What Terry Collins lacked in size on the baseball field, he made up for with a fiery intensity and desire to compete.
Regularly the smallest player on every organized team he played on, Collins realized that he could stand out by routinely playing harder than the rest.
Collins, 74, has spent over five decades in professional baseball. Drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 19th round of the 1971 Major League Baseball Draft, he never appeared in the big leagues as a player. Collins soon understood that if he wanted to taste the life of a major leaguer, he would need to do so in a different way.
The baseball lifer worked his way up from managing in the minor leagues to earning a coaching spot with Jim Leyland’s Pittsburgh Pirates team before getting his first shot as a major league skipper with the Houston Astros in 1994. The Astros would go on to finish second in the N.L. Central in each of the three seasons Collins was at the helm. Houston fired him following the 1996 season, however, after the team went 8-17 in September and saw their division lead disappear.
Collins wasn’t out of work long though, as the Anaheim Angels named him the 15th manager in franchise history in November of 1996. The Angels won 84 and 85 games, respectively, in 1997 and 1998, but went a disappointing 51-82 in their first 133 games of the 1999 season. Despite receiving a contract extension midway through that campaign, Collins resigned as manager following a nine-game losing streak at the end of August. Stories of player unrest and a fractious clubhouse marred Collins’ tenure as Angels manager.
Following stints as an advance scout with the Chicago Cubs, bullpen and third base coach with the Tampa Bay Rays, field coordinator and director of player development with the Los Angeles Dodgers and manager for the Orix Buffaloes of Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan, Collins was hired by the New York Mets as their minor league field coordinator for the 2010 season.
Almost a year after the Mets brought Collins on, he was tasked with a new, yet familiar, responsibility: managing a ball club.
Collins returned to the dugout, becoming the 20th skipper in Mets history. He made a promise to himself to enjoy this time more and not make the same mistakes he did with the Astros and Angels.
In total, he was at the helm for seven seasons (2011-2017), becoming the second manager in franchise history to lead the club to back-to-back postseasons in 2015 and 2016 (joining Bobby Valentine). Collins is the longest-tenured manager in Mets history, managing 1,134 regular season games.
Recently, Collins joined X (formerly Twitter) and began a podcast with John Arezzi aptly called “The Terry Collins Show.” The weekly show features Collins bringing listeners behind the scenes of a major league clubhouse, along with hosting a variety of guests including David Wright, R.A. Dickey and Daniel Murphy.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Collins over the phone, where we discussed his playing career, transitioning to managing and some of his memories from his time with the Mets.
MMO: Who were some of your favorite players growing up?
Collins: I grew up in Michigan and Al Kaline was a big star with the Tigers. There was another player named Rocky Colavito who became a great player with the Tigers.
The Yankees won a lot back then, so I was a big Mickey Mantle fan.
One of the stations we listened to in Michigan had Milwaukee Braves baseball. I used to listen to the great Braves players like [Hank] Aaron and [Eddie] Mathews. The catcher’s name was Del Crandall, who I played for in the minor leagues. So that was cool.
MMO: You played all over the field throughout your minor league career. Were you always a versatile player?
Collins: I grew up playing just second base. I was always the smallest guy on every team I ever played. Second base was my position, and I only played a couple of games at shortstop in American Legion.
When I got to college I made the team as a freshman. The first game we had was a doubleheader, and the second baseman on varsity got hurt. They brought me up for those two games and I got six hits in the doubleheader.
The next day the coach asked me, “Can you play shortstop?” I told him yes. He said, “Well, meet me at the field,” and the following day I played shortstop against the University of Michigan. I ended up playing shortstop the rest of my career at Eastern Michigan.
MMO: You’ve always been known as an intense and fiery competitor. Do you remember when you first started displaying those traits?
Collins: Well, again, I’m a little guy. When I had to compete, if I was going to compete, I had to play hard. I played harder than anybody.
When I was a little boy, my mother got a phone call from one of my friend’s mothers. She said, “I don’t want Bobby playing with Terry anymore. He plays too hard.”
When my dad got home from work that night, my mom said to him, “You need to talk to Terry.” My dad asked, “Why?” She said, “One of the mothers called and said Terry plays too hard and we need to talk to him.” My dad said, “I’ll talk to him.” She asked, “What are you going to tell him?” He said, “I’m going to tell him not to play with Bobby anymore.” [Laughs.]
MMO: When and how did the chance to manage in the minor leagues come about?
