University of Georgia Athletics
Photo by: John Kelley
Quick Chat: Scott Stricklin
April 09, 2020 | Baseball, The Frierson Files
By John Frierson
Staff Writer
Back in his playing days, Scott Stricklin, Georgia's Ike Cousins Baseball Coach, spent countless hours behind the plate as a catcher. But only once did he face his position's most difficult challenge, catching a knuckleball pitcher. It was all going well, as he explained during a Quick Chat this week, until the Crime Dog showed up.
Back in January 2019, Stricklin sat down in his office for a great and wide-ranging Quick Chat, which you can read here: http://www.gado.gs/1ao. On Wednesday, with the sports world shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic and all of us working from home, Stricklin picked up the phone for another go.
Stricklin's Bulldogs were 14-4, ranked No. 2 in the country and on their way south for a big SEC series against No. 1 Florida, when everything was shut down. During our chat, he talked about his first April without baseball in 30-plus years, dealing with so many unknowns, the one time he caught a knuckleballer and much more. Here's some of what he had to say:
Frierson: What is it like doing your job from home these days?
Stricklin: It certainly is a challenge just like it is for everybody. You just try to stay busy. We've got three kids and three dogs, so we've always got something happening at the house. My son and I are able to do some baseball stuff here at the house and we've been cooking a lot and eating a lot of family dinners, so we're really doing a lot of the same things everyone else is doing.
Doing the job, the job's been put on hold and really all we can do is stay in touch with our players and check in on them and see how they're doing. That's the most difficult part, being separated from everybody and not getting to see your team and see your players. ...
We were just getting into the meat of the schedule, the SEC, and we were on our way down to play Florida when the call hit and we had to turn the bus around and come back home. This weekend, Easter weekend, we were going to play Thursday-Friday-Saturday against Auburn here at home. The weather's going to be spectacular, it's Easter weekend and it's just mind-numbing that we're not doing it.
Frierson: When was the last time you had an April that didn't include baseball?
Stricklin: One of my friends asked me that the other day, when was the last Friday that I wasn't in a dugout this time of year? Honestly, it was in high school. It's been the last 35 years of my life, I've had baseball during the spring, and it's all-consuming, it's everything that you do. It's really, really strange to see the flowers blooming, to smell of the grass being cut and all those triggers in your mind that tell you it's spring — for me, that means baseball and we're not playing. It makes it tough, there's no question.
Frierson: On top of that, with the uncertainty with the Major League Baseball draft and the current unknowns regarding what your roster is going to look like next season, it's probably a disorienting time on several levels.
Stricklin: There's no question. In every college baseball coach's mind, the draft is always a concern because you don't know and you can't predict the draft, even in a normal year. Now you put this on top of it and we don't really what to expect. Major League Baseball still doesn't know what the draft is going to look like and when it's going to be — those times have not been set, those parameters have not been set.
We're all left kind of guessing right now and I think goes along with everything. There's a whole lot of I-don't-knows right now and certainly we're monitoring everything as it changes, but we're trying to figure out what this Major League draft is going to look like and we're probably still a little ways away from understanding it better.
Frierson: If you could catch a nine-inning game from any pitcher in history, who would it be?
Stricklin: Greg Maddux — I think that would be very easy. It's almost like sitting in a chair, he's going to hit you right in the glove. He can throw any pitch at any time and he's not going to break your hand throwing 98 m.p.h. As a catcher, you're just going to sit back there and hopefully be on the same page with him, and he's going to pitch for about 95 pitches and have a relaxing day.
Frierson: Did you ever catch a knuckleballer?
Stricklin: You know what, I did in spring training one time. I caught, I think his name was Dennis Springer, you might have to look it up, he pitched for the Rays, they were the Devil Rays at the time. I didn't catch him in a game, I caught him in a bullpen (session).
The funny story was, it was spring training in 1998 and I was there early (for practice) and Springer wanted to throw a bullpen before we stretched in the morning. The pitching coach, Rick Wilkins, saw me in there and said, hey, can you catch this bullpen? I said, absolutely. I was kind of excited to do it because I'd never caught a knuckleballer before.
I went out and it was just me and the pitching coach and Springer, just the three of us out there, and I was doing just fine. I was catching everything and felt really comfortable and what threw me off was Fred McGriff had made his way out of the clubhouse and came straight to the bullpen and decided to stand in the batter's box to just see some knuckleballs.
