Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt Talks Melanoma Prevention For Kids and Phillies' Early Season Woes

Well, I'm thrilled to be joined by Hall of Fame third baseman, the greatest Philadelphia Philly in franchise history. And just to be candid, my personal hero growing up as a fan of the Phillies in the mid to late 1980s, Mike Schmidt is joining me here on hit and season. And he's joining me to talk about a campaign that he is going, taking on right now. I'm talking to young athletes about melanoma and the importance of fighting against skin cancer. Something that Mike knows a lot about personally. Mikey, thank you for coming on hit and season. How are you, sir? I'm doing good. I caught a little virus last night. So if my voice is a little, you know, a little weird, that's why. So as far as my initiative, let me take you back to the beginning, give you a little backstory on this thing. In 2013, I was diagnosed with stage three melanoma with a mole on my back and it had metastasized and got into my lymph system, into my lungs, into my brain. It started an entire new life for me and my family, of course. Chemotherapy, radiation, that whole process probably went for about three years. I'm still taking a lot of meds, still getting CT scans, brain MRIs, still like, you know, have to stay on top of that because, you know, once it gets to the point it was with me, there's, you know, no telling, you know, that, you know, you can't say that it won't come back. I mean, you know, cancer is an awful thing. And so I joined a foundation called the Richard David Kahn Melanoma Foundation down in my area down here and it gave me a chance to tell my story, you know, to give back and talk to kids and adults about the dangers of the sun's rays, try to convince kids and adults that they need to wear protection. When they're out, we were doing it pretty strong for like two or three years and then we decided to bring it up to Philadelphia. And I started a 501c3 Mike Schmidt initiative in Philadelphia. We've got great guns up here. This particular off-season, we've got a relationship with the Hall of Fame. We've got a relationship, I don't know whether you've heard of it, with Cobbs Creek Restoration, the Tiger Woods Learning Lab. Let's see, we always have a relationship with the Phillies. We just partnered with dermatology partners and they're in three states. They have 70 employees. So many great things are happening with us now and I'm getting an opportunity to tell my story and hopefully affect as many people as we can. Our mission is stop skin cancer and that's what we're trying to do. And I know you held some events over the course of the last week in Ridley and in Doylestown and really just kind of stressing this. I mean, I guess it's as much to the parents as to the kids because the kids are going to go out and they're going to play in the sun and they're not thinking about the long-term effects of playing on a hot field three hours, four hours at a time and they're young and so they're not really thinking about that. So the parents are the ones who really need to have this hammered home to protect their kids when they're out in the sun like that. Yeah, that's right. I mean, I do my best when I'm standing in front of a bunch of little leaguers and they're eight to twelve years old and try to tell them how important using sunscreen is. But I always want their parents to be right behind them to convince the parents that they need to change their ways about the sun. They need to make sure the kids put sunscreen on. They need to make sure the kids maybe carry sunscreen in their equipment bags, show them how to put it on. Maybe wear a couple of sleeves on their arms. A lot of major league players are wearing sleeves now, professional golfers as well. Just a, you know, a newfound respect for the sun. Yeah, and you said in your playing days you guys didn't wear sunscreen, right? I mean, that was very rare for you guys when you guys were playing in the 70s, 80s, 90s. Not at all. I spent my whole life in the sun. No sunscreen. I didn't care. I had baby oil. I thought I could get a tan and that, oh, I destroyed my skin. It's hard to believe people used to use sun tan lotion, right? They used to use lotion that would actually help you accentuate getting ultraviolet rays. And it's just, it's great that we live in an era now where we are more aware of that. And so what do you have coming up on the horizon, say this summer, as you continue this push? Well, we have several events planned. We have June 18th. We have a big party at the vet for our gold sponsors. We're playing the Mets that night, so we're doing a special thing for our gold sponsors. We are planning a golf tournament at Cobbs Creek on September 21st. I do, you know, with the Phillies, I mean, I do, when I go up every month for four days, I mean, this is, I mean, if I'm there for four days, I may do a couple of events for my initiative, but