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00:00And listening to Yaz, who hit the walk-off home run just a handful of minutes ago,
00:06listening to him on the field after the game,
00:09there's something that almost Pajemski-related that popped into my head.
00:13I want you to listen to this now, okay?
00:15This is from NBC Sports Bay Area, and listen to what Yaz says right there on the field.
00:20He's sopping wet.
00:21He's been dumped with water and Gatorade with a walk-off splash hit.
00:25Listen to what he says when the guys asked him about what's going on in this clubhouse right now.
00:32Oh, man, it's the best feeling in the world.
00:34It's one of those things where you don't feel any pressure.
00:37You don't ever have to be the hero on any given day.
00:40You just get to be yourself.
00:41And Willie has done an unbelievable job of just connecting everyone.
00:45You know, at times, if there's a little disconnect between, you know,
00:48half the locker room with guys who don't speak the best English and don't feel comfortable trying,
00:52Willie's there pushing them and making sure that everyone's pulling for each other
00:55and that's so unbelievably huge that its value is, you know,
00:59we just don't even have a way to describe it.
01:01You know what?
01:02The dude's been here 12 games.
01:04Right.
01:04He's talking about Willie Adamas.
01:0612 games, Mark.
01:07And he is the clubhouse connector?
01:10Connector.
01:10Wow.
01:11Has not homered yet?
01:12No.
01:13He has got the biggest contract in the history of the Giants.
01:15He's hitting 184.
01:17I really want to highlight this.
01:18First of all, he's also been a little snake bit.
01:21My God, he whacked two balls today in RBI situations.
01:25They went right at people and the Reds knocked it down.
01:28That's not to make any excuses for him.
01:30He's had some huge hits.
01:32He walked off the game on opening day down to their last strike.
01:38And he walked off the win for the Giants.
01:40So he's had some really big hits.
01:42But I just think it's important to remember sometimes when you're talking about players you know are important core players,
01:54it's important to, dude, you've got to stick with people for a second.
01:58I don't mean forever.
02:00I don't mean forever.
02:01But you've got to stick with people.
02:04Brandon Pajemski made the all-rookie team in the offseason.
02:08They're like, we're not trading this guy.
02:10We think he's a future all-star.
02:12And Joe Lacob got laughed at.
02:14And Brandon came out and started this year and looked like he did not know what was going on in basketball.
02:18And Steve Kerr was pounding the table at a press conference because he was frustrated with the decisions that Brandon was making.
02:25Look at him now.
02:27Look at him now.
02:28Since March 18th, averaging 18.6 points per game and has more three-point makes than any player in the NBA.
02:35Willie Adamas, don't get bamboozled by the 180 batting average with zero home runs.
02:42They're 9-3.
02:44And if you watch a game, you can look at his presence on the field and listen to what the guys are talking about behind the scenes.
02:52That is the dude.
02:54That's the dude.
02:55Jungle Lee may end up being kind of the rock star.
02:59He's got people wearing fuzz on their head out in the outfield.
03:03Right.
03:03And he might hit .330 and challenge for a batting title.
03:07He has that look.
03:08But this engine does not go without Willie Adamas.
03:14And Yaz did that totally unprompted.
03:16Nobody asked him about Willie.
03:18It was just like, what's going on with this group and this team?
03:21And Yaz, out of nowhere, 38 seconds after hitting a ball in the water to win a game, is talking about how Willie Adamas has this whole thing, this whole group, moving in a totally different direction.
03:33Think about a baseball clubhouse, and it's different than any other sport.
03:37Because when you get to an NFL locker room, a lot of times you've got the offensive room, the defensive room, you've got the wide receiver room, the running back room.
03:46It's much more segmented.
03:47And for the majority of an NFL locker room, it's 100% English is your first language.
03:52For the most part, basketball, 15 guys, you travel together, but even beyond that, you don't play every single day.
03:59Baseball, you have 24 spouses, essentially.
04:03You're in the room with the same 24 other guys all day, every day, on the plane, in the clubhouse.