I've got Fred McGriff standing next to me and then more guys started trickling out to get ready to stretch, and I missed a ball and it hit me straight in the facemask. I'd been doing so well and felt really good about it and then all these guys come out and the only thing they see is me getting hit in the face. They all started chuckling and everyone started watching, and I could just feel my entire body tighten up — and the next thing you know it looked like I was swatting flies.
Catching a knuckleball is a really, really difficult thing to do and I can't imagine having to do it in a game, under pressure. I caught one bullpen, it started off really good and then Fred McGriff ruined it for me [laughs].
Frierson: Have you ever recruited a knuckleballer? Do they exist at the high school level?
Stricklin: Not really. There are a few guys out there that try to do it, it's just such a difficult thing to master. The art of the knuckleball is you don't really know where it's going so you're actually controlling the unknown, and that's why there are so few of them.
There are plenty of guys out there that can throw knuckleballs, but to actually throw it where you want to is very difficult. Really, when you look at the guys that become knuckleballers, they failed at something else. Tim Wakefield, R.A. Dickey, those are the two guys that come to mind. Tim Wakefield was a first baseman and R.A. Dickey was a power pitcher, and then R.A. Dickey had an arm injury and Tim Wakefield wasn't a good enough position player to make it to the big leagues and just started experimenting. They kind of found lightning in a bottle and made it work.
It's a lost art and I have not seen a true knuckleballer in high school, I can't remember ever actually seeing a kid that threw all knuckleballs.
Frierson: It always seemed like a pitch for a cagey veteran and not a 17-year-old.
Stricklin: Yeah, and the Neikros (Phil and Joe) were obviously the most famous and they probably became more famous as they got a bit older. They're fan favorites because every man can relate to them, an older guy that's not an unbelievable looking athlete out there. He's just out there getting people out and I think people really respected that about those guys, that they were so good at what they did.
Frierson: What's the best meal you've ever eaten?
Stricklin: You know what, when I got my first real job in baseball, I was the pitching coach at Vanderbilt, and the head coach at the time, Roy Mewbourne, and his wife, took my wife and me out to dinner in Nashville. We went to Morton's Steakhouse and I was still a younger guy, so my steaks were usually from Outback or Longhorn or something like that, and we went to Morton's. That stands out to me as probably the best steak I've ever had. My wife and I still talk about that.
(This Q&A was lightly edited for length and clarity.)
Staff Writer
Back in his playing days, Scott Stricklin, Georgia's Ike Cousins Baseball Coach, spent countless hours behind the plate as a catcher. But only once did he face his position's most difficult challenge, catching a knuckleball pitcher. It was all going well, as he explained during a Quick Chat this week, until the Crime Dog showed up.
Back in January 2019, Stricklin sat down in his office for a great and wide-ranging Quick Chat, which you can read here: http://www.gado.gs/1ao. On Wednesday, with the sports world shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic and all of us working from home, Stricklin picked up the phone for another go.
Stricklin's Bulldogs were 14-4, ranked No. 2 in the country and on their way south for a big SEC series against No. 1 Florida, when everything was shut down. During our chat, he talked about his first April without baseball in 30-plus years, dealing with so many unknowns, the one time he caught a knuckleballer and much more. Here's some of what he had to say:
Frierson: What is it like doing your job from home these days?
Stricklin: It certainly is a challenge just like it is for everybody. You just try to stay busy. We've got three kids and three dogs, so we've always got something happening at the house. My son and I are able to do some baseball stuff here at the house and we've been cooking a lot and eating a lot of family dinners, so we're really doing a lot of the same things everyone else is doing.
Doing the job, the job's been put on hold and really all we can do is stay in touch with our players and check in on them and see how they're doing. That's the most difficult part, being separated from everybody and not getting to see your team and see your players. ...
We were just getting into the meat of the schedule, the SEC, and we were on our way down to play Florida when the call hit and we had to turn the bus around and come back home. This weekend, Easter weekend, we were going to play Thursday-Friday-Saturday against Auburn here at home. The weather's going to be spectacular, it's Easter weekend and it's just mind-numbing that we're not doing it.
Frierson: When was the last time you had an April that didn't include baseball?
Stricklin: One of my friends asked me that the other day, when was the last Friday that I wasn't in a dugout this time of year? Honestly, it was in high school. It's been the last 35 years of my life, I've had baseball during the spring, and it's all-consuming, it's everything that you do. It's really, really strange to see the flowers blooming, to smell of the grass being cut and all those triggers in your mind that tell you it's spring — for me, that means baseball and we're not playing. It makes it tough, there's no question.
