Spitballin’ 200: Chris Vitali

Spitballin’ has reached a major milestone and as we have done with past events, we sought a big name subject to feature. When we did our 100^th episode, our guest was the incomparable Luis Tiant. About a year later, we were still going strong at episode 150 and invited the great Fred Lynn to join us.

Here we are now at Spitballin’ 200 and in the world of BallNine, we’re featuring the biggest name out there.

He’s a championship ballplayer, multimedia savant, passionate Yankees fan, master of the grill and a damn fine bass player.

Ladies and gents, that man is BallNine Editor-In-Chief Chris Vitali, and he joins us for the 200^th and final installment Spitballin’.

If you’ve been following BallNine these past five years, you’ll likely know that Chris and I grew up together in Belleville, NJ. We go back over 40 years, played Little League together, went to summer camp as kids, had plenty of street hockey showdowns in the 1980s and battled other Belleville roughnecks in frequent tackle football games.

Without Vitali and the time and effort he has put into building BallNine, there is no Spitballin’. When I think about the sheer amount of baseball stories that BallNine has brought to fans since its inception, it’s staggering.

From Hall of Famers to cup of coffee guys to journeyman veterans. From scouts to managers to announcers. From the families of legends to umpires to baseball artists. All have had their chance to share their stories and opinions thanks to the BallNine platform and the work of Vitali.

And it all started because Vitali once sat down at a dinner table in 2019 and the fellow next to him reached out his hand and introduced himself as former Big League pitcher Dennis Lamp.

Spitballin’ may be coming to an end of sorts and we’re aiming for this episode to be more like the M*A*S*H* finale than the Dexter one.

Let’s just hope Vitali’s plane doesn’t get shot down over the Sea of Japan.

Enough of the M*A*S*H* and Belleville references, join us as we go Spitballin’ with BallNine Editor-In-Chief Chris Vitali.

And that’s how I became a Yankees fan. Hot dogs and friggin’ Reggie Bars.

Thanks for joining us! Let’s jump right in and give the folks what they want—a look behind the curtain of the man behind BallNine. First though, we’re going to start off the same way we do with everyone else. Take us back to your childhood and tell us what baseball was like for you as a kid.

It had to be about 1977 and I was three years old. My dad and his buddy Joe Porcello took me to Yankee Stadium for the first time. Pretty much my only memory of that was the old scoreboard with the yellow light bulbs and it had Mickey Rivers on there or something. I think I made it about three innings, had two hot dogs and fell asleep. That’s my earliest memory of baseball. A couple of years later, the Reggie Bar came out and that was great. It made me fall in love with Reggie Jackson because those things were damned delicious.

And that’s how I became a Yankees fan. Hot dogs and friggin’ Reggie Bars.

I don’t really remember the early championships too well, but I remember them losing in 1981- and then I spent my entire adolescence with them being terrible. Well, maybe not terrible, but there was certainly a severe lack of championships.

The ’80s may not have been a great decade to grow up a Yankees fan, but it was still a great time for us to be baseball fans as kids.

Oh yeah for sure! We’d go to your uncle’s place and buy baseball cards as kids and that just never went away. Remember the sticker albums? Those things were great. I used to quiz my mom on the players. “Who’s this?” “Willie Randolph!” “How about this?” “Dave Winfield!” Stuff like that. I think Willie Randolph was my favorite player. Dave Winfield and Reggie Jackson too. Then Don Mattingly, Steve Balboni, Mike Pagliarulo and Rick Cerone. A majority of these guys were Italians and position players. As far as pitchers I liked Goose Gossage and Dave Righetti. The Yankees had a little bit of a tough time with shortstops in that era though. You had those guys like Roy Smalley, Bobby Meacham, Alvaro Espinosa and Paul Zuvella.

You hear any of those names and it instantly takes you back to the 1980s. Who were some of the non-Yankees you liked as a kid during that time?

I used to love those Cardinals teams; they were fun to watch. I liked the Brewers too. Those teams with Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, Gorman Thomas and Cecil Cooper. Lot of fun to watch. There weren’t as many national games back then, so I just liked seeing all the highlights on This Week in Baseball. That’s why I liked when teams like the Brewers were in the AL and would come to play the Yankees. It was one of the only chances I had to watch them on TV.

It’s not the first time by any stretch that we’re mentioning this, but we were batterymates on the 1986 Belleville Little League Champion Indians team. We joke around about that being the peak of our athletic careers, but in reality that was really an unbelievable time in our childhood. It’s almost 40 years later and we still talk about that season frequently. How did that team and season help shape your youth?

Lou Conte was our head coach and he was absolutely great. He taught us all so much about baseball. I remember him teaching us that it was OK to lose and that baseball was really a game of failure. We learned that it was OK to fail in baseball as long as we were learning from it and getting better. Then when we finally won a championship, it felt really damned good. We experienced how good winning felt – and also learned that when you win something, you get a nice red satin jacket.

I wore that red satin jacket until it had holes and I’m sure you did too! Those were such great memories and I’ll still watch the videos or look at pictures from that team.

