Sharing Thoughts on Baseball with a Professional

For a budding baseball writer, I had the unique privilege of spending some time talking with a baseball expert, Mr. Gary Green, Chairman, and CEO of the publication Baseball America. Not only was I able to pose questions about baseball but from time to time I managed to express my opinion and share thoughts about America’s pastime with Mr. Green. The wonderful interview took place in his Manhattan home on September 30 of this year.

Gary Green of Baseball America answers Yulian’s questions about baseball.

Yulian: What do you do on a day to day basis as the CEO and the Publisher of Baseball America?

Mr. Green: I'm not the publisher; B.J. Schecter is the publisher and the editor. He was the editor at Sports Illustrated, so he’s much more equipped than I am to do that. I oversee business operations and make strategic decisions but when it comes to decisions on editorial, I leave it to them.

I tried, but I couldn’t recommend stories because I have a personal baseball opinion and agenda so I feel it’s better to create a wall between me and the editorial, otherwise it would be all Mets and Royals. 

Yulian: I think the 2015 World Series must’ve been really bad for you.

Mr. Green: I wish they would have made it in different years, it was torture. It was torture because I’m friends with the Mets and I’m friends with the Royals.

Yulian: Why is it that in your magazine you mostly focus on the younger aspect of baseball like prospects and college?

Mr. Green: There’s a lot of coverage of MLB, everybody writes about MLB. There’s not a lot of coverage about the minor leagues and high school. That’s our niche. 

Yulian: What sports do you follow and what are your teams?

Mr. Green: I love the Giants, the Rays, the Royals and, obviously, the Mets, and the teams that we’re affiliated with.

Yulian: The Rays have the lowest payroll in baseball, it’s like Moneyball. 

Mr. Green: We can talk about that. And the Giants. And the Knicks. I don’t care for the owner. I think he’s one of the worst owners in sports and made no moves. I think that the team wasn’t able to get any players because of the way James Dolan handled Charles Oakley, I think there’s some racism there. I refuse to go to a game and put $1 in Dolan’s pocket because he’s such a bad person to the fans. He’s in recovery, he’s a recovered alcoholic. My experience is that when you have people that are in recovery, they’re very humble. The people that have been down and out in their lives, when they come back up, they’re good people. He’s the rare occurrence of a horrible person who, obviously, was down and out, but he’s just so entitled and, and he’s a spoiled brat. And then as far as hockey, I used to love the Islanders in high school. I don’t really follow hockey anymore.

Yulian: What are some of the jaw-dropping perks that you receive in your position?

Mr. Green: I like that, “jaw-dropping.” My favorite players growing up were George Brett and Darryl Strawberry. I see Darryl a lot, probably, every month or two. He checks in on me every couple of weeks. Being able to be close friends with him and pick up the phone whenever I want to call him is kind of cool. And George Brett, I’m not as close with, but whenever I see him, he always gives me a big hug and knows who I am. A couple of years ago, we had Royals cocktail party and Darryl came with me and George was there and it was just really cool to hang out with both of them at the same time. I also was being able to meet with Warren Buffett half a dozen times. People pay $3 million for that meeting and I had it for free about half a dozen times. That was cool, probably it was my most awesome moment, my couple awesome moments. I'll give you my top three: one was when we dedicated a statue to Bob Gibson in front of our ballpark, because he’s from Omaha and I was able to speak and share the podium with Gibson, Joe Torre, Warren Buffett, Bud Selig, the governor of Nebraska and Tim McCarver, so that was cool. The other great moments are we won the National Championship two years in a row and to watch, like you do, the players pouring champagne on their heads. But to be able to do that three or four times with a different playoff series and then the championship – I never thought I’d be able to do that. So those are the great moments.

Yulian: What baseball team do you think is going to come out on top this year?

Mr. GREEN: I think Houston.

Yulian: Yeah, they’ll crush Yankees in the championship series.

Mr. GREEN: I don’t like the Yankees. I hope the Twins beat them.

Yulian: Where did your love for baseball come from?
Mr. GREEN: My dad was always a Little League manager for me and my brothers. I remember him throwing groundballs to us all the time in the backyard. My dad was a Brooklyn Dodger fan. When the Dodgers left Brooklyn, Dodger fans and Giant fans became Mets fans.

A Mets player, Tug McGraw, was our neighbor, so we went to the Mets games with Tug’s family and I was waiting outside of the locker room to get autographs. I think Tug McGraw and my dad are two of the main reasons why I love baseball.

Yulian: Tell me, please, about your Little League seasons and other baseball playing.

Mr. GREEN: I played Little League every year. I think I started when I was seven. Also, I played Hardball Tournament into my forties. I went to a Mets fantasy camp and to a Reds-Red Sox 75-year-old World Series fantasy camp. That was so cool to hang out with guys like Pat Zachry, John Stearns, Duffy Dyer and Doc Gooden.

Yulian: Do you think that the statistics are taking over the baseball world?
Mr. GREEN: From a fan’s standpoint, I think it’s too much. I don’t like it at the game when they show me the miles per hour off the bat of a groundball. If you want to show the miles per hour off the bat of a home run, that’s one thing. But I don’t need to see it on every pitch. I do like seeing the WAR rating that they put up at Citi Field. I think that’s cool. Watching StatCast at home is different. I don’t mind all the numbers, but watching it at the game, too many numbers, it’s just too much.

