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'Almost like therapy': Ex-AL MVP Mo Vaughn is back in game with podcast
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- 'Almost like therapy': Ex-AL MVP Mo Vaughn is back in game with podcast
Mo Vaughn was nothing short of formidable as a hitter during the prime of his 12-year major league career .
Today, he admits, he's a little nervous.
"Every time I've had a mic in front of my face, what are we doing? We're deflecting, we're trying not to say too much," says Vaughn, the former AL MVP who hit .293 and averaged 35 home runs per 162 games. "We gotta be cognizant of so-called not creating headlines and things like that.
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"Now I got the podcast in front of me and we're talking trash."
"MVP: The Mo Vaughn Podcast," his new weekly show presented by Perfect Game , premieres Aug. 21. He chats this week with fellow former Red Sox luminary David Ortiz , who has become a baseball media personality as well.
How can you watch Mo Vaughn's podcast and who are the guests?
There will be fresh episodes every Thursday at 5 a.m. ET on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Play and other podcast platforms. Episodes will debut Thursdays on Vaughn's YouTube channel at noon and air at 8 p.m. ET on PerfectGame.TV and on the PGTV app.
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Vaughn, 57, was disenchanted with baseball until he began coaching his son, Lee, now 13, and has thrown himself back into the game. He says he'll be delivering candid baseball conversations from the youth level to the big leagues.
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Upcoming guests after Ortiz include former major league All-Stars Rafael Palmeiro and Nomar Garciaparra and former MLB commissioner Bud Selig.
"This has been such a great time talking to them, guys I played with, guys I played against, guys that came into Boston and did great things and won championships," Vaughn tells USA TODAY Sports. "I talked to my friend Rafael Palmeiro, who I know was feeling a certain way after he left the game. I got a chance to let them know that, no matter what was said, who cares? We were all baseball guys, and I'm here to amplify the good things that you are. And I think that's what I enjoy."
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What does Mo Vaughn discuss on his podcasts?
Vaughn launched his Vaughn Sports Academy in 2017 in Boca Raton, Florida, and coaches baseball at a local high school. He also works with young players from around the country through Perfect Game, the elite baseball and softball scouting service for which he is an adviser.
"I got Nomar Garciaparra, a kid I raised in the game, and I get to talk to him about certain things," he says. "That's where it's all about for me but I was nervous, like I didn't know how it was gonna go, but, man, almost like therapy, this podcast has been, because when I start talking to 'em, my thing is I want to amplify them, what they are, how good they were, and let people know exactly why they were good. There's a game inside the numbers that I know because I was a player.
"I go in there, I hit different things and bring up their stats and I'm looking at it and I'm going, this is pretty good. Now I know why people want to be journalists and reporters now because they get to look at these things and create these stories. I get it. I'm doing the same thing on a smaller level."
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Ortiz and Vaughn never played together in Boston, though their big league careers overlapped by a number of years in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
"Big Mo, man, he was one my biggest guys I want to watch and learn from," Ortiz says to Vaughn on the podcast, which was shared with USA TODAY Sports before its release. "In our days I always had questions for him and he always had answers for me."
Such as about hitting the ball toward Fenway Park's left field wall.
"The Green Monster," Ortiz says, "after many conversations with you, I can understand the importance of driving the ball that way. It was like a way out for us, to be honest with you."
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The two take a relatively unfiltered look at the majors past and present. Ortiz opines on Aaron Judge ("A lot of people are gonna hate what I'm gonna say right now but Aaron Judge is one of my favorite players because he is that good") and how Rafael Devers helped get himself traded out of Boston to the San Francisco Giants in June. ("As a superstar, when they let 'em get away with this, they let 'em get away with that … you begin to engage yourself toward something that at some point became unstoppable.")
Of umpires, Ortiz says: "I had a great relationship with umpires but we all got that one moment that you lose it. The way I prepared to play every game, it was different. I got to the field by noon to play a 7 p.m. game. The umpire get to the field an hour before the game. … You don't know what I was doing those six hours before the game. … That's all I do, hit. And you're not gonna take it away from me. I'm not donating at-bats."
Former Boston Red Sox player Mo Vaughn (42) waves to the crowd at Fenway Park in 2022.
What does Mo Vaughn want to ask Bud Selig?
Vaughn, who co-hosts the podcast with ESPN Radio personality Brendan Tobin, has had lots of time to reflect on his tenure in the majors, which ended rather abruptly in 2003 after he dealt with a wave of injuries.
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"Bud Selig was an owner," Vaughn said in our interview earlier this month. "He took his Milwaukee Brewers to the World Series in '82. I want to ask him, 'Commissioner, you went to the World Series. I'm sure you guys stole bases. I'm sure you guys bunted with a man on first and second with no outs when you needed a run. I'm sure you got the guy over from second to third with no outs. What do you think the state of the game is right now?' Because he has to know … they got a little market team in Milwaukee, I think they're kind of playing the game the way the old guys played the game.
"You're spending all this money in the Northeast in these big markets, and we can't get a bunt down, turn a double play, hit behind the runner. Well, we got a great example in Milwaukee doing all those things. I think it's gonna show for itself and I hope it gets back to corner guys hit home runs, your center fielder can run it down, your two middle guys can play defense, make the routine plays, and the catchers gotta get back up on their feet and start defending and blocking and doing what they gotta do. I hope it gets back to that because that's when the game was great."
Will Vaughn talk about PEDs in the podcast?
Vaughn didn't address performance enhancing drugs in the podcast with Ortiz, who was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2022. Ortiz tested positive for a banned substance during anonymous survey drug testing in 2003, a result commissioner Rob Manfred later questioned .
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Palmeiro, 60, who topped 3,000 hits and 500 homers during his 20-year major league career that ran from 1986 to 2005. That final year, testifying before Congress, he said, "I have never used steroids. Period."
Later that season, MLB announced Palmeiro had violated the league's joint drug program and would be suspended for 10 games. He was soon out of the majors.
He acknowledged that he had tested positive for the anabolic steroid stanozolol, according to former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell's report on performance-enhancing drug use in baseball, which was released in 2007.
"I didn't do anything intentional to enhance myself," Palmeiro told SI.com in 2022 . "I had no reason to cheat.
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"[The test] killed my career. It killed my personal life. It killed my friendships. It killed my opportunity to make money. It's been tough."
Vaughn said this year he injected his knee with human growth hormone near the end of his career.
"I would do anything to get back on the field," he told USA TODAY Sports. "I don't even consider it really anything factual that it's a testament to what I did in the game, do for the game and in the game. It's just a part of time, in my opinion."
Vaughn and Palmeiro have both fallen off the Baseball Writers' Association of America ballot after receiving less than 5% of the vote.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mo Vaughn podcast features David Oritz, Bud Selig, Rafael Palmeiro
