Production and distribution of city club forums and ideastream.

Public media are made possible by PNC and the United Black Fond of Greater Cleveland, Inc.. Good afternoon and welcome to the packed City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to creating conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

It's Tuesday, January 28th.

I'm Leta Obertacz, senior Vice president for philanthropy at the Cleveland Foundation and proud board member of the City Club.

Today, I have the distinct honor of introducing today's forum, which is the annual Richard W and Patricia r POGUE Endowed Forum.

For those of you who don't know Dick Polk, aside from being one of the region's most influential, influential and impactful leaders for decades, he is also one of Cleveland's biggest sports fans.

And today we have the privilege of welcoming the 45th manager of the Cleveland Guardians, Stephen Vogt.

Vogt joined the club in November 2023, just two years after finishing his major league career and stepping into the seemingly unsellable shoes of Terry Francona.

Vogt also inherited the youngest roster in MLB and saw the loss of star pitcher Shane Bieber in the first week of the season due to an elbow injury.

By all accounts, the odds were stacked against him in his inaugural year.

But what came next ended up being one of the Guardian's best seasons in history, backed by the best bullpen in the majors and an American League Central Division title for Cleveland.

But that wasn't enough.

In November 2020 for Vote was named the 2024 American League Manager of the Year, the fifth youngest member manager to win the award after receiving a resounding 27 of the 31st place votes.

He is the fastest person to go from player to manager of the year in the awards history.

His success is credited to many things, but in particular, Vogt brings a new style of leadership and organizational culture that centers on humility, humor and even passing.

The ox scored.

That's what you plug in to play the music.

Also joining us on stage this afternoon is Matt Underwood, the play by play announcer for the Cleveland Guardians.

He will serve as today's moderator for today's conversation.

If you have a question for Steven, you can text it to 3305415794.

That's 3305415794.

And the City Club staff will try to work it into the Q&A portion of the program.

Members and friends of the City Club of Cleveland please join me in welcoming our American League Manager of the Year, Steven Vogt, and Matt Underwood.

Thank you.

Such a warm welcome.

Appreciate everybody for coming out on a cold, snowy day.

Steve and I are both very excited to be here because, one, we know that even though it's hard to tell by looking out those windows.

Spring is right around the corner, at least for us.

One month from today.

Gosh, it's even faster than that will be only a week's worth and the games already by now in one month.

So the clock is definitely ticking.

I want to get started with talking about, you know, your first year managing, but let's go backwards a little bit.

All those years you spent as a catcher, we know that catchers, maybe more than any other position, graduate to managing in the game of baseball.

You have a unique position, unique perspective because you're the only guy on the field that's watching the entire game all the time, whether you knew it or not.

Were you a manager in training automatically just because you're playing the position of catcher?

Yeah, I think, first of all, thank you for having us.

This is an awesome event and really honored to be here able to speak with you also.

I think as a catcher, you go through every game.

Not only are you doing everything you can to help the pitchers get through it, but you still have to hit.

You still have to talk to your teammates and be a leader and do all these different things.

And your game prep is very advanced.

Maybe compared to an outfielder and infielder.

Not that they're not game prepping, I promise they're working.

But as a catcher, you're making 175 to 200 in-game decisions and you're doing it quickly.

And one of those might win or lose the game and you don't know which one it's going to be.

And so I think all of that preparation and knowing pitchers a little bit better because you've worked with them and then you also know the mind of a position player.

It just really helps you relate to every player, no matter what position they play, no matter who they are.

And you're close with the coaching staff and manager because you're always communicating about what we're trying to do on the pitching side.

So it allows you to develop those relationships and get those experiences.

And from a very young age, 24, 25, I knew I wanted to be a head coach, maybe in college or at least coach professional baseball and then over the years of my playing career, I really wanted to do this job and I'm really fortunate to be doing it.

And what a first year he had manager of the year, as we know.

You know, when you talk about being in that position of of leading a team and leading men.

Where does that start in terms of Well, let's back up a second.

So you take the job.

And I think everybody in this room, in our professional or even in our personal lives, we've dealt with change a lot of us are not really easy with change.

I know personally I'm averse to change.

It really kind of throws a monkey wrench into the machine for me, so I don't deal with it as well as I would like.

You come into a situation as a new manager.

If this team had come off a couple of hundred loss seasons, they would be begging for change.

This isn't working.

We need.

We need change.

We need you to tell us how to do this.

You come into a situation where the team that had had a lot of success in recent years.

So how did you manage that delicate balance between implementing your ideas on how you wanted to manage without upsetting the routines and processes that had made some of these players already successful?

Yeah, I think it's obviously it's a daunting task to take over an unbelievable franchise with so much success, let alone for a Hall of Fame manager and as you're going and Tito was so great to me in the transition, he I spoke with him a number of times, asking him questions and and he was really, really good for me.

And I have so much respect for him.

And so taking over for him, you know, and you hear the question, I'm pretty tired of hearing it.

How are you going to fill those shoes?

And I'm like, I can't I'm never going to fill the shoes, but I'm going to do my best.

And I think for me, getting rid of that and then let's focus on how can I learn as much as possible about the Cleveland Guardians organization?