04:09And most Major League Baseball teams have, of the 25, you've probably got 12 who speak English as the first, another 10 who speak Spanish, and the Giants have Jung-Hoo Lee, who's probably fluent in Korean, if not other stuff.
04:23And so you've got Willie Adamas, who, according to the Yaz cut right there, is saying to the Latin guys, come on, come over here and try your English.
04:32It's going to be okay, it's a safe haven, and he's probably telling the English speakers, get over here and try your hackneyed, half-hearted Spanish, and let's all have fun.
04:41We're all here together, and even though culturally, you've got guys from the Dominican and Mexico and all over the world, if Willie Adamas, as a Dominican-American player, if he's the guy who is bringing everyone together, that stuff actually matters more than we think over 162.
04:59No doubt. You've got Dovall, you've got Randy Rodriguez, you've got Luis Matos, Elliot Ramos, and I know some of these guys are, they're at a different spot in terms of their comfort with English than others.
05:12I get all that, but like, it's not just the language, it's all the cultural stuff.
05:18Exactly.
05:18And listen, you know what else pops to mind? Like, remember the last time the Warriors played in the playoffs?
05:25Anybody remember the last time? Can we highlight that for a second?
05:30Please, can the rest of this week go well? There's not been a playoff game for the Golden State Warriors in two years.
05:37Think about that in the Steph Curry era. No playoffs. Two years.
05:43And the last time they went to the playoffs, they had to grab everything they possibly could to beat the adorable Kings in seven games,
05:52with a 50-burger from Steph, and then the hated Lakers took care of him in six games.
05:58Hey, Lonnie Walker, what are you doing with your life now?
06:01That's what I remember the last time they played in the playoffs.
06:04You know what else I remember about that team?
06:06Couldn't win a road game.
06:09All year long.
06:12Why?
06:12Because they hated each other.
06:16I wish I could say you're exaggerating, but I don't think that you are.
06:20Like, they were an unhappy group.
06:22Yes, and that is such an incredible...
06:24And that's what I'm talking about when you see what this group has experienced already in just two weeks.
06:31You've got...
06:32Dude, they've got three walk-offs on this homestand.
06:36In 12 games, total, yeah.
06:38One of them's a splash hit where you were down by five runs.
06:41You have the opening day experience with Wilmer bombing one there in the ninth inning to win a baseball game there.
06:48Your plane flights are probably parties.
06:51Willie Adamas can't stop smiling, and he's hitting 180.
06:55Like, dude, this team has experienced so much already in their first 12 games.
07:01Like, this has the makings of what can take them to the next level.
07:05I'm very, very excited by not just the baseball, some of the other stuff that you're seeing from this group.
07:13And also, by the way, how fun is this?
07:16Anybody get a ticket to a game over the last six games?
07:20Everybody try this exercise.
07:22Get the ferry or get an Uber and head to the game.
07:25You already know what the lineup is.
07:26Yeah, I was just looking at that right now, Mark.
07:28You don't need to go to Twitter.
07:30I'm sorry to tell Alex Pavlovich, you don't need to tweet the lineup out every day.
07:33I already know what it is.
07:34You know it, and you look at the games played, and it's Bailey 11, Lamont 11, and this has ended today.
07:42And so, I know Bailey, I think Bailey came in late today.
07:45No, he didn't start last night.
07:48He came in late last night.
07:49He came in, that was the one.
07:50You've got Adamas 12, Chapman 12, Ramos 12, Jung-Hoo Lee 11, Wilmer 12.
07:57Like, seven or eight of your nine are just there every day.
08:01So, as a fan, that experience has been incredible.
08:04And also, I do think that in the clubhouse as well.
08:07Like, you know if you're Yaz that you're going to play every game against a righty.
08:12And if you're any of the other regular starters, you know you're going to be in there.
08:16And that's got to be so comforting for a professional to know exactly what you're expected and know what you're going to be facing.
08:22Do you want to know what's just awesome?
