Intro/Outro (00:04): It takes a bit of a blend of art and science to get baking just right and having extra eyes, ears, and hands can make a big difference along the way. That's where Ab Maori, north America comes into play. We are the team behind industrial and artisan bakers that help optimize success. We'll discuss more on this episode of the Oven Light. So let's get going. Flip the switch.

Rick Oleshak (00:31): Well, welcome back everybody. It is a new year and we've got new people on the podcast, the oven light. So hey, let's get right into it. Flip the switch. The oven light is now on. So today we've got a great guest, right? This is our first program in January of 2024. This gentleman has an incredible story. It involves a little bit of dreaming, a little dream making, and going big. He's a former major league baseball pitcher whose path was highlighted by the film the Rookie, even portrayed by legendary actor. One of my favorites, Dennis Quaid. Today, he is a respected author and motivational speaker. I said the word dream making, but the book is actually called Dream Makers and all the way from the San Antonio area. Let's welcome Jimmy Morris. Jimmy, hey, great to have you on the podcast. Thanks for joining us.

Jimmy Morris (01:26): Absolutely, Rick. Thank you.

Rick Oleshak (01:28): So let's jump into it right away. Your story is so compelling and for those that maybe haven't seen the film, but I'm telling you what, you'll spend two hours of your time if you watch The Rookie. It's a Disney film, it's a feel good and it's true and it's all true. So you are a high school baseball coach. You make a little bit of a deal with your district winning team. You guys win the title and I'll go try out for the major leagues at 35 years old and you're throwing upper nineties. I mean, how cool of a story is that? Doesn't it sound like a Hollywood script?

Jimmy Morris (02:00): It does. And Dennis was asked numerous times, if this wasn't true, would you have done this? And he said, absolutely not. He goes, that's what makes it so intriguing. It happened. We talked to the kids and we talk to everybody in town and we know it's 100% true. And so to have dentists stand up like that in front of everybody and go, yeah, I wouldn't have done this if it had not happened. And I'll tell you, Rick, I wake up today, I'll be 60 in two days and I still at times when I'm like, did all that really happened? And time just flies by and you're like, did I take that bet? Did I make it 19, 20, 21? I threw 88 miles an hour, 29 years old, I had a surgery. The doctor cut all this muscle out of my arm, you'll never pitch again. And then these kids challenge me and I go to the tryout and I'm throwing 98 to a hundred. And I'm like, where did that come from? And this is the second thing I thought, well then I'm going to get sued because I've been throwing 98 to a hundred at my kids. And they thought it was hilarious, but they were hitting me by the end of the year and I thought, not throwing hard, they're hitting me everywhere, but they were right and I was wrong.

Rick Oleshak (03:05): It's incredible. Let me ask you this. So let's go back to when you're a kid and did you ever fantasize you're on the hill in the big game or maybe it's you're at the plate and it's bases loaded. Three, two count at all that. And here you are pitching against the Rangers for the Tampa Bay Devil Race

Jimmy Morris (03:24): In three short months. And the first time I spent five and a half years in six surgeries trying to get out of the minors, never got out of a ball, quit for 11 years, kids challenged me. I come back and at 35 I make my debut. And I'll tell you this Rick, and I've told some people this. If I would've got that dream when I was 19 or 20, I would not have respected it like I did when I was 35 because I knew what life was like and I knew what family life was like and I knew what hard work was like. And there's so much life in between A and B. You don't want to miss anything when you get a second chance like that.

Rick Oleshak (04:00): Well, you had a little maturing I guess between that 19 years old to mid thirties. There's a lot of stuff that happens in your career, a lot of stuff that happens with family and marriages and all that kind of stuff.

Jimmy Morris (04:13): And life is hard. And it doesn't matter what dream you're chasing, what job you have, you've got to work at everything you have and it all starts at

Rick Oleshak (04:21): Home. Alright, so I'm going to try to mix in a little baking here. We talk about ingredients, we make fleischmann's, yeast and other ingredients. And your subtitle for the books as surround yourself with the best to be your best, which tells me you got to have the right ingredients to be successful. And sometimes you need other people in your corner or you need the right circumstances. What do you mean by that? Surround yourself with the best to be your best.

