BaseballBiz On Deck

Bob Hope, Colorado Silver Bullets Women's Baseball, Journeys with Hank Aaron, & Ted Turner

• Bob Hope, Creator of the Women's Colorado Silver Bullets baseball team • Episode 272

Share episode

“Baseball can’t truly be America’s pastime if women are prohibited from playing.” – Bob Hope
 
Bob Hope’s Baseball Career Journey:

  • College student to Atlanta Braves employee 
  • Starting as an office assistant to Assistant PR Director
  • Rising to PR Director at age 24

Memorable Moments with Hank Aaron:

  • Close friendship with Hank Aaron
  • Managing PR during Aaron’s record-breaking home run chase
  • Hank Aaron meeting children with illnesses before games, despite league restrictions, highlighting Aaron's compassion and humility

Women in Baseball:

  • The influence of Hank Aaron on Bob’s advocacy for women in baseball.
  • Early efforts in the 1980s, including tryouts at Georgia Tech, to explore women’s potential in professional baseball.
  • Founding the Colorado Silver Bullets with support from Coors Brewing Company to demonstrate women’s ability to compete at a high level in baseball.
  • Tamara Holmes, who thrived with the Silver Bullets and later represented the USAWNT Baseball

Cultural Shifts in Baseball:

  • Overcoming skepticism & resistance to women playing baseball.
  • Shifting public and organizational attitudes toward women in sports.
  • The evolution of opportunities for women in baseball
  • Reflections on working with baseball icons like Hank Aaron
  • Hank Aaron’s humility & kindness left a lasting impact on Bob’s career & life.
  • The significance of Bob’s work in promoting inclusivity and innovation in baseball.

Career with the Braves and Ted Turner:

  • Managed high-profile events like the MLB All-Star Game & Hank Aaron’s home run chase to beat Babe Ruth's record
  • Worked directly with Ted Turner, who challenged Bob to raise his profile nationally
  • Balancing career with family life led Bob to transition from Turner’s intense environment to Coca-Cola and eventually founding his own agency

Creating the Colorado Silver Bullets:

  • Partnered with Coors to establish a professional women’s baseball team.
  • Assembled top-tier coaching staff, including Phil Niekro, to ensure the team’s success & credibility
  • Overcame initial struggles to become a competitive team, defeating college teams, minor league teams & international opponents like Nicaragua’s national team
  • Pitcher Pam Davis’s “Greg Maddux”-style performance, showcased the talent and determination of women in baseball

Promoting Women in Baseball:

  • Early advocacy inspired by conversations with Hank Aaron and Billie Jean King.
  • Collaboration with the Women’s Sports Foundation to explore opportunities for women to play baseball professionally.
  • Importance of visibility & equal opportunities for girls dreaming of playing baseball.

Humanitarian Efforts in Honduras:

  • Organized annual trips to rural Honduras for nearly 30 years, focus on building schools and improving healthcare.
  • Helped transform the region with state-of-the-art education facilities and support for the local community.
  • Encourages others to get involved, emphasizing the personal growth and connections gained from giving back
  • Honduras Efforts Donations can be made :via Zelle to, 678 362 4883 

  •  Women’s Sports Foundation and its initiatives.
  • Hank Aaron’s legacy: Hank Aaron Foundation
  • Learn more about the Colorado Silver Bullets 
    Mark on BlueSky at @baseballbizondeck.bsky.social  
    Thanks to XTaKeRuX for the music “Rocking Forward

Colorado Silver Bullets Women's Baseball - Hank Aaron - Bob Hope - Phil Niekro - BaseballBiz

[00:00:00] Mark Corbett: Welcome to BaseballBiz On Deck I am Mark Corbett, your host. And with me today, I have Mr. Bob Hope this man has made a difference in baseball for, Oh, for a while. He's done a lot, everything from with the Braves , to the Colorado Silver Bullets and much more, we're going to find out a little bit more about Bob here in just a minute.

[00:00:21] Mark Corbett: How you doing today, Bob? 

[00:00:22] Mark Corbett: I'm doing great. Hope you are, 

[00:00:24] Mark Corbett: man. I am. Thanks a lot for, uh, for doing that and for joining us here today. Now you're based out of Atlanta, aren't you? 

[00:00:31] Bob Hope: That's where I am right now.

[00:00:32] Mark Corbett: Hey, have you got the snow off the ground? Finally?

[00:00:35] Bob Hope: But no, it's a little icy out there at the moment.

[00:00:38] Mark Corbett: Be careful. Oh my gosh. I couldn't believe that. But you know, yeah, I look at you. I look at Georgia and I say, you've achieved so much starting out with journalism school. And then the next thing I know , you're working with the Braves and you're moving up, doing more and more responsibility with that.

[00:00:55] Mark Corbett: And then. Finally, now I'm seeing , you've also created your own business with, uh, Hope Beckham and Espinosa with the PR firm. And you guys been together now for about 30 years. This is just amazing, sir. 