Collins: It’s pretty funny. My first spring training I saw Triple-A guys who were 29-30 years-old still playing. I wrote a letter to my mother that spring telling her there are guys who are 29 and 30 years old still playing in the minors. I told her I’m giving it three years, and if I’m not in the big leagues in three years I’m going to go back and use my education. Fifty years later I’m still doing it!
I kind of fell in love with the game. The one thing I always wanted to do was be a coach. When I went to the Dodgers organization from the Pirates, in spring training you would go into a backroom, and they had this little area where guys could get a beer. It was part of the complex. You would sit there and listen to [Sandy] Koufax, [Don] Drysdale, [Johnny] Podres, Maury Wills, Wes Parker, Walter Alston and [Tommy] Lasorda. They were always at spring training. You just sat there and absorbed as much information as you could.
When I was hoping I would get a chance to manage, as I said, I played for Del Crandall. I picked his brain because he was an outstanding minor league manager, great teacher and great teacher of catching. Back then, you didn’t have any coaches in the minor leagues, it was just you. I had to learn how to teach catching, how to teach outfield play and how to work with the pitchers.
I picked the brains of those guys as much as I possibly could. I knew at some time I was going to have to use all of that information. It was the greatest education you could have.
MMO: It’s crazy to think there was a time where the only coach on a minor league time was the manager.
Collins: My first year managing I’m in Lodi, California, and in the minors you have halves. So, the first half, our team wasn’t very good. Fernando Valenzuela burst onto the scene in Los Angeles, and he was throwing a screwball. There was an older pitcher the Dodgers had at one time named Jim Brewer, and Jim threw a screwball. The Dodgers hired him to go through the minor leagues and try to teach some guys that were average pitchers the screwball.
The first place he came was Lodi. He saw our pitching staff and said, “Terry, first of all, I’m going to teach them how to throw their fastballs for strikes. I’m not worried about the screwball. If they can’t throw their fastballs for strikes, the screwball is not going to help them.”
He turned our entire pitching staff around in three weeks. We ended up winning the second half and won the championship because Brewer came and taught my pitchers to throw strikes with their fastballs. That’s the kind of stuff you got the opportunity with. Again, this was my first year coaching by myself.
When I got to Triple-A we had coaches; we had a pitching coach and third base coach. My pitching coach was Dave Wallace, who was one of the best pitching coaches for a long time and one of my best friends. He had to go home and I’m the only guy who’s ever had Sandy Koufax as a pitching coach. Sandy used to roll through the minor leagues, and he came to Albuquerque when Dave was going to be gone. Sandy was my pitching coach for a day.
MMO: You can’t do much better than having Koufax offering his tutelage.
Collins: We were sitting on the bench and the game was going on, and I brought a pitcher in for the ninth. He walked the first guy, and I went, “God damn it!” And Sandy, sitting next to me, said, “Did you ever pitch?” I said, “No.” Then he said, “Well, it ain’t that easy.” I never, ever said that again! I learned a lesson in one little sentence. [Laughs.]
MMO: Can you talk a bit about the role Hall of Fame manager Jim Leyland played in your development as a skipper?
Collins: Jim had a similar background as me. He only got to Double-A as a player; I spent six years in Triple-A. Neither of us got to the big leagues. Jim started managing at a young age and was stuck in the Tigers organization where Sparky [Anderson] was the manager, so Jim was going nowhere.
He was stuck in Triple-A and had a chance to go with Tony La Russa, but he wanted to be a Tiger, that’s all he wanted to do. Sparky wouldn’t hire him, so Jim ended up leaving. It was a very similar thing [for me]. Tommy [Lasorda] was the manager of the Dodgers, and he was never going to go until he decided he was going to. There was no place for me.
I had been managing in Albuquerque for six years as the Triple-A manager, and I had a chance to go to the Pittsburgh Pirates and manage their Triple-A team. I went to Pittsburgh and asked, ‘How do I get to the big leagues?’ I met Jim and he liked me, and he brought me to the big leagues three years later. We had this relationship because of our backgrounds. He’s such an entertaining guy and funnier than heck.
In September, they started bringing the Triple-A manager up to the big leagues at the end of the season as part of the call-ups; they bring five, six, seven guys up in September. They started bringing the managers up so that you could help the coaches and the [minor league] manager knows about the [minor league] players. The other teams brought their minor league guys up who I saw [play]. So you could help.