Same here. It’s changed so much since then. Our parents didn’t have to pay thousands of dollars for us to play. It was just kids who loved the game playing for coaches who loved to teach us how to play the game the right way and for the right reasons. It taught us how to work with others and how to fail and succeed as a team, but I think some of that’s lost now with travel ball and showcasing and all that. I’m glad we got to play when we did.

Absolutely. I consider us all really lucky because my dad had his big 1980s video camera at almost all of our games. I’ve watched the last pitch of the championship game many times. I was playing first base and Frank Lenzi was pitching. The final pitch was a called strike three and you were the catcher. Take us back to what was going through your 12-year-old mind on that last pitch.

At that exact point in time, it was the best moment of my life! The first thing I thought of was, “OK, how do we celebrate?” Do I pull the Yogi Berra and jump on Lenzi like Yogi did with Don Larsen? I think I launched my glove up in the air like Jesse Orosco and ran out to the mound with everyone else. For a 12-year-old kid, it was the best possible thing that could happen. It gave us such a great feeling of success at a young age and it was something we won’t ever forget. I was also stoked we were going to get a shitload of ice cream too, so that was a bonus.

I certainly remember that too! OK, jumping forward to the 90’s. You mentioned that you don’t remember the 70’s Yankees World Series titles, but I am pretty sure you remember 1996. Where were you when the Yankees finally broke through and won the first World Series of the dynasty?

The night the Yankees won in ’96, the band I was playing in was in Atlanta so I went on stage wearing my Reggie Jackson jersey. People were booing me and flipping me off as soon as we stepped on stage. The minute the show ended, I took off for the tour bus and I got to watch the final three outs on this fuzzy little TV. Charlie Hayes makes that catch and the Yankees win for the first time in my adult life. Idiot that I am, I ran back to the stage, still with my Reggie jersey on, and I start screaming at the people who were still there. I had shit thrown at me, dodged a beer bottle or two, but I didn’t care at all. Worth it. I couldn’t have been in a better place than The Masquerade in Atlanta. I’m sure a bunch of people from the city of Atlanta probably never came to see the band again, but it was well worth it.

I wouldn’t know what this feels like as a Mets fan, but what was that dynasty era like for you as a Yankees fan? Going into every season expecting to win a World Series and delivering that pretty frequently.

1996 was awesome and then in ‘97 when they lost to the Indians, you’re not thinking dynasty. Then you had 1998 and ’99 and by then you were just expecting this shit. I actually think that ruined an entire generation of Yankees fans. They have the mentality where if you don’t win everything, it’s like, “DFA everybody!” When they won in 2000, I was like, “OK this is getting a little nuts.” I remember all of my great uncles telling me about the Yankees dynasty of the 1950s and winning titles was par for the course. I was happy I got to witness something like that. Every dynasty comes to an end, but when it’s happening, there’s nothing better. I don’t know if we’re ever going to see something like that again, at least in our lifetimes.

Consider yourself lucky you got to experience it once! OK, now onto some BallNine stuff. First, let’s just start at the beginning. Can you tell us how the idea for BallNine came about?

It’s your fault! You called me on that random Saturday and asked me to go to a dinner at Angels Stadium that benefits retired baseball players. You said that guys like Rod Carew and Tommy Davis would be there, guys like that. I was like, “What the hell, I have nothing to do.” When we got there, we spent too much time perusing the silent auction and missed out on getting seats with the normal people. They ended up seating us at a table with Dennis Lamp, Tom Gamboa, Tony Muser and those guys. I was sitting back-to-back with Rod Carew. Bobby Grich grabbed Maybelle Blair’s ass at her request. Wild stuff.

We were sitting there listening to these insane stories these guys were telling and they were absolutely hysterical. On the way out, I think I said something like, “You know, these guys’ stories are so friggin’ great. Why don’t more people know about them?” You agreed and we figured we should try to do something to help get these stories to baseball fans. We started off with some weird articles about baseball cards of the players and telling their stories, or at least our versions of them. Then we had more writers come in and it snowballed from there. I wanted to fill a void that wasn’t being filled and I think we came up with that idea at the right time.

Was there a time in those early days that you consider your “welcome to the Big Leagues” moment for BallNine?

That would be when I heard Michael Kay mention BallNine on a Yankees broadcast. He mentioned Kevin Kernan’s article about Thurman Munson and Luis Tiant. I wasn’t really paying attention. I was doing something and had the game on in the other room and all of a sudden, “Did I just hear what I thought I heard?!” Then my phone started going nuts with people texting that they just heard Michael Kay mention BallNine.

Wasn’t expecting that one.

That was great. That would be my answer too. One of the early shows you did was Tuesdays with Leroy and you really had some really incredible guests on that podcast. What have been some of the highlights of Tuesdays with Leroy for you?

It has to start with Luis Tiant. That speaks for itself. Just hearing him talk about coming from Cuba and not seeing his family. Just everything between leaving Cuba and his family and then his entire career. That was incredible.