[00:01:08] Bob Hope: Yeah, I was, um, you know, I'm, I'm a little older than you, but I, , I was, , in New York for years and wanted to come back home.

[00:01:13] Bob Hope: So we just came back and started my own business. 

[00:01:16] Mark Corbett: That's fantastic, man. . Tell me a little bit how that happened, Bob. Cause Oh, one other thing I want to mention too. You're an author. I know you've got a couple of books out there. , let's see what the one I remember is we could have finished without you.

[00:01:28] Bob Hope: Yeah, we could have finished last without you. That's an old, , line, from God. I can't remember who the player was, but it was Pittsburgh pirates. , they finished in last place and, uh, Yeah, he wanted to raise and went in and Branch Ricke y told him , we could have finished last without you

[00:01:48] Mark Corbett: I like that. Well tell me man. How did that work from you from college to the Braves? How did that all come together? 

[00:01:53] Bob Hope: Well, it's really serendipity I mean I had to work my way through school and I was in college and I was working all night and uh, Packaging plant pushing around giant rolls of craft paper and then trying to go to college in the morning.

[00:02:07] Bob Hope: And I kept thinking, well, I've got to do this for 4 years. I want to find something I'd like to do. You know, if I'm going to work and I just made a list of places that look like they'd be, enjoyable to work. And the Braves were the top of my list. And I showed up on a Saturday morning at the old Atlanta stadium.

[00:02:24] Bob Hope: And, uh, uh, The Braves had just moved to Atlanta and they were out actually working out of trailers, which helped for me that, you know, he didn't have offices and inside the stadium. And I just wandered through the trailers and, uh, uh, man named Jim Hay, who was in charge of operations for the Braves was there.

[00:02:41] Bob Hope: And I told him I needed a job, , while I was in school. And he said, what would you like? And I said, anything you have is better than what I'm doing. And so they, he called me about a week later and he said, are you the, , Young guy that came by to meet with me Saturday and I said, yes, I am. And he said, look, , we just need sort of an errand boy in the office, somebody that, uh, we'll do whatever we need done, , would you be interested in it?

[00:03:04] Bob Hope: So I did, , and I took the job and worked there not very long before, , the, assistant PR director, , was leaving to go in the military for six months, right before the season started. And , they asked me. If I wanted to interview for it, of course, I definitely did and, uh, call me in. And, uh, yeah, I remember Lee Walburn was the PR director and he asked me if I knew how to write a press release.

[00:03:28] Bob Hope: Well, I didn't know what a press release was, but I thought if I say no, the interview is over. So I told him, oh, absolutely. I love it. And then, uh, Told him I could do baseball statistics and he threw me a curve. He said, , bring me in examples tomorrow. And so I had to scramble around. I went down to the old Atlanta Constitution Sports. Department and they helped me put together a couple of press releases and, dummied up some baseball statistics and I put them in a folder and took them to Lee the next day. And he hired me. 

[00:04:00] Mark Corbett: Wow, brother. I love that. I love the initiative you should, uh, shown to once he, he threw you kind of that curve ball and said, Hey, Oh, by the way, can you show me something?

[00:04:08] Mark Corbett: You found the path to go ahead and bring that together. And they respected what you were able to do with it.

[00:04:13] Bob Hope: Yeah. Well Lee, he was a great boss as it turned out. He was really my mentor. He helped me in a lot of different ways. And he was the reason when he left the Braves, I was, 24 years old and I've been there obviously a while because I worked through college and they were going to do a National search, I guess, to find a replacement for him.

[00:04:32] Bob Hope: And, uh, he told him, well, I think even though he's 24, I think he can do the job. And by the way, if you give it to him, but he can't do it, just fire him. And so they gave me the job. And , , We were in part of it was we were hosting the major league baseball all star game that summer. And I'd been working on it and Lee been working on it.

[00:04:51] Bob Hope: And I was really the one who knew what was going on. So if I had left, it would have left them in a difficult situation. So they, they gave me a shot and I wasn't going to let it fail. 

[00:05:03] Mark Corbett: And you built a relationship with, , a baseball icon while you were there too. And Mr. Hank Aaron, and that must've been something.

[00:05:11] Mark Corbett: In and of itself. , how, how did that come to be? 

[00:05:14] Bob Hope: Well, it was pretty easy. I was the PR guy and he was going through the home run chase, to set the record and, our break Babe Ruth's home run record. And, , we just became good friends. It was, you know, I was working with him.

[00:05:26] Bob Hope: I think some things you do better when you're young than you would when you're old. I mean, I felt like my job was really to accommodate him and make sure that the media had to Access to him, but on a reasonable basis, I wasn't gonna make any huge demands to him and it just worked out really well. I mean, we became very close friends.

[00:05:46] Bob Hope: We never really had a cross word. Uh, you know, we remain great friends the rest of his life. And to the point where when he died, there were only 2 non family pall bearers at his funeral. One was Dusty Baker and I was the other one. So we were very good friends. Yeah. 

[00:06:02] Mark Corbett: That means a lot into, to have a friendship with a man like that.