And as far as the stats that have taken over the game, I feel that you have to have numbers of people, there are certain GMs that are more instinct focused. I think Brodie Van Wagenen brought the analytic department to the Mets and they had the smallest analytics department in baseball.

Yulian: Brodie brought in 36-year-old Robinson Cano and he was suspended for half the year last season and they brought him in. He played average all this year.
Mr. GREEN: He got hurt. I think he should have taken a year to assess their minor league system. He should’ve known that this kid Kelenic was going to be the number 14 prospect in baseball.

Yulian: They kept him because they need a center fielder. I think they were like this offseason and they should bring in Lorenzo Cain then finish his career with the Mets and then they should’ve brought up Jarred Kelenic.

Mr. GREEN: Is he a free agent this year?

Yulian: No, I think they could’ve worked out a trade.

Mr. GREEN: Well, the Brewers are doing well. They should’ve have taken a year. I think that under Sandy Alderson they had the smallest analytics department in baseball. He did bring in Yoenis Cespedes, but you can’t act on hunches anymore. There are certain GMs that have been successful in the past that are going to be losing their jobs over the next couple of years. They don’t have the numbers people, they’ve worked on instinct, and they’ve done very well with it. But the game has changed now.

Yulian: If you created a baseball team, who are the first five players you would take? Reasonably speaking, not like Max Scherzer and Mike Trout. What would be the first five players?
Mr. GREEN: Well, you mean the current players? I'd say Trout, Alonso, of course. deGrom. I know Mookie Betts didn’t have a good year this year, but I’d still put him in there, he’s number 4. What would be your number 5?

Yulian: deGrom, Trout, Baez, Alonso.

Mr. GREEN: Not Betts?

Yulian: I want to see who else I can get. Oh, Yelich. We forgot about Yelich. Include him too.
Mr. GREEN: How about Bellinger?

Yulian: I like Yelich more because he has more speed and a better arm. I really would’ve wanted to see a 50-30 season. Do you think team chemistry is important for a team to have and why?
Mr. GREEN: That is the best question you’ve asked so far. Yes and no. I feel that when a player gets up to bat and he’s facing somebody who’s throwing 90 to a 100, I don’t think that he’s thinking about liking the guys on the bench or not. He’s trying to hit a ball. In the field, the chemistry works really well and I think it matters. And, if you can create an environment where people are having fun and they are happy, I feel like hitters will go up to bat in a better, positive frame of mind, so you have a team like the Mets who I’m sure when they were losing, the chemistry wasn’t great. And when they started winning again, chemistry became great.

I played in a Hardball Tournament in Cooperstown. We started out the tournament 0-4. Nobody liked anybody. It was brutal. And then we won the next six games and we won the championship and the chemistry changed – overnight. So I think it’s hard to find great chemistry in a losing team but a winning team doesn’t always have great chemistry, but it certainly increases for sure.

Yulian: Winning increases team chemistry. I love Alonso. He’s a rookie and I love and how he created LFGM and he’s just such a leader.
Mr. GREEN: Yes, he is and the way he handles it is right.

Yulian: What makes a good player in your mind?

Mr. GREEN: Athleticism. When they’re athletic, and if they train themselves properly, they get hurt less as opposed to a guy like Prince Fielder who got hurt. He was too big. When you carry too much weight on your structure, more than you’re supposed to, I think your body breaks down like Mark McGwire.

Yulian: I think hustle. As a coach, you love to see hustle in a player.

Mr. GREEN: That’s a great answer.

Yulian: Do you think Pete Alonso is a flash in the pan or will he do the same thing?
Mr. GREEN: I think it’s unreasonable to expect him to hit 53 home runs every year. I spoke about this with Darryl the other day. If he could hit 35, 40 or something like that every year and put up 120, 110 RBIs, I think that’s more realistic. But then again with these new baseballs rules that have changed the seams, the seams are lower. It’s more aerodynamic. The numbers that we’re used to spitting out like I just did, maybe those numbers are thing in the past. Maybe the expectations should be 45 to 50 home runs because of the ball. We saw in Minor League Baseball, they made us switch to the major league ball this year. Homers are up 60%. I feel that more home runs add more excitement to the game. MLB owns Rawlings. Major league baseball’s probably behind the better ball, the more aerodynamic balls.

Yulian: I would rather go to a game where it’s 11-10 rather than 1-0 or 2-1.

Mr. GREEN: I think most fans do.

Yulian:  What are your hopes and dreams for baseball?

Mr. GREEN: That the game perpetuates and evolves so that the younger generation can carry the torch. What MLB is attempted to do in MILB in current negotiations can potentially strip affiliated baseball from 40 cities in the U.S. MLB can’t say they want young people to grow the game while doing something like this.

Yulian:  I am sure I will have more questions for you in the future as baseball is living thing. May I contact you again for another interview?

Mr. GREEN: Of course!

Yulian: Thank you for your time and a great interview.

Mr. GREEN: It was my pleasure!