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Ryan Reynolds here for, I guess, my 100th Mint commercial. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, honestly, when I started this, I thought I'd only have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much? I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming here. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash save whenever you're ready.
$45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes. See details. Well, welcome to the Jason and the House podcast. I'm Jason Chapitz, and thanks for joining us. Thanks for giving us a portion of your day and your time, whether you're out exercising or hanging out or doing whatever you're doing. Thanks for inviting us in, and I think you're going to really enjoy this. We're going to have a conversation today about
with Jason Grimsley. And you may be a baseball fan, you may not be a baseball fan. You may have never watched a baseball game, but I think you're going to be interested in this one because...
Jason played 15 years in the Major League Baseball two times and got a World Series ring there from the New York Yankees. He bounced around the league a little bit, played in seven different teams, but by all accounts, a really good pitcher. But you know what? Life took a turn for the worse.
And he went through hardship. And I've never talked to Jason. He's got a new book out called Cross-Stitched, One Man's Journey from Ruin to Restoration. And you know what? No matter where you are in life, no matter what you did in life, certainly sports stars get an awful lot of attention. I'd love to hear those, you know, from great success stories.
down to the bottom where you're literally thinking of doing something terrible to yourself and then finding your way out of that hell, if you will, and getting your life back on track and moving in a positive direction.
Those are the inspirational stories that I think motivate us all. And I think that's what we're going to hear today from Jason. That's certainly what his book's about. And I look forward to chatting with him. And I think the podcast will be good that way. Whether or not you're into baseball, obviously he was a baseball star and a lot of you will know him. But for those of you that don't, I think it's still going to be a fascinating discussion. So look forward to dialing him up and having a conversation with Jason.
But as we usually do, we're going to talk a little bit about the news. Then we're going to highlight the stupid because you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. So let's get after it. And the first thing I want to mention is sad. It's just sad. But it is newsworthy. And I don't think we can just glance over it or gloss over it because it's difficult to talk about.
And that is the human toll of what goes on with the human trafficking that's happening at our southern border. Now, it happens somewhat on our northern border, too, and there's been an uptick there. But when you look at literally by the millions of people that have broken the law, coming across our border, used coyotes, which is a term that means, hey, we're going to have somebody that's going to guide you along the way.
People are paying thousands of dollars to be guided across by these drug cartels. It's the drug cartels that are in charge down at the border. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and the Homeland Security Secretary continue to say, oh, it's safe, safe, safe. Well, it's not. And on FoxNews.com, this happened a couple weeks ago, Carla Jacinto, between the ages of 12 and 16. Okay, think about how young she is.
that she was forced to have sex with men sometimes 30 or 40 times. Now, she has gone through, I can't even imagine how unimaginable, I mean, seriously, I can't even imagine the horror that she went through as a young person, as young as 12 years old. And it all has to do with being a victim of human trafficking.
And so when, you know, I hear the president stand up and say, oh, we need comprehensive immigration reform and that will solve the problem. No, it won't. It exacerbates the problem. When I see all these people who say, well, I'm just coming to claim asylum. You hear AOC and others just talking about, oh, they're claiming asylum. If you're claiming asylum, you have to go to the port of entry. There's a right way to do this.
You don't just cross the border. What the coyotes are doing is trying to get you to go up, not through the port of entry, and come into the country illegally. And this horror stories that I hear, this is but one young woman who is actually going out there, putting her face out there, putting her name out there saying this is happening. But as I've talked to Border Patrol agents, and I think the reason they have
they go through a lot of mental anguish too, is they see primarily women, but young boys as well, going through this process and being sexually abused beyond your wildest comprehension. Not just once, not just twice, but as a routine. And it's avoidable. So if you think you're doing anybody a favor by encouraging illegal immigration, you're not.
There's too many people that are going through this kind of human toll that is just unimaginable, but it is totally avoidable. Lock down that border. Don't let the drug cartels be in charge. And guess what? This will...
cease to be a major, major problem that it is. And I hope people pay attention to this story and don't just shy away from it. I also want to talk about a story I saw on foxbusiness.com, and this was before the State of the Union. Joe Biden was saying he takes no responsibility, none, for the ongoing inflation crisis in the country. And he keeps pointing to the unemployment rate.
Well, the problem is, yeah, people are getting jobs, but there are two major things that are wrong. One is the labor participation rate, which is a very key metric. We have still just around 60 to 62% of eligible people actually working.
So the government benefits have been far too high. They've been far too lucrative that we have literally millions of people who don't go back into the workforce. Now, some people will have made money in real estate. Maybe they retired early with COVID, you know, done those types of things. But you have literally millions of people who are of working age who
need the income but know that the government is paying such a lucrative wage to not get into the workforce they just don't get in it and so the unemployment rate is a reflection of those seeking jobs the problem is you have millions of people that aren't seeking jobs because they're on the government payroll and that's the problem that's where things don't don't work and so
The other part of the problem is because the federal government, which is now spending roughly 25% of our gross domestic product, right? The GDP number is the summation of every financial transaction in the country. When that GDP number, if you look at it in its totality, the federal government is now spending about one out of every $4 that's spent in this country.
