Former pro third baseman Scott Brosius tells all about sleep deprivation, how kids reacted to a major league dad, and the absolute worst diaper change story ever.
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By Paul Shipper
When most sports fans think about Scott Brosius, they remember Brosius as the former Oakland A’s and New York Yankees’ third baseman. I remember him, huge smile on his face, running in to the center of the infield to join the celebratory dogpile at the end of Game 4 of the 1998 World Series as the World Series MVP. He didn’t get a huge hit EVERY at bat during that postseason and the next three, or make his signature “running in from third base to field a ball bare-handed and throw it to first base in one motion to get the runner by a step” every game, it just seemed that way.
Now, Brosius is the head coach of the baseball team at his alma mater Linfied College, a small Division III school in McMinnville, Oregon. I had the chance to speak to him about fatherhood and his three kids: Allison (23), Megan (20), and David (18).
1. What do you wish somebody had told you about being a dad before you had your first child?
SB: Honestly, I thought my dad did a great job and other people I knew did a great job of kind of preparing me for most of it, but I think the one thing, and they can tell you this but I don’t think you quite understand it until it happens is just how little sleep you get right away. So much changes that’s just the routine, and those types of things, and you’re trying to get your baseball workouts in or get to the park and physically stay your very best but then you’re up four times in the middle of the night because of the crying and different things. And I don’t know how you can prepare for that until you’re in the middle of it. And it’s just, people can tell you, but I think I’d want a little bit more of a warning of “Hey, you’re going to be a mess for a few months. You’re not going to be sleeping like you’re used to sleeping.”
2. Do your kids tease you about anything?
Probably the thing they tease me the most about now is just my hair loss, that’s the biggest thing I get from them now because they’re older. You know, they’ll poke fun of me about my career or they’ll say “Hey, I found this highlight of you striking out,” or things like that. Most of it’s just normal banter with kids.
I think, when the kids were young, we’d get a bunch of comments that you totally love because they were so young. I remember my daughter Allison, in the off season and she was probably three or four years old or something like that, and out of the blue she comes over and sits on my lap and she goes “Dad, you’re my favorite baseball player in the whole world. Except for Mark McGwire because he hits more home runs.” And then she just hopped off and walked away. And I just start cracking up and off she went.
And then Megan, she happened to be outside one time when I was cleaning the roof, and for the last time, I have to add, I was spraying down…we had a sheet roof. And I’m up there cleaning and I hit a wet spot and literally slid off the roof. I was able to get my feet up and literally just kind of slid off the roof and kind of landed feet first into a bush, like right in front of my wife and daughter Megan. And of course, I’m wide-eyed and Jennifer is wide-eyed and we’re looking at each other like “what just happened” and I wasn’t hurt or anything like that and Megan looks over and goes “Dad, great slide. Do that again!” They always had a way of applying baseball to real life because it was always a part of what we did.
3. Did any of your kids ever walk in on you while you were trying to have “adult alone time?”
No, that never happened, so we were pretty fortunate there.
4. What’s the most embarrassing things any of your kids have done out in public while with you?
One thing that comes to mind, when Allison was about two or three years old, she was talking and she was pretty verbal and had tons of questions. So my wife was at a grocery store with her in Alameda, so we’re down in Oakland. And in California, there’s a lot of diversity down there, and we live in McMinnville, Oregon where maybe’s there’s not as much. So, we’re in the grocery store with her and she walks by an Asian guy and she says “Mom, what kind of man is that?” And of course, Jen was just petrified, and the guy just kind of looked and smiled because he kind of understood and she said “Just a normal man,” but you know, all those things that are going to come out of kids mouths that are completely innocent but can be embarrassing.
5. What’s been one of the most inconvenient times you’ve had to drop everything and bring one of your kids to the toilet?
