It's a very great process. You, you don't
, you never know how this is going to work
out. Uh You know, you respect the process
. Do you respect the people that are gonna make
their decision? Uh And there's one thing about this
for sure. The Hall of Fame carries so much
integrity that it's going to be done, right?
And that's why I'm so proud today. This is
not an easy place to get. It's not an
easy place to get for a superstar player or a
manager or, or, or a broadcaster. Anybody
, this is a tough place to get and to
end up here and the light here at the end
of the career uh is, is awful special and
it's very tough to get here. My career has
always been what it is. I, I uh
I'm smart enough to know like all good managers that
it's, it's all about the players. Uh You
try to be there for them. Uh You,
you try to handle them in the right way,
you try to show them the respect that they deserve
. And you also have to show leadership because contrary
to what a lot of people believe, I believe
that young people and young baseball players, no matter
how talented they are, there can be a slight
bit of insecurity there. Am I really good enough
to be here? Do I really belong here?
Can I really stay here? And I think it
takes somebody to show leadership to get them over the
hump. And in a lot of cases I'm not
saying he's the only guy, but in a lot
of cases, it has to be the manager because
you live with him every single day. So I
think that's very important for players. And I think
it's very important for a manager. But I actually
think coming from a big family helped my managerial career
because all my siblings, all my brothers and sisters
had little different personalities and you had to learn how
to understand each one of them and to take each
one of them. And I think it was beneficial
when I had to handle players uh that had,
you know, different personalities, different styles. So
I think it actually it was very beneficial during my
managerial career. I, I, you know,
I'm, I'm very happy for the last 24 hours
because I've gotten so many texts from so many great
players. But I can tell you this, I've
also got a lot of great texts from former minor
league players and that means a lot to me guys
that never made it guys that you had to tell
them their career was over. That's not easy to
do. You know, some of the players that
I got texts from have been big leaguer have been
MVPs, they've had great careers. Maybe a world
champion may, you know, maybe a batting title
. So when that career is over, they made
money. They had a successful, great career.
Certainly. You see, you hate to see the
income for anybody, but when you're telling an 1819
year old kid it's over, that's a little tougher
than people think. So. Uh, I've appreciated
everything I've got from the Justin Verlander to the Barry
Bonds so I could go on and on and on
. But also some Mark Wagners and some minor league
guys that people might not know about today. Uh
, that means something special too.