So you think of everything in your business, everything in your family, everything in your extended family, everything in the state of Utah or the state of Kentucky or the state of Florida. You can add all of that up together. The federal government is still spending about one out of every four dollars in this country. And so when they pass these multi-trillion dollar bills, the Inflation Reduction Act at 1.7 trillion dollars, guess what folks?
When there's more money in the system chasing too few goods, what happens? That's the pure definition of inflation. Too much money chasing too few goods means a rise in prices. And so the rise in prices has outweighed the rise in wages. So even though you may have gotten an increase, guess what? Your money is worth less.
Because whether you're going to a fast food restaurant, you're going to buy some groceries or milk or whatever it might be, or maybe you're just trying to go to the movies or do something, those prices have gone up. Certainly they have on fuel, which is one of the biggest expenditures. When the price of fuel goes up, guess what? Everything goes up. That's the problem. And so for the president to say it takes no responsibility...
He should take all the responsibility. Only government can print money. Only government can spend that government money. And when one out of every four dollars out of our system is the government,
That's it. You go back and look at, you type in Milton Friedman, and you'll find it like the 1960s or 70s, and he talks extensively about it. He's got this great thing where he's like at a dinner party, and he's saying, the only one that creates inflation is the government because they're the only ones that can print money. And that's so, so true. All right, let's move on to the stupid because you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. ♪
I don't know who to blame here. I don't know what happened, but I can just imagine how horrific it was. We're going to go to the Clark County School District in Las Vegas, the Wayne N. Tanaka Elementary School. Holy cow. Can you imagine this scene? Gastrointestinal illness broke out where an estimated 130 students were affected.
The description of this was horrific. People were outside just, I mean, vomiting, finding garbage cans. The bathrooms were full. 130 people. I don't know what was going on in that cafeteria. And I don't know how they're going to ever get somebody to go back into that cafeteria. I don't even know if the cafeteria was it. But, man, that has got to be a nasty, nasty scene. Yikes.
All right, let's move on to this report out of the UK. Looks like the Duchess of Sussex might be eyeing a return to her lifestyle blog. I don't know about this, but I got to tell you, if this is where she ends up spending her time to be doing some sort of blog or podcast or something like this, you know, the accusation against her is that, you know,
Megan wants to, you know, ultimately be more of a social influencer as opposed to a royal. And I don't know, since the Queen has passed away, I had the greatest respect for the Queen of England. She was, what she did in history, through history, was
One of the great leaders out there, a woman of great integrity. But I tell you, the whole system of the monarchy, you really got to kind of scratch your head and say, no, why are we doing it this way? What in the world is going on? And certainly the younger royals, if you will, are taking it to a whole other level. This just begins to prep us for a whole other level of stupid, and I think it's worth highlighting.
All right. Time to move on. I really am excited to dial this person up. Jason Grimsley played major league baseball, seven different teams, 15 year career. And I'm going to let him tell the story of how his world came crashing down. And yeah,
He couldn't see the light, couldn't see how he was going to get out of it. And whether or not you've played baseball, liked baseball, watched baseball, it's still America's pastime. And I think anybody who goes through that kind of
the highs of having a World Series ring twice for the New York Yankees to the point where he was desperate. It's really an interesting story. So let's give a call to Jason Grimsley.
Yeah, hello, this is Jason Grimsley. I'm at the Mark Meier Boot Ranch. Can I help you? Hey, this is Jason Chapin. Thanks so much for answering my call. Listen, I'm honored to talk to you. You threw a lot of baseballs in a lot of games, and a lot of us were watching those games, and I'm glad to chat with you. Oh, yeah, well, it's fun that somebody actually wants to talk to me. Now, where are you at? Where did I call?
I'm at my buddy's, it's called Meyer Boot Ranch. He makes custom boots for people all over the country and all over the world. Incredibly talented. And sitting in his boot shop, hanging out with him a little bit. Just thought it'd be a fun place to come over here and actually talk with you guys. Well, you know, we should have captured the video of this. But yeah, way to give a plug for the boot ranch right off in the first 30 seconds. I'm highly impressed.
Oh, well, that's my pleasure. Like I said, he's not only a heck of a bootmaker, but also an incredible fisherman.
Or let me rephrase that. He's a catcherman. He doesn't do a lot of fishing. All he does is catch. Well, that's good. It sounds like fun and good to have good friends like that. You can never have too many friends that make boots. So that's good. That's good. Hey, thanks so much for joining us. You know, I've never chatted with you before. You've got a great new book out, though. Cross-stitched One Man's Journey from...
ruin to restoration and um so congratulations on doing that right i've written a few books myself they're hard to do oh yeah it was um it was it was it was it was difficult um the hardest part was was going through it you know my wife and i worked together on it and you know reliving some of my failures or extreme failures in my past and
And, uh, you know, not on, you know, it was hard on me. It was hard on her is the thing I like about the book is that they, they interviewed my wife and, uh, my three kids, Hunter, John and rain. And it's actually in the book, you know, what they were thinking, how they felt while this was going on. And that's, uh, it was great to listen to, to what they had to say, but at the same time, it was painful watching them relive it and me reliving it. And, you know, I knew, I knew what I, the pain and the hurt that I'd caused. And, uh,
But as far as the healing process goes, that was huge. Yeah. There's something very therapeutic, I think, for going through that. You know, my theory as I get older in life, my theory here is that
Everybody goes through stuff. They go through really hard times, and some of them may be an addiction. It may be an accident. It may be financial troubles. It may be mental health issues. It could be just about anything, but nobody's skirting through life here without having some hard, hard things come upon them. Yeah, well, you just described me to a T. The whole gambit? I hit all of them? I think I hit all of them.