[00:06:05] Mark Corbett: And from everything I've seen of Hank Aaron and read about him, it just, it sounds like he was a complete gentleman. And it seemed like many cases he, he put, uh, other people first before himself. And that that's not something you always see with people who are stars in one thing or another. 

[00:06:21] Bob Hope: And he generally, generally was just a wonderful person. I mean, he treated everyone the same, you know, he dealt with presidents of the United States and kids and, just all kinds of baseball fans and to him everybody was equal and he, , and you could see that in the way he treated them just graciously and always had that great smile and , he was always trying to do what was right and what was good.

[00:06:44] Mark Corbett: Well, I remember hearing one story about you and him and the kids in the dugout and, uh, before there was Miracle Network and some other things of that nature, the, how did that come to be with him building, I don't know, a relationship or meeting and greeting children who were suffering? 

[00:07:02] Bob Hope: Yeah, what happened is, um, and I'd say this may have been about 2.5 years or so before he broke the record, but it was it was considerably before he broke the record. And we were having Murphy Candler Little League Day on a Sunday at the stadium and, , the head of Little League call and said, We have, one of our players has leukemia. Anyway, we can get a Special picture made with Hank Aaron and I said, , sure, we'd arrange it and they took the picture before the game, but not because of anything we did.

[00:07:30] Bob Hope: Unbeknownst to us, the photo appeared in the newspaper the next day and it just, you know, here's Hank Aaron with the youngster with leukemia and suddenly our phone started ringing and it was people who had a youngster that had some sort of disease or, you know, some reason that, uh, you know, You know, they wanted their child to meet Hank Aaron.

[00:07:51] Bob Hope: So I asked Hank about it and he said, yeah, you know, start bringing them on down before the game. So we did this and it sort of got out of hand and I, we'd have, I'd have to make arrangements for somebody to take them down and we'd have genuinely 4 of them every game and, you know, And I was getting a little, um, I guess cynical because it was clear that some of them weren't sick, you know, some of them were, but some of them, the parents were just using it as an excuse to get a picture with Hank Aaron.

[00:08:19] Bob Hope: So we went down each game and I reluctantly begrudgingly. Did it and then we had a National League meeting, of all the, various PR directors and all the, , various teams. And they said there was a new rule that, uh, kids weren't allowed in the dugout before the game. So, I went back to Hank and I said, Hank, I can save you a half hour before the game where you can just go to the back of the clubhouse and relax and all because all these kids that are coming down before the game to meet you, you know, because their parents say they're sick.

[00:08:53] Bob Hope: You know, you, you and I know that. A lot of them aren't sick. And so we don't have to do it. It's against the rules. And he said, no, he said, I'd like to keep doing it. And I said, well, Hank, you know, most of them aren't really sick. And he said, Bob, but some of them are. And so he just continued to do that all the way through the, I mean, as long as he was with the Braves.

[00:09:11] Bob Hope: Um, but one time, many years later, I was walking through the airport, I remember in Los Angeles. And, uh, A man walked up to me and introduced himself and he knew who I was and he said, you probably don't remember me and I didn't. And he told me that, uh, he had called me and ask if there was any way his son could meet Hank Aaron that his son, they lived in Orlando.

[00:09:33] Bob Hope: They were going to be in Atlanta for a game and then his son was going to, I think it was New Orleans to be have open heart surgery the next week. And he told me that, um, yeah. You know, Hank was great, had his picture made with him, signed the ball for him, and he told me that, uh, his son died on the operating table the next week, that they buried him with his Hank Aaron ball, so, but that was, you know, nobody knew Hank did that, but that was just the graciousness of a wonderful human being.

[00:10:02] Mark Corbett: Well, those are the kind of stories that can warm the hearts about anybody and they, and I mean, like you said, he wasn't necessarily seeking everybody's approval or looking for him to do that. It just sounds like that's who he was. And, and I'm glad to hear that you were able to be, part of that man's life as well.

[00:10:20] Mark Corbett: You know, The show is called BaseballBiz On Deck and. I want to ask you as far as being in the public relations and when you're with Hank Aaron and you're looking at that number 715 coming up, how do you plan for something you can't plan for? I mean, if you schedule an event and you know it's going to be on this date and time at 8 o'clock and everybody's going to be there, but If it's dependent upon when a ball goes across a plate at just the right time, and just so the person could hit that home run, you don't know when that's going to happen.

[00:10:57] Mark Corbett: How did it go for that period, maybe the last couple of weeks before Hank Aaron hit that number 715? 

[00:11:03] Bob Hope: Well, it actually was way more than a couple of weeks. It was really a full season or more ahead of it. And, you know, we had up, we had about 400 media people covering the every game. I mean, just, uh, some of them were national folks who traveled to every game.

[00:11:19] Bob Hope: They were the local, , Atlanta media. And then of course the media in any particular market. And just in sitting down and figuring out, what needed to be done. We realized that, there were certain, uh, particularly national media people who would need some private time with Hank to interview him.