08:24If you're a Giants fan, this is going to hit you right in the meaningful muscle.
08:31You'll get exactly what I'm about to say.
08:34So, when you're in the media, the Giants, like, there's an email thread.
08:41And whenever there's any news, you get an email.
08:45You get an email from the PR wing of the San Francisco Giants.
08:50So, do you know what I just wrote in my search bar of my email?
08:54I wrote Giants space roster.
08:58The reason I did that is that will search every email I've received that says Giants roster moves for and then the date.
09:08And any time they make a transaction, I get one of those emails.
09:14Do you want to know when the last time was that I got one of those emails?
09:17It's probably been since spring training.
09:20It was on Saturday, March 29th.
09:24Yeah.
09:25Which was the day of their second baseball game in Cincinnati.
09:29And actually, it wasn't even them doing something with their roster.
09:34It was letting us know that David VR had cleared waivers and had been outrighted to AAA Sacramento.
09:40The Giants haven't made a roster switch.
09:46Right.
09:47All year long.
09:49And in previous years, our joke was like...
09:53Twice a day.
09:53Have they traded with Seattle today?
09:55Twice a day.
09:55They made probably...
09:56And I looked at the numbers a while back on how many different players appeared.
10:01One year, they had over 90 players appear in Major League games for the Giants because of the constant up and down.
10:08And we're going to find you and use you.
10:10And then we're going to jettison you and the rest of it.
10:12And now they've got, here's our roster, here's our team, go play baseball.
10:16And it's so refreshing as a fan to see it and not worry about, like, ooh, Landon Roop.
10:22He's going to make a start.
10:23And then instead of him just, oh, I don't know, getting his next turn, we're going to send him to Sacramento and bring up an extra arm.
10:29And then we need a left-handed bat.
10:30And this guy's going to sit.
10:31But it's refreshing to know that, like you're saying, here's our lineup.
10:35And we can all close our eyes and think about the Yankees on Friday.
10:39And you could probably guess the lineup right now.
10:40Oh, completely.
10:41And you'd be right.
10:42Are they playing a lefty or are they playing a righty?
10:44Exactly.
10:44That's the only question.
10:45I need to know, right, is Yaz in or is Matos in?
10:48And where's Ramos in the order?
10:50That's pretty much what we're doing here.
10:51Yep.
10:52That's what we're doing here.
10:53And there's something else that's tucked into that Yaz soundbite.
10:56I want to play this for you again.
10:58Take a close listen.
10:59Oh, man, it's the best feeling in the world.
11:02It's one of those things where you don't feel any pressure.
11:05You don't ever have to be the hero on any given day.
11:07You just get to be yourself.
11:08And Willie has done an unbelievable job of just connecting everyone.
11:12You know, at times, if there's a little disconnect between, you know,
11:15half the locker room with guys who don't speak the best English
11:18and don't feel comfortable trying, Willie's there pushing them
11:20and making sure that everyone's pulling for each other.
11:22And that's so unbelievably huge that its value is, you know,
11:27we just don't even have a way to describe it.
11:29Did you hear when he said no pressure?
11:30Yep.
11:31No pressure.
11:32No pressure.
11:33Which I don't know if he's necessarily the one who's talking about years past,
11:38but that concept of, hey, I went up there.
11:43I'm supposed to hit lefties.
11:45I didn't for two at-bats.
11:47I'm yanked, and I might be on the bus tomorrow to Sacramento or San Jose.
11:53Do you remember last year when Hayden Birdsong set that record for strikeouts at Coors Field?
11:59The next day, he woke up in San Jose.
12:02Gone.
12:03Well, they wanted to keep him close, Mark, so that they could bring him back.
12:06Great.
12:06Great.
12:07Great.
12:08Like, that's the stuff.
12:09When you talk about a locker room that's all together, guess what else?
12:12It's not just that they know their lineup.
12:15They know who's got the locker next to them.
12:17Last year, they had lockers in the middle of the locker room because instead of having the normal 26 men,
12:24it's just like they got 35 people because everybody's in and out, in, out.