Well, go back. And that's why, look, I kind of teed up this podcast as saying, look, I don't care if you're a baseball fan or not. The human experience is, I think it's also fascinating, especially when people turn it around and make good on it and turn a really hard situation into something positive. And so go back for us, Jason. Tell us a little bit about growing up, where you were, what life was like.
Do you have brothers, sisters? What were your parents like? But start with kind of I was born in and then go from there. Yeah, I was born in Cleveland, Texas on August 7, 1967. And we actually lived about six, seven miles out of Cleveland on Tarkington Prairie. So I grew up out in the woods on a farm.
I grew up around horses, cows. I didn't know who they were for. I had no idea. But that being said, there was never a doubt in my life that I was not loved. Mom, Dad, no Dad. Dad was ex-military, made his own way. He's a welder. Ended up doing extremely well for himself later in life. But, you know, those early years, you know, we rented houses, we moved around. And then my grandmother and her grandfather gave my mom and dad
about an acre and a half of land and they built the first home on it and i think they paid 32 000 for the first home wow our first home and they're still living in it and uh that's great you know we had we had my my grandmother and my grandfather we had uh two sets of aunts and uncles that lived within four or five hundred yards of us we had about 20 acres that we farmed
and did different things like that. What were you farming? I grew up or how I grew up with anybody. Yeah, we had corn, potatoes, butter beans, dinner peas, okra, watermelon. Well, my guess is you learned to work at a pretty young age, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's one thing. That daughter said, son, nobody's going to give you anything. You got to go out and get it. Do you have brothers, sisters? Yeah, I got one younger brother.
yeah and uh he was he was my dad's shadow all he wanted to do was weld like i think my brother could have passed inspection or x-ray when he was 12 years old okay um that's that's all my brothers ever want to do it's all he's ever done he absolutely loves it so you're working the farm you got sounds like a solid family uh not a lot of resources necessarily you weren't living high on that hog um
So you must have played some sports, right? I did. I fell in love with baseball when I was probably five, six years old. And I think you were supposed to be eight before you could play. Well, Dad sort of fibbed on my birth certificate so I could play a year earlier. He was actually my first coach. And our uniform was blue jeans, whatever shoes you had, and a maroon T-shirt with
white letters ironed on it for pastoral funeral home. Hey, that's just all American right there. You're in the heart of Texas with an ironed on jersey for the local funeral home. That's just, that's awesome. I mean, I read, what are you, 6'3"?
6'3", yes, sir. So were you pretty tall as a young kid? I mean, were you passing the – well, he kind of looks like he's 8 years old. I mean, even though he's 7. Were you always tall, big guy? No, not at all. My first driver's license I got when I was 15. I got a hardship license because my uncle was a truant officer in Liberty County. And mom and dad both worked, so I was able to drive at 15. On my first driver's license, I was 5'4", weighed 120 pounds. Yeah.
Pretty ominous figure there. All right, so you were playing baseball. Were you always the pitcher? Were you like, hey, I know how to throw the ball from here to there. I would pitch. I'd catch. I'd play shortstop. But mostly when I was younger, pitcher, catcher. Nobody else could catch. So I'd catch. But I became more of a pitcher, shortstop. I quit catching probably when I was a freshman in high school. I was the first freshman to make a –
to make varsity. And I was 14 years old as a freshman. Actually, I was 13 years old as a freshman. I hadn't turned 14 yet. I didn't turn 14 until August. And so as a 13-year-old, I was playing against seniors in high school, and I played third base. And I think I hit eighth. And yeah, that made a lot of people not very happy. The guys that were older than me, and even my classmates, the guys that I grew up with, they were all playing JV, and here I am playing varsity. But
I knew something was up when I turned about 10 years old. Nobody on the team would play catch with me.
At 13, my dad stopped playing catch. He said, son, you're going to hurt me. I can't see it. And then my sophomore year, at 5'6", about 130 pounds, I was our number one pitcher. That's amazing. How big was your high school? Little 3A school. I think I had 60 people in my graduating class. Yeah. So this wasn't like 2,500 people, but still. No, they're not 2,500 people on Target and Prairie. You're throwing the ball hard and fast and fast.
And accurately at a pretty young age. Where did that come from? Did you have like a mentor that said, hey, look, this is how you hold it. This is how you throw a ball. This is how, I mean, how do you curveball? Where'd you learn all that? Well, dad taught me to throw a baseball. And then believe it or not, obviously we're right here in Texas. And Nolan Ryan was my hero growing up. I think I had a VHS tape with him on it.
