Mark Teixeira retired at the end of last baseball season and immediately found a home at ESPN. Still, not enduring the grind of a 162-game season has been an exciting opportunity for the former New York Yankees first baseman to explore other endeavors.
The Gold Glover now has more time to spend with his family, finally read up on what’s happening in the National League, and explore partnerships with youth baseball initiatives through the Little League World Series.
Teixeira spoke with us about taking in baseball outside the batter’s box, how he follows the league as a broadcaster, and what he thinks about where the league is headed with its efforts to make the game more appealing to fans used to taking pictures and not waiting days to see the results.
Let’s start with what you and Canon are working on at the Little League World Series in August. How did you get involved with the two groups?
Well, once I retired from the Yankees last year I started getting involved with different organizations with ESPN and started doing things with youth baseball. It was kind of a perfect relationship between Canon and the Little League World Series. They’ve been together for four years now so I’m just happy to be a part of all the great things they have going on together.
So you’re going to be on site working with kids for the Little League Photo Contest. What is it that interests you about what you’ll be doing with the kids there?
I’m going to be going to the Little League World Series in August, but before that I’ll be spending some time with some kids and some families in New York City having an opportunity to play with the PIXMA printer, taking some pictures of kids and then being able to go straight to the printer and print out some cool things. Some baseball cards, or even Father’s Day cards. Just really having an opportunity to show kids how to use these printers and capture all the experiences that they’ve been having.
You’re still pretty fresh off retirement from baseball yourself. This time of year would be when you’re kind of settling into the season. Do you miss it? Do you feel the itch to play? How weird is it to not be involved in road trips and the everyday grind of a season?
You know what, I always tell people I retired for a reason: I had done everything I had wanted to do in the sport. Had a great career. And now I wanted to move onto the next phase of my life. Spend more time with my family.
I have some businesses I’m involved in and I do a lot of charity work in New York City and Atlanta, Georgia. And working with ESPN has been a lot of fun as well. So I get to do a lot of neat things, make my own schedule, and make time for my family.
So you’re doing television with ESPN as well as radio, right?
Yeah, so I’m doing Baseball Tonight and some other ESPN shows as well as ESPN radio with the Michael Kay Show, which I really enjoy.
Obviously you’re used to being on TV and used to talking to people in your career. Now that it’s your career, is there anything different that you had to focus on to prepare for the different jobs?
It was a pretty seamless transition. Playing in New York really prepares you for life in front of the camera and doing interviews.
I think the interesting thing is when you’re on TV you have short hits. You don’t really talk for 15 minutes straight about one certain topic. Which is different from being on the radio. TV it’s 30 or 90 second hits about a certain play or team or game, on the radio you can really dive into an issue and sometimes we’ll talk five or 10 minutes about a team.
How much faster do you have to process things on television? A lot of older broadcasters will say when they went to TV that they were told to do what they did on the radio. Now it seems like everything moves much quicker on camera.
It’s a little bit quicker on TV, especially nowadays when people have shorter attention spans. It did take me a couple shows on Baseball Tonight for me to be used to the pace but once you understand that you don’t have a whole lot of time to make your point to go ahead and do that.
Let’s talk about the Yankees this year. I think there were a lot of people that didn’t expect them to have this much success so early on. You’re very connected with the team still, so what were your expectations for this season?
I think it’s a pleasant surprise. We knew there were a lot of young talented players on the Yankees. We didn’t know how long it was going to take for them to develop and become everyday major leaguers. But those guys have come along quicker. You look at a guy like Aaron Judge, who’s an MVP candidate right now in his first full year. That’s a very pleasant surprise and I’m really happy for Aaron.
I think another surprise is some of the veterans have stepped up. Guys that maybe have had some down years in the past that are really coming on strong. You look at Starlin Castro, what he’s doing. Brent Gardner is coming on and hitting really well the last few weeks. So those veterans are also making big contributions.
