A Meeting With The Mayor Of Ding Dong City -- Section 10 Podcast Ep. 88 (feat. Travis Shaw)
Buckle up. This is a good one. This week on the Section 10 Podcast, we’ve got former Red Sox first and third baseman turned Brewers fuckin’ cleanup hitter Travis Shaw. The Red Sox are in Milwaukee for a three-game set starting tonight, so it was perfect timing to get Shaw on to tell his story, going all the way back to when he was a kid, growing up around the Dodgers clubhouse with his dad, pitcher Jeff Shaw. He told a good Gary Sheffield story from his Dodgers days.
Shaw also talks about how his favorite player growing up was A-Rod and what that moment was like when he played on the same field as him, which position he was expecting to play when he was drafted, how he wasn’t a top 10 prospect when he was called up, how he was aware of that but didn’t care, how he beat out Pablo Sandoval for the starting job at third base in 2016 but that he actually expected to beat out Hanley Ramirez for the starting job at first base, his relationship with John Farrell and how that changed over the course of last season, how he said some things to the media that he regretted, how he reacted when the Red Sox traded for Aaron Hill, how the communication between him and Farrell wasn’t great and how maybe he’s not the only one who feels that way.
After that, we get into some leadership talk — who was the leader on that 2016 team after David Ortiz and who he thinks the leader in the room is now that David’s gone, who reached out to him after he was dealt to the Brewers, how it bugged him that he wasn’t trusted to hit against lefties, the biggest difference between playing in Milwaukee versus playing in Boston, how the Red Sox make their minor leaguers go through media training, how he started saying whatever he wanted to the media in the second half of last season, his Twitter mentions being a dumpster fire after flying out to end the ALDS, how the Red Sox preferred to play the Indians in the postseason because they had so many injuries, and how shocked they were to have lost the first two games in Cleveland.
We also get into whether or not David Ortiz’s retirement was a distraction, how awkward the AL East celebration was after giving up a walk-off grand slam to the Yankees, how fun it is to hit in Miller Park, the Mayor of Ding Dong City nickname and if it has followed him to Milwaukee, how good Eric Thames has been, how often the Brewers have been piss tested, how MLB’s drug testing policy is “random” but it’s really not, his favorite David Ortiz moments from playing alongside him, and he recalled times that Ortiz not only called his shot hitting a home run but which pitcher on what pitch and where he was going to hit it.
Finally, Shaw talks about wanting to “win the trade” and hit a bomb against the Red Sox in this series, and mentions which former teammates he’s looking forward to seeing the most. All that, and there’s actually more.
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