And I would, there was no Paul, there was no slow motion. So I would just watch him and pause it, watch him and pause it. And I just imitate him. You know, it's funny. It reminds me actually of what Tony Finau did, you know, Tony Finau, the golfer, he watched those old VHS tapes of Jack Nicklaus. He didn't know how to golf, but his dad went to the local library, rented the, you know, rented these VHS tapes and his kids just watched it. And then they figured out how to swing a club from there. And so, um,
So you're just watching Nolan Ryan on VHS tape with no slow-mo. And then, so what happened? I mean, those scouts, they're pretty savvy. They get after those kids early. Walk us through the journey and tell us the story of what happened and what went wrong along the way. Well, my junior year, start of the year out, I'd grown a little bit more. I think I was five. I think between my sophomore and my junior year, I grew four inches. Wow. Yeah.
and uh so now i'm 5 10 i still probably weigh about 130 pounds maybe a little more and um i was i was obviously still our number one pitcher and i got to pitch one game and we were playing a 4a school in livingston and livingston's probably probably close to 30 000 population it was a 4a school so they had to have i think at least six to eight hundred kids in it and uh we go up there and
I threw a complete ball game. I think I ended up punching out 12 of them. They might've got one hit. And, um, that, that was when I'm not going to say people started noticing things, but I opened one person's eyes. It was the coach for the other team. His name is Rick Lynch. And, uh, his dad was actually my football coach. I was the quarterback on the football team and point guard on the basketball team. Cause he played everything back then. And, um,
The next day, we were doing spring football, and I broke my right wrist, so I missed my entire junior year. Wow. And Rick Lynch came to Target to coach the linebackers in football with his dad, and then he was the baseball coach. And I think at the time, Rick was 25 or 26 years old. And he came in, and I'd grown a little bit more, put on a little bit of weight, and I was throwing hard. I had no idea how hard I was throwing.
But last game of basketball season, I got cut and I broke my left wrist and hurt my right shoulder. So I missed my entire senior year. Wow. But that one game that I pitched the year before against Livingston, Rick Lynch saw what I could, what I could do. And then believe it or not, I had an academic scholarship to go to the Air Force Academy. And about a month left to school, we go for the final interview and they're talking to mom and dad and they go through my medical history and
I ended up failing the physical because I'd had a motorcycle accident when I was 12. I cut off my left big toe and part of my foot. So the military wouldn't take me, so I really didn't know what I was going to do. Well, my high school coach set up a couple things for me to go to junior college and throw, and I went to one junior college, Alvin. And the night I graduated, he put me in his car, and we drove for four and a half hours to get to Arlington to go to a trial camp that the Phillies had. Well, we drove all night. We didn't leave.
cleveland till about midnight and uh get up there 4 30 in the morning the camp starts at seven i'm exhausted so we go to the guy that's running named guy named doug gasaway he was a cross checker for the phillies and rick asked him said do you mind if jason comes back tomorrow to throw there's a two-day deal and doug gasaway told him said no we don't mind if you don't mind him facing the guys we want to take a second look at and rick said that's that's fine so went back to hotel got some sleep come up next morning
I'm in the outfield stretching, long tossing. I'm the second guy on the mound. You know, they got the turtle up with guys, and they're hitting. And you got Doug Gassaway and Rudy Tarasas that were with the Phillies, and then about 10 college coaches. Well, I go to the bullpen, and it's the University of Texas, Arlington, and Skatcher at the time. And he looks at me. Now, you got to remember, I'm probably 5'11", weigh about 155 pounds. I have braces, look like I'm 12. Yeah.
And he looks at me and says, what are you doing? I said, well, I'm getting ready to go face some hitters. And he sort of gave me that nonchalant, all right, whatever, type look. And he went back down there and we played a little catch. And he said, you ready? I said, yep. So he got down and I turned one loose and he didn't get his glove on. It was right by his head. And he started laughing. And he's laughing the whole time I'm warming up. I'm just, I'm wondering what in the hell is this guy laughing at? So we start to walk out on the field and he gave me the ball and he said, dude, I tell you good luck, but you don't need it. And I said, what? He said, nothing.
So we get on the field, and they ask me, they say, what's your name? And I say, Jason Grimsley. Everybody just ignores me, goes back to talking. Well, I throw the first warm-up pitch. I pick my leg up and turn it loose, and when it hit the mid, it sounded like a gun went off, and everybody's head snapped. And Doug Gassaway's talking to the catcher, and he picks his mask up, and he's still laughing, and he shakes his head, and I get the ball back, and I get ready to throw it again, and I look up, and there's 12 radar guns pointing at me. They wanted to see how fast that ball was coming. Yeah.
What were you throwing back then? How fast was it? On the old gun, I was throwing 92, 93. And you're how old again? 17. 17 years old. So I picked my leg up to throw the next one, and before the catcher can get it back to me, as soon as it hit the mitt, Doug Gassway's coming out from behind the screen. He says, whoa, whoa, hang on, hang on, son. Where the hell you been? I said, Targerton Prairie.
