In the past year, MSU has won a Big Ten football and a Big Ten baseball title. You had the chance to play for both when you were here. What are your thoughts on the state of the athletics program at your alma mater?

“Is the last time (the MSU baseball team won a title) in 1979? Yeah, well that’s when I was there. It’s great, and I love the university. Unfortunately being down here, I don’t get a chance to get back there as much. I have had a daughter who has graduated from there, I have a son who’s
going to graduate from there this year, and I have another son who’s looking to possibly attend Michigan State. He’ll be a senior next year. It was really one of the finest times of my life. It was huge and instrumental in getting me the opportunity to experience what I’m experiencing right now in my capacity. I keep in touch with everybody up there, and I wish I could come to more games and stuff like that. I try and contribute and support all of those departments.”

Jake Boss Jr. said when his team won the Big Ten title, he got a congratulatory text message from you. Is that true?

“Oh yeah. I talked to Jake. I just talked to him the other day, actually. He’s done a great job. I’ve always supported whoever has run the baseball program and talked to them and asked them if there’s anything I can do within the rules. I just wanted to talk baseball. It’s maybe a way for me to relive the great time I had on the same field. I was involved in the beginning in helping to raise money for the college field endeavor and to see that come to the end and see my good friend Peter Secchia put the money up to do the girl’s softball facility. Doug DeMartin, a good friend of mine, did the soccer facility, and Drayton Mclane is somebody I talked to about the baseball. Everything is teamwork. When you work together, you achieve more and Jake certainly knows that philosophy. He’s done a great job and the results have spoke for themselves.”

You played on some famous Detroit Tigers’ teams, namely the 1984 championship team. What are your memories of that time?

“I think the thing about the Tiger teams is I was drafted in the minor league system, and the team that won basically was. We were like homegrown, you know? Lance Parrish, Jack Morris, Dan Petry, Lou Whitaker, Alan Trammell, Tommy Brookens, Dave Rozema. I’m missing a couple, but we kind of came up together. If you can just think back, we were all in our young 20s going through this together. The first thing you have to do is realize what your goal is, and we all had great coaches and people who spent the time with us to help us understand why we were really there. To become dedicated and determined together and preserve through the same things, it really turned into a very, very, very good team. It wasn’t a team of stars. It was just a team of guys who where taught how to play the game right. We were fundamental, we played hard every day, we were grinders and we were blue-collar just like where we were from. That was very, very rewarding.”

Your closer for the Arizona Diamondbacks J.J. Putz is a U-M graduate. Is there any rivalry talk between you and him?

“Oh yeah. Actually, he walks around with his earplugs in with the “M” logo on them. You call his phone, and it’s got the U-M fight song. He’s definitely all the University of Michigan — we certainly banter back and forth about that. He couldn’t pitch for me last night, and I went, ‘Well now I know why you went to Michigan — you’re not tough enough to go to Michigan State.’ I told him, ‘God, I just hung up the phone with Brady Hoke. He can’t believe you won’t pitch tonight.’ He said, ‘Are you serious? Is that Brady?’ It goes on. He’s great. Actually, this year I was here, and Brady Hoke walked into my office, and I got to meet him. He seems like a real good guy. My general manager Kevin Towers is real good friends with him. I brought J.J. in there for that, and he about wet his pants. He was so excited to see this guy.”