How do I learn how they do this, how they do that, What has worked in the past, what hasn't?

Where can we make these minor little improvements on what is already a great place and has had a ton of success?

And then in finding all of that and working with all of the resources and the unbelievable people that work for the Cleveland Guardians, that was what resulted is it's about the people.

So whether the product you see out on the field, as you see the baseball, you see the guys playing, you see the coaches coaching, you see me making a bad decision or a good decision or whatever it might be.

What's not seen is the hours and hours and hours we spend pouring into our people, not just the players, but the front office, the trainers, the coaching staff, the support staff, our research and develop.

I mean, the hundreds of people that it takes to put that show on every night and what I what happened there is when you come into a new situation, change is hard as Matt alluded to, changes in easy for everybody and one of the phrases that I've found in my long career that really, really is detrimental to anybody's success is, well, it's the way we've always done it and where can we get better?

And I think that's what makes our place so great, is that everyone's on that same page as let's find out what are we doing really well and how can we keep enhancing it and moving the needle forward.

And for me, coming in and seeing things that maybe I didn't particularly like a whole lot, it was really hard to not just say, Oh, we need to do this, but I had so much respect for what people have done in Cleveland and the success that's been here that I wanted to see it play out.

And then we made little tweaks along the way.

And instead of just ripping a Band-Aid off with changing something, no, we need to hear everyone's opinion.

We need to collaborate.

We need to work on this together and find out how we can get better.

And I felt like our group and our organization as a whole, we did a really nice job of that.

When you uttered that phrase, well, this is the way we've always done it, I heard the collective groan because we've all heard that right, or we're been in a situation.

I'm sure there are a lot of business leaders, people who've worked in corporation lines that that have dealt with that in the past.

So the key to having success as a group, Right, is getting buy in from our employees and the people we work with.

How did you go about getting that buy in from the players?

Because obviously your success hinges upon you being able to reach Jose Ramirez with your message.

Reach Beau NAYLOR with your message, getting those guys to buy into what you want to do.

Yeah, I think specifically to the players, it's 26 very different individuals.

They're all wired differently.

They're all motivated by different things.

They all come from different parts of the world, different parts of the country, different upbringings.

Like, every single person is so unique and you have to dive in and find out who they are.

Again, for 3 hours a day, they get to go be 12 year old kids and go play baseball here, and it's awesome.

But for the other 21 hours, some of them are husbands, some of them are fathers, some of them are single, some of them are divorced.

It's life.

They're a human being.

And in order to gain their trust, in order for them, for them to understand that I want what's best for them, I have to get to know them.

And I enjoy that part of the job, probably more than anything else, is getting to know how fascinating some of these guys are.

Hey, tell me about yourself.

But it's that daily communication with them.

So that they know, hey, voter think.

Voter wants to know about my life.

He wants to know he's in this with me because I am.

Every time they strike out, I'm striking out.

Every time they hit a homerun, I'm doing cartwheels because I'm so excited for them.

And that's really where you make an impact with the players.

It's just like any other business.

It's run by people.

People have to go out and do the job, and understanding that and being able to relate to those guys is really what helped us.

I think back as a young kid going through school, high school, everything in my life was structured.

You know, you were class at these times, practice was at these times, at dinner, at home, at these times you go to college.

And the biggest thing I heard when I went to college was time management, young man, time management.

So I'm thinking about you as a manager.

Time management has to be one of the most important do or die factors.

How did you deal with figuring that out in your first year?

I found out that there's like these cool things on your phone, like a calendar, an alarm clock.

As a player, I'm like, I don't know.

I just get to go play, you know, I've got to worry about me.

But honestly, it was talking with some of the resources we have, you know, some of them are in this room right now, and they were instrumental in helping me organize how I'm going to go about each day.

And when I say that I didn't do this by myself, it's true.

This was an organizational win for us to have the year we did, because the people that have taught me and helped me learn how to do this, it's not easy.

And four from noon to 11:00 at night, I'm on.

And whenever somebody comes into my office, that's the most important 5 minutes that they need, my undivided 100% attention and the hardest thing that you deal with in the time management is the emotional stress that you go through, right?

You've got somebody coming in and you sent them to triple A and then your heart breaks.

You go have a little cry in the bathroom.

And when you come out, the guy who just got called up, you got to be ecstatic.

And learning how to manage all of that and have the different conversations in every domain or every bucket throughout the day.

That was the most difficult part of me.

Transitioning into this job is just how busy and full every single day is.

And then you go lay your head on the pillow at night and you think of all 26 players.

You think of all coaches, and by 4:00 you sleep for about an half an hour and then you wake up and do it again.

I think you can see why he was the American League manager of the year and I know he's not going to like this because, you know, he wants the focus to be on the players.

But if I could brag on him a little bit, one of the things that impressed me as a broadcaster and interacting with him on a daily basis is how authentic he was.

He didn't know me from Adam, but he was authentic, he was honest, he was upfront, and I never felt like he was kind of beating around the bush or, you know, given me a lot of, you know what?

And I think you can see that in the way he's presenting himself here.

Today's culture, we hear a lot.

That's a buzz word.

It may have started in the business community and then seeped into the sports world or vice versa.

But creating a culture for success is paramount.