Jimmy Morris (04:46): I think everybody's talented in something different. And if we have people around us who are all talented and keep coming up with ideas, somebody's going to come up with the challenge and take it up and go find that solution to that. And for you, the bread rises. Well, the cream's going to rise at the top too. And so when you have people who push you to be better for no other reason, they want to see you be better. That's who you want on your team. You don't want the people who are going to quit or if they're told no once. We can't achieve that. It's not possible. Anything's possible. It doesn't matter how young or old you are, you can achieve anything. You have to have more heart and a better plane.

Rick Oleshak (05:21): I love it. So is it fair to say you'd rather have somebody who's got more heart than maybe more talent?

Jimmy Morris (05:28): Absolutely. Because that person with more hearts, more willing to learn.

Rick Oleshak (05:31): That's a great point. Alright, so we have this thing here we call the hot pan questions. We had a couple hot pan questions we're going to fire at you right away. Favorite baked good

Jimmy Morris (05:42): Bread,

Rick Oleshak (05:42): What kind of bread? And give me the situation. Or if there's a certain restaurant or a certain setting or maybe something growing up and you're like, this was the best bread ever.

Jimmy Morris (05:51): Sourdough bread is my favorite. I love warm sour bread and sourdough bread and I love butter.

Rick Oleshak (05:58): That's a great answer. You're a good American. Alright, here's the next one. And you're not expecting this one, but it is baseball related. Is a hot dog a sandwich? There's been debates on what's really a sandwich. This and that is a hot dog, a sandwich.

Jimmy Morris (06:14): Wow. I have never inflated that before, but it's between two pieces of bread, so why not?

Rick Oleshak (06:20): Amen. I love it. Okay, so let's say this. What do you put on a hot dog if you go to a ball game, what are you putting on there?

Jimmy Morris (06:26): Oh, mustard and sauerkraut.

Rick Oleshak (06:28): Wow. Alright. We're nailing them today, Jimmy. I'd love this. Lastly, last one, tell me about seeing yourself on your first big league baseball card. And I've seen several of 'em out there. How exciting was that? Was it just surreal?

Jimmy Morris (06:41): Absolutely surreal. And I was so rich when I left teaching to go play baseball and my first spring training, I stayed at extended stay. Their trainers told me, they said, you had cards delivered to your room today. And I get back to my room and I'm supposed to sign all these cards and it was like 10,000 cards. And I thought I was in a classroom last year teaching science to kids in the middle of West Texas and now this card's going to go everywhere. Yeah, I was blown away.

Rick Oleshak (07:09): That's pretty cool. Okay, so you were teaching science, what grades and what kind of stuff, what were some of the subject matter pieces that you were passing on to your students?

Jimmy Morris (07:18): Well, anatomy and physiology for more than one reason, because mainly I've had so many surgeries that I pretty much knew everything to begin with. Biology, physical science, even little chemistry in there. And I love teaching kids because when you teach kids, they're more receptive and more open than people our age.

Rick Oleshak (07:37): What were the grades for that? What years?

Jimmy Morris (07:40): Ninth through 12.

Rick Oleshak (07:41): Ninth through 12, okay. So you're teaching high school. I mean, yeah. That's impressive. Across the board. That's a heck of a mix. 12th graders are different than ninth graders. They

Jimmy Morris (07:49): Absolutely, ninth graders are out of their mind. 12th graders have learned how to be sneaky about it.

Rick Oleshak (07:56): That's pretty good. I don't know. I don't know if you're finger pointing at some of us listening to the program. So if you're just tuning in or listening in, we've got Jimmy Morris, a great movie called The Rookie, has a book called Dream Makers. It's all about being your best, surrounding yourself with people that can help make you successful. So we talk about successful, I mean, you talk about this relationship that you've had with Dennis Quaid, right? Great actor has started in a number of movies about sports and certainly he's got a love about that. But you guys have a deeper relationship just than somebody playing you on screen, right?

