Quarter of a century ago i came to milwaukee and blood as red about Franklin Delano roosevelt so he wanted to meet me to talk about history keand i wanted to meet him to talk about baseball so always theres been a push and pull, whats happening in baseball, whats happening in the country and weve had this great relationship. I became great friends with his family. Weve been to hall of fame games together, we went to japan for the opening day about the red sox and all this time but would tell me Amazing Stories so i was so glad when he finally decided to write this book which is a collection of the best stories because hes a great storyteller. So im so happy to be able to ask him questions that will illuminate area and we will get to the thing thats on everybodys mind which is the Houston Astros disaster in terms of what that means for baseball. This guy is always authentic, he will tell you whats happening but first id like to start with the friendship youve formed with hank aaron because i know weve talked about it and what it was like for you and barry bonds was chasing his record and what it was like for you to have an africanamerican was so essential in the sport and what all that meant cause hes the best. Thank you and its a pleasure to be here today and to add something that doris said. When we first met and for many years afterwards and maybe up to this date when we get together she wants to talk about baseball and i want to talk about history. Its the perfect marriage thats exactly right so i met henry aaron in 1958 long before i was in baseball and long before he was, he became the home run champion. We use to go to green bay packer games together but i was as you know, it began in 1957 before i methim. He hit a homerun to win the pennant for the milwaukee braves and doris, he was carried off the field and it was a moment ill never forget and the next day in the New York Times the picture is juxtaposed. Hank aaron being carried off the field in this gigantic celebration by his mainly white teammates and orville sprang back, he has a picture right next to it trying to go to school in little rock arkansas and the picture made an indelible impression. And toit influenced my thinking. I would tell you that Rachel Robinson, Jackie Robinsons widow who is a magnificent woman as you know, once asked me where that all started and i said when i looked at that picture, i realized how baseball could play a role sociologically and it did. So i guess the other story ill tell you about him, we write during the steroid tuition i asked six hall of fame players to come to washington and theydid. And to appear before john mccains committee and it went extremely well and hank was of course the leadoff speaker and the star of the group butwe had a dinner the night before. And the night before, after eating too much, he said lets walk back andwe walked back together just the two of alus. And he said to me at one point you have to understand he said for a guy who broke ruths record is most remarkably modest. Most remarkably modest person you could meet ill never forget we were standing under a street lamp and he said who would have ever believed when we were just kids growing up and met each other at someday id break, and its the only time i heard him say this, babe ruths record and you become the commissioner of baseball and we looked at each otherand kept walking. [applause] tell me about Branch Rickey and his role intalking about changing the country as well as baseball and bringing Jackie Robinson. That led to the most important moment in baseball history, certainly the most powerful and think about this, 1945. The clubs had voted 15 to 1 with landis as the commissioner who had said as long as he was the commissioner of baseball there would never bea minority player , imagine you mercifully, he died. So ricky, incredible when you think about it doris, signs Jackie Robinson to a montrcal contract. And i wont go through all the stuff, that in itself was amazing and in 1947 in ebbets field you would know that better than i would, jackie or as Rachel Robinson calls him jack, Roosevelt Robinson and it was just stunning. Remember, the clubs had voted 15 to 1 not to vote, not to allow a minority player right before that and ricky did it and the whole thing was just stunning and when you think of it, think about it this way g. Youll appreciate this. It was 3 and a half years before harry truman these segregated the United States army, seven years before brown versus education and 18 years before the Civil Rights Movement so Branch Rickey is a hero of mine. He also i think was the greatest sports executive of all time so you can put all that in together. And it was just really a wonderful story. I must say when i was a little girl as a brooklyn dodger fan Jackie Robinson was my favorite player and id like to think now it was because i knew what he represented for civil rights but if im honest it was just that he was so exciting as a player. Heat steel first base and he. Steals second and third and would completely rattle the picture so i loved him but i always wanted his autograph and there were always long lines but in those days you could just wait, they didnt charge you, you could go so i would go to other lines and i never