I know that when we were potty training our kids, especially Allison, our oldest, once she figured out that she started to potty train, she really felt it was important that anywhere we went, she needed to go to the bathroom so she could see the bathroom. And so, it was Safeway, it was Albertson’s, it was a furniture store, it’s 7-11, it didn’t matter. Every place that we went into, she had to go to the bathroom, and so even…we had a little portable potty sort of thing that we put in our car in case of emergencies, well that became twice on the way to Portland, which was an hour drive. And so now we’re pulling over on the side of the road so she can use that. So it was such a treat for her to go see all the bathrooms and use all the bathrooms that it was always a constant part of, literally, everything we did.
6. Do you have a best or worst diaper change story?
Oh man, I have the worst one ever. When I was playing for Oakland, Allison was probably just about a year or a year and a half old. It was one of those days where my wife Jennifer and I just had to get out of the house, we were like man, we just can’t sit around and we know she’s cranky and all that kind of stuff but we just have to go. So we decided to try and time a movie around her nap time. And so we were going and we would see the movie and she would fall asleep, but we didn’t have a babysitter and we were desperate and we’re going to try and do this.
Well, it doesn’t work out. After about 20 minutes, she wakes up and she’s hungry. So here we are in this movie and we’ve got this baby food and between Jen and I, we’re taking turns trying to feed her and food’s just getting all over the place and it doesn’t seem to be helping and food’s getting all over the place and she’s still whimpering, and all of a sudden, we kind of figure out why. Her stomach just starts going crazy. She just empties out into this diaper and I’m just absolutely obliterated, this whole area you can see people go “Oh my gosh” and we’re trying to get her out of there and we’re trying to get her cleaned up. So we get her to the bathroom and not only do we see what she had done downstairs, but she’s got food all over her face from us trying to feed her in the movie. And anybody that saw her probably thought she was the most neglected child of all time.
Did anyone recognize you?
No. I mean, my playing days in Oakland was so much different than in New York. You could pretty much go around, and this was in my first years as a player there, but nobody had a real sense of who I was.
7. Was there anything your kids watched or listened to that drove you crazy?
SB: (no hesitation) SpongeBob. Unbelievable. I tried to explain to them…well, I guess I can answer one of your other questions in terms of telling them something that wasn’t true. I tried to explain to them that SpongeBob kills brain cells, that there’s no reason you should watch it because it’s going to make you dumber.
I think that’s true.
But it didn’t work and they watched it anyway, so that was the one for me that just drove me crazy.
8. Were any of your kids picky eaters? And if so, what did you do about it?
My two girls are great eaters. My son is incredibly picky but I can’t do anything about it because he got that from me. I’m a horribly picky eater as well so, how do you tell him to eat all his vegetables when he looks at your plate and I don’t really have a lot on my plate either. So, in terms of eating, I did not do a very good job of leading by example. My son, unfortunately, inherited that from me.
9. Obviously, you want your kids to take lots of lessons from you, but if your kids could only take one lesson from you, one that stuck with them, what would you want it to be?
The things that we’ve talked about a lot are big picture things because, you know, just on the heels of…they grew up in a big league atmosphere and things like that where a lot of things are given to you, and status, or whatever, is heaped on you because of what you do that I think we’ve always really talked to them that it’s about who you are, not what you do, and the character of a person is something people are going to remember a whole lot more than what they did. Kind of, who you are is more important than what you do, and I think that’s something that we tried to instill in them really from the start, that you have to go out there and be a good person and earn what you get, that you’re not entitled to have anything given to you.
10. If you could tell your kids any one thing about being a parent before they have kids, what would you tell them?
Oh man, I don’t know. I’ve been fortunate, we’ve had great experiences with our kids. My oldest is engaged and will be married in about eight or nine months, and so who knows how soon that’s coming, hopefully it’s not for a little while but who knows how soon that’s coming. We’ve had such a great experience, I don’t think I have any warnings for them in terms of stuff, but the things that we’ve talked about with them, in terms of having kids is just make sure that you’re in a place where they can be priority number one because you don’t try to fit kids into your life, you fit your life around your kids when they come. And so be ready to fully commit to what parenthood is.
And maybe get some more sleep, right?
SB: (laughing) Exactly. Exactly.
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AP Photo/Bill Kostroun