Ramon Vasquez Pittsburgh Pirates (6/11/2004)

What’s your baseball philosophy?  What got you so far?

Everybody knows it’s hard work.  Get to the ballpark early, get your stuff down early, most important of all just working hard.

What’s your hitting philosophy?  How do you approach hitting?

I guess early in my career, I didn’t have a clue about hitting.  Once you get to play a lot and you get at least 500- 800 at bats in the minor leagues, you kind of start learning how to stay inside the ball, hit the ball the other way, and tries to use the whole field.  That’s pretty much it.  If you see the best hitters in baseball, they spread the ball all over the place.  You want to think about hitting the ball, driving the ball the other way, not just trying to pull everything.  That’s what I think, just stay inside the ball, keep it simple and don’t try to do too much.

What’s your strength right now?

I would say defense. I’m a pretty steady defensive player.  I can pretty much play everywhere:  first, second, short, third.  I can get on base a lot; I have a good on base percentage.  I like to take pitchers. I’m kind of like a lead off hitter that likes to take pitches and get deep in the count, and just get on base for the big guys coming behind me.  I’m not one of those big guys who are going to drive in a hundred runs a year.  So, I’m the type of player that’s going to get on base for those big guys.

Pitchers throw you guys inside and outside to set your hitter’s up.  Do hitters set up pitchers?

Definitely.  I would say 80 percent of the guys today like to do that.  They like to set up pitchers. Especially if they faced those pitchers before so you have an idea how they’re going to pitch to you.  So yeah, definitely.

It seems at times that guys that they say have all the talent in the world don’t seem to go as far as guys with lesser time.  Do you think that’s true?

I’ve seen it happen.  I was in a minor league for seven years and I definitely saw guys that I thought were unbelievable when I was in the minor leagues.  I don’t know, I really can’t tell.  I played with a lot of guys that had good talent and they worked hard. I guess for some of them it’s just bad luck, wrong place, wrong spot.  Other guys that I really never met, so I really can’t say anything about it but yeah, it has happened.

Do the first round draft picks get more chances?

I would say yes, definitely.  When you invest $10 million in somebody you don’t want to just give up. You want to give the guy a chance to get better every year.  So if that guy works hard, he’ll definitely be there for at least seven years if he’s not ready to play in the big leagues.  Maybe ten years, who knows? But definitely he’ll get a better chance than somebody that they really didn’t spend that much money on.

At spring training they bring in guys, trade for guys, draft guys, all to take your spot. How do you approach that every year?

You know what?  It happened to me this year, and all you think about is just going out there and do what you can do.  Just try to be the best player you can be. Try to win a position or whatever you’re trying to do. Really after that there’s nothing you can do.  The last decision is the manager’s.  The manager’s going to make the decision if you’re going to play or not.  So, that’s all you do.  You go out there; you play hard every day; and hopefully if you put up good numbers, not all the time everything’s going to be there for you even if you play good numbers, but it’s what you need to do.

There are times in your career that you wanted to quit baseball?

There was in 1999. There was actually a time when I did want to quit.

What got you through that?

I would say my wife, friends, and a lot of good friends, coaches.  Actually, I should say a coach. I would say Henry Proto got me through it. I did definitely want to quit.  I was not having a good year.  They brought a guy that was about 27, 28 years old and I was about 21.  They really didn’t want to give me a chance to play. We were having a tough year, we were losing a lot of games, and we were in last place. It was a time when I wanted to learn, and the manager wanted to win.  So that was the difference. Actually I didn’t want to quit I wanted to leave.  So I gain my release and I’ll go somewhere else; I’ll find somewhere where they can play me and so I can learn. That was pretty much it. They got me through it. The next day I started playing different positions just so I can get some at-bats.  The next year I went to the AA again in 2000 and I had a great year.

This was with the Padres organization?

No.  That was with Seattle.

What’s one of the things about baseball you learned the hard way, that nobody told you about?

I would say I always had good coaches.  I had good friends that they were always helping me and I actually had the luxury of going home to Puerto Rico and play Winter Ball with some of the best of the best.  I played with Carlos Delgado; I played with Robby Alomar; Joey Cora; Alex Cora; so it was a gift for me to be able to go out there and play with those guys and take something from each one of those heads and put it to work.  I would say that I had it easier than a lot of guys in that aspect. The learning how to play the game right and that kind of stuff.  So I really didn’t learn anything the hard way.  There was years when I had a great year and I never got a chance to go up. Maybe, like you said earlier about first-round picks, if I would have been a first-round pick and I would have hit like I did that year, I would have got called up. But I never did because I wasn’t the first-round pick.  So I would say nothing.  They always gave me the chance to play.  I thank God for that.  In the Minor Leagues with Seattle I had the chance to play every day, so that was had a lot easier.

After going through that, do you take on that role now with the other guys?  Do you kind of talk to them?

Well, I’m not the kind of guy that likes to go out there and talk to them.  I’m the kind of guy that if you come and ask me, I will give you my best advice and what I went through, what I did to get better at it. I have some guys that ask, some guys that are shy.  I don’t like to go and tell guys.  I know there’s a lots of young guys out there.

But if they would ask you, you’d pass that stuff on?

Yeah, definitely.

How do you think chemistry in the clubhouse affects the team?

