Matt Capps

Robby Incmikoski: Okay. All right. Matt Capps, former major league pitcher—what . . . what do you remember your first experience being like at a major league baseball stadium? And what do you remember, and how special was it?

Capps: Very special because it was with my dad. I was probably—five, let’s say four, five, six, around that age—going to Fulton County Stadium here in Atlanta, where I grew up, watching the Braves play. Dale Murphy was my hero, my idol, and we were sitting along the right-field line. My eyes were probably locked on Dale Murphy the entire game.

A couple of memories about Fulton County Stadium when it was still in existence: My family’s from Asheville, North Carolina, and my grandmother’s neighbors actually drove my grandmother down to Atlanta to stay with us—Roger and Lois Barker were my grandmother’s neighbors—and Roger got lost getting out of Fulton County Stadium, and I very, very vaguely remember driving around that stadium in the rain what seemed like for hours looking for Roger. Of course, that was back before cell phones and pagers and all that stuff, so it was like, “How are we gonna find him?” But we eventually obviously did and got back home.

Robby Incmikoski: We’re glad Roger was recovered.

Capps: Yeah, yeah, we saved Roger.

Robby Incmikoski: Capps, we’re talking to all kinds of people for this book—from Hall of Famers to press-dining servers—we’re running the gamut of people to put in this book to talk about how special the ballpark experience is. Just in general, what makes the ballpark experience special for a fan, just in your experiences as—you know, now you see it as a broadcaster, you saw it as a player, and now you kind of see the game a little bit through your son’s eyes too. What makes it special when you step into a major league baseball stadium?

Capps: I think without a doubt, really with anything in life—not just with a ballpark—obviously, with the ballpark, you’ve got baseball and you’ve got the nostalgia of the game of baseball. But it’s the people, without question. I think if the people, if there’s that personal touch—whether it’s the ushers, or the concession stand people, the press-dining staff, whatever it is—just the people that you work with or that are there for the experience, how they treat you, how they come across is by far the most important. One of the sayings I have with kids I coach and with my children that call me “Dad”: I love to tell them and remind them—and I remind myself all the time—people may remember what you say, they may not remember what you say, but they will forever remember how you made them feel.

I think some ballparks, some places, and other aspects of life, you can walk up into them, and they can make you feel one way or the other. But people, in whatever setting, can make an impact in how you feel. So there’s my answer. [Inaudible.]

Robby Incmikoski: No, it’s a great answer. That’s exactly what we’re looking for. Hey, all right, let’s talk about Nats Park. You spent just over half a season as a Washington National in 2010, and you made the All-Star team that year. But I want to ask you about the ballpark, because you’ve seen it both as a player and as a broadcaster. As a player, what is the experience like pitching there?

Capps: Nats Park?

Robby Incmikoski: Yep.

Capps: It’s very patriotic, as you would expect it would be, and as it should be, being in Washington, DC. There’s red, white, and blue everywhere. They do something every game for the troops and Wounded Warriors, and the hospital there—why am I forgetting the name of the hospital?

Robby Incmikoski: Walter Reed, Walter Reed.

Capps: Walter Reed Hospital. They do a really good job of that. It kind of feels bigger than just the home city, which is really cool. But for me, when I pitched there, it was before they built up everything around it. You could actually go up into the concourse and the press box, and you could see the Capitol out in left field—you had sight lines to it. Now everything’s built up, and there’s apartments and townhomes, and the city has grown around the ballpark. That’s not there as much anymore, but it was when, it its third year in existence I pitched there?

My first impression: I came in—I signed right before Christmas, and then I went in right after New Year’s and did the press release and everything. So it was wintertime obviously. I had gone into DC as a visiting player, so I had seen the stadium and whatnot, but as a National, that first trip then to the clubhouse—just remembering how nice it was and how well-organized it was. It kind of had little branches of areas. When you walk in, you’ve got a little hallway, then it opens up into the clubhouse. If you would have continued straight—I’m sorry. If you go straight, it takes you out to the field; if you go right, there’s a little hallway, and then it opens up into the clubhouse. And the training room and the weight room was kind of back down a hallway on the other side, the opposite side. So if you walk in through the service tunnel, you’ve got to walk through the clubhouse to get to the training room, and then even farther than that to get to the weight room. And I liked that—I liked that separation. When I’d go to the weight room, I felt like I was in the weight room. I wasn’t distracted by other things—somebody new coming into the clubhouse, or a writer, or somebody like that I wanted to talk to or have a conversation with. It was like, I went into the weight room, I was removed from everything else, the rest of the craziness—got my work in. Same thing with the training room—then it was just down a couple of stairs, and you were in the dugout to get to the stadium. So I really liked how it was set up.