Talking to Dave Parker was intimidating. Getting to talk to him about swinging that sledgehammer and wearing that hockey mask was great. Talking to David Wells about the Yankees-Orioles brawl in 1998 was a lot of fun. We wound up bullshitting for a couple hours about that.

Bobby Valentine was a trip. You haven’t lived until you get woken up by a 7 AM phone call from an agitated Bobby V because there was a miscommunication about what time we were recording. Luckily that one went really well once he realized we did our research for it. Thank God.

Rick Cerone was hysterical because that was like talking to my uncle from Newark or something. We were talking about Yogi Berra and then all of a sudden we were talking Italian hot dogs. Roy White was a great one, too. It was incredible to get his perspective on everything and his honesty about how he dealt with racial issues when he first came up was something eye opening. Talk about a humble man.

Every one I have done has had its moments, though. It always felt good that the guys were comfortable talking to me. It might as well have been just two guys sitting down having a beer talking baseball, which is all I wanted it to be. It’s been a pleasure to do.

One of our recent podcasts on BallNine has been Southpaw. It’s a freewheeling show of baseball genius, pop culture references, crazy stories & general nonsense. It is fantastic. What do you think makes it work so well?

It’s so much fun, man. I think it’s just the right group of guys. Between Wayne (Franklin), Will (Ohman), Bill (Pulsipher) and Glendon (Rusch), it’s just one hell of a group. Add in the two of us and it’s just a free for all. Anything goes.

I’ve always heard lefties were a little… different, so it definitely fits in with the way you and I talk shop. And any time we can pull off a Secret Santa on a show that consists of Turd Pens, Turd Soap, Maryland Flag Speedos, Toilet Fishing Games and Glendon sending Pulse autographed cards of himself, I’m pretty sure the five of us were meant to do this show. That, or we should all be locked in the same padded room. Not sure which. Maybe both.

I like to tell people it’s as close as they’re ever going to get to sitting in an MLB clubhouse. I know it’s as close as I’ll ever get. It definitely goes from zero to sixty in a hurry. They’d probably be 90 minutes long if I didn’t edit out about a half hour of laughing from each one!

I had to borrow these next two questions from Mark Dewey. I was a guest on his podcast, In the Bullpen, and he asked me these questions and they made me think. First, if you had a dream guest for Tuesdays with Leroy or Totally Baseless, who would that be?

That’s a tough one!

Johnny Bench comes to mind. I’d love to talk catching with him and just baseball in general. I also would like to talk to him about how he brought baseball to a generation of kids with The Baseball Bunch. I’d love to talk to Rickey Henderson too. That would just be hysterical. I wouldn’t even have to ask any questions. I would probably just say hello to him and – boom – that would be a half hour right there.

Good answers! The other question he asked me that I wanted to ask you is about what you have learned through all of this. Is there something that stands out to you that you learned either on Tuesdays with Leroy or just BallNine in general?

There’s so much. Whether it’s something you write or Kevin Kernan or Czerwinski, Caroulis or really any of the writers, there’s always something to learn. You guys keep me on my toes. That’s the deal with BallNine. One of our taglines is “Know What You Don’t Know” because of just that. There’s always so much to learn about the game. Even for people who have been in the game 50, 60 years, there’s always something to learn.

As a fan, I always love learning something new about the game and there’s something in every single column we publish. A lot of articles, you’re getting the point of view from a former player or a scout or coach and you don’t get to hear that all the time. There’s no better group of people to learn about baseball from.

Indeed. Ok we’re reaching the end of the road here. We’ll end this the same way we have ended the previous 199 episodes – with reflections. First, when we’re all gone from here 50 or 100 years from now and BallNine doesn’t exist anymore, how do you want people to reflect on what BallNine is doing?

I’d like to hope that people realized we tried to do something a little different. A lot of the time I hear that we can be too negative about baseball, but it’s not because we hate the game. It’s the total opposite; we’re sometimes hypercritical because we love the damn game so much. We want it to be the best game it could possibly be. I hope people realize that we’re doing this whole thing for baseball fans. We do it for the players too, of course, and I love giving them a platform to tell their stories and give their opinions, but in the end, it’s always been about bringing those stories to the fans. This grand old game has been passed down from generation to generation to generation and I hope we can play a small role in that continuing.

Great answer. OK, last question is about your own reflection on what baseball has meant to you in your life. From those days where we were little kids playing ball in Belleville to the Yankees dynasty to BallNine, that’s a lot of baseball. The floor is yours to reflect on what baseball has meant to you.

Man, it’s been such a big part of my life since I was a little, little kid. It started out as just a sport to play with my friends and then grew into something where I wanted to learn more and more about the sport and its history. It’s been a constant through the best times in my life and the worst times. No matter what, I always knew every summer that baseball would be there for me to watch no matter how shitty things may have been going in life at that moment.

It’s kind of like having a dog you got when you were a kid and have miraculously had for the next 50 years; I hope that in the end I did my ­– albeit small – part in taking care of it, and I hope that people find baseball as weirdly fascinating as I do.