got his until finally when i was a young teacher teenager i met and i went and as teenagers we had these ridiculous autograph books are youd say i will love you until Niagara Falls or i will cherish you until rubber tires and wed write all these stupid things to each other so i brought my autograph book and i got to the front of the line and i got to him and i thought he would just sign and he looked like one of my intimate friends but he started to read these things and i thought i was going to faint of embarrassment but then incomplete keeping with the sentiment of the autograph book he wrote keep your smile a long long while and it was the best and years later i got to give an award to Rachel Robinson at Eleanor Roosevelts home and i just kept thinking if only my father and been there to see that i was meeting Rachel Robinson, giving her an award and i told her how i had had a crush on her husband and this story and shes an incredibly dignified, wonderful woman. She told me the stories of the pressure on him was enormous and after he took great abuse in cincinnati and st. Louis, philadelphia and then chapman who was the manager who mercifully to got fired the next year but was awful and ricky did something d that you didnt do back in 1948. He said to her he was worried about jackie and she was worried. I want you to go on the road, travel with him the rest of the way home and somehow they got him through that and it was really, its the more you read of the story and the more you know about the story, it is really a great story and its you know, didnt solve many all of our problems but if you read it, it sets an example for what people should do. Its so important for us today just because in this last day and a half weve been talking so much about the situation of the country and just now having had a talk about how angry people are on both sides of the political aisle and those moments have to be remembered because the country can step up, they do step up and an individual can make a difference but why we talk about the great Branch Rickey, can we also talk about the man who broke my heart, Walter Omalley by abandoning us and moving the dodgers to losangeles . Many of you may have been the recipients of that but for a little girl it was disaster. I teach now and walter does not come out well. Heres, when i look back in 1957 and the giants are going to move and they should move, there on the polo grounds and whatever you giant fans they had , that was it but i say that not because im talking to you but i believe that. It was a move that really i think broke the court of what people thought about sports. And what i mean by that is the dodgers were something special, not only in brooklyn but everywhere. And therefore did la deserve a team . Of course la deserved a team. Should la have a team . Of course they should but not the brooklyn dodgers. And you can suggest that as you well know historians that revisit history and they tried to make believe its robert mosess fault, it was not robert moses. Yes they wanted to build it on atlantic and flatbush avenue and they didnt and moses offered them a place where they later built shea stadium. As people have said that wasnt perfect for the brooklyn dodgers that it was a lot better than going to los angeles so thats not final chapter in baseball history. We sent positions to Walter Omalley, i used to have dreams that i encountered him somehow and i was the hero had persuaded him that he couldnt leave the brooklyn dodgers to go to los angeles and there was this horrible thing we used to say to one another which is embarrassing even more as a human being as well as a historian, we used to say what if you were in a room with, stalin and Walter Omalley and you had two bullets, what would you do . You dont even want to hear the idiotic things we said it was unanimous, that was a story that harry had two bullets and walter got both of them. Lets talk about the concept of your leadership as commissioner and weve been talking these last couple of aldays politically about the gap between the rich and poor and the lack of mobility and the fact that some people in the country are not feeling or getting the same chances as other people and that was the situation of Major League Baseball when you came in. That the big market teams were winning year after year, same teams when the playoffs, if you were a small market team and you have very little hope that your team was going to make it so you introduced a whole series of things to help that situation and each one must have been top billing. Baseball as a social institution and you know i believe that was resistant to change so when i did the wildcard, oh my goodness. All the abuse and you cant do that but i knew the one thing we had to get to was revenuesharing and doris, i believe that an important part of baseballs hope and faith so that in as many franchises as is possible on march this year, march 26, people at least have hope and faith that their team can be competitive. We had gotten weto a point in the mid90s where that wasnt so any more so therefore, revenuesharing was critical. It took a long time, went through a lot of pain. I did a lot of other revenuesharing things like aifor instance band which was our Internet Committee