You were probably focused mostly on the teams you were playing while you were in the Majors. Now that you’re a broadcaster, do you find yourself going back to the contacts you made while you were a player? Are you reading a lot more? How are you preparing for the job on a day-to-day basis?
The internet is such a beautiful thing for my job because I can spend an hour a day or even less and get through the entire league, look at stats, look at articles that have been written from a lot of different sources and really get a pulse for what’s happening in baseball.
And then, yeah, I still have lots of friends in baseball that I’ll call or text and ask them about some things. You know, I don’t have as many inside sources as some guys that have been doing it for 30 years, but I have friends that are in the game that I played with and against for a long time and it’s been nice to lean on those guys as well.
Have you enjoyed stepping back and learning about other teams on a more in-depth level this season?
Yeah, for sure. I didn’t really pay attention to teams that we weren’t playing. I didn’t pay much attention to the National League in the years when I was with the Yankees. But now that I can sit back and take a look at all these different stories — there are some great blogs out there, there are some great guys to follow on Twitter. And then you have ESPN and the MLB Network that do a great job covering the game.
The big story in New York the last week was Derek Jeter’s number retirement. How big of an impact did that have on you seeing how the organization treated him and how the fans reacted to that?
I was lucky to play with Derek for six years. We won a championship together and he deserves all the accolades, all of the respect, all of the awards (he’s gotten). And especially this last Sunday — seeing him get his number retired and having that ceremony at Yankee Stadium. It was very really special for me, being a teammate of Derek’s and being able to see that stadium full and chanting his name. It was a really cool night.
When Jeter retired, he joined the media in a very different way with The Players Tribune. Have you followed what they’ve done there? It’s really interesting to see how it’s grown, especially for someone in the media because we write a lot about what happens there because it’s players talking about things that interest them or speaking directly to one another through the site.
I think The Players Tribune has just kind of aggregated social media. You look at social media now, I can get anything out there I want. I don’t use it as much as some players, but some players tweet or post stuff to Facebook or Instagram three or four times a day. I kind of always felt like when I played I wanted to concentrate on the game but now that I’m out of baseball I can use social media a little bit more broadly.
What The Players Tribune has done is kind of aggregate those stories and given a little bit of direction to those stories. Maybe give some advice to these players as they’re trying to get their stories out. Because as we’ve seen there are some social media missteps that players make, especially young players. And I think The Players Tribune has done a good job of giving those guys direction.
It seems like a good way to set or reset a narrative, given that players can talk directly to fans and other players. Did you ever find yourself frustrated with how the media was covering you or a story that involved you?
As an everyday player I didn’t really have time to worry about that. I tried to play every single day, and when you’re playing 162 games a year and you’re flying across country for seven months, I never really had time to worry about those types of things.
But I know some guys, it does bother them when things are said about them in the media. I’ve tried to stay pretty clean and do the right things on and off the field, so I never really had any problems with it but there are some players that do. And yeah, they have to deal with that.
In recent years Major League Baseball has tried to change, or accelerate the rate of play. You were a Yankee and I’m a Red Sox fan, so we both know how long these games can be, especially in prime time and in the postseason. Do you feel like they’re going in the right direction in speeding up the game or should baseball be left alone? Does the game need to evolve?
I would like to see games be a little shorter. For pace of play, for the quality of the game, and for kids watching—it’s tough for kids to stay up until 11 o’clock at night watching the game, or sitting there and watching a game for three or three and a half hours. I think baseball’s doing the right thing, and I have a lot of faith in (MLB commissioner) Rob Manfred to make the necessary changes without effecting the sanctity of the game. I feel about really good about where we are and where we’re going.
One more thing: I remember your walk-off grand slam against the Red Sox, which was a few days before your last game. But how special a moment was that to have in front of the home crowd?
It was a really, really special day for me. The Red Sox are obviously huge rivals for us and I had a lot of great battles against the Red Sox. To have my last at-bat of my career against the Sox be a walk-off grand slam — it was really special. Probably one of the top five moments of my career.
