19BSB Quick Chat - Stricklin
Photo by: David Barnes

Quick Chat: Scott Stricklin

January 31, 2019 | Baseball, The Frierson Files

By John Frierson
Staff Writer

Scott Stricklin can talk baseball all day long, happily. Georgia's Ike Cousins Baseball Coach, who is entering his sixth season leading the Bulldogs, has loved the game since he was a kid growing up in Ohio cheering on Cincinnati's Big Red Machine.

On Thursday, with opening day for the Bulldogs on Feb. 15 fast approaching, Stricklin sat down for a Quick Chat to talk about his baseball beginnings, good baseball books and movies, life in the minor leagues and much more. Here's some of what he had to say: 

Frierson: You and I are the same age, 46 as we sit here today, so we grew up seeing the same major leaguers on TV. Who were the guys that really got you into baseball?

Stricklin: Growing up in southern Ohio, I was a Cincinnati Reds fan and it was easy to be a Reds fan in the '70s, with the Big Red Machine. It was Bench, Pérez, Morgan, Concepción, Rose, Foster, Gerónimo and Griffey, and I can name them and I used to pretend I was each one of them. I'd go through the lineup playing whiffle ball in the backyard and I knew everybody's (batting) stance.

Johnny Bench, me being a catcher, he was a favorite of mine. I loved Pete Rose and the way he played. I can remember as a kid, we'd go to at least one Reds game per summer and we always sat in the red seats (high up), but I always felt like I had a chance to get a ball because George Foster might hit one up there.

I was a huge Reds fan and there are a lot of childhood pictures of me with my Reds uniform on — I used to wear it to school.

Frierson: What was the catalyst for you with baseball, when it really took off for you as a player?

Stricklin: It hit me probably when I was 12 years old, we won the state championship in Little League and we were a couple of games away from getting to Williamsport. We had a really good team and that's when I first became a catcher, but that was my first real success outside of just playing in local Little League. ... That's when I really fell in love with it.

In my neighborhood, our neighbors and my older brother, whatever sport it was, whatever season it was, we played. Basketball, football, baseball, hockey, we played tennis when Boris Becker won Wimbledon and that got us playing tennis in the driveway. We played everything.

When I was 12 years old, that was when it kind of shifted and I was like, I'm going to be a baseball player, even though I loved basketball and I liked football when it was game time — I hated practice like most people — but basketball was maybe the sport I loved the most. Realistically, I knew that baseball was probably going to be my opportunity if I was going to play past high school.

Frierson: Kids today start specializing so much earlier it seems, just picking their one sport. As a coach, what is your take on that, as somebody that played multiple sports all through high school?

Stricklin: If you love it, play it, and play it as long as you can. My son (Cale) is 14 now and he's still playing three sports. I've told him, as long as he loves it I want him to continue to play.

It gets difficult now because there's so many demands now and specialized strength training with each sport. Football, it used to start with two-a-days in August and now you've got 7-on-7 camps and specialty camps and things that happen in June and July, and that's right in the middle of summer baseball. ...

I encourage kids to play as much as you can, as long as you can, and at the end of the day, you're going to have to choose one at some point. I'm hoping my son at least plays two sports all the way through, but he might be a three-sport guy all the way through. And if he wants to do that and he loves it, then I'm going to encourage him to do it.

Frierson: You were drafted by the Twins and played five seasons in the minors, so what comes to mind when you think about life in the minor leagues?

Stricklin: Bus rides — endless card games on bus rides. I can remember going from Raleigh to Memphis on an overnight trip, that's a 12-hour trip, and we got there and we played, we played a three-game series, and from there we went from Memphis to Chattanooga, which was about a six-hour trip — but our bus broke down right by Murfreesboro, Tenn.

We went to a Waffle House right off the interstate, between Nashville and Murfreesboro. It's like 3 or 4 in the morning and a guy driving a conversion van stopped by, in the rain, and picked us up, like six guys at a time, to take us to the Waffle House one exit up so we could get out of the rain and off the highway.

Andrew Jones was on that team; Andruw Jones, Randall Simon, Damian Moss, Wes Helms — there were some big-leaguers on that bus. I can remember my manager, Jeff Cox, several times saying, "Don't forget where you come from." It's 4 in the morning and you're delirious and your bus has broken down on the side of the road. ... 

I can remember getting to the ballpark in Chattanooga at 4:30 (p.m.) for a 6 o'clock game and we didn't take batting practice, our manager just said, "Put on your spikes and let's play." We got our tails kicked that night, I can remember. Every guy that's played in the minor leagues has that story, has something like that — a brutal night bus trip and you've got to play the next day.

You're playing 140 games in 148 days, you get one day off per month — you're playing every single day. Besides Sunday, which was normally an afternoon game, every day was the same. You ask a minor leaguer during the season what day it is, he's got to look at his phone — Friday is the same as Tuesday. ... We tell our guys when they get drafted: accept the fact that it's going to be hard. 

Frierson: It seems like baseball produces the best sports movies and the best sports books, from "Bull Durham" to "Ball Four," so what are your favorites?

Stricklin: My favorite movie is "The Natural." When I was a kid, probably 13 or 14 years old when that movie came out, and I used to watch that every day that I had a game. We didn't play 80 games in the summer like kids do now, we played 20 games or something, but there was a summer that it just became a thing.

I must have had a good day that first day because watching that movie before every game, it just became a thing that I did. I know every line of that movie.

As far as a book goes, "Three Nights in August," the Tony La Russa book, it's basically spending a series, I think it's the Cardinals versus the Cubs, and it's just following Tony La Russa around: in the locker room, in the office, in the hotel, at the restaurant. As far as baseball books go, that's the best one I've read.

Frierson: I know you graduated magna cum laude from Kent State, so I don't have to ask what kind of student you were. But I am wondering: what drove you to such excellence in the classroom?

Stricklin: I didn't want to get the disappointed look from my mom. My parents were both teachers, so when I came home with a bad test grade ... when your parent gives you that disappointed look, it stings a little bit. I didn't want that disappointed look from my mom because she expected me to do well in school.

I wasn't a rocket scientist, but I went to class, I listened, I took notes and I studied, and I was competitive. I wanted to get the best grade in the class, I wanted to be that guy that set the curve — I tried to do that. ... Not many people love school, but if it's something you have to do you might as well go all in.

Frierson: What's something you could eat every day and never get tired of it?

Stricklin: Pizza. I love it. I don't feel as good — when you're a kid you can eat a ton of it and feel normal, but now you eat it and you don't feel as good as you used to. I love, love pizza.

Frierson: What's the best live performance you've ever seen?

Stricklin: I gotta go Rose Bowl last year. My wife and I got to go to Pasadena and we were right in the corner of the end zone when Sony Michel went into the end zone for the game-winner in overtime. That still gives me chills to think about it.

Every Georgia fan, whether they were there or watched it on TV, that was special. That's probably the coolest moment I've ever had as a spectator, because of the setting, because of game, the emotions, the back and forth. Watching him run in from the Wild Dawg (formation) to the left, going untouched into the end zone right in front of us, that's the coolest spectator event I've ever been to.

(This Q&A was lightly edited for length and clarity.)

John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.