What is your definition of culture and and how do you like what's your vision of what a successful culture is within a sports team?

Within a baseball team?

Yeah.

I mean, it's hard to put a definition, so it's going to be a really long winded around the block kind of thing.

To me, it's what's our goal?

Why are we here?

If everyone that walks into our clubhouse doesn't understand what our goal is, then we can't get started.

And I've heard from a number of players that I'm the first manager they've ever played for.

That said, our goal is to win a World Series.

Isn't that why we're here?

Like, you know, and but the issue with that is we can't do that today.

We can't win a World Series today.

So if we know that that's our goal, every single thing that we do day in and day out is working towards that goal.

So now how do we break that down into daily goals, weekly goals, monthly goals?

And we have a process, right?

It's all about our process to get to our goal.

And we didn't reach it this year and we were disappointed, proud of what we did.

Absolutely.

But we're not satisfied.

And how you build that culture is that every single thing, every single person wants that same goal.

So they know that when we have our 90th meeting of the day or we go out and take extra batting practice, it's not for eyewash, it's not just for lip service.

It is to put the work in, to be ready to win tonight, which will help get us to our goal.

And when the players buy into that, when they want that, guess what happens?

They love each other.

They want Jose to hit a homerun more than they want themselves because Jose is really fun to watch.

So but it's I'm genuinely as happy for my teammate who just hit a homer than I am when I actually hit it.

Or when Kade Smith comes to clean up Tanner by his inning, Tanner's doing backflips for Cade and vice versa.

The team that picks each other up and wants to hang out.

We spend more time with each other than we do our families for eight months out of the year.

So you have to be a family.

You have to not always have to like each other, but you need to love each other.

And those are the things that we talk about and how we built these culture and what's great is I inherited a great culture already, but now let's just keep enhancing it.

Let's keep moving the ball in the right direction in the macho world that is male professional sports, you don't often hear leaders of organizations use the word love as much as you do.

Why is that so important to you that that that message gets out there not only to the people in the clubhouse, but to the people watching at home?

I don't know.

I think like we all love each other.

Right.

And if you're not acting in love, what are you doing?

And you're not always going to like each other?

I we have we have feuds.

We get into it.

It's not like it's all, you know, teddy bears and bombs around here.

But when you genuinely care for someone and you generally, genuinely want what's best for them, you're telling the truth.

People I like in my life, I'm going to beat around the bush and I'm just going to kind of get through the conversation.

But if I love you, you're going to hear the truth, whether you want to hear it or not.

And that was something that I always I kind of knew, but I wasn't able to put it into words.

And then Jim Leyland got elected into the Hall of Fame in the fall of 23, right when I got this job.

And he had a quote and it said, I'm a butcher right now, probably said, if you lie to a player, you lose them forever.

You tell them the truth.

They won't talk to you for 48 hours and then you'll be right back to square one.

And that couldn't be more true.

I was lied to as a player and it ruined that relationship for for me and that other individual.

And I vowed to never lie to a player.

I would rather than be mad at me for a week.

And that's what I encourage the players to do.

And I'll give you a great example of this.

So I had dinner with a couple of our players last winter getting to know him, and I said, Tell me about the group of guys.

Tell me, tell me what makes you guys tick?

Like, Oh man, we love each other.

That's great.

That's my we don't need to talk to you about anything else.

Give me an example.

He's like, Well, sometimes we won't we won't, like, get on each other when things go wrong because we love each other so much.

I go, Whoa, whoa, whoa.

That means you like each other.

And I said, If you were going to talk to your brother and your brother was being a moron, you're going to tell him he's being a moron because you love him.

That's what we have.

That's why I use the word love, because that's the genuine connection that we all have as humans.

And it's tangible.

And I'm not afraid of the word love.

It's awesome.

You mentioned Tanner, Bybee, and, you know, the last year was full of so many great moments and that's what weaves together the tapestry of the season, all those little moments.

But I think the one signature moment for you as a manager and I say signature moment as a manager, because again, I get to peek behind the curtain.

I see your day to day interactions.

I see all that you do to get the team ready before they go on the field.

People watching at home, they don't get to see that.

They only see when you come out to change pitchers or when you send John Kenzie Noelle up in the ninth inning against the Yankees, they hit a pinch, hit home run to.

But those are the tangible things they get to see your impact as a manager, I get to see some of the things that are not so tangible, but I want to go back to the Tanner Bybee moment because that was a signature moment in that you come out late in the game and everybody in the ballpark and watching at home and me, myself included, he's coming to get them.

He's going to take them out of the game, go to the bullpen.

That didn't happen.

Take me through take us through sort of how that moment happened.

Did it happen on the way to the mound?

Were there conversations?

Did it happen when you already got out?

There was a conversations with Craig Alvarez and Carl Willis.

Take us through sort of how that moment ended up happening out of.

So I started early in the year actually, like probably a month before that moment of shame, Bieber goes down.

What do we do?

You know, we need Tanner baby to be a dude.

So how can we help his development and how can we do this?

So that's always been in the back of my mind every time Tanner's pitching, every time I'm talking with Tanner, he's already unbelievably good.

But how do we get him to be a dude?

And.