Jimmy Morris (08:30): We do. When we did the filming, we became friends and I would go in at night in Austin and listen to him play after he had filmed all day. Personally, I wondered how he stayed up 20 hours a day, but then we did the screenings all across America because Disney was worried if we rate this movie G, no adult's going to want to sit through it. So they sent us around the country meeting all these people, introducing the movie, letting him watch it. And as we did this, there were days that he would be on top of his game and he would take over. And there were days when I would be on top of my game and I would take over and we just made a good team. More than that, I think we respect each other because we both made mistakes and we've both done great things and life's a combination of that. Like I said, life is hard. And I think it just resonated with both of us. The night we won the SV Awards, the best compliment he ever gave me, he was going to one party and I was going to another one with Shauna and he called me over after we had won and done all our pictures. And he hugs me and he goes, I just want you to know you've helped turn my career around. I think that's probably the best compliment I've ever gotten.

Rick Oleshak (09:35): That's pretty impressive. And you guys are both Texas guys too, right?

Jimmy Morris (09:39): We are. He's from Houston. It's kind of a different state to itself, but yeah, we're from Texas.

Rick Oleshak (09:44): That's impressive. And you talk about surrounding yourself with good people and it sounds like that's worked both ways for you and Dennis. So let's talk about branding, right? I mean, branding is really important to me and I know we've kind of touched on this a little bit before, but it's fun to watch movies and certain things that stand out to you. In the movie, the Rookie, you see the part where he's throwing at the railroad tracks, he's changing the diaper before he goes out in the pouring rain and throws some fastballs. And then there's one that I couldn't get out of my head was this whole Jiffy Lube hat. You talk about branding and making a statement, all that. Tell me how that came to life and was there any truth to that or was that just a little bit of fun?

Jimmy Morris (10:27): You know what, I wore all kinds of hats, but Jiffy Lube was not one of them. We didn't even have a Jiffy Lube where I lived. It was just one of those things and they wanted their name in the movie and whatever they did with Disney, they did. But I'll tell you one thing that happened. Russell Athletics also endorsed our movie and their head spokesman was Hank Aaron, my childhood hero and everything that he had gone through to get to be where he went, even though there were threats all the time. And so he and I get to close the bell closing bell at Stock Market one day, and I get to tell him that when I was 10 years old, I watched him at Fen White Park and he signed baseballs for my team. And then I told him, I said, did you see the Sandlot movie? He said, yeah, I saw that movie. He said, I sand lotted your ball. I lived in Connecticut, it snowed. We ran out of balls. I said, I got one. It was ruined in 30 seconds. Pats me on the back with the heartiest laugh I've ever heard. Absolutely one of the nicest people I've ever met. And when you have someone you look up to your entire life, especially from the time you're 9, 10, 11 years old, and they end up being better than you thought they would be, that's just cool.

Rick Oleshak (11:38): It's the best thing. And so did he ever sign another ball for you?

Jimmy Morris (11:42): No, he laughed. He goes, I already signed one

Rick Oleshak (11:45): That's classic. Well, besides Hank Aaron, I mean legend and one of the best of all time tell me about it has to do with being there for the movie The Rookie. You also had a pretty special dinner, I believe, with a number of other legends. Tell us a little bit about that. For

Jimmy Morris (12:01): Whatever reason, we didn't know at the time, but people were coming around from Disney and talking to Dennis separately and me separately and us together, and they're like, if you could have anybody for dinner you wanted in the history of baseball, who would it be? And so we're just naming people and he's a little bit older than me, and so he's got a different group of guys than I do. And as we start naming guys, come to find out the night before the world premier, he and I have dinner at the 21 Club in New York with 21 Hall of Famers and I played 22 games in the big leagues. And I don't gripe about it or anything else, I got to be there, but the person who asked me for my autograph absolutely floored me. Willie Mays asked for my autograph and I thought, you have got to be kidding me.

Jimmy Morris (12:46): And it was just an amazing moment and time, and you get to spend time with all these guys who did this at the top of their game that only 1% of the 1% can play. And they did it for so long and so well that they're in the hall of fame. You take in everything you can now I'm just wanting to take pictures and shake hands and hug people. And my agents going around pointing at people going in the eighth inning when the count was three and two and there was a guy on second base, you hit 3 55. And I'm like, that was 1950, dude, how do you remember that? Different people.

