During the grind of the baseball season, many reporters ask players the same questions over and over.
"What is your approach right now?"
"How disappointed are you about being in Triple-A instead of the big leagues?"
"What do you have to do to make it to the big leagues?"
There’s a time and place for those questions, but sometimes you have to ask the crazy question – one that will draw the player’s personality out. I found a few such interviews with two minor league players recently.
The first one is with KGUN in Tucson and it features Tucson Padres first baseman Cody Decker. Decker, 26, is hitting .268 this season with 11 HR and 46 RBIs:
In addition to doing imitations, accents and pretending to be a rock star, Decker’s larger than life personality shines through in this interview with Tucson radio broadcaster Tim Hagerty. Decker talks about what he wore after being fined for wearing shoes that were too casual, flight attendants and his one hundred career minor league home runs:
Danny Duffy, the 24-year-old left-handed pitcher in the Royals farm system who is coming back from Tommy John surgery, is 2-2 this season with a 4.75 ERA pitching for the Omaha Storm Chasers and NW Arkansas Naturals. He could be Decker’s long lost cousin, given the answers he gave in this interview with KMTV in Omaha about his favorite color, his nicknames and the size of his head.