So he actually walked behind me and sat behind me and watched me face five hitters. I think one guy fouled the ball off in the case. And these are all college kids, pretty much. Think about having one high school kid mixed in. And so Lloyd Simmons from Seminole Junior College was there. So he saw me throw, and he said, Sonny, I'm going to give you a full ride. I said, You got it, Coach Simmons. I still call him. I've seen him a few times. I still call him Coach, which is funny. Good man.
And I was absolutely excited that I was going to be able to play junior college ball and get my college played for in Seminole, Oklahoma, because they had been to the Juco World Series and won it a couple of times. And, you know, I was just pumped up. And I actually got a Western Union telegram on June 6th. That was at the end of May when I graduated. And that was the last week in May the camp was closed.
So I get a Western Union telegram on June 6th saying that I was the 251st player drafted in the left round by the Phillies. Obviously, they'd seen you, I guess, right? Yeah, they had a Philly. They had Doug Gassaway. Saw me face five hitters, and I was 10th or 11th round. And they decided to draft me. So I went from not knowing what I was going to do to being able to play junior college ball to be able to play professional ball.
And they came to the house on, I think, June the 7th or the 8th. And they said that they said to live in the room. And when I say the house is probably about 1800 square foot home, mom and dad built still live in it, by the way. And we're sitting at the, at the, at the dining room table. And, and,
They got the contract. My mom's shaking her head no. My grandmothers are all, both my grandmothers saying no. And my dad gave me the best piece of advice any man's ever given me. He looked at me and said, son, 17 years I've clothed you, fed you, put a roof over your head. And in those 17 years, I've instilled in you the values you need to make a decision you got to make right now. He said, I can't make it for you. Your mom can't make it. Your grandmothers can't make it. These scouts can't make it. He said, son, what do you want to do?
I said, Dad, I'm going to go play ball. He said, well, go play ball. He said, you can always come back here, go to work, go to school. You know how to do that. I said, yes, sir. And then three and a half years later, I was in the big leagues. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Jason Grimsley right after this.
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What was that initial contract for? Oh, to sign, I got a whopping $12,500. Yeah, but you know, a 17-year-old, that's more money than you'd seen in a while, right? Oh, are you kidding me? You were probably about to get it. I was getting a nickel a bale to bale hay, so yeah, that's quite a bit of money. All right, so you get the bonus.
And then you kind of traversed your way through some minor league ball, right? Where'd you go? First year I went to Bend, Oregon. Made $258 every two weeks for two and a half months. Then I came back home and I actually have a college education. Well, six hours of it because I went to six hours of school that winter. And that was the last winter I didn't play either instructional ball or go play. Went to play Puerto Rico one year and then Venezuela the rest of the year.
So I played year-round from basically 1986 to 1994. So tell us about that experience because it ended up, you know, a while longer. You get this knock right at the door. But tell us how you got from here to there and what went off the rails at what point. I was probably my own worst enemy on the mound when I was younger.
Cause I didn't, I didn't feel like anybody should get it off of me. And I never gave into hitters. I walked a whole bunch of guys because I refused. I didn't want to put the ball in play. Right. And, um, I think, I think things changed for me professionally, probably right about the time, uh, I was married. And then my first kid came along and, and, uh, 1995. And, uh, I'd been up and down in the big leagues. And then, uh,
My second boy was born, John was born in 96, 97 and 98. I spent two years in minor leagues. Like I said, I was up, down, and then two years I didn't get back to big leagues. But I could throw hard, but I just wasn't consistent. I was what they called effectively wild, I guess, because everything I did was max effort. And 1998, I went to spring training with the Indians and they were going to release me. And Bud Black
was a pitching coach for AAA, and Bud actually went in and fought for me to be the 11th man on the 10-man pitching staff. And the first part of my career, I'd been a starter the whole time, and they just put me in the back end of the bullpen. Bud Black just said, I want him. And Bud basically taught me how to pitch out of the bullpen, and I think a month and a half, two months into the season, I'm the closer. And then we ended up going to the first ever AAA World Series in Vegas.
Won the International League. Went to the AAA World Series. We played the Astros AAA team. And it was a one-game thing. We got beat, but it was a great experience. And then that winter, we're sitting at home, and Maj and Joe Bick, I still talk to Joe on a weekly basis. He's like my second dad. He gives me a call and says, hey, I got a call from the Yankees.
Billy Cotters wants to give you a call. I said, well, heck yeah. So I had two kids at the time, hadn't been in the big leagues for a couple of years, playing baseball, not making horrible money, but not making enough money to save. And we were struggling financially. I actually thought about not playing again in 97. Bought a little fiberglass company where I was making P-rows and
and stuff for trailers and fixing boats, things like that, and doing okay, enough to make a living out of it. And my wife came to me and said, hey, look, you love playing. You're not going to stop. You just go all in, do what you got to do. We're going to be fine. And then 98, go to Cleveland, have a great year. And then 99, or the winter of 98, Billy Connors calls me on the phone saying,
And he said, Jason, I'm not going to tell you you're going to make the big leagues. We want to invite you to camp. He said, but if you throw the ball the way I saw you throw the ball last year, you're going to help this team at some point during the season. And, you know, here I am, two years in minor leagues, barely hanging on, and I got the world champ, New York Yankees, giving me a call saying I could possibly help him out. Well, that just gave me a boost of confidence and confidence.
