WXYT Detro_2024-10-03_15h25:26

WXYT-FM / 97.1 The Ticket

1984 World Series Champion and Tigers Legend Kirk Gibson joins Costa and Jansen to discuss the Tigers' magical run.

Transcript

00:00And, uh, we heard through the grapevine, Tony Paul points out,

00:02Gibby didn't forget.

00:04He told Tony Paul with a big grin.

00:06They ripped my ass for a week, weeks they did.

00:09And that's OK.

00:11Gibby is joining us this morning.

00:12Kirk, talk your talk. Good morning.

00:16Well, let's just say we can agree nobody saw this coming on.

00:23I mean, yes, to your point, I well, we just lost him.

00:26He just dropped. Yeah.

00:28Well, I hope he had more to say than that.

00:31Me too. We have a whole segment dedicated for Gibby's rebuttal.

00:34Yeah, we'll get him back in a second.

00:36Cell phone issue. Yeah, we'll get him back in a moment.

00:38But yeah, I mean, what are the odds, right?

00:41Is that a mic drop?

00:46OK, we did not hang up on him.

00:48I want to be very clear about that.

00:50Gotta love live radio.

00:51We'll get him back here in a second.

00:52He's calling back now. Yeah, we'll get him.

00:56Unbelievable.

00:57And I mean, yeah, I mean, who who would have seen this coming?

01:01We're going to try that again.

01:03Greg, we're good. All right.

01:04Gibby, I don't know what happened, but the floor is yours.

01:08Well, I said what I had to say, I was done.

01:13Just messing with you, right?

01:19Yeah, I mean, yeah, nobody saw this coming,

01:21but we are allowed to change our expectations and our opinion of the team.

01:27At what point or did you ever expect this, where they are right now,

01:32being in the postseason, winning a postseason series?

01:36Honestly, I knew they were going to be better

01:40because I do have the,

01:44you know, I'm around enough and have been within the organization

01:49for, you know, really during the development of the nucleus of this team.

01:54And I just just saw more and more positive things happening,

02:00like little things like I saw the buy in.

02:03Number one, if you look at the.

02:07Early on, the buy in was to control the zone for pitching and hitting.

02:11So you could kind of see the guys, the effort was coming.

02:15The results weren't there.

02:17But when the effort comes and the buy in comes and then the results come,

02:22then things can really take off.

02:25And but, you know, honestly, it's just my nature is not that,

02:31you know, when you when you feel like you're getting too frustrated

02:35and you're you're starting to question whether we should cash in or not.

02:40You have to my way is just I got to counteract it in my own head.

02:46That's the way I was as a player.

02:49You know, Matt barely struck out three times the other day,

02:52and we had a conversation not too long ago with Matt and I.

02:56I said, I don't care if you strike out three times.

02:58You're going to you just just think about

03:01winning it with the fourth at bat or just think how good it feels.

03:06Because there's situations that happen where you're on the road

03:10and the fans are burying you every every time you're looking bad

03:13and then you're looking worse and you're looking worse.

03:16But you have that opportunity.

03:17And it's it's the coolest feeling when you can fail, fail, fail

03:21and then succeed both individually and as a team.

03:25And that's that's the reason that I called in that day

03:30was just because I'd listened to you the morning before.

03:33And I understand the frustration.

03:35I understand everybody's point of view.

03:37But I'm my my personality is let's don't let that in.

03:42You know, like let's control what we let in here.

03:44Let's don't let the negative get us down or get us not believing in ourselves.

03:49And it does help the team

03:52when the fans come down and they can continue to dig in there.

03:56And Comerica Park is from the beginning of June to now.

04:02How far has that transformed to what we're used to hearing?

04:06I mean, that might be a tiger stadium there.

04:09Yeah. Or better yet, what is it going to look like on Wednesday

04:12now that we got a home playoff game at Comerica?

04:14I want to ask you, because you mentioned in that phone call back in June,

04:17some similarities to to 84 people have kind of adopted roar of 24.

04:22How far can this team go?

04:25I think they're very dangerous.

04:26I think they can go all the way.

04:28I really do.

04:29And A.J. Hinch has had a stellar year so far.

04:36The psychology that he's used to get these guys to believe in themselves.

04:42I mean, just back in your head, how this season is developed

04:48and how he started using people in specific roles.

04:52And Andy Abanez yesterday, he had A.J.

04:56showed the confidence in him all year. He came up.

