WXYT Detro_2024-10-03_15h25:26
1984 World Series Champion and Tigers Legend Kirk Gibson joins Costa and Jansen to discuss the Tigers' magical run.
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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.