End up signing with them. And before we signed, like I said, when we were in a bit of a bind, I told Billy Connors, I said, hey, Billy, I got a favor to ask of you. I said, if I sign, could you guys advance me 20 grand to get me through the winter to help me take care of my family so I can do what I need to get ready? He said, I'll call you right back. So I hung up. He called back about 10 minutes. He said, yep, we'll do that. He said, you make the team?
We'll take it out of your check. You go to the minor leagues, we'll take it out of your pay. If you don't make the team and we release you, you can keep it. I said, that made me feel even better. Wow. Yeah, that's generous. Yeah. So they asked all the non-roster invitees and the new guys that would come to the Yankees to come to spring training about a week early. So I get there a week early and I was ready to go as soon as I stepped in and got to the spring training facility in Tampa.
And the first day, they got about 10 mounds, and they got a lot of guys up there throwing. And I'm on the far end, and there's one of the young kids that they brought to Big League camp to help out with the pitchers was catching me. And I'm throwing four-seam fastballs, and I get loose, and I tell him, I'm a sinker, throwing two-seam fastball. Well, I throw it, and he just absolutely goes between his legs. He misses it.
And I could hear him say, oh, my God, I throw it again, and he boxes it again. And down the mounds a little bit, I hear Billy Connors say, hey, Graham, good split. And the catcher said, it ain't no effing split. It's his fastball. Well, Billy comes waddling down there. He says, throw it again. So I threw it again. Catcher boxes it again. He said, throw it again. I threw it again. He boxes it again. And he grabbed me by the shoulders, and he turned around. He said, you're not throwing a four-seam fastball. You're not throwing a curveball. You're not throwing a changeup. You're throwing that every pitch.
I said, all right. So that started the best years of my career, basically throwing just one pitch. And it was that two-seam fastball that I threw that just the bottom fell out of it at about in the mid-90s. So, you know, and then also during spring training while we were there, my wife was a Christian when we met. I wasn't. She would drag me to church every Sunday unless I could wiggle my way out of it to go play golf or go duck hunting or something. And we'd go to see an Easter party.
production and God spoke to me. And when I say I went all in, I went all in. George McGovern was a big mentor of mine. I was baptized in Lake Harmonk, New York on April 25th. That's a great day. I got to tell you that story real quick. So April 25th, 1999, I was baptized in New York, Lake Harmonk. It was a Sunday. Chad Curtis, Scott Brocious, Andy Pettit, my wife, my boys, mother-in-law was there.
And great day. So we go to the ballpark. It's Joe DiMaggio Day. So I walk in the clubhouse and all the old timers are there. And I'm like a kid in a candy store. I didn't even go to my locker. I just walked around talking to these guys, shaking their hands. So I'm having a great day. I'm baptized. Old timers day. Well, Bernie Williams is an incredible guitarist. And he had learned that I played guitar a little bit in spring training. And we got to New York. He said, hey, bring your guitar in. We had an empty locker between his and mine.
And he said, I'll show you a couple of things. So my, my guitar was in my locker in Yankee stadium. I go to my locker and somebody sitting in my chair with her back to me playing my guitar. Well, you know, I'm thinking, all right, who the hell's got my guitar? Well, I walk over there. It's Paul Simon, him and Bernie, Bernie are playing a guitar together. So I get to sit down and play guitar. Paul Simon. I'm having a good day. I'm having a good day.
That's a great story. So, oh, it gets better. Hang on just a second. So Billy Crystal's in there, and we don't have batting practice, so nobody will play catch with him. So I go play catch with Billy Crystal outside, and it's a comedy show for 15 minutes between Billy and the fans and me and Billy, and I just, I'm thinking to myself, there's no way they can get any better. We're playing the Blue Jays. We got a one-run lead going on the night.
Metallica starts playing, Mariano comes in, game over. Well, Mariano blew, I think the only save he blew all year long, I come in and pitch to Ted Koleff, and then I get my first win as a Yankee, all on April 25th, 1999. All right, you're right. Any one of those things is amazing. To have them all happen on one day, that is, yeah, that's just awesome. So you end up getting, you get two World Series rings, right?
You earn those. I didn't say you get them. You earn those things. But the book is called From Ruin. It's got the word ruin in it. So where did things get ruined for you? I mean, you're living the American dream in many ways. Wife, kids, baptized, Paul Simon, Billy Crystal. I mean, you're having the time of your life, right? But what happened? Well, I went from being on fire...