And all I had to compare to at the time was Pittsburgh with PNC Park, which I thought was the nicest clubhouse I would ever see in my life, and it still is really nice at PNC. But Washington at the time was a little bit newer. I felt like the design, the layout just kind of fit a little bit better, a little more comfortable, and kind of fit for that many people that are on a major league roster.

Robby Incmikoski: Right. What is—I don’t know how much you had a chance to look, or if you look as a broadcaster, but they have that one—whatever the version of the Lexus Club is that they have there—there are photos of all the presidents throwing out first pitches that you see, and it’s so cool. Did you, as a player, try to take in any of that—just the history of baseball in Washington—and what was that like?

Capps: Yeah, I did. President Obama was in office when I was there, and he came and threw out a first pitch, and he came into the clubhouse, and he spoke to us. I remember the process of the Secret Service coming in and kind of sweeping our lockers, making sure there was nothing dangerous in there, or anything that could really be used as a weapon, which is kind of ironic, because you’ve got professional athletes and pitchers [inaudible].

Robby Incmikoski: Baseballs and bats. Baseball—somebody could just grab a ball and throw it ninety miles an hour if they want to.

Capps: Hitters with bats. I do think they took all the bats and balls out of our lockers just to be safe. And I remember them telling us, “When the president comes in, you’re supposed to stand with your back to your locker, and you’re not supposed to turn into it for any reason whatsoever,” and the Secret Service guys were kind of scattered throughout. So it was almost like any point in time, a Secret Service member was a step or two away from us if we did do something we weren’t supposed to.

But I just remember how cool that was. We’re playing a game, and here’s the most powerful person in our country—arguably the world—coming in and taking time and saying hey to us. I gotta tip my cap to him—he took the time to speak to every single one of us individually as he went around the circle in the clubhouse. And then we were all out there. Going back to that sense of patriotism and American pride. I feel like in DC there was more of an emphasis on being out for the national anthem. The players kind of took more pride to it—I don’t know if it’s a conscious thing or a subconscious thing—I feel like even the visiting players, when they go to DC, they’re out for the anthem. And that’s not something you see everywhere—just with the busyness of a major league baseball season, sometimes you can, sometimes you can’t get out there, but I feel like there was an emphasis on that during my time.

Robby Incmikoski: Yeah, no question. I mean, that is so rare—to have the president, regardless what anyone’s politics are, just to have the president of the United States in a clubhouse. That’s gotta be pretty damn cool as an experience for a player, isn’t it?

Capps: Yeah, no, it was really cool. Like I said, here’s the most powerful person on the planet came in and was talking to us. And you’re absolutely right—no matter what side of the fence you stand on, you have to have respect for the office. It was a very, very cool experience. I didn’t get a chance to go to the White House while I was there—I did a couple other things. We did the Monument Mall, did some of the touristy things during off-days, lived in Alexandria, so not too far. But Alexandria was really cool, because I think the townhome that my wife and I lived in was like 150 years old. I mean, it was an old, old, old townhome. Cobblestone streets out front—it was cool. And growing up where I grew up, in metro Atlanta, I just hadn’t seen anything like that. So it was kind of neat to live that and experience that lifestyle.

Robby Incmikoski: What is it like, being a broadcaster—and you know why I’m asking this question. Tell me about broadcasting games from Nats Park, and what is unique about that experience?

Capps: Well, the real uniqueness about Nationals—Nats Park—as a broadcaster is you might as well be in a 747 flying over, watching it. I mean, you are high, way up there looking down, so you certainly have to take your binoculars when you’re there to call a game. That’s not the most comforting feel, being that far away, but the accommodations are great—the booth’s great, how they treat us there is great, press dining is awesome, which is really important as a broadcaster—you want to have some good food and be taken care of there.