Yeah, I know, but I think in that moment, I remember it was we were playing the twins at home and the game was close, and I don't remember what the bullpen situation was.

I don't remember who was warming up.

Probably wasn't Cade because it would have been Cade coming.

But I remember that moment and it was the hitter before.

And Tanner's pitch count was right on the cusp of uncomfortable.

And I remember saying to Carl, like, this is his last guy.

Carl's like, Yeah, he didn't say it with conviction.

And I said, Hey, Alby, this is his last guy.

And Albert is like, Yeah, Mike, you guys need to speak up.

I've never done this before, so I'm going to need you to chime in here.

And Carl kind of talked through what he was feeling as the at bats going on and this and that.

And I think I think there were two outs and the guy got a base hit.

And I remember I'm like, all right, I'm going to go get them.

As in, I'm going to go get the move, make the move.

And right as I take a step off the bench, Alby goes, Why don't you challenge him?

You'll see what he's made of.

You want to make him a dude, Go make him a dude.

Okay?

And and I went out there and I remember what I said, but I just said, Tanner, I think you can get this guy out.

Why don't you go and just.

But to me, it's just a it's the amount of work and effort and prep, and that's why I am so thankful I get to sit next to Carl Willis and Craig Albinus and that's what they're there for.

They're there.

They know me, so they know when I'm torn.

They are my sounding board and I'll be.

I hope all of you get to know Craig OLBERMANN.

I a little bit better over this year because he's one of my best friends.

I get to do this job with one of my best friends, and he calls me out.

He doesn't let me get away with anything.

We love each other hard.

And but in that moment, he knew that one of the things that I am gifted at is challenging people and having great talks that can get them motivated.

And he knew it in that moment was go challenge and that was it.

And I think Tanner's recollection of the conversation was a little different.

But he's a liar.

So I'm I'm looking at your wife, Allison.

Every time you you utter a phrase that isn't maybe she's sorry, but I'm thinking I'm thinking of her because, again, going back and I'm sorry to interject myself into the conversation, but when I was a young athlete, I remember playing a game.

It didn't go particularly well.

Family had come to watch me play in high school, you know, grandparents, aunts, uncles from out of town.

They'd made the drive.

I stomped out of the locker room.

I was sulking.

I was short with my answers to everybody.

And later that night, my dad, who was a very reserved person, my dad was not a yeller screamer.

He said, I need to see you in the garage.

And I went, Oh, that's not good.

And he very, you know, in a very mature and adult manner said to me, I think I was 15, 16 years old at the time.

He said, Never leave the locker room until you're ready to leave that game behind.

And it was so profound in that moment and made me grow up really fast because we as athletes, as coaches, as managers, even as a broadcaster, I'm fortunate I get a 25 minute drive home after the game and and I get caught up in the game.

You know, it's not my livelihood whether they win or lose, but I get caught up in it and that drive home lets me leave it there.

And when I walk in the door, you know, I can talk to my wife about what's happened in her day and what's happened in the family.

How different has it been for you as a manager to let the game go from when you were a player?

So that when you go into a listen, you don't have to rehash the game over.

You can focus on her and your family.

Yeah, I think the biggest difference is as a player, you're worried about you.

You have to do your job.

Baseball is an individual game played for a team outcome, so you just have to do your process.

What went right, what went wrong?

What am I working on tomorrow?

Where can I get better?

Boom, you're out as a manager.

You sit there and you process the entire game.

You've got to go through all nine guys who played maybe a pinch hitter to all 616 pitchers that we use because, you know, that's what we do.

But you do that checklist for everybody and then you do it for your coaching staff and you have to come up with the four or five conversation options that you might need to have the next day before the day even starts with individuals.

And that's when I call Alyssa, as once I've gotten to that point and my beautiful wife, she was you know, we've met in college, college sweethearts, got married, been married 17 years now, and she's my best friend and been with me every step of the way.

And but but she herself was a college and high school basketball coach.

So not only do I get my wife and best friend to talk the game out with, but I get another coach with a very different perspective.

And that's where she helps me not only process something that I'm having trouble letting go of, but how to navigate conversations for the next day.

And I have Alyssa and I have a number of other people in my life that helped me make sure I'm prepared to have that conversation with the player.

So players worry about themselves, which please, please do.

But for me, it's not only the players, but every coach, every staff member.

That's my job is to make sure we're all still on the same page and doing what we're doing, what we're trying to get to that ultimate goal.

All right.

We're about to begin the audience Q&A.

A couple more questions and then we'll start the audience Q&A.

I'm Matt Underwood.

Play by play announcer for the Cleveland Guardians.

And joining me on stage manager Steven Vote of the Cleveland Guardians.

We welcome questions from everyone City club members, guests, students, as well as those joining via a live stream at home at City Club dot org.

If you'd like to text a question for our speaker, please text it to 3305415794 and City club staff will work to try and get it into the program.

So we'll get to those questions in just a couple of moments.

You know, being able to to deal with the ups and downs of a of a regular season, do you do you find it's easier to manage the wild swings of emotion as a manager compared to when you were a player?

As a player, you could break a bat.

You could go take out your frustrations as a manager.

I feel like a lot of times you almost have to reserve your emotions, especially in the moment during the game.