Through Jesus to becoming, it's all about me again. You know, the World Series, all the attention. I honestly felt that baseball defined me and not my relationship with the Lord defined me. And that began a precipitous fall. I was living two lives. You know, I was extremely selfish. Cheated on my wife and just thought that, okay, I learned this, I deserve this. And I wanted to live the big league life.
instead of living a Christ-like life. Little did I know that God was using me and shaping me and molding me. And 2000s, you know, I go, I leave New York, and then my career really takes off in Kansas City. I have three and a half incredible years. And, you know, I just fall further and further away from who I was and the family man that I was supposed to be and the
the follower of Jesus I was supposed to be. And I knew my career was coming to an end, and I tried to numb myself and disassociate myself from, basically, reality. And then 2006 happened with the whole Mitchell Report, and the FBI comes in, and they want me to wear a wire. I had some HGH sent to the house, because by this time, everything's killing me. I'd gone through a Tommy John, came back nine and a half months after the surgery to pitch again,
I was going to take anything I could to hang on for just a little bit longer because I thought without baseball, I didn't have anything. And so 2006, the FBI came to me and wanted me to wear a wire and trap other people. And I told them, no. I said, you have huge choices. I said, you can have my job or you can take me to jail. I'm going to take one of them off the table. So I left in the middle of the season.
and I just walked away from baseball. You know, it wasn't the celebration of a career or anything like that. It was just they don't tell you when you leave. You've got a great big hole in you that you can't fill with anything. So all I wanted to do was be numb. So I don't know if it was alcohol, cocaine, whatever. I'd get my hands on it and make myself numb and try to forget about it. I did. And it all came to head. And I was a teen. I was 21st when I had it.
Obviously, getting in a fight with my wife. She was hanging around with me, but she was there. And got about an ounce of cocaine, about a half dozen bottles of vodka. My cousin decided I was going to drink her and start herself to death. Well, after three days, it didn't work. So I took the gun, walked out in the woods, cocked it, looked at it, pulled the trigger, and it didn't go off. And so I started, God, you want me to live? I don't want to be dead. Why do you want me to live?
And me being on fire, thinking there was something I could do to earn it. I used to walk into the process that he's going to love on me. There ain't nothing I can do. All I got to do is accept him. But the biggest moment came after I got out of rehab and went to psych ward first. And then I went to rehab. I think I was gone for 40, almost 50 days. I came back and I felt like my family was better off without me.
My kids would be better off. My wife would be better off. My wife came to me and the grace that she showed me really turned things around. She said, Jason, I love you. Jesus loves you. I forgive you. Jesus forgives you. It ain't going to be easy, but you got to, you got to forgive yourself and you got to love yourself. And that, that grace that she showed me opened my eyes to the grace that the Lord has for me. And, um, I started the journey back and, uh,
Right after that, we obviously went to counseling and different things like that. She told me, "Jayce, you got to tell your story. It can help people." Well, I didn't want to be back in the spotlight. I didn't want anybody to... I just want to disappear again. George McGovern invited me to an Athletes in Action thing in Zane, Ohio. We show up and there's about 50 people there and we bust up into small groups of 10. One of the first things we did was tell our stories.
So I told my story and just silence. And everybody's looking at me goes, dude, you got to tell your story. A guy named Q Ram, his wife, Faith, her family runs a church in Jersey. He said, you got to come speak at my church. So a couple months later, I went to speak at the church. And when I spoke, same thing. Everybody thought they was getting baseball stories. And I get up there and tell them a life story. And you could have heard a pin drop. And then it was a standing ovation afterwards.
And that's when I knew I had to tell my story and get it out there. And I think the reason I wrote the book was if I can help one person that's going through something similar that I went to, it's worth it. Not only that, all the proceeds from the book are going to Emerging Grace. It's a home. We actually just purchased a home, and we're doing some renovations to it where we're going to help young adolescent girls that have been sex trafficked.
And there's over 16,000 animal shelters in the U.S., and there's less than 1,000 beds for these girls, these long-term care units. And God put it on my heart. He said, all right, we're going to write this book, and this is what you're going to do with it. I said, you got it. So I said, here we go.
and i got hooked up with the fed agency esther butch and uh got a guy named jason clark to help me out another lady that helped me out initially lori sika and elizabeth nader and george nader at the beginning of the beginning process beginning of the process and uh they pointed me in the right direction we got it down we got it we got in the book got it released and
I'm not going to call it work, but I think I'm busier now than I've ever been, and I'm absolutely loving it. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Jason Grimsley right after this. Well, it's good. I mean, it sounds like, you know, taking that, I mean, at the bottom of the barrel, right, and taking that life experience and listening to the promptings of the Lord and then using that for good, I mean...
And for the grace of your wife who had the strength and love in her heart to help bring you back, God bless her. The book is called Cross-Stitched, One Man's Journey from Ruin to Restoration. And I hope a lot of people buy it, purchase it, absorb it, and understand that there are people that have gone through a lot harder things than maybe they're going through or
Maybe yours is the hardest ever, but there is a way back. Yeah, no, mine's not the hardest ever, not even close. You know, there's people out there that are really struggling. But, you know, the message I want to convey is that there's always hope. And the one knock I have on rehab facilities and different things now is they've pretty much taken God completely out of it.