When I got to the big leagues, Jim said to me, “Here’s your job: I want you to sit next to me on the bench during the games. I want you to throw batting practice to [Barry] Bonds, [Bobby] Bonilla and [Andy] Van Slyke. If I ever see you throwing batting practice to Tom Prince, I’m going to send you back to Triple-A. When the game’s over, I want you to come in, sit right over there in the corner and listen to what kind of questions the sportswriters ask me and how I answer them. You don’t have to say the same things I say, but you need to hear the kind of questions you’re going to face.”
For the next number of years that’s what I did. We’d sit on a plane together and I’d ask questions about situations that happened in the game that night. He’s very upfront and blunt about it and would talk about it.
I asked him one time, ‘Jim, when you got the job in ’86 in Pittsburgh, what changes have you made to be the manager you are today?’ He looked off for a second and said, “Well, I’ll tell you, Terry. The biggest change I made was I write Barry Bonds’ name in a lineup now and not Jason Thompson’s.” [Laughs.]
MMO: There’s no better way to get acclimated to a future as a major league manager then getting to essentially shadow one as you did with Leyland.
Collins: Absolutely. They had a lockout one time and Jim was in minor league spring training, so there were no big-league players at camp. The Triple-A manager ran spring training with the Pittsburgh organization at the time, so I ran spring training.
When it was over, Jim came over to me and said, “They opened up the camp for the big-league players. I don’t make promises but the next spot on my staff, you’re it.” That’s how I got my chance. I was really lucky, and we’ve just been very, very good friends. We stay in constant contact.
MMO: Are you planning on being in Cooperstown for his induction into the Hall of Fame this summer?
Collins: Yeah, absolutely.
MMO: I interviewed Ned Colleti several years ago, and he sang your praises during your time with the Dodgers as director of player development. He said when you left for Japan, he often missed your approach, intellect and honesty. What are your memories from your time with the Dodgers organization?
Collins: I was talking with Andy Green when he got the job with the Mets, and I told him that he’s the perfect guy. I told him he can make a huge impact on people. What helped me, Mathew, to be honest, I had already managed in the big leagues for six years. I had some situations with young players that got to the big leagues that failed miserably, and they were good players! It took them a while to get through it. That was one of the theories when I became the minor league director of Los Angeles was, look, I’m going to challenge my good players and if they’re good enough they’ll get it and move faster.
I challenged Matt Kemp when he was 19; I put him in Double-A. He might have had a little problem in the beginning, but at the end of the year, he’s the best player in the league bar none.
My time with the Dodgers, Paul DePodesta was the GM, and when Jim Tracy was let go and I was going to get that job, Paul got fired two days before they were going to name me the manager. Ned got hired and he came down to Florida to talk to me and he said, “Look, you’re not going to get the job. I’m going to go with somebody else.” I said, “Okay.” And he said, “I don’t know what you want to do.” I told him, ‘I’m going to do what I always do: I’m just going to do my job.’
But I didn’t mope; shit happens! I stayed on and tried to help Ned as best I could and was always there and calling about different things. I had a great relationship with him, but I had a chance to go to Japan [to manage] for a lot of money and I couldn’t turn that down. That’s why I left.
MMO: How would you compare baseball in Japan vs. the States?
Collins: The whole game’s different. Number one, they are fundamentally off the charts; tremendous cut-offs and relays. They can lay down the best bunts you’ll ever see, they can run the bases – they don’t steal a lot – but they run the bases great. They play to score one run and they play to protect one run. It might be the top of the first inning and a guy’s on third base with one out and they’re bringing that infield in. They’re not giving up runs. You’re going to have to get a hit to earn a run, that’s how they play.
They have a tremendous work ethic. I mean, the pitchers with 200-pitch bullpens between starts, and hitters will take 500 swings before a game. They trained themselves and want to make the game easier so they get themselves into tremendous shape. They run and run and run and run!
You go to spring training, and they don’t have the number of fields we have over here, but spring training starts at nine in the morning and you’re off the field at six. You have dinner and then the players get their bats and go out in the parking lot and swing. The rookies went to a room at the hotel and had night batting where they used wiffle balls. It’s pretty intense. It’s always go, go, go!
They have a day off or two every week, they play 144 games but there’s a number of off days. They take the bullet trains or they’ll take an easy flight which are only an hour and ten minutes.
They’re very sound players. All of their pitchers throw the ball over the plate. Here, we like strike one and then expand the zone. They do almost the opposite. They nibble the outside corner and see if you’ll swing at it. If you don’t, they’ll throw it over. They don’t like to strikeout so those guys will put the ball in play. They’ll hit that borderline pitch. They may not hit it good, but if you really work the count you’re going to get a good ball to hit.
