The Musers - Rangers Manager Skip Schumaker

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It's Thursday morning with the musers and today is one of the best days on the sports calendar.

It's baseball opening day.

The season officially kicked off last night.

With the Yankees and Giants, but we've got the Rangers opener today in Philadelphia and joining us now

on the Diamond Factory ticket hotline is the new skipper of the Texas Rangers Skipschumacher.

Good morning. How are you?

Good morning. Do well. How are you?

We're doing great. Good to visit with you again.

It's a musers tradition to have the Rangers manager on on opening day.

And everybody always feels good on opening day.

What fires you up the most about your team this year?

Well, there's a lot of things. I love that we're opening in Philly.

It's going to be a playoff type of atmosphere and exactly where we want to be hopefully in the next six or seven months.

We have EVO on the mound, which I couldn't imagine.

You know, a better opener for us and then DeGrom right after him.

It's a pretty good one to punch and you know, we get tested early. Philly is really good team.

We feel like we have a really good team and so it will be a fun opening weekend.

I was talking about how special opening day is growing up a Dodgers fan.

Did you ever go to opening day as a as a young fan and just on the larger question.

What was that like listening to opening day or any day with the late great Vin Scully on the call?

Yeah, I think if you're a LA fan or grew up in LA, you know, Vin Scully was the guy, right?

The only solo in the booth always had a story about everybody opening day was super special.

And to be traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2013, you know, kind of in my hometown was a dream come true at this time.

They hear him announced my name on opening day.

And in 2013 Clayton Kershawk on opening day took the ball from Sandy co facts and end up throwing a complete game.

One nothing shut out when and hit the home run.

So it was a pretty incredible Los Angeles Dodgers opening day for me.

But there's been a number of them that have been super special.

By the way, speaking of Clayton Kershawk, I was a moderator for an event with him last night at the Bush Center,

just told that story here on the show and asked him who his favorite teammates were in his career.

And you were one of the guys he listed.

Well, I mean, maybe just because I'm in Texas now, he said that, but he, you know, he's one of the best ever.

Not only player in the gap, pitcher in the game, left handed pitcher in the game, one of the best ever,

but as far as quality of a human and teammate, you know, he's at the top.

I think a number of people would say that.

And for him to have mentioned me in that category, it's pretty special.

But you never know what you're going to get from the superstar players when you get traded over as teammates.

You know, what are they like? What's their, what's the interaction like their family life like?

And he was across the board. First class A plus teammate, family man, dad, husband, the whole deal.

And by the way, Hall of Fame pitcher. So I'm very grateful that I got to play with Clayton Kershawk.

It's Kip Schumacher, the Rangers manager with us here on opening day on the ticket.

And when we last visited with you, heading into spring training, your message to the team was,

especially on the offensive side, hey, just play to what's on the back of your baseball card.

Did you see some good signs along those lines in spring training?

I think so. I think the messaging was great from our JV or hitting coach and central and Dorton of,

you know, just be who you are. Don't try to be somebody you're not.

I think sometimes, you know, what the game will tell you nowadays is to chase something that maybe you're not.

Able to chase whether it's slug or homeruns or power. Some guys can do it. Some guys can't.

I think you can't you just can't cookie cut this thing.

And so I we're trying to preach being really good hitters staying inside the strike zone.

Do damage inside the strike zone. Try not to chase as much.

You know, maybe as you know, we once did and we're really good when we win the strike zone that day pitching and hitting.

And so we're going to do the best we can not to expand and to do damage inside the strike zone as much as possible.

And I think the message was sent and and applied in spring training. It's spring training.

So hopefully it translates into the regular season.

How difficult was it for you to to cut things down to the final roster?

It's extremely hard. It's one of the worst days and best days, right?

So there's guys that are really excited to make the team maybe for the first time.

There's nothing like an opening day. I understand the gravity of that and what a day it's going to be today.

I also understand of, you know, I didn't make an opening roster many times and being the last cut and going down a AAA and doing everything you could.

And what was asked of you to make a team and not make it is very difficult and delivering that message is very difficult.

They have families and, you know, wives and kids and that are affected by this and I that doesn't get lost upon me.

So I make sure that I don't share code it. I give them, you know, honest truths, but it's hard. It's not it's not easy, but I also believe that we're going to need a lot of these guys.