which proved to be an extraordinary success. I wanted every club on the same amount. I wanted the Kansas City Royals to on as much as the new york yankees, the Pittsburgh Pirates on as much as the Los Angeles Dodgers because it was good for the sport and it provided the hope and faith that you needed so slowly but surely as you know under a legislative process we got things done to a point where we had over 500 million in revenue sharing but a lot of other revenuesharing mechanisms and i dont mind telling you that in 2014 and 2015 when we went to the world series in Kansas City Missouri there was a field for me and as i walked around kansas city ill never meforget people everywhere kept saying thank you. So again, the key words you see here at every meeting where hope and faith and its worked out well. Weve got work to do yet but we came along way in a short period of time. You had statistics about how many more teams got into those final playoffs that had before. Lots of them, especially the wildcards. When 2000 went on everybody got on the playoffs at one point or another which made me happy and did what we wanted to do and so it worked out. It really worked out well and its so important because the fact of the matter is and i used to say that to the big who balked at a lot of things and ill say this in George Steinbrenners defense, he was difficult. He was unusual. He was all of the above and im being serious but in the end, he went along with it and so it turns out the best years baseball ever had from 2005 on were really the golden years, attendance was up 80 Million People and so forth were the years we had revenuesharing and we had nuall these other devices that went in it was good to the game. Which is the title of the book. What about instant replay . It was difficult because im really a traditionalist at heart and i want to give credit to tony larusso and tony was working for me at the time and he said to me at one point weve got to go to instant replay. And he said not in baseball and i said football, you get instant replay and it takes six minutes before they find out whats good or bad but he convinced me over and over with the help of joe torre and mike sasha and jimmy leland that it was good and so on the theory that you really want to get it right, you had a nohit game in detroit with two outs where they had pitched a perfect game and the umpire blew the call and it was painful and he was a good umpire so finally i said to myselflets do it. And we did it and it worked out very well. I now im going to go back to the worst moments of my childhood as a brooklyn dodger fan because it has to do with whats happening with the bruce Houston Astros. The new york giants were way behind the brooklyn dodgers in 1951, i think maybe we were 14games ahead. There was a butcher shop in my neighborhood who were all new york giants fans and they had kept a running tally of everything going on that summer and it was so exciting , every time i go there we be on top and the giants way down but by mid august they started climbing and finally caught up to it and there is a three game playoff and in that last game Bobby Thompson at the famous home run against psour flight got that is called the shot heard around the world. We lived in concorde for 42 years and we go to the minuteman statue, i take people all over the country and it says the shot heard round the world and im thinking of Bobby Thompson. I think im supposed to be a historian, somethings wrong with this but years later this guy josh prager get a book and wrote the story for the wall street journal in which he discovered the electrician who claimed they had set up some sort of system in the giants park where in centerfield they had a telescope and were able to signal the pages to the batters and i think of what that did to all of us. My sister who was beautiful and 15 years older than me addicted he was going to hit a homerun, i was so mad i didnt want to her again. I wouldnt go back to the butcher shop for days because i was so embarrassed until they sent me the first flowers ever sent to me, they called me ragtop because my hair was so messy and come back dear ragtop, we miss you and this is a huge part of childhood and i cant imagine what its like for the fans of the dodgers and to know whats happening with houston now and this sophisticated system of cheating and what is baseball doing, what can they do, technology is going to get better andbetter , how are we going to prevent . Your right, fear he has been part of the game but a different kind of sign stealing, players trying to pick up, lets see if i can give you a personal story. As a kid i went to Wrigley Field in the 60s, the milwaukee braves with hank aaron and Eddie Matthews and so on were playing the cops and i never it never was much ofa contest but i dont want to insult my cubs fans. The fact of the matter is sitting in the centerfield brie bleacher was a pitcher named bob youll and bob youll was had a raincoat anticodon and he was stealing signals. The cubs finally figured it out in the sixth inning andit was a big uproar but having said that , this was a most unfortunate incident. No question about it. But ithink rob manfred , commissioner dealt with it harshly. After all, manager larsons