Yeah, I think that was the number one.

Like wake up call for me is how many people that know me from my previous walks of life.

Like, Dude, you look way too serious on TV.

And I'm like, I have to be I if I show negative emotion, then the coaches show negative emotion.

Then the players think it's okay to show negative emotion.

Trust me when I say when there's a mistake made, especially on my own, I am fuming.

But it doesn't do anyone any good to show that.

And I'll celebrate the good times.

Absolutely.

But I'm going to be as stoic as possible when things aren't going well, because, one, I have to keep thinking the game.

I can't get caught up in the emotions of what's happening.

I've got to be ready to make the next move.

It is hard and I work really hard at it every day.

I have a mental skills coach that I talk to every once a week and he helps me gather my thoughts.

He helps me work through the things that are frustrating me.

And he's been a huge part of my career, both as a player and as a coach and a manager now.

And you know, it's real.

We all feel the emotions.

We all get those negative thoughts in our heads, but we have to stay right here.

And no matter if we've won seven in a row or lost seven row and whether I got one hour sleep or 5 hours of sleep or things back home or crazy with the kids or not, when I show up and walk through the doors of a clubhouse, I'm ready to go.

Because if I show that I'm sad or I'm tired or I'm not ready, then that's going to permeate through the whole clubhouse.

And we're going to have a Debbie Downer day.

And we can't we can't do that.

So it is very difficult to manage the emotions.

However, when you have empathy for the players who are struggling and you celebrate the wins with the ones that are going good, it's easy to be the steady rock and to keep it going.

One of the things that I've loved about my time in baseball is the stories, because you you can't go a day in baseball without hearing a great story.

And because there are millions of them and everybody's got one.

Everybody's got one that they keep in their back pocket for just the right moment.

But I remember I had a coach, a guy who'd been around a long time, one of my first years.

He said, the thing I love most about working in baseball is that it's good for one big belly laugh a day.

I mean, just where you just your tears are coming down on your face and, you know, somebody will tell a story, somebody will do something, somebody will say something.

And, you know, it brings out that kind of emotion.

Do you have a story and a grant?

Grant.

And not every story in baseball is necessarily great for an open public audience.

Some of them are better, you know, behind closed doors, limited audience.

But do you have a good story that you can share with us or or who makes you laugh when you know you need a laugh?

Is there a go to guy for you?

I'll cover both.

So obviously sitting next to Carl Willis and Craig OLBERMANN, as you've probably seen from time to time, we have a pretty good time in that dugout.

And Albee and Carl both make me laugh.

I'll share one quick Carl story, then I'll get to my belly laugh.

One.

Okay.

It was the first road trip of the year.

We're in Minnesota and, you know, I'm in my first week of doing this, and we had our first, like, nail biter game.

It was the one we won 3 to 1.

David Fry Hit the three run.

Homer Yeah.

David Frei What a year for him.

What a year for him.

So tensions are getting there.

We're in the bullpen and I'm like, okay, you know, I'm just white knuckle it and on the bench and, you know, stoic but white knuckling and all of a sudden, Karl just slaps me in the chest.

You haven't won yet.

And it just broke the tension.

I started laughing.

Then I calmed down.

And and that was Karl all year long, whenever I he could sense when I was starting to get there.

So Karl's good for that.

But the belly laugh story I'll share with you and probably a little TMI, but so I was catching one night.

I don't remember where or how or when, but, you know, believe it or not, that chest protector doesn't do a whole lot.

So I go down and I block, you know, a sunny, great curve ball, which anybody who watched Sonny Gray throw that thing speeds up when it hits the ground.

And it got me just right in the stomach and it went out and it was very smelly, so it knocked it out of me.

And so I said to the umpire, and here I go, Hey, I can't remember who it was, but I said them both by name, like you guys need to clear out.

So.

So the hitter went back to the on deck circle and got more pine tar.

The umpire went and changed balls out with the bat boy.

And I kind of looked like, Oh, we're good.

And they came right back.

It was, Oh man, I don't think I could top that was let's go to our audience.

Do we have our first question from the audience?

I don't think anybody can talk the top that.

Listen, you manage in a system of incredible payroll disparity.

You know, the difference between team payrolls and individual payrolls is breathtaking.

How do you how do you manage that or do you manage that?

Can you instill a sense of the underdog?

Can you do major league players respond to the the opportunity to make a small market team a big time winner, or do you just ignore it?

No, thank you for your question.

We don't specifically talk about payroll disparity, right like that.

That doesn't really pertain to us.

We are who we are.

And I think when we get in that room again, our goal is to win the World Series.

And so it's it's my job and the coach's job and the players job to own that and know, like this group can get it done.

It may not look the same as somebody else.

It may not have the same payroll, like you're saying.

But for us, this is the way we do it in Cleveland.

And that's where we have to coach and that's where our staff did a tremendous job with our young players.

You know, I was mentioned in the opening with the youngest team in baseball.

I love it because we get to coach, we get to teach, we get to watch people develop and grow up and have it click.

And I think one of the cool things I can illustrate for you all is we had a moment and I don't remember the exact details, so bear with me.

But we received a note from our R&D department, which is research and development.