Rick Oleshak (13:21): Yeah, for sure. For sure. So I mean, you don't get 21 Hall of Famers together unless there's maybe a Hall of Fame ceremony in the summer, right?

Jimmy Morris (13:28): That's right. And you got to pay a lot of money to be there. But to have all these guys there and signing stuff for my kids and other things, they're like, how many kids do you have? And tell 'em they would sign stuff. I wasn't even asking for it. It was one of the best moments of my life because I got to see baseball history and then I got to see the guys that I live baseball history with and baseball's come a long way. But you know what? It's still a game that brings cities together and it's still one of the best games this country has ever seen and I love it.

Rick Oleshak (13:59): Well, okay, you talk about baseball's gone through a lot and it is got some changes. We've seen insurrection of larger bases, no more shifts. We've seen the Dodgers spend about a billion dollars on some new players, pitch clocks, batter clocks, all that kind of stuff. What are you liking? What are you not liking? What, what's impacting you? What do you think about Shhe Tani? I mean there's a lot in that question, but I'll let you unpack it.

Jimmy Morris (14:25): I think Shhe Tani could retire right now and be in the Hall of Fame just simply because of a two player person who can do both at the top of his game even on the same night, and be able to concentrate on both of those when most people have a hard time with one and he just goes out and does it so well, I think baseball for me is seen as through wars, depressions, recessions, civil unrest. It's been with us through everywhere and now it's a world game we have players from. And just to be able to watch people go out and have fun playing the game they love and coincidentally getting paid a crud load of money to do it. These guys are so young and so talented, the analytics, the time clocks, the bases, anything that make the sports safer, the thing that's bothered me the most is not being able to come inside on somebody and give them, you know what that part of the plate's mind, you're going to back up. We've become less aggressive and I don't like that. I like being aggressive because when you're aggressive, good things happen.

Rick Oleshak (15:22): Sure. Well, I mean you remember the days I live in St. Louis, so of course Bob Gibson, right? He wanted to on the inside of the plate. Now if you get a little too close, somebody says something about somebody else's mama and things get out of hand. But no, you're absolutely right because there is a strike zone and there are edges of the plate and all that, but certainly has impacted the game in terms of how you throw now.

Jimmy Morris (15:44): Absolutely it has. And it's only getting better. I'll tell you, I'm so impressed with the shape that these athletes are in now and what they can do. The thing that gets to me the most analytics, so if you swing the bat like this and you hit the ball at so much of an angle, this is what you do. Okay, you hit 30 home runs, but you hit 200.

Rick Oleshak (16:05): Yeah, I'm with you on that. I do agree a hundred percent with that. Sometimes we're so focused on launch angles and so on and so forth, it's a little crazy. We're so focused on the long ball and the power versus a guy like Tony Gwen who rarely struck out, who always hit for an incredible average, who did more for his team than probably anybody ever realized.

Jimmy Morris (16:31): Absolutely. And one of the best talents because he was so good at what he did and you knew what he was going to do and you still couldn't stop him. So that's just part of the game. And the analytics on the pitcher side of it, I got to pick on both sides, right? Somebody can throw 102 miles an hour and get lit up like a Christmas tree and then somebody else comes out. Medics back in the day with the brake, Tim

Rick Oleshak (16:53): Wakefield, right?

Jimmy Morris (16:54): 81, 82, 83 inch off the plate, two inches off the plate, and then they start getting people to chase stuff and they can throw whatever they want. You can't figure that into analytics because that doesn't fit, that doesn't have spin revolution and how quick the ball gets from your fingertips to the plate. And so I think we've lost part of the art of the baseball.