job, the general manager lost a job. They got five Million Dollars which is the maximum that you can find somebody. Then they lost their first and second draft choices which really hurts for two years. And then two other managers y lost their jobs including the manager of your favorite team. And but, i think people will understand in the future now how serious this was an these were serious, serious consequences for the houston club. Yes, technology is Getting Better but so are we and i think that you will not see this happen again, i will be very surprised if it does but baseball is taking this very seriously and using every technological device they know to make sure that it doesnt happen again and if somebody is idiotic enough to do it again theyre going to get penalized as severely as the Houston Astros. Was there an actualrule that was violated . How did it work . In 2017 rob manfred sent a letter to all the clubs, there was no question about pa it and apparently there are some people and it often happens where they think its for everybody else but not for them and they ignored it and now theyve paid a terrible price for what the rules are there and theyre going to come up with more rules and im satisfied that a lot of other things that we go through it was most unfortunate. As i said cost a lot of people their jobs but itwont happen again and if it does they will get killed. That sounds alright to me so lets talk about this more personally because i love that theres a thread about your love of baseball, where it came from and your mother, and the ukraine going to games with her and obviously the Milwaukee Team that you got to tell us personal stories about how everybody has a reason why baseball becomes so passionate and its usually a parent and in your case it was a mother. When i was a little kid i can remember in my mother listening to games on the radio, the mold Milwaukee Brewers and she started taking me to games early on and thats how i became in the 40s, id buy every baseball magazine and do the things we did and ill tell you a funny story about that, were in the 50s and were in medicine and we have a big luncheon and my mother is there, my mother and dad and my mother is there with a transistor radio and im dying to cause im home and in the midst of this luncheon she yells out how to you like that, theyre playing at ebbets field brooklyn, how do you like that, ed just hit a grand slamhomerun and the whole room goes up. But. She was secretly proud. I wasnt surprised. Thats how it all happened my dad took me in the late 40s, early 50s we go to chicago to see the yankees and believe it or not i was a yankee fan was of joe dimaggio we got a team, she takes me to new york in 1949, my 15th birthday and we go to yankee stadium. Sitting in the upper deck, on my birthday, july 30 and they wheel a big cake out. I have course at that time really figured the world was there, it was only for me and i said to hear how could you do that to me and she says what are you talking about and i said birthday cake, it was casey stengels birthday, the manager of the new york yankees so we got over that and then we went up to boston and she wanted to go to art museums and she had many other interests but we go to fenway park and the yankees are playing, dimaggio is coming back and the yankees are playing and we get to the ticket window and the guy slams it down and says you cant do that, i brought my boy from milwaukee. He didnt give a damn about that and we walked around and weigh park for a long time, and the bruins are there, really good and theyre in a big series with the red sox and shed asked if she could come and i said of course you can come and we go and they put her down right next to the dugout and i wentin the clubhouse and i came back and she had only one line, its a little different than 30 years ago. Thats great. So i know you said one of your most proud moments was keeping that team in milwaukee and being able to give milwaukee the team back so what you tell people . The braves came to milwaukee in 1953 and had a remarkable team, never played under 500 and all of a sudden changed ownership and omalley in 55 and six were using lou perini and the braves and he had to move because they were trying way over 2Million People which was stunning in that day. But the braves left, dont have enough time to tell the story and im very sad, very unfair. I spent the next 5 and a half years and doris, applied to the american league, applied to the national league, turned down the expansion and all of a sudden theseattle pilots were available. And the week and wanted to keep them in seattle and mercifully, they couldnt find an owner in seattle, all winter long they tried and in march of 1970, the seattle pirates came to milwaukee and on the night of march 31 we opened up by the way seven days later and ive often said and weve had a great 50 years and great players playing and its hard to believe that a number of hall of famers and nobody drew almost 30Million People last year. Back to the omalley thing, it was just a wrong situation but fortunately this one could be rectified so with all the things that have happened to me and all of the things that have gone on, ill always be proudest of ringing the team back to milwaukee. I