Pittsburgh Pirates: Living in the Past and Present with Jack Wilson

During his playing career Jack Wilson was one of the best defensive shortstops in baseball. Now, the former Pittsburgh Pirates defensive wizard is trying to pass on his knowledge of the game by coaching baseball in his native California.

Memories, everyone has them, right? Some good, some bad, and some right in between. The memory or memories I want to bring up are the ones that make your body feel like Alka Seltzer, and you can’t help but smile at. Those memories for me take place at PNC Park with my father going to watch my favorite team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, and player of all time. That player is Jack Wilson!

Not that long ago, I reached out to Wilson in hopes of getting the chance to talk to the former Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop and discuss his life and playing career. Honestly, I didn’t expect to hear from him at all because he’s a busy guy, but sure enough, he emailed me back and was as nice as could be. So here it is folks THE ONE interview I’ve been waiting my whole life for with the man I idolized so much as a kid and still to this day!

You all know how I like to start these things! I always want to hear the individual describe who exactly they are, and that’s exactly what I asked Wilson.

“I’m a happy go lucky guy who always looks at the glass half full. I try to be as upbeat and positive as I can be both in the job that I did and life in general. I’m a big time video game guy, and I’m a die-hard Xbox guy. I’m actually crushing Warzone right now like nobody’s business. I love being a dad, and since I retired, I can hang around my family a lot more, which is a blessing in itself. When I wake up every day, I just feel happy!”

As we all know, baseball isn’t the sexy sport to play anymore, and it shows in the participation rates all across America. That is why I asked Wilson what the driving force for him to play America’s game.

“I enjoyed the game. I think when you’re a kid, you really enjoy it when you can be good at it, and you can do all-star type things. I actually didn’t play baseball as much as I did soccer. I played soccer year-round and just played baseball during the season. Half the time back then, if I had to choose going to a soccer game or a baseball game, I’d choose soccer. I didn’t play full-time baseball until I graduated high school.”

Wilson continued, “Going into my senior year, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had a bunch of offers to kick footballs in college. I could kick the ball pretty far, and my accuracy was there sometimes, and then it wasn’t. Then there was my first love in soccer, and there was baseball as well. So in my senior year, I had to make that decision, and baseball was the logical choice to make.”

Wilson is yet another guy from California that I’ve talked to. Like every other California guy, I had to ask him what it is about California that makes such a good baseball player. There has to be something in the water, right?!

“It’s honestly the weather. We can play baseball year-round. You’re sitting in 75-degree weather on Christmas, and you can still play. There’s maybe a month and a half of a rainy season, but it’s all about having the chance to spend more time on the field. I tell my players all the time now in November and December that there are baseball players back east that would do anything to be on the field like they are, so don’t take anything for granted.”

Let’s get back to the memories idea, shall we? As a super fan or fanboy or whatever you want to call it of Wilson, I had to know his fondest memory playing the game of baseball.

“I would have to say the All-Star Game and that whole three-day experience. It was very overwhelming, but it was such an honor to be able to be with the best in the game. I had a really good run the first two or three months to the season, and that enabled me to go to Houston and participate in the All-Star Game. Being in that locker room with future Hall of Famers and having Derek Jeter shake your hand and say congrats, I mean, that’s just something you dream of.”

In my eyes, Wilson had a very unique style of play at shortstop with the Pittsburgh Pirates. It obviously worked for him with the results he came up with defensively being heralded as one of the best shortstops in Pittsburgh Pirates history. Going off of that, I wanted to know if there were any players he emulated his game after.

“No, not really, there were players that I looked up to and admired their game and what they did and how consistent they were, and that’s what we all ask ourselves to be. If you want to stay in the game, you have to be consistent. I’m just like everybody else, I’m a fan. So when you play against certain guys, you get a little bit of a relationship with them, and you start to pay close attention to them and admire.”

Jumping Jack continued, “I think everyone has their own DNA and their own way of doing things, so I didn’t really emulate or rate myself against anybody else. By comparing and rating yourself against other people, you lose focus on what got you there, and you have to focus on being the best you can be. As long as I focus being the best I can possibly be within myself, then at the end of the day, you can look back and say I gave it all, and I was a consistent ME.”

Let’s go back in time a bit and talk about April 3, 2001. I, Cody Potanko, was 10 days away from turning 6-years-old, Wilson was 23. On this date, Wilson got the call to the show from the Pittsburgh Pirates to face the Reds in Cincinnati. The Pittsburgh Pirates lost a nail bitter 3-2, but, in that game, the young Wilson went 1-for-2 and collected his first of 1,294 MLB hits. I had to know if the jitters were there for him at all.

“Oh yeah! I went to camp that year, so set on going to Triple-A because I had just came from Double-A, and I had already had my place set in Nashville for Triple-A. I was just going to big league camp to get my feet wet and try to learn as much as I could because I didn’t expect to make the team, and then bam! I get told I made the team, and three weeks later I’m at Opening Day.”

Wilson continued, “It was exciting and frightening all at the same time and a whole lot of answering my own self-doubt. I had to answer am I really good enough to be here. I had just turned 23 as well as just getting traded from another organization, so it all happened so fast. You figure I had just been in Double-A, and then six months later, I’m on a big league field with a Pittsburgh Pirates uniform on wondering what happened! It was really cool, though, and it was even better to have my family there in Cincinnati, too.”

