North Carolina State University Athletics
TIM PEELER: Holliday Has Vested Interest in World Series
10/24/2007 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Starting today, however, Holliday will get an intimate glimpse of the other World Series, the one played between the National and American league pennant winners. And he may have his heart more invested in this one than any of the ones he worked. That’s because Holliday’s son is Colorado All-Star and NL MVP candidate Matt Holliday, the left fielder who has played such a prominent role in the
So Holliday and his wife Kathy flew to Boston earlier this week and will be on hand in Fenway Park today when the Rockies and the Red Sox meet at 8:35 p.m. in the first game of the best-of-seven series.
The younger Holliday, in his fourth season in the majors, had Triple Crown numbers this year: He led the NL in batting average (.340), RBIs (137), hits (216) and doubles (50). He was fourth in home runs (36) and second in slugging percentage (.607).
Holliday has another connection to the
Most of the season, Holliday has watched his son on his big-screen television here in Raleigh. And that's likely where he'll be parked when the Series heads to Denver over the weekend for Games 3, 4 and 5 over the weekend. While his wife heads to Colorado with their son, Holliday will be at Doak Field helping the Wolfpack during the second weekend of its Fall World Series.
Of course, there will be one unusual twist for the career college baseball coach: One of Tom Holliday’s most successful players while at Oklahoma State, former Cleveland Indians pitcher John Farrell, is now the Boston Red Sox pitching coach, whose job will be figuring out ways to pitch to the little kid who used to running around the dugout and on the playing field back in Stillwater, Okla. Farrell also spent five years as Tom Holliday’s pitching coach with the Cowboys, before going to work for the Cleveland Indians.
So he has rooting interest on both sides, though one is obviously much bigger than the other.
“He’s trying to pretend like he’s not too worked up,” said Wolfpack head baseball coach Elliott Avent, who once hired Holliday’s other son Josh as a graduate assistant at NC State. “But you can tell he’s excited.”
Holliday shared his thoughts with the media about watching his son’s phenomenal season.
Q: How have you been holding up?
Holliday: It’s cost me a lot of sleep. As you know we’re on the East Coast and the
And a lot of people think that when your kid gets into pro baseball, the term as parents is over. It’s not over. We’ve been sitting around watching every ball game. And we’re well past the point of just rooting for Matt. I think that’s over. We’re now in the stage of rooting for the
It’s been a different emotional ride. Matt’s been in the big leagues for four years. Certainly this year with the team’s success it’s been a different feeling and I’m kind of glad the regular season is over and tickled to death that they’re in the World Series and hoping for a little bit more.
Q: Is it hard watching from home?
Holliday: It’s kind of fun, actually. I know a lot of those guys because Matt grew up playing with them. I kind of have flashbacks at times of sitting in silly little restaurants on the road, over in
Q: What do you think about the
Holliday: This run is something special for baseball historians. And it’s not over yet. We don’t know where it ends up. You hope it ends up building to an all-time record. But I remember talking to Matt a month ago and the conversation was, Dad, all we can do is win.’ I said, That’s right. You have to win one game at a time.’ And they did. And then the last day of the regular season, I remember saying, Well, we need
Q. The television announcer the other day actually called the
Holliday: Any time the underdog does something, people start to pick it up and rally behind it. I really believe they’ve been under the radar for a long time. And they kind of have a neat image. They’re good people and they’re good players and they project well. They’re a bunch of kids that play with passion every day and they’ve had a run of a different guy winning a ball game inside the 21 wins. It hasn’t just been one guy. It’s been all of them. I think people like that. I think people get tired of the star thing and if one guy doesn’t do it, they don’t do it. The
Their locker room is unique. They are pretty young and the leadership is young. So the older guys often times walk around and take the lead from the younger guys. So if [
When your mood-setters are younger guys, the older guys are standing around saying, I don’t believe this.’ As Todd Helton told the whole world about this run, he doesn’t know why they’re streaking or how they’re streaking, because it’s being done in a unique way.
Q: How many games have you been to in person?
Holliday: I went to
I like to watch the games. I don’t like to get into chants. I’m not into cheering. I’m more into trying to figure out when the right moves are made and who’s going to be the guy that day to get it done. That’s the way they’ve turned me over. I’ve gone from a fan of Matt’s to a fan of the team’s. Certainly, his at-bats are four gut-wrenching ordeals every day and anyone who thinks that stops when they get out of high school, they’re wrong.
Q: What was Matt like as a kid?
Holliday: He was so shy that he would wait until after our games [at Oklahoma State] were over, I would take a shower, meet with the media, get ready to go home and he’d say, Dad, will you throw me batting practice?’ I’d say, Geez, Matt couldn’t you have asked me before I showered and put my clothes on.’
The fact is, he wanted the crowd to leave and he wanted to go out and work one-on-one with nobody around. That’s pretty odd when you think about him now playing in front of millions of people on television and 50,000 at every home game. Kathy always reminds me, There’s that little shy guy.’ Well, he’s not shy anymore.
Somewhere he learned how to play in front of a lot of people. In baseball, when you fail it teaches you more than when you succeed. When you fail, you have to answer that question, Am I going to continue to do this and be tough enough to overcome it?’ Baseball is loaded with failure, much more failure than success. And dealing with failure has probably made Matt accept that good feeling and make that something you don’t want to lose.
Q: Talk about his rise in professional baseball.
Holliday: When he went to play for that
Q. As a father, what is it like to sit back and watch your son perform on this level?
Holliday: It’s a tough emotion to describe. There’ve been tears, there’s been happiness. And yet every time I start to get really excited I think, Who do we play next?’ So that feeling doesn’t last very long.
I know that when reporters on television said that he had misjudged that one fly ball, I was thinking, I’ve seen him play 162 games because I have the MLB television package and I thought he was the MVP left fielder defensively. And he got a bad break on a ball and it went over his head. And a new broadcaster from another network said, He’s just an average outfielder,’ I got a little emotional right then. And it wasn’t a real good emotion. I wanted to put my hand through the screen. That was dad.
Q. Is it tough watching when he makes a mistake like that?
Holliday: Some guy asked me, Are you afraid of the playoffs and the World Series?’ I said Why would I be afraid?’ And he says, Well what if Matt pulls a Buckner?’ I just said, If Matt pulls a Buckner, I’ll be right there.’
Q: What were your thoughts about the play at the plate in extra innings against the Padres in that one-game playoff?
Holliday: He asked me if he was safe or out. From my angle it looked like he was safe, so I asked him, Did you get your hand under his foot?’ And he said, Dad, I don’t remember.’ I felt like when he hit the ground he got a concussion, just by the way he reacted. And he’s a big guy. So when 240 pound hits the ground the way he hit and skidded. He said he put his hand toward the plate but as soon as Barrett stepped on his fingers, he moved his hand. So whether it was on the plate or not, I don’t know.
I was shocked he went to begin with, since nobody was out and there was a line drive to a right fielder who’s been in the All-Star game five times. I think I wait and let the next guy take a shot at it. But he told me, I wanted to get it over with.’ I think it was 2 o’clock when it ended.
Q: Can you pinpoint a time when the
Holliday: When they swept the Yankees in a three-game series early in the year, they felt like the city of
The city is absolutely on fire. They’re scalping tickets for big amounts of money. And I’ve been out there before where I swear they’re rooting for both teams because they don’t know what’s going on. That’s just my take on their fans. The organization is only 15 years old. They’re not like the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Indians or the Pirates. They’re very new and they root for everybody. But now I think they’re only rooting for the
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