At some point during the season and opening day is great, but, you know, there's 162 of these things and we're going to need a lot of guys to get to where we want to get to.

I know you're concerned about your team and I'm sure your message is, hey, let's just take care of what we do, but looking around the American League and your division.

This is going to be a tough task to win whoever wins it's going to have to win a good number of games. Don't you imagine?

Yeah, I agree. I mean, the Mariners are obviously really, really good. They had a great year last year. They added in the off season to an already really good team.

The A's are really good young group of players that are up and coming that are going to be very dangerous this year.

You know, obviously the angels have some superstars on their team and then Houston Astros are always in it, right?

Like it just doesn't matter what what the roster looks like as long as out to a bank rarer on there, it's going to be a challenge.

So I think I think the division is very healthy, very good and but also baseball in general. There's no like layups, you know, really this year.

And there's a couple teams that are rebuilding, but they also can beat you on any given day. So majorly baseball is in a really good spot.

In my opinion, a lot of talented teams and it's going to be a dog fight every single series.

It's new Rangers manager, Skip Schumacher with us here on the ticket. Everybody was talking about what you did a couple of nights ago.

When you went out to the mound with nobody warming up and you informed Carter Bomler that he had made the team.

Everybody just loved that moment. I know he loved that moment.

Tell us your thought process because we've never seen a manager deliver the news in that fashion. How did you come up with that idea?

Well, I just wanted to make it special for him. I wanted his teammates to enjoy the moment with him.

And I felt like the core that was on the field are really going to help him get to where he wants to get to and who he wants to be throughout the course of the season.

And everybody remembers the first time they were called up. There's a very generic type of social media where you put the phone up in your office and people get to see it.

And that's been done before. So I was trying to make it special for him. I didn't realize it would become this viral thing. I just wanted him to, you know, really parents to be able to see it.

His family to be able to see it. And you know, at the time I was walking out, you know, the three batter minimum, you know, is a rule in place during the exhibition games.

So the umpires were like yelling at me that I couldn't take corner out yet. I was trying to explain to him like I understand just relax.

You know, let me let me do this thing first. And then, you know, I they understood what, you know, what's going on. So yeah, good, but pretty cool moment for him and that he'll remember forever.

See, that's why we need robot umpires. So you have less chirping like that when you're just trying to do something cool.

Yeah, no, I'm no comment. That is good. We talked about that with you last time. That is a new element that's that's really going to be interesting as the season plays out. And what are your early thoughts on it going into the season?

Well, I think it's going to be interesting to see, you know, how it is played out. I think we have an idea of how we're going to utilize it.

We try to make sure that we're utilizing it in leveraged situations as much as we can.

We want to have one potentially towards the end of the game. You know, just because we don't really know if we will need it in a big spot in the eighth or ninth inning.

So having one in our pocket is we think is beneficial, but well, that's obviously going to play out as the season progresses. And, you know, we can adapt and change, you know, to what we see.

But I do think it's tough on these umpires, right? I mean, these pitches are going 100 balls. Now we're thinking and cutting and, you know, the new pitch.

The split finger and that's dropping off the table. And it really tough to figure out, you know, these, you know, really small margins on these corners for these umpires.

So it's challenging for them. I understand that, but I do feel like, you know, it takes away from like these crazy, you know, pitches that are so far outside the zone that should be called balls or ones that are like literally in the middle of the plate that are called balls.

That you can change these, it changed these circumstances in their bat, you know, pretty quickly. So I do feel like that parts beneficial. The ones that are like two inches off, you know, that one's tough for me to like, you know, be mad about.

But the ones that are, you know, so far outside that are called strikes. I think those are the ones that should be challenged just like replay. I think it was the intent of replay was to, you know, the calls that are so crazy to be overturned not really like those bang, bang play.

We'll see how it plays out and I'm excited to see it.

Well, we can't wait for today. Can't wait to watch your team play not only today, but the next 161 and we really appreciate the time this morning.

You making time for us on this big day for you best of luck this season and we'll talk to you down the road.

All right guys. Thanks so much. You bet that skips you, Mocker, the new Rangers manager, the Rangers embark on another season today 315.

It's evolved against Sanchez opening day at Philadelphia. Hi, I'm Adam divine chief fundraiser for Children's Miracle Network.

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