I love—I think the guy’s name is Mike that’s the cook down there at the grill, so you can go down, and they have kind of whatever the option is on the buffet that you can eat from, or you can go over and see Mike, and you can get a cheeseburger. They do cheesesteaks . . . they do several different options that you can have him cook up fresh right there for you.

Robby Incmikoski: That’s great. Baseball in DC—what is the fan base? They had the Senators back in the day, but then they didn’t have baseball for a long time, and then in the mid-2000s the Expos relocate there. What was it, just in terms of relating to a fan base at such a young stage in this iteration of the Washington franchise?

Capps: Yeah, so it was challenging. I think what I found was the most diehard baseball fans had two teams—they had the Orioles and now the Nationals. And the older generation, when the Senators left, they kind of became Orioles fans. There might’ve been somebody out there, but I’d never heard of anybody moving from Montreal to Washington because the baseball team moved from Montreal to Washington, so I don’t think there were any franchise fans that relocated with the team. So this excitement was young, but it felt like people were hungry to have something to pull for and to cheer for. You had the Redskins there—who are now the Commanders, the football team—and the Washington Capitals, and the Wizards, so it’s kind of a sports town. They were just missing baseball, had to go to Baltimore, which I believe is about ninety miles north or maybe not that far—maybe ninety minutes, something like that—so not an insurmountable drive to go to an Orioles game, but certainly a lot more convenient for people in DC, and especially the south side of DC, just come into Navy Yard to watch a game and have a team to cheer for—so it felt like a young crowd. People wanted to get excited about it, and I heard something not too long ago about things like this: It’s about a twenty-year window, and we’re coming up on that twenty years since the Nationals moved to DC—before that first generation of “I was born in DC, I was born in Arlington, I was born in Tysons Corner around the DC area, I grew up a Nats fan because they were here.” Now those people are starting to get married, have kids, have a family, and starting to raise that generational fandom, if you will. So it just felt young when I was there. It was still exciting, though—I think a lot of people in the DC area were excited to finally have a team again, and they were excited to have a nice, shiny, new ballpark to come to and watch baseball. So we actually had pretty good crowds, and there was excitement there, and the ballpark crew did a great job with fan involvement and fan engagement. So it was a good experience.

Robby Incmikoski: Yeah. Great. All right, let’s talk about PNC Park. What is magical about that place to you?

Capps: To me, it’s the first big-league stadium that I wore a uniform in, so it’s kind of like that first love—the first time you fall in love, or the first girlfriend, if you will. The first is always kind of special. I had never been to PNC Park until I was a player there, so that was kind of cool. I had been to multiple ballparks as a fan—had never been to PNC. I had been to Pittsburgh, just not in the ballpark, until I got called up to the big leagues. So I spent four, a little over four years there, so the longest stop of my career with the Pirates—I spent the most amount of time. I’m now there as a broadcaster, coming up on a decade of work at the big-league level for the Pirates, the team that drafted me.

Even before I got there, there were three and a half years of dreaming about getting to Pittsburgh, and trying to imagine what it would be like, and then being able to live it. It’s a special place, and I still—as nice as some other ballparks are and parts of other ballparks—I think the total package with the city in the backdrop and the river, PNC Park to me is just the prettiest baseball/sports venue, I think, on the planet.

Robby Incmikoski: Yeah, that seems to be the resounding opinion of it. Did you—when Pujols hit that moonshot off you, were you in St. Louis, or were you in Pittsburgh? Do you remember where that was?

Capps: I think I was in Pittsburgh.

Robby Incmikoski: I think it was too, I’m just trying to think because I was gonna ask something about facing that—because part of me does it just to break your balls. Didn’t go off how I wanted it to, but me and him were doing a pre- and postgame or something—no, it was during the pandemic—and I think you’re the only pitcher to give up—oh, no, it was a pinch home run that Pujols that you gave up. That’s what it was.

Capps: Um-hmm. That’s what it was.

Robby Incmikoski: Yeah, yeah. Let me ask you this—

Capps: What did he—what did he say about it?