[00:11:35] Bob Hope: And so we cut out segments during the day of like 20 minute segments, uh, where six or eight of them could, uh, could meet with him, uh, individually. But then we had a pre game press conference. We set up, uh, almost like a presidential press conference. We'd have a pre game press conference and then a post game press conference.

[00:11:53] Bob Hope: Conference for everybody to have an opportunity to ask him questions. And, uh, you know, we did things like we put out a, a Hank Aaron media guide, even though we have the team media guy, there was so much interest in Hank that we did 1 on his back, you know, just everything you could ever think of about Hank Aaron.

[00:12:09] Bob Hope: And we did, uh, um, Biography of a Babe Ruth that was fairly extensive. And then, you know, just things like that to support the media that was covering. And then for the individual teams that where we visit a team, we gave them a procedure to follow. For instance, uh, you know, Hank was like the Beatles come into the U.

[00:12:30] Bob Hope: S. I mean, people would, uh, Just mob around the bus, and it was almost impossible to get him in and out of anything. So we'd have the bus drive on the field. So he could go through the dugout to get to the clubhouse before and after the game and just different things like that. And we also did 

[00:12:46] Bob Hope: like a, formatted poster that if, um, if the Cincinnati Reds or whatever wanted to have a Hank Aaron night, this would be a poster they could easily adapt and print and, and give to fans. So, you know, we, we tried to do a nice job of it, and I think we did. I mean, it was, um, is it built up? We didn't know when it was going to happen, but we certainly were prepared every night for, for a big influx, particularly of media and fans.

[00:13:14] Mark Corbett: Well, and Bob, I have forgotten, it actually did cross seasons, didn't it? I mean, we were wondering if we were going to finish one season with him having it done and it didn't come until the following, didn't it? 

[00:13:24] Bob Hope: No, it's true. No, it was interesting. We had, uh, back then the final weekend of the season was not always the, uh, you know, it was in September.

[00:13:35] Bob Hope: If you were out of the playoffs, you weren't going to have a huge crowd. So we had, uh, I'd say maybe 15, 16, 17, 000 people on a Saturday night before the season ended on Sunday in Atlanta. And, uh, Hank, at that time, had 712 home runs. Well, uh, he hit a home run that night, which meant the next home run he hit would tie Babe Ruth.

[00:13:59] Bob Hope: Well, there was, uh, we didn't have computerized tickets back then. We just, you know, you had to find the individual ticket, and we had to get it in somebody's hands. So, we, uh, and, uh, In order to do that, you, uh, you didn't know when you were going to have huge crowds, so you'd have like blank tickets printed up that just, you know, didn't say the date, just said series a series B and all.

[00:14:22] Bob Hope: And we pretty much had depleted most of those in the vault ticket vault. And so, uh, on, he hits his home run 713 on Saturday night. Well, we had just a crush of people coming to see the Sunday game. I mean, it was like, And we didn't have enough tickets. So we were out there, you know, mimeographing and Xeroxing tickets and selling things, just getting people in the stadium.

[00:14:47] Bob Hope: And, and literally, we just couldn't get everybody yet. I mean, I think we ended up with maybe 43, 44, 000 people, but that was all the people we could get in. We probably had equally that number outside that. We just really couldn't come up with tickets. Couldn't get them in the stadium. Just, you know, it's just too much of a crush.

[00:15:05] Mark Corbett: I mean, and that must've felt weird and wacky, too. When you think about you're saying maybe only 14 or 15, 000 a few nights before, and then suddenly you've got this influx up to about 42, 000, that must've been a heck of a push. 

[00:15:18] Bob Hope: Well, it was, I mean, it was, it was just, it took out all the, everybody we had to just get those people in there.

[00:15:23] Bob Hope: And it was, you know, you, You're young and you're having a good, I mean, you, you know, your experience in history, but you don't really, you know, think of it necessarily in those terms. It's just an exciting time. So we were pretty amazed. We got as many in as we did. And then, uh, I think one of the kind of sweetest.

[00:15:41] Bob Hope: Sports moments I've seen is, you know, you have 43, 000 people there to see, uh, Hank Aaron do something he didn't do that. Right. And so the last, I think he, I want to say he grounded out the 3rd base his last time at bat and it was really, um, you know, Sort of chilling that, uh, he just, you know, jogged out the left field or he was playing left field and he's standing there and suddenly one person stands and then everybody else stands and probably, I don't know, for a long time, easily 10 minutes or so the entire crowd stood and gave him a standing ovation, standing ovation for someone who didn't do what they came to see him do, which is out of respect for who he was and what he had been through and what a great person he was.

[00:16:25] Mark Corbett: Well, you know, he, he's amazing. He was and, and, uh, respect all the man that achieved. And I'm thinking, you know, one of the things I want to talk to you about this on this show was courses, women in baseball as well. And my mind goes back to Hank Aaron before he came to the Braves and he was with the Indianapolis Clowns.