Frierson: On top of that, with the uncertainty with the Major League Baseball draft and the current unknowns regarding what your roster is going to look like next season, it's probably a disorienting time on several levels.
Stricklin: There's no question. In every college baseball coach's mind, the draft is always a concern because you don't know and you can't predict the draft, even in a normal year. Now you put this on top of it and we don't really what to expect. Major League Baseball still doesn't know what the draft is going to look like and when it's going to be — those times have not been set, those parameters have not been set.
We're all left kind of guessing right now and I think goes along with everything. There's a whole lot of I-don't-knows right now and certainly we're monitoring everything as it changes, but we're trying to figure out what this Major League draft is going to look like and we're probably still a little ways away from understanding it better.
Frierson: If you could catch a nine-inning game from any pitcher in history, who would it be?
Stricklin: Greg Maddux — I think that would be very easy. It's almost like sitting in a chair, he's going to hit you right in the glove. He can throw any pitch at any time and he's not going to break your hand throwing 98 m.p.h. As a catcher, you're just going to sit back there and hopefully be on the same page with him, and he's going to pitch for about 95 pitches and have a relaxing day.
Frierson: Did you ever catch a knuckleballer?
Stricklin: You know what, I did in spring training one time. I caught, I think his name was Dennis Springer, you might have to look it up, he pitched for the Rays, they were the Devil Rays at the time. I didn't catch him in a game, I caught him in a bullpen (session).
The funny story was, it was spring training in 1998 and I was there early (for practice) and Springer wanted to throw a bullpen before we stretched in the morning. The pitching coach, Rick Wilkins, saw me in there and said, hey, can you catch this bullpen? I said, absolutely. I was kind of excited to do it because I'd never caught a knuckleballer before.
I went out and it was just me and the pitching coach and Springer, just the three of us out there, and I was doing just fine. I was catching everything and felt really comfortable and what threw me off was Fred McGriff had made his way out of the clubhouse and came straight to the bullpen and decided to stand in the batter's box to just see some knuckleballs.
I've got Fred McGriff standing next to me and then more guys started trickling out to get ready to stretch, and I missed a ball and it hit me straight in the facemask. I'd been doing so well and felt really good about it and then all these guys come out and the only thing they see is me getting hit in the face. They all started chuckling and everyone started watching, and I could just feel my entire body tighten up — and the next thing you know it looked like I was swatting flies.
Catching a knuckleball is a really, really difficult thing to do and I can't imagine having to do it in a game, under pressure. I caught one bullpen, it started off really good and then Fred McGriff ruined it for me [laughs].
Frierson: Have you ever recruited a knuckleballer? Do they exist at the high school level?
Stricklin: Not really. There are a few guys out there that try to do it, it's just such a difficult thing to master. The art of the knuckleball is you don't really know where it's going so you're actually controlling the unknown, and that's why there are so few of them.
There are plenty of guys out there that can throw knuckleballs, but to actually throw it where you want to is very difficult. Really, when you look at the guys that become knuckleballers, they failed at something else. Tim Wakefield, R.A. Dickey, those are the two guys that come to mind. Tim Wakefield was a first baseman and R.A. Dickey was a power pitcher, and then R.A. Dickey had an arm injury and Tim Wakefield wasn't a good enough position player to make it to the big leagues and just started experimenting. They kind of found lightning in a bottle and made it work.
It's a lost art and I have not seen a true knuckleballer in high school, I can't remember ever actually seeing a kid that threw all knuckleballs.
Frierson: It always seemed like a pitch for a cagey veteran and not a 17-year-old.
Stricklin: Yeah, and the Neikros (Phil and Joe) were obviously the most famous and they probably became more famous as they got a bit older. They're fan favorites because every man can relate to them, an older guy that's not an unbelievable looking athlete out there. He's just out there getting people out and I think people really respected that about those guys, that they were so good at what they did.
Frierson: What's the best meal you've ever eaten?
Stricklin: You know what, when I got my first real job in baseball, I was the pitching coach at Vanderbilt, and the head coach at the time, Roy Mewbourne, and his wife, took my wife and me out to dinner in Nashville. We went to Morton's Steakhouse and I was still a younger guy, so my steaks were usually from Outback or Longhorn or something like that, and we went to Morton's. That stands out to me as probably the best steak I've ever had. My wife and I still talk about that.
(This Q&A was lightly edited for length and clarity.)
John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.
Wednesday, June 17
Wednesday, June 17
Monday, June 15
Sunday, June 14