can well imagine, yay. So you must have been at those games when a team one for the first time in a long time like the red sox or washingtonnationals. Its just so rewarding. The Washington Nationals, i was able to go to a game when obama was there and you were able to, the owners allowed me to have my picture taken when i was doing the content he roosevelt. With the two mascots because they would always lose anything or teddy would lose so i felt such an emotional connection after the red sox were long out of it to the nationals and i happened to be at a bar in texas giving the during the election and theres a sense all around the country somehow that when people know theres a team that hasnt won in a long time and deserves it that they feel its that sense of the underdog, if that sense of wanting thepleasure of those kids and parents. I saw the celebration afterwards and it was great. Chicago cubs having that happen and the red sox having that happen, thats what you want for every team to have that sort of enormousjoy. The one thing that you see from the start, this is a sociologicalinfluence of the game. Its something that takes and binds the Community Together through thick and thin. And you watch people in these situations that youre talking about and theres nothing like baseball. It is just absolutely amazing and the joy it brings and the ihappiness it brings. I said to you often, just in 1957 that we talked about watching the braves win the pennant i never forget the people in the upper deck crying and i started crying pp and youre right. It brings something to you that is really just amazing. I think i had an unhealthy attitude until wefinally won. I would get so upset when the red sox would be losing that i didnt want to read the newspapers that day and there would be a bad feeling the whole rest of the day until finally once we won the first time, year after year their bds playoff games and we lose to the yankees and ill never forget one time an old guy stood up and he just started yelling year after year and everybody started laughing cause we were in this commiseration together. Theres something bizarre about the fact that when you have one for a long time that develops a greater sense of a bond so that when you win, i used to think what if i were a yankee fan, would it be as much fun to win year after year and i think probably not. It doesnt mean that i still haventbeen happy that the red sox have one since then several times , more times than anyone else in the 21st century as we would say until the yankees guys say to me what about our 20 wins in the century before but there was something about just that feeling of connection to everybody and as you know the stories, people would bring the red sox at their grandfathers grave when they finally won and im sure they did that in chicago and washington theres something about baseball that connects generations that i think is so special. No question, i remember when we won the pennant in 82 and you just people wrote me letters and how it affected their family and how it affected theirlives. And thats why when you are in baseball especially when youre a commissioner you have to understand what it ameans to so many people and the obligation you have to because of this very action that youre talking about. I remember there are many things that i could tell you from that but i remember a woman who was a teacher in madison wrote me a long, beautiful letter how it helped her family and how it had helped and they came in to see me and when you realize the impact its made on their lives youre grateful. I think but knows the story that some of you know that in my first confession in the Catholic Church i had to confess that i had 2 sends related to baseball, the first because the dodger catcher was coming to my hometown of the center to do a election, i was so excited to be the first player ive ever seen outside of its field but buit was announced that he was speaking in a Protestant Church and when youre brought up as a Catholic University put in a Protestant Church is dead so i went to my father in tears and i said what are we going to do so i said not to worry, hes speaking in the parish hall htalking about were sitting on folding chairs, its not a religious service so i went over the threshold hearing i had sold the life of my soul for this one night with Roy Campanella but i cannot and i went to my first confession and i decided to tell the priest right away and he told me that t, i told him the whole story and he said theres nothing wrong with but unfortunately he said what else my time and i had to admit the other baseballs in game out between switching harms to others, being mean to my sister and he said to whom did you wish harm and i had to admit new york yankee players would break arms and ankles so the doctors could win the series and he said how often do you make these horrible wishes and i have to say every night so then he said i promise you someday they will win fairly and squarely, you dont need to wish arm on others. And i left the confessional and i said say a special prayer for our brooklyn dodgers, how lucky i first confession was to a baseball loving priest but thats what it does to you so tell everybody about what it must have been like