[00:16:48] Mark Corbett: And when he left there, it was a woman who came onto the team with the Clowns. After that, it was a Tony Stone. 

[00:16:55] Bob Hope: Yeah, there were, uh, Tony Stone was really probably the impetus is to, uh, one of them, why I wanted to do the Silver Bullets or the team that It was named the Silver Bullets in order to prove to baseball that women could play baseball, and I didn't really know, I mean, Major League Baseball had a couple of medical studies that had been done that said women could not play baseball because their forearms were too frail and they, their hips were, you know, shaped in a certain way and that they just couldn't pitch overhand and all that business, and, you know, I didn't know, it just didn't make sense to me.

[00:17:27] Bob Hope: I thought, well, gee, I mean, You know, you watch the little girls and little boys out throwing the ball around. They seem like they could do it. So, Hank, um, to me about, he would say when he was out scouting or different places, he'd see a woman who is a softball player. He thought if she was a guy that She'd be a prospect.

[00:17:46] Bob Hope: And so we, we talked about it and, uh, and actually, uh, had a tryout, uh, Georgia Tech, uh, in 19, I guess, 1984. So it was 10 years before we did the Silver Bullets just to, um, have, you know, as, uh, Jim Morris, who was a coach at Georgia Tech baseball coach used to Cincinnati Reds tryouts. And Jim was a skeptic.

[00:18:08] Bob Hope: He was not pleased. He was just doing it because Hank and I asked him to have a tryout of women. And we. We didn't have the greatest women come in, but we announced we were having tryouts and had probably maybe 40 women, you know, from different places in the Southeast show up to to try out for this fictitious baseball team.

[00:18:27] Bob Hope: We're going to put together and, uh. Jim Morris's comment was the stopwatch doesn't lie. He said I'm just going to treat him like guys. The stopwatch doesn't lie. And then he came back at the end of him and he said, look, uh, you know, there's, there's one player in here. If she was a guy, I'd rank her as a, a big league prospect.

[00:18:44] Bob Hope: And there are about three that I would say are minor league prospects. And we thought, well, you know, it sort of planted the seed and it took about 10 years to figure out how to do a team. You know, luckily, we ran into, , Leo Kiley, who was the CEO of Coors, who wanted us , to do something in baseball. It was unusual.

[00:19:03] Bob Hope: That would get a lot of attention and could travel the country and all. And so I told him about the idea of having a women's baseball team , , and doing it right. Doing it is a experiment to just find out how good women could be in baseball and to get a legitimate coaching staff and, uh, Play baseball the way it had been played and the way the Braves play it and, and, uh, just find out how well they could do.

[00:19:26] Bob Hope: And so we, um, you know, Coors put in the seed money, and then we went out and got some other sponsors and went around the country. And I think the 1st year we had tryouts all over the country and had about 5, 000 women try out and, uh, We didn't know what to expect. We didn't know the tennis players or aerobics teachers or what, but we really found out that if, if somebody hadn't played a lot of softball, they really didn't have a chance to play baseball very well.

[00:19:54] Bob Hope: So we came up with a roster of 24 and, and, uh, just, there were no women's teams to play that were credible teams. So we, um, you know, played the, we didn't didn't know what level they could play. So we, um, anyway, we. Put together the team and went out and mostly the first year we played against, uh, you know, old men's team over 40 amateur teams and all and the Silver Bullets really struggled.

[00:20:22] Bob Hope: Oh, my gosh. Because they hadn't seen pitches and, you know, they didn't couldn't hit curve balls and all. But by the 4th year, they were better than us. You know, they were good. I mean, they could beat most college baseball teams, could beat low minor league teams occasionally, and even had a game in Rochester, New York, where they beat the New York Penn League All Stars, which is a fast A League, meaning with all prospects.

[00:20:46] Mark Corbett: Yeah, I know. I've, I've had the good fortune to have Tamara Holmes on the show before, and she talks about her time with the Bullets and the, the joy of that, you know, she went on and joined wound up being with the USA Women's National Team. And to me, go ahead. I'm sorry. 

[00:21:05] Bob Hope: And I was going to say, and Tammy could hit any, I don't care.

[00:21:08] Bob Hope: What level? I mean, if you put her in the big leagues, she could hit, I think, with the Silver Bullets she had close to 400. You know, this is playing against men. And what we found is if we were playing a class a minor league team, um, the organization that they were playing against, We're in did not want them to get beat.

[00:21:26] Bob Hope: So they would bring in a couple of triple a pitchers. And so we'd be paying, playing a class a team with a couple of triple a pitchers and Tammy just didn't, you know, she's, you know, she's tall. She's lanky. She's strong. She's probably, um, I don't know, maybe 175 pounds, but she, she could handle herself and she could hit, you know, I don't think she'd hit a lot of home runs, but she certainly could hit doubles and triples.

[00:21:51] Mark Corbett: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I met her. She's a, she's a very wonderful person. And, but the strength that you see, you know, how she carries herself and the, the workouts that she does to maintain that, uh, I, I respect her for so many different things, but I would have loved to have been able to see her, you know, go up against some of those triple A bidgers and, and put one out, you know, put one out there.