most of the time I work for the Phillies. I mean, obviously they're my way out there. Yeah. Yeah. So it's busy when I go up. It's very busy. Well, I wish you a lot of luck and continued awareness with kids on this. It's a tremendous thing you're doing and really important. One of those things that just doesn't get thought about a whole lot. I did want to ask you a couple of questions about the, about the Phil's here, as we are, we're doing this interview here on the Monday in between the Atlanta series and the Giants series, the Phillies are obviously really struggling right now. You've been calling games for the team up until like the last year or so. So I know you probably have your, your finger on, on the pulse of, of what's been going on. That's just, you can see by the way they're playing in that it has gotten off to a terrible start right now. What do you think is happening? I mean, without being obviously in the clubhouse right now, but having played for so long and been a part of teams that have gotten off to slow starts before, how, what is happening right now with the players in the clubhouse? How are they dealing with this? For sure. They know, they know what's going on. You don't need, you know, the media doesn't need to tell them, you know, I know they feel awful. I looked at the box score the other day with the batting averages going up and down the box score and you know, they were horrendous actually. Those that will all change over time, you know, a month, month and a half from now things will change. They can't continue to lose at this rate. They just can't, you know, they'll start winning two out of three, two out of three, out of four. And the confidence will come back. The players will start to feel it, you know, they'll start to feel it. We've got to get rid of that sense that, God, I hope, you know, I hope we just, you know, focusing on how many they've lost in a row and you start thinking, God, I hope we don't lose another one. You know, you think more about having fun. You know, that's another thing that's hard to do when you're losing like that. It's not necessarily fun to go out and play. It's hard. It's hard to describe. You know, people would say, well, they're paying you $25 million a year. You ought to have fun, right? It's not, it doesn't work that way. So I don't know if it's just maybe, maybe none of them went to the park today. Maybe they just got baseball off of their mind. Maybe something will happen. Maybe they'll jump out to a seven or eight run lead. Something will happen to change this. They're just too good, you know, and they got Wheeler back now. So you got Wheeler and Garcia, right? Yeah, they have. Yeah. Yep. So, I mean, that's a one, two punch that, you know, you just can't be, um, I don't know. This is play. I don't know how to put it. I don't have any pat answers for you. No, sure. No. Well, it's confounding because this isn't, this isn't a bad team that came into the season with low expectations and has gotten off to such a rocky start, right? They've been to the playoffs four years in a row. They had, they had world series aspirations again this year. Uh, and, and to, for a team this good to have such a terrible start, it's really hard to kind of comprehend, especially as, as, as fans. I mean, you look at the roster, you look at the payroll, it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And so now people are turning their attention to if changes are going to be made, you can't remake a roster here at the end of April, but what you can do is you can, you can let some coaches go. You can let the manager go as someone who has, who, who was on teams that saw managerial changes. Uh, I know one of the most well-known of course is, is in 1979 when Danny Ozark was fired and Dallas Green was brought in. There's a lot of fans that continue to look at that example and say, that's what we need. That's what we've got to have. You know, Rob Thompson's too nice with the players. They need somebody to come in who's a little bit more brusque or whatever. Obviously that was a one-time thing with you guys in, in 1980, right? That doesn't usually work that way, but what are your thoughts on a managerial change in the middle of the season like this? Don't forget there was an addition of Pete Rose back then as well. I mean, Pete, Pete just won't lose. I mean, I don't know how to describe that. He's, he just keeps the team loose in the clubhouse. And, uh, very verbal. Um, he does things on the field that light a fire under everybody around him. I mean, that may sound crazy, but I just, uh, my, the level of my game went up tremendously around Pete. Um, and I, I never think letting the manager go, letting the manager coaches go as an embarrassing thing to the players, just, you know, they, they feel bad. Um, and Rob, I think Rob is a fantastic manager. Um, I don't, I don't, I don't know what the answer is. You got to win one, then you got to win two in a