When I got over there, Bobby Valentine told me, “Terry, you’re not going to like the cut-offs or relays, but leave them alone because they do it.” Mathew, in all my years in the United States, I have never seen a guy tag up at third base on a fly ball to the outfield and try to score where the ball is cut off and relayed to home never be thrown out. I saw it three times in Japan! They are so good at it. Every cut off is perfectly thrown.
MMO: Did you take anything you learned in Japan and bring it back to the States when you were managing the Mets?
Collins: Not really. I saw a thing the other day that Carlos [Mendoza] was saying we took infield. Well, you know, in all my years in New York, we took infield. You know how they used to take it after batting practice? We took it before. When we were at home, our guys threw to the bases twice during a homestand. The outfielders loved it. You had [Yoenis] Céspedes and [Juan] Lagares who both had tremendous arms. It was like a challenge of who was going to make the better throw.
Tommy Goodwin was my outfield coach and those guys loved him. We took infield/outfield most every day. Those fundamentals in Japan, I remember I took an American coach over and a scout asked him one day before the game, “You guys going to take infield?” And John said, “Let me think, this is our hundredth game and we’ve taken infield one-hundred times. Yeah, we’ll take it again.” [Laughs.]
I liked it. You make it easy because they want to take ground balls anyway. We came out 15 minutes early before we started hitting and guys got all of their defensive work in. Now, if you want to take some balls off the bat during batting practice, that was fine. It eliminated guys getting hit because they were catching a ground ball while someone was taking BP. It really helped out and I thought it was a big difference, so I brought that over.
Their batting practices at home [in Japan], they have two cages going; they have a right-handed pitcher and a left-handed pitcher. You just go from cage to cage. It’s tremendous! They have routines, man. I saw [Yu] Darvish when he was 19, I saw [Masahiro] Tanaka when he was 17. They were electric and both threw between starts. They would throw 150 pitches in the bullpen because that would make their game easier when they got to 120. That was their theory. But you couldn’t bring that here. You’d never get an American guy to do that.
MMO: The July 29, 2015, game is one fans will likely never forget with the sight of Wilmer Flores crying on the field believing he had been traded. What memories stick out for you from that night, and how did you go about managing a game that clearly had so much off-the-field speculation going on?
Collins: It was during the trade deadline and Wilmer’s name was never mentioned, Sandy did that stuff himself. I’m just standing in the dugout and the game’s going on and Wilmer was on deck and some fans were yelling good luck and we love you. I’m going, “What the heck is that?”
David [Wright] came up to me and said, “Terry, it’s all over TV. He’s been traded.” I said, ‘David, he has not been traded.’ He said, “I’m telling you they’re broadcasting right now on TV; he’s been traded.” I said, “David, this guy has not been traded. You see that phone right there?” He said, “Yeah.” I said, ‘That phone goes to Sandy. If there’s a deal done, that phone would be ringing and I’d be taking him out of the game.”
Now people are telling Wilmer he’s been traded, and he’s upset. I walked down the dugout to him, and I said, “Hey, let’s go. You’re on this team. You have not been traded. You’ve got to go out and play.” He goes out and sure enough he starts crying on the field. As he comes in off the field I went over to him, and at the time, I think he was the only shortstop I had who was healthy. I said, “Look, you’ve got to finish this game, man. You’re fine, you’re still a Met. You’re not going anywhere.”
He went back and he’s still crying on the field. The next thing you know, the phone rings and it’s Sandy. And he said, “You’ve got to take Wilmer out.” I asked, ‘Is he traded?’ He said, “No, but he’s crying on the field!” So, he came back in, and I got him out and sure enough he wasn’t traded. I didn’t know what else to do. I told him, ‘Wilmer, if you were traded I would’ve been told, and I would’ve taken you out of the game. You are a Met. Everything’s going to be okay.’
Sure enough, it ended up being okay. And that’s why, Mathew, two days later he hit that home run against the Nationals that couldn’t have been written. You can’t read a Hollywood script better than that.
MMO: Your “To who? For What” postgame comment will forever be etched in my brain. I always loved watching your pre and postgame press conferences because you were very transparent.
Collins: Absolutely, Mathew, and I’m going to go back to Jim Leyland. Right when I got my interview with the Houston Astros, I called Jim and said, ‘I’m going to go to Houston tomorrow and interview for the manager job.’ He said, “I’ll meet you at the stadium.” I was living in Pittsburgh, and we went to the stadium and I spent six hours with him. He just talked about all these different questions that I was going to face and different things.