[00:22:13] Mark Corbett: So geez, but he's, well, well, let me ask you something else too, but because, because, Before you had Coors and you, before you had the Silver Bullets, before that you actually were looking at a team and trying to put together with a league down in Florida, weren't you? 

[00:22:34] Bob Hope: Yeah, the Florida State League had an opening for in Daytona Beach and this was Hank Aaron.

[00:22:39] Bob Hope: Uh, we thought, well, well, you know, that's where we had the tryouts and we were going to try to put together a team and have some women on the team. You know, it wasn't going to be an all woman's team necessarily, but, uh, you know, we were going to do it, but it was interesting. Uh, Yeah. You know, we had our tryouts and they went well, but the, um, but Major League Baseball at the time was not pleased.

[00:23:01] Bob Hope: I mean, they, uh, we got a letter from the commissioner saying it was a travesty to baseball that we were doing it. Um, but you know, over the next, I guess, 10 years before we really actually did the Silver Bullets, uh, the attitude of the country changed. It wasn't, uh, you know, there were some people that just insisted that women would never, couldn't play baseball, but nobody thought it was a travesty for them to try.

[00:23:24] Mark Corbett: Yeah, that kind of language always kind of irks me, but that's, you know, my own personal issues. Um, I wanted to ask you, when I'm seeing the development of everything with, you know, Hope, Beckham, Espinosa, when did, when did that start? When did you, uh, when did you, when were you no longer part of the Braves organization?

[00:23:45] Mark Corbett: What? 

[00:23:46] Bob Hope: Well, what you find, I mean, I was lucky in that, you know, went through the Hank Aaron time and managed a major league baseball all star game and, you know, and was young and because I did the all star game and Hank Aaron, I had a really high profile in in baseball. But then Ted Turner came along and bought the Braves and he Um, and I was a good promoter.

[00:24:07] Bob Hope: I mean, he, and he won't, you know, good publicist and he wanted to be famous. And he said, you know, all the media in the country, you know, make me famous. Um, and, but, you know, Ted will, you know, Ted is a great boss, but he's pretty intense and your life is working for Ted, you know, and I had two little girls and, and I, you know, we had, I think there were five direct reports.

[00:24:28] Bob Hope: One of them, Bill Lucas, you know, died of a stroke at age 42. Um, you know, the other one of them had a heart attack and all, you know, three of the others all went through divorces and I just thought, you know, I was the youngest and I thought, you know, I, first of all, I didn't know what we had just started CNN it and all that.

[00:24:48] Bob Hope: I didn't know where all that was going to go. I thought, man, we could go out of business at any time. But. But I was working night and day. I was, you know, did the Braves, did the Hawks, did the television and, and we didn't have cell phones back then. So I had 3 offices and it was just, , it was a mess. And, uh, so I finally just went into Ted 1 day and said, look, you know, I love you.

[00:25:09] Bob Hope: You're great. You know, this has been an incredible ride, but I got to stabilize, stabilize my life. And I thought the most stable thing I could do is go to work for Coca Cola. And as it turned out, uh, that was way more stable than just when, you know, uh, compared to working for Ted, it was incredibly boring.

[00:25:28] Bob Hope: I thought, even though it was, you know, typical of corporate America. And so I did that for a couple of years, and then I thought, well, if I work for. You know, if I had an agency, I could work for Ted and I could work for, you know, Coca Cola, both work for the Braves and Coca Cola. And that turned out to be a pretty good idea.

[00:25:48] Bob Hope: And so did that. And then I, , the largest PR firm in the world at the time was Burson Marsteller in New York, and they bought. Our agency in Atlanta, and then they moved me to New York. So I had a terrific job. I mean, it was, um, if you want to be in New York, or I had the best job in the world because, you know, I was, um, we had 800 PR people in the building and I was, you know, I didn't have to deal with any of the painful stuff.

[00:26:12] Bob Hope: I was just up there floating around dealing with the fun stuff. And, uh, you know, the. Paid me well and had, you know, had a limo and all that business. I was, I enjoyed that, but it was rough on my family. I mean, it was, um, and also when I went to New York, I was a little bit like a kid going to Disney world, you know, I just wanted to see what it was like.

[00:26:30] Bob Hope: And then you get up there and you realize. They kind of expect you to stay and I don't think I expected that. So after several years, I finally, you know, my wife every day said, get me back home, get me back home. I finally said, okay, I've had my run and come back home. So I was just looking for something I could do that would be an escape.

[00:26:49] Bob Hope: And in my mind, you know, they, they were great to me in New York. They were offering me, you know, all kinds of money and all the stay, but I had in my mind that it's not, not money. It's just, this is a family thing, which I, Probably was stupid in that, but, um, because I could have just commuted from Atlanta, but, um, the, um, but anyway, came back and, you know, just started this, but we've had, you know, a good run.