Now he had mentioned previously about his All-Star appearance back in 2004. That year Jumping Jack Flash was on a roll batting a crisp .308 and was stellar on the defensive side as well. With that .308 mark, he earned his one and only Silver Slugger Award. So I wanted to know what it was that year that made him bat so consistently.

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“The funny thing is I won a batting title my first year in pro ball in Tennesee batting .370. The next year I batted .340, and the funny thing is I moved up the system because of my offense. I think what happened was sometimes you need a little more time to develop at the higher stages. I was ready for the bigs defensively but not offensively, so it took me a couple of years to learn how to hit big-league pitching.”

Wilson continued, “I never had a taste of Triple-A pitching, so I kind of skipped that step because I was big league ready defensively and that made me take a step back offensively because my job was to catch and throw the ball and if I didn’t hit well that was OK at first. By the time 2003 came around, I said this batting .250 thing isn’t me, and I’m going back to being me and becoming confident like I used to.”

One of the main reasons I fell in love with Jack Wilson’s game was his brilliance at the shortstop position you would see him make one or two plays a night that would just amaze you it seemed like. So I asked him what it was about the art of playing shortstop that he fell in love with.

“When you first get up there, it’s all reactionary. As you get deeper in you, start learning the hitters and your pitchers and what the hitters are doing with their pitches. (Former Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher) Paul Maholm had a hard slider but a big loopy curveball, so righties would pull that more so I could anticipate more to the right. I wasn’t a base stealer, but I could run, but my first step was always really good because I could anticipate where the ball would be hit according to the hitter and what pitch he was going to hit.”

Wilson continued, “I had really good coaches get me to really lock into the next level of defense and how do I put myself in a position every single pitch to make a play. The biggest thing was the anticipation, and I also got that from playing soccer and anticipating the open space and where the ball could go or needed to go. It wasn’t just having a good glove or reading the hops. It was really diving into pre-pitch anticipation.”

The number 913 is a very large number, and in fact, that’s how many double plays Wilson had turned in his 12 years in the bigs. I would imagine a ton of those were turned by the connection of Freddy Sanchez and himself. I really wanted to know what it was about their chemistry that made it so effortless.

“We had a history we played high school club baseball together in the summer for a couple of seasons. It’s always easy working with another shortstop, and actually, Freddy was the shortstop on our team, and I was the second baseman, and he was way better than me in high school. That’s that bond you have with your second baseman knowing what they like, where they like it, and how they like it. The same goes for him with you, and then you can start to anticipate before anything even happens.”

Mr. Wilson continued, “When you get a lot of time together, and I think Freddy and I had three or four seasons together up the middle and it was nice. We could read each other’s minds, and we knew exactly what was going on. It was really easy, especially when your partner is one of your best friends in life.”

Now I’m sure I’m not alone in this when I say I cried my eyes out when the Pittsburgh Pirates traded Wilson to the Seattle Mariners. One thing is for sure though he left a huge mark on the city of Pittsburgh when he left, and he will always be remembered for what he did here. In that same vein, I wanted to know what the steel city meant to him and what it was about the city he fell in love with.

“I think it’s the way they treated my family and me. I never got booed even though there were plenty of times I should’ve. I felt extremely safe with my family, and I raised my children there. I lived in Mars, PA, and when I went on the road, I always knew my family was safe. I tell people all the time it’ an amazing sports city, and in those couple of years where all three teams went to the playoffs you think this is the greatest sports city in the world and people don’t understand it.”

Wilson continued, “Pittsburgh was home, and my kids knew Pittsburgh as home more than California for sure because that’s where they grew up. When I was young, I was a blue-collared kid like the city of Pittsburgh, and that’s why I always embraced the role I had to be with fans. People would see me at restaurants, and I’d invite them over to say hello because I felt like they were my family.”

Let’s fast forward to present times, and I know it was nice reminiscing, but I promise this is some great stuff too. Wilson is now the skipper at his old stomping grounds at Thousand Oaks HS, and in the summer, he works with team USA. Oh yeah, he coached his son, who just graduated, and is now on his way to Grand Canyon University to play his old man’s position. I just had to know what that is like.

“It’s good he just graduated, and he’s a 6-foot-3 shortstop, and he’s REALLY GOOD! It’s nice being able to be his fan now instead of his coach. There’s something about having your dad as your coach through high school because you don’t see it very often. I think he’s excited and I’m excited to be in the stands and be a cheerleader and let him do his own thing.”

He then got into what it’s like being a coach. “I think the high school age is great. You can teach them things that I learned in the big league level that is so advanced for them that helps them get them ready for college. It’s about simplifying things and teaching them little outside the box processes, and it’s been a nice run with some good seasons.”

Now here is the part that just absolutely blew my mind, and it dealt with the infamous food question from me. I have on record of Wilson loving Mexican food and to be more specific a good burrito, which is actually my favorite type of food! I know you’re thinking to yourself, “Cody a lot of people like Mexican food” I know, but damn, let me have this moment and be happy that my favorite player likes the same things I like GEEZE! He also had to shout out his wife and mention that everything she cooks is downright amazing!

Overall I was super happy to get the chance to talk to THE GUY that I’ve held up so high for so many years, and my favorite Pittsburgh Pirates player ever. I was also happy to find out that he is who I thought he was and was a genuinely great person. As I end this here, I just want to thank Jack and all of you for reading this!