One of the things he said was, “Listen, I’m going to tell you right now, you treat every reporter as if they’re the sports editor of The New York Times. There are no dumb questions but if you’re hit with one, treat it like any other question. Don’t belittle the guy, just answer the question.”
When I got to the Mets, Jay Horwitz was the guy who told me, “Terry, one of the best things you can do is learn everybody’s name.” When I did these press conferences and if Mike Puma asked me a question, I would say, “Well, you know Mike…” Now his name is tied to that question.
There were some questions asked by some young guys or people from a different team or something that didn’t make much sense and all the writers would laugh. I didn’t laugh, I just answered the question. I thought that really helped, not to belittle any reporter. They have a job to do, and I respect it.
The only thing I ever asked of these guys was not to lie. Don’t make something up. It’s your opinion and strictly your opinion, that’s fine. There were a couple of times where there was an unnamed source that says this. I would go to them and say, “I know you won’t tell me who it was that said it, but how do I know you just didn’t make that up? Maybe you just said this is what I think and I’m going to put it down and say somebody else said it.” I always did that one-on-one, I never did it in front of any of the other writers.
After your press conference you’ve got to budget two minutes for almost every one of those guys; they all want their own two minutes. They’d ask a question or two for their own stories that they don’t want out there. That’s why I try and tell anybody that’s ever managed in New York that you’ve got to understand to budget your time for these guys and answer their questions. Don’t blow them off because they’ve got the pen, and they can make it miserable for you. Just treat them with respect and that’s about it. I thought it helped me out a lot.
MMO: How beneficial was the Matrix during the 2015 season?
Collins: It was just coming into play then. I think it was a great coaching tool, I think it’s really good for coaches to use. The players can get overwhelmed with information, and their job is to go play. As a coach or manager, you take that information and try to use it to your benefit to put those guys in the best position to succeed. We didn’t flood them with a bunch of information, I just didn’t like it. Number one, most of them have played a long time, I had a pretty veteran club. The last thing I want to do is put stuff in their head.
I remember one time when I was in Anaheim, Tim Salmon, who’s a great, great player, somebody on the team said, “Hey, I’ve got the signs. Do you guys want them? If I’m on base I can tell you what’s coming.” And Tim said, “I do not want to know. I’m fine.” I asked him after the game was over why that was, and he said, “Terry, if he’s wrong, it’ll screw me up mentally. Let me just figure it out.” I thought that made sense.
They used it (analytics) a lot in Japan. In interleague play in Japan, you can have your advance scout on the bench with you. The other team brought in a pitcher, so this advance scout got up and talked to my rookie shortstop, who was a pretty nice player, and said, “There’s a thirty percent chance you’re going to get this, another thirty percent chance you’re going to get this pitch, a twenty-five percent chance you’re going to get this pitch.” You’ve got to be shitting me! [Laughs.] Go up there and if you get a fastball, hit it!
You’ve got to filter it. I thought our coaches did a great job of using that information for their benefit to help the players and not try to overwhelm them.
MMO: One of the moments I’ll always remember is when SNY caught the shot of you going over and putting your arm around Jacob deGrom in the dugout after he gave up eight earned runs against the Texas Rangers in 2017. Do you remember some of the things you relayed to deGrom in that moment?
Collins: First of all, everybody saw how talented Jake was. Great talent. He was the best pitcher we had. There were times Matt [Harvey] was the best, or [Noah] Syndergaard might have been the best, but Jake was our guy.
I remember years ago, Walter Alston told me when I first started managing, “Terry, there are two kinds of players. There are the ones who have been humbled, and ones who will be humbled in this game.” And that was what I pretty much told Jake. Everybody’s going to have a bad day. [Sandy] Koufax had a bad day; Bob Feller had a bad day. He had a bad day. You’ve got to be able to forget about it because in four days you’re going back out there, big boy. Blow it off, tip your cap and say I’ll see you in four days.
That was just a moment where you could look back and say, guess way? Welcome to the game. It’s not easy out there. That’s why guys who compete like he did, it can cause that humbleness that a player needs once in a while to realize the game is not easy. I thought that was a coaching chance for me to tell Jake that he’s still the guy. You’re going to be just fine, you had a bad night and move on.
MMO: Does a day go by where someone doesn’t mention the ass in the jackpot game?