[00:27:15] Bob Hope: We've been able to work on the Olympics and. Work on, you know, just a lot of different things. We worked with a lot of communities that want sports teams. We helped, uh, you know, Miami get what was in the Florida Marlins. We came to Miami Marlins now. We helped Denver get the Colorado Rockies, helped Charlotte get the Charlotte Hornets, helped Ottawa get the Ottawa Senators.

[00:27:38] Bob Hope: We worked with St. Louis to move the Rams to St. Louis. We've since moved back to Los Angeles, but, uh, You know, I've done a lot of stuff like that. It's been interesting and you get to meet great people. 

[00:27:50] Mark Corbett: Well, you're talking about these teams and the cities are going to our MLBs. Oh, it seems like you're talking more and more about expansion.

[00:27:59] Mark Corbett: Is there anything in your hopper right now that you're looking at working with any cities or that you can think of? 

[00:28:04] Bob Hope: I think I'd like to, I, you know, I'm, uh, as you get older, you probably have less opportunity for that, but I do. Um, I tell people it's, uh, it, it, I was telling somebody today, it really wasn't as hard as people want to make it.

[00:28:18] Bob Hope: I mean, it's, uh, what I found in that process is, uh, first of all, you got to have a place to play. You got to have an owner with the money and, or, you know, a lead owner who can cover the whole thing and then get investors in, but you also have to do what the leagues asked you to do. And that's very hard for people with big egos.

[00:28:38] Bob Hope: Yeah. The league says do these 15 things. They're going to do 11 of them. And then they're going to go off and do things like, you know, the example I'll use sometimes is they'll, the owners will tell you don't come to the owner's meeting and try to smooth this, you know, don't have cocktail receptions and all that.

[00:28:53] Bob Hope: Well, most of them do that anyway, despite the fact they're being told not to. And, uh, So I just say, hey, what you want to do is just call the league and tell them, look, we know all these other groups are coming in and, and wine and dining you and having receptions and all. And we know you told us not to, and, you know, and the.

[00:29:15] Bob Hope: Criteria you sent us. Um, what should we do? And they'll say, well, you get a lot of brownie points if you don't show up. So I tell people you've saved your money and you and you won the day. So, uh, you know, just just do what the league tells you to do. I mean, if you go through and you do off, if they tell you here are 15 things to do and you got a viable market and you got a place to play and a good owner, you're going to get a team.

[00:29:40] Mark Corbett: I like that, Bob. You know, just listen to what they tell you and actually complete the task. Here's the 15 items, take care of them. And we really don't care to see you. So, and that sounds like you get some good results, man. I tell you what, nothing like following the instructions. 

[00:29:54] Bob Hope: Well, it is. I mean, I learned it.

[00:29:56] Bob Hope: Uh, pretty well, you know, Charlotte was a good, good example because they had no chance. I remember David Stern was the commissioner of the NBA. And when I called him and tell them, I had somebody from Charlotte that wanted to come see him and ask if they were expanding. He said they were expanding. He said, let me tell you, though, he said, we haven't had a meeting, but he said, we do have an a list of cities and a B list of cities.

[00:30:19] Bob Hope: We might like to go to Charlotte's now doing either one. He said, most of our owners couldn't tell you if Charlotte was in North Carolina, South Carolina, and they don't know the difference thing, Charlotte, Charleston. So it'll be a cold day in hell before they get a team. But if you want to come see me, come on.

[00:30:36] Mark Corbett: Oh gosh, Bob, thank you for sharing that with us. It's it's, it's amazing to me. When you have to look at a matrix of all the different items that you had to pull together with any project, and I want to go back to the Silver Bullets for a moment, because I'm thinking when you were putting that team together, when you were trying to find that talent, you're also you're not dealing with one city.

[00:31:01] Mark Corbett: You're dealing with all these different places that you're going to, uh, to have the team play in probably more than 40 games, most seasons. And it's like, well, I don't know, maybe how the Savannah bananas do it now, but I'm thinking you have to have relationship with every one of those fields and the team that you're going to be playing that.

[00:31:18] Mark Corbett: That sounds like that must've been a lot of work in and of itself. 

[00:31:21] Bob Hope: I think it was work, but, you know, we had a staff, but I think that the good thing about it is the right people were cooperating, you know, um, you know, Coors was willing to put in the seed money, you know, to make it possible. Uh, but all of the, um, you know, the equipment companies and the, the beer co, you know, not beer companies 'cause coolers are doing that.

[00:31:42] Bob Hope: The soft drink companies, you know, the typical sponsors of baseball. All jumped on board to participate. And it wasn't because they thought they were going to sell more products necessarily. It was just because women were having a chance. I remember Louisville slugger back then used to, you know, we didn't have all the various bats in the big leagues they have today, but back then you had the wooden bats that had your signature on it.

[00:32:05] Bob Hope: If you were a player, well, Louisville slugger, you know, came down to spring training and they checked the players to see what size bath they should have and all. And then they just, and they didn't have to do this, but the players just lit up because they got two dozen bats with their signatures on it.