They gave us this one little statistic and from that statistic they handed it to the next person.

From that they dumbed it down to a one page summary for us coaches.

The coach read that and we put it into one small adjustment for one of our players, and it took a week for that player to buy into this one little small adjustment.

And then he did it and he went off for like a week.

And I just remember that feeling of like, this is how it works.

You've got all these people diving in and pouring into our young players.

So yes, it may not be the same payroll as the Dodgers or the Yankees or the Mets.

That doesn't mean we can't do it.

We just have to do it our way.

You know, off of that that same thing you touched on a little bit.

I don't know if there's any more more concrete way you can describe to the audience what this organization does to try to stay ahead of the competition when it comes to, you know, nontraditional means of competition, you know, whether it's you know, we've heard a lot about statistics in baseball and they have a place and they have an importance.

But what have you noticed about this organization that maybe you didn't know all went into the final product?

I mean, there's a lot we have a ton of people.

I think that's, what, 303 hundred plus people that work in baseball operations.

And all of them are doing everything we can to give our 26 guys everything they have to go out and win every night.

You have that many people working for you in their various domains and collaborating, working together.

And it is so much fun because we all want the same thing and that's to go win tonight.

Statistics, analytics, all of these things, they're a tool.

They're not the tool, just like baseball feel.

And gut instinct isn't the tool.

It's a tool.

And we do a great job as a group of collaborating and working together to use the statistics as data to make informed decisions.

That doesn't always mean I follow it and sometimes we have some pretty good debates about that, but it's all part of what makes us who we are.

And that's it's a baseball game played by people, but we use all the information we can to help those people be the best they can.

Stagefright In the 1990s, when we had our juggernaut baseball team, John Hart was famous for tearing up somebody's contract two years before it would expire and signed them to an extension.

Are you guys going to do that with Steven Cohen?

Well, while I while I don't have the checkbook nor the ability to make those decisions, all I'll say is I hope Steven Cohen's in in Cleveland guard in uniform for a long, long, long, long time.

Cheers, Coach.

When you were hired, my first thought was, you know who the heck is this guy?

Especially in the wake of Tito Francona, his departure?

And then I saw your last at bat in the Major leagues.

I wonder I've been dying to ask you to tell that story.

Yeah.

Thank you so midway through 22, I wasn't very good anymore.

And I had a great career and I'm very proud of what I accomplished.

And I say that in jest, but my wife, Alice and I, I kind of figured it halfway through, and I don't have the energy to go through another offseason and and put my body through this one more time.

I'm 37 years old.

I've been catching my whole life.

I want to be able to walk and catch my kids kind of thing.

So once we decided that I was going to retire, I let the Oakland A's know, Hey, this is going to be it for me.

That was where I grew up.

That was I played there six years.

They're my family.

And they said, okay, the last game of the year, we're going to honor you, Mike.

You don't have to do that.

I'm good.

Just know that.

Know we're going to.

And they put together an unbelievable day for my family, friends and us there.

70 there to support Alice and I and the kids in my last game.

And the A's did a lot of things they didn't tell me about and glad they didn't tell me about them.

But the first one was I go up for my first at bat and I talked with Mark Cox, our manager, and he said, Hey, if we were facing Shohei Ohtani last game of the year, Cool.

Thanks.

Baseball gods.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But so I go up for my first at bat and all of a sudden I hear my three kids voices over the P.A.

now batting our dad and now that's why he got me out.

Because I was crying, not because, you know.

But anyway, so one thing led to another, and I went up for my third, third at bat knowing it was going to be my last moment on a baseball field.

And thank goodness a pitcher threw in right down the middle and hit a home run in my final at bat.

And I just jumped around like a three year old kid going crazy around the bases.

And it was a dream ending to a very fortunate career.

Hey, Steven, congrats on your success last year and thanks for shepherding the team through that season.

My question is, in 2022, the Guardians won the AL Central with the youngest team in baseball and then followed it up with a less than thrilling follow up going under 500.

My question is, last year we went and won the division with the youngest team in baseball.

What do you do to capture that energy moving forward to kind of repeat and win the division, have similar success instead of kind of regressing like we did two years ago?

Yeah, I appreciate the question.

I think it's it's really hard to be good year in and year out.

I'll just have to recognize that my message is going to be for our guys.

Like last year was last year, it's over.

We did some great things.

Let's continue to do those great things.

But how do we move the needle and keep getting better?

We're not going to be the team we were last year.

We have different people in the room.

It's not the same roster.

It's a new year.

Everybody's a year older.

That's good for a lot of our guys and maybe not so good for some.

But I think for me it's we're not going to dwell on the success we had last year.

We're going to learn from it, but we're going to keep moving the needle in the right direction.

And again, it's one day at a time.

And what's great about our coaching staff and our front office and our whole group is that we recognize the smoke before there's fire and we do our best to keep it from catching fire.

I was really good in that, but that.

So to answer your question, I don't know yet Coach.

Thanks for a great year.

And to bring the humor aspect, which you've mentioned, is one of the things that help you get through the long spring training and regular season nine or ten in your formative years, your parents encourage you to get involved in extracurricular activities beyond baseball, and that led you into the performative arts and choir and things of that nature.