12:28Oh, I'm in Sacramento today.
12:30Now I'm back.
12:30Now I'm in San Jose.
12:32All of that stuff has been wiped clean, and that doesn't matter necessarily for the box score in the game,
12:39but I think it matters for the guys.
12:41I think it really matters for the guys.
12:43And that's something that we all lose sight of in sports, broadcasters, fans, everybody,
12:48because we look at the numbers, and numbers are numbers, and your numbers are your numbers,
12:53and all the rest of it.
12:54But when it comes down to anything in sports, you're dealing with human beings.
12:58And I've always thought that if a human being feels better about himself and his situation,
13:05he's going to perform better.
13:06And this is what we saw in the Farhan Zaidi era, where the numbers might indicate that this player
13:13and this player's profile would be a better statistical matchup in this moment.
13:18But you've got another human being, and Jock Peterson, I will never forget the example
13:23where he homers, and then his next time up he gets pinch hit for because the spreadsheet told you
13:29that it's a bad matchup for him, a lefty against a lefty.
13:33Meanwhile, the human being is thinking, I just went deep.
13:37I'm feeling good.
13:38Like, all of a sudden now, you don't get to play because it's a bad matchup.
13:43So the human element, Buster's at the helm, Bob Melvin's really good at this,
13:47and you bring in Willie Adamas, who apparently, according to Yaz, is an elite bilingual broker
13:53of the vibe.
13:54Well, you remember when he came on the show with us?
13:56He was awesome.
13:57All we could hear was his voice, and we finished the conversation, and the whole building was lit up.
14:03Yeah, he was awesome.
14:05Like, that's the effect that he has on people.
14:08And you're listening to 95.7 The Game, KGMZ FM and HD1 San Francisco, and Odyssey Sports Station,
14:13always live on the free Odyssey app.
14:15And now come to you live from the Laughing Monk studios.
14:19Ramona Shelburne's going to join us here in just about 10 minutes.
14:22And we'll get back to the dubs and find out what the hell's going on with the Nuggets
14:26because she's up in Sacramento with the Nuggets tonight.
14:29And so we're looking real forward to talking to Momo,
14:32and we'll get back to the Western Conference boogie that's going on this week.
14:377 o'clock tonight is going to be Bananas, okay?
14:40The Warriors are playing the Spurs, and the Nuggets are going to be playing the Kings,
14:46and the Clippers are going to be playing portions of the Rockets,
14:51and there's just all kinds of stuff going on.
14:52The Thunder will be in Phoenix against the Suns.
14:54Who cares about that?
14:55Those two teams' fate all set.
14:57But that's all happening in the 7 to 7.30 window tonight,
15:02so that's going to be crazy.
15:03So we'll be all over it.
15:05But, yeah, man, I just think what's really fascinating is this team's almost making me
15:14sort of believe in something that's like in the woo-woo neighborhood.
15:19And here's what I mean by this.
15:20Every Giants fan that I've talked to is like, this feels so different.
15:26It looks different.
15:28It's more fun.
15:30And I'm like, okay, is the roster that different?
15:34Like, Adamus is here.
15:37And Jung Huli is here.
15:38And Jung Huli's not hurt, but he was here at the beginning of last year also.
15:42A bunch of the guys are hitting a buck 80.
15:45Adamus, a buck 80.
15:46Tyler Fitzgerald, a buck 80.
15:48Patrick Bailey, a buck 80.
15:50Lamont Wade.
15:51Lamont Wade.
15:51Buck 14.
15:52Buck 14.
15:54And also, apparently, not the guy people wanted playing first base this year.
15:58Actually, a buck five now.
16:00Buck five.
16:01Okay?
16:01Buck and a nickel.
16:02Right.
16:03But Luis Matos is up.
16:05Ramos is exciting.
16:06I really like him.
16:08He's holding down left field.
16:10Part of it is also the contracts.