Collins: You know what? It’s become part of me, it really has!
I live in St. Lucie and I belong to a golf course where three quarters of the members are New Yorkers. During this time of year people come down and they’ll come out and somebody will introduce me. And that’s the first thing they’ll bring up!
I have a friend who’s a golf pro at the pro shop, and every time I walk in the first thing I hear is, “Give us a shot! Gotta give us a shot!” So there’s not a day.
MMO: It still baffles me that Adam Hamari had such a quick trigger when it came to Syndergaard’s pitch behind Chase Utley.
Collins: That was my argument. Do you remember John McSherry? Great, big umpire. He actually died on the field in Cincinnati. He was a long-time umpire, and we had a fight in Houston. When the fight finally stopped, I went over to him and he’s writing down names of guys he’s going to kick out. He never looked up; he was just writing names down. He said to me, “You get one shot. You get the first guy in the batter’s box and then I’m going to put an end to this.”
Four years later, I’m managing the Angels, and we get in a big fight in Kansas City. Don Denkinger said exactly the same thing to me when all the stuff stopped finally. He said, “You get the first guy and it’s over with.” This was the first time we saw Utley and I was shocked. That’s why when Tom [Hailon] said, “You had a shot,” no we didn’t! This was it! That was my whole argument. I wasn’t mad at Tom; we didn’t get the chance to get Utley and that’s what I was upset about.
MMO: What advice would Terry Collins in his final year as manager in 2017 give to first-year manager Terry Collins in 1994?
Collins: Enjoy the game more. I took it real serious, that’s why I rubbed people the wrong way. I’m a pretty intense guy, you know, when I played, I was intense. I had an old manager tell me one time, “Players will take on the personality of the manager.” I really respected the game. I wasn’t a good enough player but there wasn’t a time that I didn’t play as hard as I could. Not one day.
One year I broke my jaw, and seven days later with my jaw wired shut I was in the lineup. I was playing with a pair of pliers in my pocket in case I got sick so I could snip the wires off. You just played; you played as hard as you could. I always thought you had to respect the game. If it wasn’t for baseball, what would we all be doing? Give it back, give it back effort. And for some people that rubbed them the wrong way. And I understood it. Shoot, I apologized to a lot of players.
Garret Anderson was a really good player, but he was one of those guys who didn’t run every ball out. One time I went up to him and asked, “Do you have a problem with me?” He said, “Absolutely not. You’re wound a little too tight for me, but I know you want to win, and I have no problem with that.” I told him okay, and that I just wanted to make sure because he’s going to be playing, he’s going to be in the lineup every day.
There are times where you’ve got to take a stance on something. It might rub a player the wrong way, but I just think that’s the way the game should be played and managed.
When I went to New York, I told myself that I’ve got to start enjoying the game more. I’ve got to enjoy my time because these jobs are hard to get. I’ve got good players and there’s nothing more fun than going out with the best players in the world and competing. So, I told myself I’ve got to enjoy it, and that’s how I went about it in New York.
MMO: Tell me about joining X and starting a podcast. What can fans expect from “The Terry Collins Show”?
Collins: John Arezzi called me about it, and I had absolutely no idea I was going to do it. I’m not a big social media guy and I’m too old to get on that stuff. But I just want to have some fun with it.
As you said earlier in the conversation, I’m an honest guy. I think there are things the fans might want to know about with the actions during a game or what goes on behind the scenes. The more they know the more they’ll enjoy the game. I want to have some fun and have guests on and talk about their careers.
I’ve got a buddy who’s a bookie, and one of the shows is going to be about gambling in sports, especially baseball. It’s just something to have some fun with and to relate to the fans. I’ve never been big enough in the game to think that I don’t have a relationship with the fans. I respect that. I try and say hi to everyone and take pictures. It takes ten seconds to sign an autograph, and that ten seconds means a lot to people.
MMO: When you look back over your fifty years in the sport, what are you most proud of?
Collins: That’s a tough one. I guess I’m most proud that I lasted for fifty years. After I signed, three years later I was released. I loved the sport and endured enough through all of the years, rode a lot of buses and didn’t make much money for a long, long time. I still respected and loved the game enough that it was fun, and it was all I wanted to do. So, I stayed with it.
I stayed with what I wanted to do and made a life. I took the ups and downs and tried to be the same guy every day. I think baseball teaches that.
Follow Terry Collins on Twitter, @TerryCollins_10.
Check out Terry’s podcast here.