row. Then you win that third one in a row. Maybe you lose one. Then you went two in a row again, before you know it, you're creeping back. You can feel yourself creeping back to 500 and then boom, you know, next thing you know, you're two or three games over and it's a whole new lease on life. But remember, you got to score more runs than the other team. That's right. That's right. And right now the Phillies, there's no team in baseball that has a wider gap between the runs they've given up and the runs that they've scored right now. And that won't stay that way all season, I'm sure. But one of the things that the Phillies have going for them is there's so many more playoff spots available now, right? I mean, you've got the wildcards in each league in addition to the three division championships. So you've got six playoff teams in the National League every year. That is something that you did not have when you were playing. And I've always wanted to ask players who played in the era before the wildcard round, when you see the way the playoff structure is set up now and you see the opportunities for a team like the Phillies, who maybe they really struggle in April and May, but then they catch fire over the last four months, teams can still make the postseason, even when that has happened. Whereas when you were playing and you had to win the NL East in a six or a 17 division to get to the playoffs, if you had a terrible April and May, it really was almost impossible to win the division and come back. So do you wish you had all those wildcards now or did you prefer it back when you were playing that you really had to have a great regular season from start to finish to earn that playoff spot? No, I wouldn't want to play the way they have it now. We had four, right? Three divisions and the next best record. And we only played two rounds, the NLCS and then the World Series. I would much prefer that without question. Now, the way it is right now, the Phillies are still going to have to get the 90 wins. Maybe 88, I don't know, but it depends on the National League East. And there's some really good teams out in the West, right? San Diego, LA, obviously. I'm not sure who else is really doing well there, but you get too far behind the other teams, then it's hard to even grab one of those last playoff spots. So can't worry about that. You just got to go grind every day. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, all five teams in the Central have records above 500 right now, so there is a hill to climb. One of the other things that I wanted to ask you about was, we are looking at the end of the season at a potential work stoppage, it would seem, because the collective bargaining agreement is up. And of course, at the center of this whole thing is going to be salary cap and salary floor. And with what the Dodgers payroll looks like and the Mets payroll looks like, and hey, even teams like the Phillies who spend close over $300 million when you factor in all of the luxury taxes they have to pay, there's a wide divide between the top and the bottom. And so I think more fans are growing to the idea of a salary cap, salary floor. I'm not one of them. I don't like the idea of a salary cap, salary floor, but I wonder if as you see this game changing and evolving and you see the payroll disparity, what is your sense about the likelihood of the Players Association having to cave this time around on a salary cap? Or do you think they'll hold strong? I'd assume they'll hold strong. I mean, we did back in 76 when free agency was on the table. Players are entitled to make what they can make in a free market. So I'm assuming it'll be a rough season this year as a former player. So there's a lot of players that are doing pretty well every 15 days. That is no doubt true. Last thing for you, Mike, the all-star game is at Citizens Bank Park this summer in Philadelphia. Are you going to be a part of that at all? Do you have any plans to be there or take part in any ceremonies that you're involved in? Yes, I don't have any specific information on that, but I will be going there Sunday through Wednesday. And I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I think I need to get my orders from John Middleton. He hasn't given them to me yet. Okay, that's fair. Well, Mike, I wish you all the best with this campaign to educate the nation's youth and their parents about melanoma. Is there some place that people can go, someplace online or anything like that, if they want to get more information about that? They can go to melanomafoundation.com, the website. All the information is there via QR code, how to donate. My history, my story, the story of how the foundation got started. Yeah, melanomafoundation.com. We'd appreciate everybody taking a look. Well, Mike, it has been a pleasure and a thrill for me to talk to you. I really appreciate your time. Thanks for coming on Hittin' Season. You got it, John. Thank you.