean going from a broken-down, somewhat bitter old ballplayer to part-owner of a brand-new big league ball club at the age of forty-two. It took me about ten seconds to say yes. For almost a year, I traveled back and forth from Philadelphia to South Florida, meeting and greeting politicians and community leaders, and helping develop our group’s formal presentation to Major League Baseball’s expansion committee. I visited Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami with our group to offer my opinion on the proposed baseball layout and tour the location of our future offices. It was exhilarating because it represented a whole new page in my life. I was getting a small ownership piece, and I was going to be GM of our new ball club. I was back, baby! No more worries about what I was going to do with the rest of my professional life. I’d use every ounce of energy, just like when I played, only this time to build a club from scratch. Heck, we’d go beat the Phillies! There was no downside. I already wanted to move to Florida in the worst way. Now I had a perfect reason. Bring on the coat and tie!”  Clearing the Bases (Schmidt, Mike; Waggoner, Glen) Kindle Location  1078-1088
• “For the better part of my twenty years of professional baseball, I was labeled as a player who “overthought” everything. I was called cocky…aloof…introspective…introverted…even, by some of the media guys, Mr. Cool. “If Schmitty would only stop thinking so much,” people close to the team often said, “he might actually enjoy the game.” There’s a lot of truth to that. My obsessive-compulsive-impulsive nature might have held me back: I really didn’t enjoy the game as much as most other players. I made too much out of all the issues that confronted me, from the o-fers to the smell in the dugout.”  Clearing the Bases (Schmidt, Mike; Waggoner, Glen) Kindle Location  1107-1112
• “Seems I always wanted to be something other than what I was. I think it’s called insecurity. If anyone should have been secure, I should have been. After all, I had a long, successful career that took me to the Hall of Fame. But I wasn’t what I projected on the outside—a cool, cocky guy who was in control, who accepted the spotlight, and who was happy to bear the responsibilities of stardom. Not so. Not nearly so. Inside the clubhouse, I was comfortable with leadership; on the field, I preferred blending in. I played a “quiet” game. Intense and super-competitive, but quiet. I played with blinders on, like a racehorse, without looking to the right or left. I tried to lead the league in everything and stay under the radar at the same time. That’s hard to do, but I knew it was the best fit for my personality, even though it isolated me from fans. I wish I could have had the whole package—like, say, Reggie Jackson. Reggie thrived on being the star attraction. He wasn’t afraid to bring attention to himself following a home run or play to the crowd during a game. He was hated in visiting parks; I was cheered in visiting parks. The only place I occasionally felt hated was in Philadelphia during a bad slump.”  Clearing the Bases (Schmidt, Mike; Waggoner, Glen) Kindle Location  1115-1124
• “Players are compared in order to establish their value. Player A hits 50 home runs per year and makes $15 million. Player B looks at Player A and wonders if Player A has an edge, something—maybe big, maybe little—that Player B doesn’t have, but might get. A certain bat, a special training drill, a particularly knowledgeable coach, a potent dietary supplement…or maybe a performance-enhancing drug? As long as society rewards people for winning, for being better than the competition, rather than on sweat and effort, much less on some intangible relating to the greater good of humanity, then competitors will look for every edge they can. And they’re all going to agree on one thing: The playing field had better damn well be level.”  Clearing the Bases (Schmidt, Mike; Waggoner, Glen) Kindle Location  1157-1162
• “Perhaps this is a good place to pose an obvious but easily overlooked question: Do steroids guarantee success? More specifically, can steroids turn a poor hitter into a great one? Absolutely not! There is no correlation between the ability to hit a baseball and the addition of forty pounds of lean muscle mass. If you can’t hit a curve at 180 pounds, you’re not going to be able to hit it at 220. A great hitter at 180 will still be a great hitter at 220, but no greater in terms of his ability to put his bat on the ball. What’s different is the increase in bat speed and leverage—and hence, in power—that accompanies the new muscle mass. And power is the ticket to the pot of gold. The home run is king.”  Clearing the Bases (Schmidt, Mike; Waggoner, Glen) Kindle Location  1353-1359
• “Okay, okay—I know it’s not the same thing. But I would be flabbergasted if any records set during the Steroid Era would ever be stricken from the record books or qualified in any way. Numbers don’t lie. People, yes, but not numbers.”  Clearing the Bases (Schmidt, Mike; Waggoner, Glen) Kindle Location  1385-1387