And that probably led to some of the your teammates voting you the talent show winners and funniest guy on the team and we could see today why that was so apparent.

My question is, can you share with us one of your favorite impressions or songs that, oh, I love it.

I love that.

I want to thank you.

No, I appreciate that.

It's yeah, my parents were great.

My brother and I both had to play two sports and be involved in a third, you know, in music or in art or something.

And yeah, I sang in the choir in high school and I was in the drama department and played baseball, basketball and it was it allowed me to really learn how to do all kinds of different things.

And I use them all now.

I mean, and they're very helpful in this job.

And most of the impressions I have are probably, you know, not great, but I don't know, I Let me get back to I'll get back.

Let me let me let that rattle around for a little bit.

Thank you.

How are you going into spring training in year two, different from how you were in spring training year one?

Oh, I don't have to meet 400 people now.

I know what it's supposed to look like.

I know where we went wrong.

I know what we want to enhance.

Not just because we had success last year doesn't mean that's the way we're always going to do it.

Right?

So it's I'm looking forward to not having to start at square one with everybody.

I was tired last spring getting to know for trying to get to know 400 people in a six week period was really difficult.

And I'm very taxing.

And now I get to enhance relationships, not build them.

And I think that's what I'm most looking forward to because that's where we can really start to do some powerful things.

was obviously really excited to hear when you hired Eliason.

And do you have any tips for somebody like me who wants to work in the front office?

Call?

So, first of all, not only is Alison acting awesome because of what she accomplished and the the barriers she broke down for young ladies, and I think she's a phenomenal baseball coach.

She's a phenomenal baseball person and a really fun person to work with.

I'm looking forward to get to know her even better coming up.

But what I'll tell you is if you want it, you can do it.

Don't let anybody tell you you can't for any reason.

You fight and claw and work your way to where you want to get and no one can stop you when you put your mind to it.

Just just to echo what what Stephen just said, and I hope that young lady takes what he said to heart, because I think on the surface, maybe people hear that.

And like I say that everybody, you know, work hard.

If you believe in yourself, I can just tell you my own story.

I mean, it's almost 40 years ago I was in college and Chuck Tanner, who was a former big league manager, he was scouting at the time, came to scout one of our college baseball games.

And I was doing the radio broadcasting and I very meekly went up to him, said, Mr. Tanner, would you come on the air with me?

And he graciously came on the air like a little campus radio station, which was 100 Watson strength.

We broadcast to the end of Begley Road, and that was about it.

But he told me the same thing Stephen Vogt just said to that young lady at that time.

This was 1990.

So he said, baseball is going to be expanding.

There's going be more opportunities.

There's going to be jobs out there.

He said, Believe in yourself and if you want it, go get it.

Don't let anyone tell you you can't do it.

Because I had friends said, Yeah, right, you're going to be a big league announcer, So you'll have a lot of people will tell you you can't don't listen to him.

Don't listen to those people.

Believe in yourself.

You can do it.

You'll be there will be who'll be working for you someday.

Get your Let me get your name before we leave today.

Yeah.

Hello.

My name is Kyle Williams.

I am a junior at embassy.

Of course, I'm high school and I wanted to know because I help coach my team.

I mean teams on robotics because I help make robots.

But I want to know what you would say to someone who's coaching in general.

Would you have any, like, something to say to them, something that can help them be able to, you know, do their job more effectively?

Yeah.

Thank you.

And you're a lot smarter than me, so I would say that I would.

I don't know.

Robots give me ask questions.

Ask questions.

I think a lot of times as coaches, we dictate what we want to see without checking to see if our players understand what we're asking them to do, be curious what they're thinking, be curious where their heads that they you might be thinking the same exact thing, but your vocabulary is different than theirs.

Learn the vocabulary of your team and how you can speak to them and their vocabulary.

Because every single person is going to say the same thing a different way.

So I would that would be my advice is be curious and ask a lot of questions.

Before we get to this next question.

I'm looking out here, I'm looking at the audience, and I know a lot of these people remember Vince Lombardi.

I made this reference to you back in the green room that once upon a time there was a this is the way you do it, my way or the highway mentality.

Where do you where do you remember seeing maybe how coaching started to evolve as a player, where it went from?

No, this is how we do it.

This is the way we've always done it to getting input from the player or from the employee.

And I think it's a relatively new thing.

You know, it kind of changed over the course of my career.

I was drafted in 2007 and by 2013, 2014 it was kind of there where it was no longer I mean, I was raised when a coach says Jump, you say, how high.

Now if you say jump there, say why?

Why do you want me to jump?

So that's for us for coaching.

We have to have a why we can't just dictate what we want to see.

These are grown men, especially in our world.

These are grown men that have worked their way to get to the major leagues.

So what we what used to be dictating we call partnering, there's another buzz word scoring, a lot of buzz word points for the people who don't work in the Cleveland organization.

But I think for me it's changed because we should have an explanation for why they want to jump.

We should have an explanation for why we want to have them change something or making a change in or enhancement to what they've already done.

These guys have worked their whole lives to get to the big leagues and they're really good.

Why wouldn't we find out what makes them tick?

Why wouldn't we get in to know the person and then we can work together to find the best outcomes?

So it's changed.