16:12You're like, oh, not like a lot of these guys are going to be here for a while.
16:16Chapman has a different look this year because it's like, no, that's your third baseman.
16:20That's your third baseman for a long time.
16:22He might be the best defensive player I think I've ever seen in my life, for crying out loud.
16:26It's insane.
16:27But the whole thing has, like, this Buster Posey fingerprint on it that makes some of the same things we were watching the last two years look different this year.
16:38Some of them are the exact same things.
16:41Bailey's been here.
16:42Wade's been here.
16:43Right.
16:44Yazz is still out in right field.
16:47By the way, he's playing phenomenal this year.
16:50So a lot of it's the exact same, but it feels different.
16:54Well, a lot of it is different, and some of the things that are different are what we talked about.
16:59For one, you have a starting nine that is pretty much your starting nine.
17:03It's more like a starting seven and a half, which is fine.
17:07Like, Casey Schmidt's going to play a little first.
17:09Wilmer's your DH, and you have Lamont Wade.
17:12And you mentioned right field with Yazz.
17:13If it's a lefty, then, you know, it's not going to be Yazz out in right field.
17:17It's going to be Matos.
17:18But the other piece of it, and I can't even believe I'm going to use this word because it feels foreign.
17:24Opener.
17:25They have not used an opener, nor do they plan on using an opener.
17:30They've got five starters, and they've got another one in the wings.
17:33And Hayden Birdsong, if they want to elevate him, if there's an injury.
17:36But you have a starting rotation of five pitchers who are going to pitch.
17:41You're not trying to gin it up with some cockamamie opener and using Ryan Walker, which they did with success last year.
17:48And, you know, one inning of this guy and then three innings of that.
17:52And so this feels like a baseball team.
17:55And I go back to what I said earlier about the human element.
17:59And I do think that it's more important in baseball than any other sport.
18:02You play every day.
18:03You're with each other every day.
18:05And if you feel good about your environment, your group, your clubhouse, and the rest of it, then you're going to – you're honestly going to do better.
18:13Can I say one other thing?
18:14Do it.
18:15So I want everyone to hear this.
18:18Did you watch the game last night?
18:20Oh, yeah.
18:21Because it was two-screen Tuesday.
18:23And pulled everything out there, and Warriors and Giants on both sides.
18:28And the Warriors game went really well, and the Giants never scored.
18:30And so that was annoying.
18:32But it was Tuesday.
18:34It was a home game on a Tuesday.
18:36The Giants wear different uniforms on a Tuesday.
18:38I actually remember when the first City Connect uniforms came out, people were like, those are gross.
18:43Those are yuck.
18:43And then they won most of the games, and people get used to it.
18:47And I think the same thing will happen here.
18:49But tons of negativity about the new City Connect jerseys.
18:55And I'm not here to tell you what you like.
18:57You like what you like.
18:57And if you don't like them, and if you're not into the meaning behind the lines and the glove and the color scheme, if you're not into it, that doesn't do anything for you.
19:05It doesn't do anything for you.
19:06But I sent out a tweet yesterday where I'm like, keep in mind, first of all, City Connects are supposed to get you talking, number one.
19:12And number two, if you're 40 or 45 or 50 or 55 or 60 or 65, it's not really targeted to you.
19:20Just an observation.
19:22I didn't say anything.
19:24I turned the game on last night and sat down.
19:27My 11-year-old plopped next to me and goes, dude, I really like those.
19:32And then my 16-year-old daughter came in for the third inning.
19:36She's like, what are they wearing?
19:38I really like those.
19:40And I went, that's what's going on.
19:44City Connect.
19:45There you go.
19:45And then the next step to that is one of them saying, hey, Dad, where's your credit card?
19:50That's right.
19:50Let's go to a game.
19:51Not only let's go to a game, but I'm going to need one of those jerseys.
19:54I'm going to need a hat.
19:55Yeah.
19:55Or something.
19:56I'm going to need some purple something.
19:58Exactly.
19:58And that's the beauty of the City Connect.
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