I think it's a God of your own understanding now. Well, there's only one God. And to heal, I think they have a 3% to 5% success rate now, whereas in the 60s, AA and different programs had almost a 90% success rate. That's because they were introduced to the Lord and they were led to the Lord. And in my opinion, it's probably the only avenue to healing.
a successful rehabilitation. I'm always going to be addict. I'm always going to be an alcoholic. I'm not struggling with that now, but that's not to say that I won't, but I know where to lean and I know where to love and I know where to put, who to put my faith in. You know, it's not anything here on earth.
Well, that message, it does. It needs to get to people before they get in trouble, right? Not just after they get in trouble, but it's just... Exactly. We are human. We are going to fail on a daily basis and we're going to get in trouble. Yeah. You know, I learned a long time ago, bumps are the things you climb on.
if there ain't a bump in the road you ain't going up well amazing journey amazing story i'm sure it's a great book you tell there's some lighter moments too right you're telling some fun stories in there along the way you couldn't have played you could have been in the major leagues of the minors that long without some crazy stories
No, no, the whole Albert Bell. I stole Albert Bell's bat out of the umpire's room in Comiskey. That was pretty funny. No idea why I thought I could do that, but I did, and I did it. Crawling through the rafters during the middle of a game, stealing a bat out of the umpire's room. No idea why that popped into my mind when they confiscated his bat, but I looked at Buddy Bell, and I said, I can go get it. So he talked to Mike Hargrove.
And I went and got it. That's pretty funny. Yeah. What are the best baseball movies that you've seen? Just fun stuff. Bull Durham and Moneyball come to my mind. But is there something else out there I should be watching that kind of captures it? I don't like Moneyball. I don't like Moneyball.
I don't like Moneyball that much because I'm the guy that gives up the home run in the end. So I don't really like that. Oh, it is? Whoops, sorry to bring you that up. Yeah, thanks, buddy. Well, I stepped in on that one. To be honest with you, there's your landmine. I think my favorite baseball movie...
It's probably The Natural, to be honest with you. Oh, yeah. Robert Redford. Yeah. I love that movie. And then Field of Dreams. Yeah, that's a... When Kevin Costner asked his dad, if you're not crying, you ain't got a heart. You know what I mean? No, it is such an emotional, touches everybody. Yeah, you're right. I mean, that is...
I don't know. I loved Bull Durham, too, because I just thought that was just so funny. Again, Kevin Costner. It's just...
It's just so funny. That's not far off. Yeah. Well, listen, Jason, I hope to be able to shake your hand and meet you in person sometime, but it's been an honor chatting with you. And, you know, you gave a lot of entertainment, a lot of excitement to a lot of people and a lot of people look up to you and to come out and just tell it like it is and lay it out there and try to,
Do it in the spirit of making life better for somebody else out there. God bless you. Keep it up. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thanks for having me. Like I said, it's an honor to talk to you. It's a pleasure to talk to you. I really enjoyed it and look forward to doing it again sometime. I'd love to meet your wife because she's got a strength that's so admirable. I can just tell the way you tell it and talk about it.
And without her, you know, who knows where you'd be. So, her as well. The funny thing was, when I met her, I was 23 years old. I was in the big leagues. I had a Rolodex of numbers. Girl, if you'd have told me I was getting married the minute before I met her, I'd have laughed at you. I met her 11 months later. We were married in 31 years. Well, yesterday, or I'm sorry, two days ago was our anniversary, so...
31 years. Here we are. Happy anniversary. I've been married 31 years myself and couldn't imagine life without her as well. Well, thank you again so much. The book is called Cross-Stitched, One Man's Journey from Ruin to Restoration. And tell us again, that boot place we should be going to get our custom boots, what's it called? Meyer Boot Ranch. Meyer Boot Ranch. I'm sure we can all find it online. Yeah.
And Jason, thank you again for joining us. Really do appreciate it. Thank you, buddy. Have a great day. God bless you. Thank you. You open up your heart and lay it out there as Jason Grimsley did.
put it on paper. You know, I'm glad he's using that, the fame and the tragedy to go out and talk to people and provide inspiration. I think it'll be good for people to listen to and to read about and understand other people have gone through hard things too. It kind of goes to my, the theory, as I mentioned before, that, you know, we all go through hard times. Some of us are going to deal with all kinds of different things, but you don't go through life without major challenges.
He certainly did. And hopefully that's an inspiration to others to get on the right track, get right with life and, um, do the things that you probably know in your heart and your gut you need to do in order to make things right. It may seem insurmountable, but somehow some way you can do it and you do need to persevere and you can persevere and you can make that difference. And, uh,
Hopefully that's the light that you'll follow. Thanks for listening to the Jason in the House podcast. Hope you can rate it. If you can rate it, we'd really do appreciate it. Subscribe to it. We're going to be on every week. And I want to remind people that you can listen to ad-free with a Fox News Podcast Plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music app.
You can also head over to foxnewspodcast.com for other podcasts from some of my colleagues like Trey Gowdy and Brett Baer and all kinds of folks out there that really put together a great show. And also, I think you find a lot of value from. Again, rate it if you can. And thanks for joining us. And come back next week. We'll have another exciting guest. I'm Jason Chaffetz, and this has been Jason in the House.
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