Robby Incmikoski: I didn’t talk to Pujols. I didn’t talk to Pujols about it. But I’m saying I think Pujols has three pinch homers, and you gave up one of them out of like 700 that he’s— or whatever.

Capps: That’s— and I think Hanrahan’s one of the other two, right?

Robby Incmikoski: I think he is too actually, yeah. I mean, he just terrorized the Pirates in those years—he just destroyed them.

Capps: All right.

Robby Incmikoski: Let me ask you this. We talked to a guy—and I’m not being sarcastic when I ask this—we talked to Mike Bacsik yesterday, who gave up Barry Bonds’s 756th homer, the record breaker, right? And he was real, real generous. And I’m always curious to hear people on the other side of big moments in sports, right? To be in Albert Pujols’s book—I mean, he’s one of the most prolific home-run hitters in the history of baseball. For him to hit one off of you—does that . . . I don’t want to say “cool,” because obviously you don’t want to give up a home run. I ask this with due respect, in all seriousness, but do pitchers go, “Okay, I’m okay being in that guy’s book?”

Capps: No. I wasn’t. Yeah, I mean maybe in hindsight, like, okay, I was there. In the moment, absolutely not. My job is to get him out, and I didn’t get him out, so I failed. Being several years removed from my time on the field, is it “cool” that he hit a homer off of me? Still not cool. I wish I had gotten him out. It’d be a whole lot cooler to say, you know, Ken Griffey Jr. same thing. I gave up one homer to Griffey, and actually my careers against Griffey and Pujols were pretty similar. I had a lot of success against both of them, and then I gave up a walk-off homer to Griffey—hung a changeup to him at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati. And then Pujols, was like maybe 0-for-7, 0-for-8, something like that, to start my career against him, and then one got away from me, and I hit him in the ribs unintentionally, and after that, I don’t think I got him out. I think he was 5 for his next 5, including the homer. So it’d be a whole lot cooler to sit here and talk to you and Kyle today and say, “Yeah, Albert Pujols was 0-for-13 with seven strikeouts,” but can’t say it.

Robby Incmikoski: Yeah, no, that’s cool. Let me ask this: Can you tell me about the moment—what stadium were you in when you found out you were an All-Star in 2010? What was that moment like?

Capps: I was in DC. Yeah, I was in Nats Park. So Jim Riggleman and Mike Rizzo called me into the ballpark—it was a Sunday morning, so we were not taking BP—and they just called me into Riggleman’s office. I went in and sat there, and it was just the two of them, and they said I was the highest vote-getter by my peers, which I thought was pretty cool. So I was voted in by other players that wanted me to go. I was the only representative for the Nationals that year, and we had some good players on that team.

So yeah, it was a cool moment. In the moment, I remember Mike Rizzo telling me, “You can smile, you can laugh about this,” and Robby, I’m a pretty fun-loving guy, but I remember sitting there just being overwhelmed by emotion. You know, it was the first season after my dad passed away.

Robby Incmikoski: I was gonna say that, yeah.

Capps: Yeah, he passed away the offseason before, and that’s all I could think about. I think one of the first things I said in this conversation was my earliest memory of going to a big-league stadium was with my dad. So just overwhelmed with emotion. I remember after Rizzo said that, I think I did kind of smile a little bit, and Mike got up, gave me a hug, Riggleman got up, gave me a hug. Went out, got my phone, and walked to the dugout. I called Jen, my wife, and told her; I called my mom. And I remember very vividly that conversation because I was pacing through the dugout—was in the camera while the first-base dugout, the home dugout—and just lost it telling my mom about it. So it, memories that probably carry with me till the day I’m done.

Robby Incmikoski: Yeah, no, that’s a great story, man. And if I remember correctly, that year, the All-Star Game was in St. Louis . . . is that right?

Capps: Anaheim.

Robby Incmikoski: Anaheim that year, okay. What’s it like stepping into that clubhouse with the greatest players?

Capps: That’s cool—it’s very cool. Talk about Albert Pujols—I was in the clubhouse with Albert Pujols. My locker was next to Chris Carpenter’s; Adam Wainwright was in there, some guys that I did know. Brian McCann—I grew up playing with and against Brian McCann—he was in there. I remember being on the field, they were doing some pregame .  . it may have been the pre-Home Run Derby stuff, and seeing Joe Mauer and Derek Jeter on the other side of the field, and then ended up being teammates with Mauer. I had a ton of respect for him, just kind of how he went about his business from afar, and then was able to call him a teammate and friend, and that respect did nothing but grow. Incredible guy.