It's very different.

But we should have a way in relation to the shoes you had to fill.

Do you truly believe that you can beat Tito in the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series?

Absolutely.

We're gonna have to trophies if they make it to the World Series.

If they make it to the world, No, but yeah, the Ohio Cup stays here and then hopefully the World Series trophy.

We have a text question.

You talked about getting to know the players.

How do you bridge the language divide with the Spanish speaking players?

Very good question.

So my Spanglish is pretty good now.

A lot a lot of our Latin players speak English as well.

I speak enough Spanish to kind of speak baseball, but we have an unbelievable translator and Augustine Rivero, who I've heard from our Latin players, from other Latin players that have gone elsewhere.

He's the best in the league and he's just as big a part of our team and our coaching staff.

He helps out on our coaching staff as well.

And so what we try to make sure that every one of our players, there is no boundary, there's no no nothing that's going to divide them from getting the same interactions and communication as our American born players.

I think it's awesome to I get to watch it on the television side.

For those of you who watch our telecast regularly, after we win a game, we turn it down on the field for a player interview and and routinely Andre will interview Spanish speaking players.

And at first Augie would be there and Augie would do all of the interpreting.

And as the season goes on, you can see the player get a little more confident, a little more confident by the end of the year.

Augie is just standing there like, Why am I here?

And it's awesome to watch the players embrace the idea.

Like, I want to be able to communicate to our fans in their native language.

And that's a tribute to the organization for the resources they provide to the players and to the players themselves, Votar said.

To want to get better and to be able to communicate, and it's a lot of fun to watch.

And you see them like sort of get this great sense of pride.

How was I?

How was I how I do?

And that's fantastic.

And just add on to that, we should have mentioned this in the first response, but we have a number of very good teachers that we teach English to our players when we first sign from the Dominican or Venezuela or Puerto Rico or and elsewhere, we have very good English teachers and they've a phenomenal job of helping our players learn.

Shout out to Anna Bolton.

She helps me with a lot of the pronunciations.

Hello, this is a text question.

Have you watched the classic baseball movie Major League?

And how does that influence managing the expectations of this city?

Hungry for World Series Championship.

I have watched Major League one of my favorite movies, but what was the second part of that question?

I got a distracted.

How does that influence managing the expectations of this city?

Hungry for a World Series championship?

I'll say it helps because we find humor.

We use humor.

We it's the universal love.

Language is laughing and enjoying yourself.

And those guys in that movie had a blast.

And I do think even going back to the first question of the day of whether you want to call it an underdog or not, we don't feel like we're underdogs.

We feel like we're capable.

And that's the message it is.

It's not, Oh, maybe even we can do it.

No, it's we're going to do it.

And that's the rhetoric we use growing up in California, playing in various places.

In your career, having visited Cleveland as an opposing player, what what jumped out at you about this city, about the people that you came in contact with that you didn't know about?

Cleveland?

I'm I'm sure you had preconceived notions like we all do coming in.

And how did that measure up to what reality was?

Yeah, I, I didn't love coming here as a visiting player.

I mean, you know, I've just played I always loved coming here and seeing how passionate this fan bases and, you know, you do get heckled pretty good visiting on deck circle Whoever gets that box underneath is pretty clever but I think just seeing the passion whether it be guardians browns Cavs Buckeyes Yeah national championship but I think seeing the passion that for not a huge area there are so many fans of their teams and they show up.

I mean I couldn't believe every single night in Progressive Field Albion I would walk up the steps like, Dang, this place is packed again.

And it's just so refreshing for me, you know, having played in a few places that don't necessarily pack the stadiums, but we, the people have embraced Alyssa, myself and our family so much here, and we just can't thank you enough for how welcome you've made us feel.

Thank you very much to Stephen Vogt and Matt Underwood for joining us today at the City Club.

Forums like this one are made possible, thanks to generous support from individuals like you, you can learn more about becoming a guardian of free speech at City Club Dawg.

Today's forum is the annual Richard W and Patricia R POGUE Endowed Forum, made possible by a generous gift from Dick and Pat POGUE.

We're delighted to have Dick with us today.

Thank you, Mr. POGUE, for your longstanding support of the City Club Democracy C and our Cleveland Guardians.

The City Club would like to welcome students joining us from M.C.

Squared STEM High School and Saint Martin DePauw as a high school in addition, we really enjoyed having a few special young guests with us today.

Oh, that guess.

We would also like to welcome guests at the table hosted by the Cleveland Guardians, Longview Financial Planners, partners and the Trust for Public Land.

Thank you all for being here.

Up next at the City Club on Friday, January 31st, we'll hear from Juan Williams, FOX News political analyst and author of his latest book, New Prize for These Eyes The Rise of America's Second Civil Rights Movement.

William Tartar jr, president of the NAACP Cleveland branch will moderate.

You can learn more about this forum and others at City club, dawg.

And that brings us to the end of today's forum.

Thank you once again to Steven Vogt and Matt Underwood.

I'm Lee to TASS and this forum is now adjourned.

For information on upcoming speakers or for podcasts of the City Club, go to City Club Dawg.

Production and distribution of City club forums and ideastream Public media are made possible by PNC and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland, Inc..