It definitely does.  If you don’t have good chemistry in the clubhouse, I don’t think you’re going to be a winning team.  It definitely happened with me playing in the minor leagues and winter ball.  Actually, I won two championships in the minor leagues in AA and AAA, and I tell you what, that was the best chemistry in the club that I’ve ever seen in AA that year. We didn’t really have anyone on that team hit .290. We were just that good.  We were playing so good out there.  We would go out there and I would play, and everybody would play like all-stars.  We had a good chemistry.  We’d go out to somewhere and you didn’t see two or three guys in the place.  You would see 15-17 guys from the team in the same place just hanging out together.  That’s what you need to have.  You need to definitely have good chemistry on the team to win ball games.

How important is weight lifting to you?

I would say it depends on the guy.  There are guys who are used to working out every day, getting bigger and bigger, and just stay strong for the whole season.  There are some guys that like to work out in the off-season and during the season just shut it down a little bit and just play.  There are guys that work out in the off-season and during the season they work out maybe once or twice a week. It depends what kind of a player you are. I’m the kind of guy that likes to go work out maybe once or twice a week, just take it easy.  That’s when I’m playing every day.  When I’m playing every day I don’t want to get tired.  My arms will get tired.  When I’m not playing every day, I might go three, four times a week if I have a chance, but that’s pretty much it.

When you were coming up through the minor leagues, did you read the scouting reports or the sports pages about you, what people wrote about you?

Not really, no I don’t like paying attention to that.  I come out here, play my game, do the best I can during the game, play a 100 percent, and go home. As long as I go home and I gave a 100 percent that day, I’m fine with going home.  I don’t really care what people write.  I know for a fact that nobody wants to go out there on the field and make an error, or go 0 for 4.  You come out here to today to get three or four hits or drive in five runs, or whatever you can do.  There are just so many negative things going on around you want to stay away from that.  So that’s what I try to do.

How do you handle loud mouth fans, people yelling at you?

I don’t really listen to them.  Definitely, you hear them; they’re right behind you.  But it’s weird.  I’m the kind of guy that I like different sports.  I like basketball, I love volleyball, and I like baseball.  I like watching baseball.  I go home and I watch baseball. I’m the kind of guy that when I go, I used to play volleyball a long time ago, but when I watch a game I don’t yell at players.  I could be in a place on the off-season having a beer watching a volleyball game and I’m the kind of guy that likes to watch the game.  There’s going to be mistakes.  There’s going to be people that are going to mess up during the game, but that’s just part of the game. That’s going to happen. The same thing in basketball, and the same thing in baseball.  So I just like to enjoy the game.  This is what makes all sports so great.  There’s always going to be something wrong on the field.  Somebody’s going to make a mistake. That’s what it is. You don’t want to be the one to make that mistake that night. I just like to enjoy the games and watch them. That’s what you pay for to watch the game and that’s all I do.

How about the umpires?  How do you handle the umpires?

I’ve probably been kicked out of the game once in my whole career. It was for something that I didn’t do. I think I handle them pretty well.  They’re going to make mistakes.  Sometimes I don’t know how to ask them.  I don’t know how they’re going to react.  I’m the kind of the guy that if you made a mistake and I ask you and you tell me, “you know what, it might have been outside; it might have been down; you might have been safe,” whatever, I like to hear the truth. I just like to ask.  If you were wrong, you were wrong. I’m not going to be mad about it. If you struck me out, or you called a strike and I’m 0-2, I would just like to know if you made a mistake so I know if it’s a strike then okay I got to swing at it, or if it was a ball I could take it next time. They’re going to make mistakes. They’re not going to be perfect all the time.  For sure they’re going to miss probably maybe five, six pitches a game. It’s something that’s going to happen that night. You just want to say the right thing and try not to get out of your game.

How about knockdowns, brush-backs and retaliation?  What do you think about that?

We see a lot of that stuff in baseball. It’s just mostly respect.  Sometimes people get hit or a dirty play, there are some things that go wrong in a good ball game. Maybe with a 9-0 lead the guy hasn’t really made any pitches in and he hits a batter in. It’s little things like that you kind of get upset at. Guys walking on home runs, stuff like that. When you hit a ball that far pitchers still want you to respect them too.  You don’t want to show anybody up. I’m fine with it. I could be the one getting hit because maybe your pitcher hit somebody with a 9-0 lead or something like that, and I might be the one going up to play and getting hit.  And you know what?  I’m going to have to take it and go to first. I think in that kind of situation if you want to get mad, you want to get mad at your pitcher and go tell him, “Hey, you know what?  Throw strikes; it’s 9-0; let’s go.”

What if it’s 9-0 and one of your players, say, steals a base, and you’re the next one up?

I will probably take that pitch and go to first and when I get in the dugout I will definitely get on him.  That’s what you will probably see.

Do you have any thoughts on being traded?

It can always happen. Unless you’ve got a no-trade clause you will always know before you get traded. They may not always tell.  You come here to play every day and you don’t think about that.  You know it could happen, especially in this situation.  If you’re always feel that this team wants you or stuff like that, but I really don’t think about that.  I’ll just come here and play and go home.

What would you tell a kid in high school right now about professional baseball?

What I would say is listen to your coaches, work hard, and just be quiet.  There are a lot of guys that I see that would like to get called up sooner. They think they’re good. They think, okay, I’m good enough for this league; I should go up.  If you’re pretty up good numbers it’s going to happen.  So I would say work hard, be quiet, do your thing, and move straight.  Don’t move to the sides.