waiting for the hall of fame . You must have known you had a good chance to get inand they tell you you be called at a certain time. It was, they tell you theyre going to call at 445. And so im there and family is there. Everybody said your first priority, you dont have to worry but now its 4 46 and i say i told you. And of course at 4 47 he hecalls and you know, i guess. What do they say . Congratulations, youve been elected to the hall of fame in your heart is pounding. And it really, ive often thought about that doris and e] the morning of the hall of fame ceremony i got. And i started thinkingabout all those days as a kid. Going to games and the whole milwaukee situation and the commissioner situation and the tough times of being the commissioner as well as all the good times but theres both and i always say to rob manfred, i always remember this, no matter what you do somebodys going to be mad. Thats true. That is an absolute fact. And to think then that who could have ever imagined those days of walking the streets in milwaukee were flying all over the country trying to get a team. I never thought anything about being in the hall of fame though this was overwhelming. I didnt think it would be. I thought a lot about it before that but i dont mind telling you it was really overwhelming. And im proud. I wear my pen every day. They ask you to do that and im happy to do that and honored to do it. Because of blood ive been able to go to a couple of hall of fame games and their exciting, its like a throwback to another world because the old players come back and sit on the chairs in that great hotel and they tell the stories. Number you and dick came to the hall of fame with a friend. And we sat at night and this is when my book, its a story. Henry aaron and his wife and the four of us sat there. On the veranda at the hotel. And telling stories. And she said to me, youve got to write a book. You cant let all the stories go and i hadntreally thought about it. But it did and there are some things so, when i love history and when you walk the halls of the hall of fame and e,you see all that and you see all the people in it. And why theyre in it and how theyre in it. Ive said its overwhelming and thats all i can say, its just really overwhelming. Tell me what you think about the future of baseball. Theres talk about shortening the game , talk about having to make it more whatever. More prone to understanding in todays world. Kids are playing little elbaseball on the corners the same way they are. Little league isnt happening the same way it is. I believe its always going to be boys that tied us all together but id love to hear your thoughts about all this. Let me say this from the start again, history is important. Ive heard this for years about baseball. In 1958 if i can tell you a story there was a Sports Editor oliver reed of the milwaukee journal. Not one of the great human beings of all time this column that got National Attention and said baseball is moribund. It is dying. The next generation hasnt accepted it and went on and on and on now doris here we are 60, 61years later. The games Gross Revenue is over 13 billion and in those days a club through 1 Million People they were successful. Today if a club doesnt draw anywhere over 2 and a half Million People, they are successful so you look at all the things and baseball is like Everything Else in life. It goes through different period, different cycles. It goes through Different Things but is it a game that willsurvive . You bet it will. Yes they talk about time of the game and so on and so forth although i note with great interest the other sports are running long to but we will do things about that. I think they are very mindful of that. I know that rob is and i think i think as an adult in my mind for years from now, 50 years from now they fall will have grown just tremendously and by the way, we have wonderful groups of Young Players starting with mike trout who is really spectacular and so i am very satisfied that we will solve the problems ahead of us because obviously i am partial butits the best game in the world. I agree totally. Was there every chance of having a Team Salary Cap away that football does or Something Like that . In the 90s when i started and knew all the things they had to do and it was unfortunate. You talk about cycles, we lost a world series because that was all about a salarycap. The owners wanted a salarycap and they were not wrong. They wanted it to protect themselves. The nfl has it, the nba has it but the Players Association to this day just wont go along with it but weve done a lot of other things and we passed a lot of other things on the draft and really i think have gotten Meaningful Solutions out of it. So no, theyre not going to accept a salarycap but look, i said to you how competitive we are. The competition is really good and you have milwaukee last year and you have a lot of small market guys that really did remarkably well and that will go on again to so i today im not sure that what weve done isnt better than a salarycap. In putting it all together. Theres still that fact that when spring comes and the trucks are going to florida and arizona that somehow its the beginning of winter being over the season begins and