05:00He's got one thing to do.

05:01A.J. has geniusly whittled it down to one thing.

05:06I mean, you're sitting there on a bench.

05:07You know that if they bring the lefty in, you get him.

05:12You get prepared for one thing, one guy.

05:15And miraculously, it works again.

05:18I mean, it's incredible.

05:19At the end of the year, doing the games,

05:22you could feel the expectation they were going to come back

05:25no matter how late it was in the game.

05:27And the more that those successes happen,

05:31the more that you do these miraculous things

05:35and the more people start talking about it.

05:37You know, you believe in it and you feel it

05:41and it continues to go on.

05:42So I think the sky's the limit.

05:45I think they can go all the way.

05:47Everybody, this team is built.

05:51They do so many things good and they're all committed to it.

05:55And now they're there.

05:57The celebrations, that just imprints who we are.

06:00And I think they could fight a bulldozer right now.

06:03I think they'd win.

06:04I'd love to hear your perspective,

06:05because we've heard from the players

06:07about how tight this team is, how close they are.

06:11You're around them all the time.

06:13How have you seen that develop?

06:16And how important is that in the ultimate success of this team?

06:20Yeah, it's important.

06:22It's a feel.

06:23It starts really on the field early

06:28when A.J. lays out how they're going to approach this season.

06:33Then it starts to unwind, unfold through spring training.

06:36Spring training can get long.

06:38They really never let it get long.

06:40They just continue to implement what they were going to do,

06:46who they're going to be.

06:47And then as they gradually start winning some ballgames.

06:50And again, like how you know you have character

06:55is when you go down eight games under 500

06:58and you're still pulling and you don't have

07:03those segmented groups around the locker room.

07:05You don't hear it elsewhere around the stadium.

07:09Everybody stays solidified publicly and they get frustrated.

07:14But these guys, I mean, anybody who's watching Tiger,

07:19they're a fun bunch of guys.

07:20They're a fun team.

07:22You can just you can just tell it's their personality.

07:24It's what they it's the exhaust which they give up.

07:29It's it's really exciting for for these kids, for the organization.

07:34It's been a long time coming.

07:36Gibby, we'll get you out of here with this.

07:37Want to make sure that you plug the foundation,

07:39Kurt Gibson Foundation dot org, the work with Parkinson's

07:42that you've done in the way that you've continued to stay active

07:45and do your best with Parkinson's.

07:49Yeah, you know, I had a unveiling on the same day

07:53that the Tigers first game was and one of my biggest supporters

07:59is Marian Illich.

08:00And we're sitting there watching the game and who walks in.

08:05But Mrs. Illich.

08:06And we sat there and as the team was holding on for that,

08:12that win, it was a little bit of an odd situation.

08:16But man, we had one hell of a watch party over there.

08:19And and I unveiled that we're going to

08:23create a wellness center for people with Parkinson's.

08:27And you can go to our website at Kirk Gibson Foundation

08:30dot org and find out all about it.

08:33A lot of it was in need of volunteers, obviously, and funds.

08:37It'll be a fully funded facility.

08:41We've committed to 10 years to it for 10 years.

08:45And it's going to be very helpful to help those that are suffering from

08:51from Parkinson's and the caregivers alike.

08:53And and it's a you know, it's just a new goal that

08:58we've set as a group.

09:00And thanks for mentioning it.

09:03But for right now, let's go get them, Tigers.

09:06And, you know, I really hesitated from doing this interview today

09:11because I I'm not trying to gloat about a prediction that I made.

09:15We're glad you're ready.

09:17Yes. Yeah. Well, so so far, but let's keep it going.

09:20This is very exciting.

09:21It's going to be awesome for Detroit.

09:25And, you know, we've always kind of battled

09:29as a city my whole life since I was born and raised real close right here.

09:34And I'm proud to say, again, from the city of Detroit, we're banded together.

09:38We'll be behind. We got the Tigers.

09:40We got the Lions and the Red Wings look much better.

09:44So this is things are everybody's feeling good.

09:47We like where we go as our sports teams go a little bit.

09:50Right now, it's very, very good.

09:52Gibby, thanks so much for coming on.

09:54I love it for calling. I love the banter.

09:56I love that you called the first time.

09:57And I love that we're all pulling in the same direction right now.

10:00All right, guys, thank you.

10:01All right, Kurt Gibson. Go Tigers.

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