But it was a cool experience. Obviously, Jen was out there. We flew my mom out. My brother came out. Jen’s family came out. We had a good crowd and had a lot of fun, tried to soak it in and enjoy it as much as I could, and did. Had a great, great experience.

Robby Incmikoski: That’s incredible. I’m just looking at some of the names—Roy Halladay, Wainwright, you just mentioned. Let’s see . . . well, Chris Young was an All-Star that year, Tulowitzki. I mean, Ichiro, Jeter. You’re in a clubhouse with Pujols, Ryan Howard, Ryan Braun, Yadier Molina . . . I mean, Scott Rolen is in the Hall of Fame, Chase Utley, I mean . . .

Capps: Yep.

Robby Incmikoski: It’s pretty damn cool. I mean . . .

Capps: Pretty awesome.

Robby Incmikoski: Did you pitch in the game? Yeah, you did. Did you—I can’t, why are your stats not here? You pitched in that game, didn’t you?

Capps: I did.

Robby Incmikoski: I don’t know why [inaudible].

Capps: I came in and relieved for Halladay, yep. So the sixth inning, he gave up a couple . . . or gave up a couple hits, a couple of guys on base. So came in with runners on first and second, one out, or two outs. Charlie Manuel makes the change. I meet him on the mound—Brian McCann’s my catcher—and Charlie hands me the ball and he goes, “All right now, kid, we got two outs, go get ’em,” and hands me the ball. I look at McCann, and McCann goes, “What do you want to do here?” I said, “I don’t know. Who we got?”

And there’s more to that story: I told you I tried to soak it in as much as I could. The bullpen coach had told me when Halladay went out to pitch the sixth inning that it was his bullpen day, so he’s like he’s got twenty-five pitches, that’s it—maybe they’ll let him go to thirty. I remember in the back of my head thinking, and actually talking to Tim Lincecum about it—Lincecum might’ve been the one that said it. “Twenty-five, thirty pitches, that’s like five innings for Doc.” And I’m going, “Yeah, I’m not pitching.” So I’m looking around, kind of taking it all in. Next thing I know, Charlie’s walking up the steps going, “Hey, give me the righty,” and I’ve thrown three pitches with the catcher, not even down yet, so I fired off, trying to get going, right across the outfield. I get to the mound, and I’m not anywhere close to loose. I gotta figure this out.

Then McCann goes, “What do you want to do here?” and I said, “I don’t know. Who we got?” He turns around and looks, and I look over his shoulder. I say, “Oh, here David Ortiz. All right, good. Let’s get ahead of him, and then let’s finish him hard in.” And as you know, a lot of times it didn’t go as planned. I fell behind 2-0 and stepped off the mound—thank goodness there was no pitch clock—kind of had a little conversation with myself. “This is the major league baseball All-Star Game . . . either get beat or beam ’em. That’s, all right, here we go.” Four-seamer—I was thinking right down the middle, and I did, and then I threw a sinker away, got back into the count 2-2, and then finished David Ortiz off with a fastball on the inside edge for strike three—was able to strike him out.

And my buddy Brian McCann came up in the top of the seventh and hit a two-RBI double to give us the lead, and we held on to it. So I’m the winning pitcher on record for that 2010 . . .

Robby Incmikoski: I was just gonna say—oh, here it is. Yeah, you are. Struck him out. That is incredible. Waino got a hold—Brian Wilson got a hold.

Capps: Yeah.

Robby Incmikoski: And Jonathan Broxton got the save. That is incredible.

Capps: Got the save. That was a pretty cool day for Georgia boys. So I got the win, Broxton got the save, and McCann got the MVP—all three Georgia boys.

Robby Incmikoski: And Waino’s from Georgia.

Capps: Yes, yeah.

Robby Incmikoski: Wow, that is unbelievable, man. Dude, what an experience. What an experience. That’s all I got for you. It’s great stories, man.