then the summer is there. Part of it is incredible hold on us is that its such a long part of the year. Its really the whole year. Whereas the other sports are much more intense they are gone. Theres no question that starting in march and going all the way till the end of september and into the playoffs that its really a part of your lives but the fact of the matter is that, and ill get back to the question you asked about where baseball is today, we were at 70 million last year. The Minor Leagues were at 42 or 43 million so people talk about all evil dont go, by the way there are more kids playing baseball today than ever before. And that any other sports. They did studies last year and more kids playing baseball than any other sport and i think a lot of things have happened. The other sports without me analyzing it, but i feel good about where we are. It doesnt mean we dont have problems, doesnt mean we dont have things we got to solve i really think they will and thats why when i say to you, that we have this wonderful wave of Young Players and its remarkable and you know you watch september when you have pennant races beating down on us, the learners will understandthat and they had that last year , its exciting theyre the latest example. Look what theyre winning did in washington and look what it did to people and so it makes an impression and it creates excitement. People who are going through it hein those cities never forget. I had a dream when you took over the Washington Nationals that it would Bring Congress together , that somehow the democrats and republicans would be sitting sidebyside and they would forget that they hate each other when theyre back in the thing and im not sure that that dream has been realized but probably there are times and they are at the park together and they at least forget for the moment that they dont like each other back in the capital. Baseball has done a lot for communities, lfor the country but cant do that as im not sure anything left can do that. That may be true but the great thing about blood and were coming close to the end is that as they used to call ted Williams Kenny baseball, they should call you but baseball. You love this game so much and what matters more i think for a leader in any field than a passion that they hold and the belief that the game or whatever the organization is your leading matters and that you get everything you have that you look how many times you were asked to meet over all and over again elected. They knew what you were doing for the sports and i should think theres nothing that should give you more pleasure and knowing that the country and all of us that love baseball are so grateful that it was you that was there for this long time during this game that we love so much. One thing, thank you. One thing ive always said and its true and everything in life. But if you dont have a passion for it, you shouldnt do it. And theres no question that as the commissioner i was more of a fan. I could separate the fan but i do love the game, theres no doubt about it. I will set many a night and watch all 15 games and my wife has seen that over and over but you have to love the game. Youve got to have passion for it and if you understand and aaron, i said before its the sociological part of it. You see we talk about brooklyn and you talk about it and that was a negative part of it but it is too. I remember im being candid, we went when we went through the steroid thing and im proud to say and i want to say this year, baseball today as the hetoughest steroid Testing Program in america i, not only in sports but in america so we can find that problem but when i talk, when i walked into the hearing in 05, h2 speakers for two people son to play baseball and committed suicide because they took and i remember how it hit me really just to do something about this. And the next morning i called one of them and i said a funny story, he didnt believe it was me the now, what close to every team, lost kids in every city and thats the role of baseball as a social institution. And social institution as you well know better than i do are not always perfect but at least they do that and im so, when i look back on baseball and when i look forward to it, we have really have a wonderful role and i found that most everybody really understand i totally agree, when i was a graduate course by Eric Erickson the great psychologist he said that when you get older in life, what you hope you developed during your life is a combination of finding work which you have passion for, finding love in family and friends and in colleagues and they to something outside of those that can give you pleasure and joy and for me, that love of the brooklyn dodgers and 35 years as a seasonticket holder for the red sox, i go in the game and i forget Everything Else is bothering me for that night. So it is something about this sport, what any passion, it could be art, it could be music, it can be baseball but its what we all need to give ourselves other dimension in life i am so grateful for you orfor the role that youve played in my passion for all these years and im so glad you will all be here to hear this great character today. [applause]
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