Rick Oleshak (17:15): So let's talk about you, the pitcher. When you made it the major leagues and throwing upper nineties, what was your arsenal, I guess, of pitches and was your out pitch the heat or did you have something else that you dazzled and got people to swing away? At

Jimmy Morris (17:29): Our pitching, coach and manager at the time, Rothchild in Tampa said, you have a breaking ball as good as I've ever seen. He goes, but we want you for your fastball. And I could throw a fastball that tailed in a cutter, I could throw one that tailed out, one that sank, and then you get the explosive one on those good nights when you feel it coming off your fingertips, you get it to rise and it just explodes when it gets there. And so there's four or five, six different fastballs and then a slider that you throw from 83 to 91. The hitter doesn't know what's going on because sometimes as even as a pitcher, you're like, I hope this breaks where I want it to. Everything's about timing in this game.

Rick Oleshak (18:08): Well, my favorite baseball player growing up was Willie Starzl and he had a comment about playing with a round bat and a round ball and they asked you to hit the ball squarely. Kind of an interesting take, isn't it?

Jimmy Morris (18:22): It is, but it's true. And just a quarter inch, one way or the other, down the middle of that bat is a popup or a ground out.

Rick Oleshak (18:29): Yeah, for sure. Alright, let's talk about Jimmy Morris, not the Player. Now let's talk about the coach, right? Because you impacted a lot of these kids. The owls was the name of your team, so you stay in touch with some of these kids and the characters, and how have you seen that relationship kind of grow since everything kind of blossomed into this wonderful story?

Jimmy Morris (18:51): They had stayed in constant contact with me, and there was a point where I went through Parkinson's and brain surgery and I had some of my players show up at the ballpark in Arlington when we did Parkinson's night, Michael J. Fox Foundation, and they drove all the way from West Texas just to come to that. And so that meant a lot to me. Then we had a foundation back in the teens and those kids were a part of it. They collected baseball equipment for me so that we could go up and help retool teams that in the same district in Texas, you have one team that would have 10 uniforms, artificial turf, 14 hats, 25 batting gloves. And then these kids in the same district, 10 miles down the road don't have two bats on the team. And they got a scrape for baseballs. And so we got a bunch of people on board, including MLB and NFL, and we helped retool a inner city school in Fort Worth. And when we did that, you got to watch the alumni come back out and plant trees and flowers and we get so much more out of love than we do with hate, and we spend so much time on hate. And when you show the people you love them and you go out there and you're there for them, the good people, they're going to respect that.

Rick Oleshak (20:05): Well, those are really good words as we've come out of a holiday week with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Week in the holiday on Monday. And so we definitely appreciate those words. How do people find out a little bit more about you or what are you up to nowadays? And if they do want to read the book, how can they get in touch with you?

Jimmy Morris (20:24): DreamMaker book.com or you can go to Amazon, you do the.com thing, you get it signed by me. If it goes through Amazon, I'm not signing it. I didn't get it. But that's pretty easy, Jim. The rookie morris.com is also the website and they can go there. They go to any speakers bureau because I'm pretty much with everybody and look me up. And I never thought that I would be doing this for a million years. And what are going to do with an introverted person? Well, let's make a motivational speaker out of that person. And then you find out you can talk. And I think a lot of that goes back to my childhood and children are be seen and not heard, and I took that to heart. And so I never talked. I was nice, I was polite. I did the right thing all the time, but I didn't talk. And so I was seen as stuck up or arrogant, but it wasn't that I was just so shy I didn't talk. And now I'm actually going out and speaking all over the world.

Rick Oleshak (21:13): Wow. A little bit of a blessing too. I mean, you were a teacher too, so you had to be able to communicate there. But boy, the movie The Rookie is taking you in a whole unbelievable universe here. So Jimmy, I have to say thank you for joining us, love having you on the program. And if you do have any questions, if you're listening out there, you're in your car, you're maybe in the office, maybe add the earbuds in. If you've got a question for Jimmy, you can send it to the oven light@abmaori.com. If you do that, we will send some swag and send something your way. And if you've got a suggestion about the program in the future, again, the oven light@abmario.com, we appreciate you listening. And for now, this episode of The Oven Light is now complete. The switch is off, and that's it, and we'll see next time on the oven light.

Intro/Outro (22:03): We hope you've enjoyed this episode of the Oven Light. Until next time, when we discuss more about the wonderful world of baking technology trends and more, the switch is officially off. Goodbye for now. See you next time.