May 13, 200422 yr OUT LOUD: Doug Mientkiewicz E-mail this story Printer-friendly format Search archives OUT LOUD -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Rosenbloom chats with some of the biggest sports and entertainment figures. Chicago Tribune May 13, 2004 Steve Rosenbloom gets to first base with the Twins infielder in Minneapolis. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If I'm the bad guy, so be it. I wasn't trying to point fingers at White Sox fans (When he said Major League Baseball should take the 2003 All-Star Game away from the Sox after fans ran out onto the field). It just so happened that two instances happened, and sometimes I don't think about what I say. Manischevitz. I've heard them all. It's good, though. Some people want to rip on you and they can't pronounce your last name (It's pronounced Mine-KAY-vich). Knoblauch got it pretty bad. They started throwing hot dogs at him in left field a couple years ago. That was pretty funny. Mike Eruzione. I used to watch him play minor-league hockey in Toledo. He was a big influence in what I do. I got to meet him and hang out with him. That was one of the coolest nights of my life. I still remember sitting on the shag carpet and watching the Russia game. I'm starstruck real easy. I worked out next to Tiger Woods in a gym. It was only the two of us and his trainer, and I didn't say a word to him. I was intimidated. If I ever get to meet Dan Marino, I think I'll faint. I've always said that they (The Sox) are the most talented team in our division the last five years. Ozzie Guillen, I think people in Chicago are now seeing his fieriness. That's the first thing we all said when they hired him: That's a different squad. The honest to God truth of what happened (In the season-turning series the Sox and Twins played last year at The Cell) was Newmy. Our third-base coach Al Newman had a brain aneurysm in the dugout before Game 3. We lost the first two games of the series and we were down. We were hanging on by a thread. And there's our third-base coach laying in the dugout about to die. What that did for us is that it took what was going on on the field, in this pennant race, and it just pushed everything aside. It's like it's not life or death. It's a baseball game. So what if we don't win another game the rest of the year and we don't win our division. So what. We got a guy who's been with us from Day 1 fighting for his last breath. It kind of eased the pressure on us. You take a step back. Realize where you are. Realize what you do. Realize there are 15 million people who would change places with you. We used that. Sometimes things like that work. From what I've read and from what I've seen, I look like Konerko. He's very intense. I see a lot of myself in the way he goes about his business. Money is overrated. You have to have a woman who's willing to take on a lot of the burden for six months. I was 14 or 15 and my dad built a cage in my back yard. He's got a sign up there: "100 swings a day. You're only cheating yourself." I shaved every hair on my body one year in A-ball. I was like 5-for-110. I ended up hitting like .295 that year. It (Winning the 2000 Olympic gold medal in baseball) was the most amazing feeling I ever had in baseball. In life, for that matter. Coming off of my '99 season, I was no doubt the worst player in the major leagues that year. I'd run through a brick wall for him (Former Twins manager Tom Kelly). The kids, to me, are what it's all about. If it's just a piece of paper, I'll sign it. I signed the top of a toilet seat one time. I didn't have it in me to ask what it was for, because I'd think everytime they flushed the toilet they'd think of me. Copyright © 2004, The Chicago Tribune
May 13, 200422 yr I like these articles they have been doing. It is a cool format, and they have been getting some guys who speak their minds to do them.
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.