[00:32:22] Bob Hope: And they didn't expect that. And so, you know, and, and it was just interesting to see how people jumped on board to cooperate. Um, minor league baseball was very supportive and part of the reason they were supportive is they felt it was, you know, they liked the idea, but it also gave minor league operators an extra opening.

[00:32:42] Bob Hope: You know, if they could promote it and get a crowd in, it's another 30, 000 or whatever they would get on one night and they would, um, and so they'd line up trying to get, you know, You know, get on the schedule. We didn't have any problems scheduling at all. And then we had way more teams that wanted to play the Silver Bullets than we ever could possibly play.

[00:33:05] Mark Corbett: That's great. 

[00:33:06] Bob Hope: And then as they got better and better, you know, the tough thing originally was to match the quality of the Silver Bullets with the, you know, with the competition, which was really tough the first year because the women had not played. Baseball and, and they, they just winning a game was a rarity, but the last year they were good.

[00:33:25] Bob Hope: I mean, they absolutely won more games than they lost. They played, , really good competitive, , beat the Nicaraguan national team. They beat , the New York pen league all stars. They beat a lot of college teams, a lot of minor league teams. They just really, you know, developed over four years to be excellent baseball players.

[00:33:46] Mark Corbett: Well, I'll look at this. And I see you and I see Hank Aaron both recognizing the value and strength of some really great women baseball players out there. 

[00:33:56] Bob Hope: Yeah, I think that was it. But also, you know, it's interesting when, uh, you know, Coors said they would support it, but only if we did it right and we wanted to do it right.

[00:34:04] Bob Hope: But that meant getting a quality coaching staff. You know, if you're gonna get elite women athletes, they they got to know that they're being coached by people who know what they're doing. And I made a list of Potential, uh, managers and they had to be, I thought, well, they got to manage at least in the minor leagues, ideally have played in the big leagues, have, you know, some name recognition, have coached in the big leagues.

[00:34:27] Bob Hope: And I made my list of people I thought you could trust on the road to do a really good job with the group of 24 women players. And my list was Phil Niekro, Phil Niekro, Phil Niekro. I didn't have a number two. And so I called Phil up and I told him what we were doing and. Remember his first reaction was, I don't think so.

[00:34:47] Bob Hope: I said, Phil, I don't want an answer. I want you to talk to Phyllis who was his sister and his catcher growing up. Talk to Nancy, your wife, and then I'm going to call you next week. And when I call him next week, he said, well, if we do it right, I'll do it. Well, Phil had such great respect within baseball that the coaching staff we had was just great.

[00:35:07] Bob Hope: I mean, we had Joe Pignatano was our coach. Catching coach, and he had been the catching coach of the Mets with, you know, we had, uh, let's see, Johnny Grubb, who played in the big league 16 years, had two World Series rings. We had, um, you know, just a really, you know, Joe Niekro was a pitching coach, just, you know, really excellent players.

[00:35:29] Bob Hope: Paul Blair, you know, Was what I mean, just, uh, you know, these were amazing people and they were very devoted to it and they really like what they were doing. We didn't, you know, it could have made more money doing something else, but they, the reason they liked it, they said is that Phil described. He said the women had elephant ears.

[00:35:47] Bob Hope: He said, if you tell an 1819 year old boy how to do something, He's not going to listen. He thinks he already knows. He said, these women really wanted to, you know, they wanted to be coached. They wanted to know, 

[00:36:00] Bob Hope: Al Bunbury, who was our pitting coach one year, uh, he was hired away during the year by the Cleveland Indians and was there, uh, the hitting coach of the Indians in the, in the world series that year.

[00:36:15] Mark Corbett: Wow. Wow. Oh man, that that is, that is great. I mean, the idea, I love it that you have a list of four different folks and each of 'em were Phil Niekro, , and the, to, to think that you placed it in a way where he was gonna have to give it some thought. And the idea that he had been pitching to his sister, you know, as that was, was her, say her name was Phyllis.

[00:36:38] Bob Hope: Yeah, fellas. And by the way he and Phil, he loved that team. I mean, he just, at the, I wish I had recorded the speech he gave to him the last game of the first season, he basically said, you know, he said, I've been in baseball 35 years. And he said, I hear people whisper and say, Oh my gosh, is this what it's come to that Phil's coaching a group of women?

[00:37:00] Bob Hope: But I think about it and I realized he said, Half of the population of women, he said, if we want to be America's pastime, we can't be American path, you know, be truly America's pastime. If women are prohibited from playing, and he said the other time, he said, or other thing is every time one of you makes a catch.

[00:37:19] Bob Hope: Gets a hit, makes a great play. I realized that would never happen unless somebody stepped up and gave you that opportunity. There you 

[00:37:28] Mark Corbett: I want to applaud what you did with them, but you know, you beyond the Silver Bullets, you did a lot with Billie Jean King, I believe with women's sports foundation.

[00:37:38] Bob Hope: Yeah, and that was really started with the Silver Bullets. I didn't really know about it when I was, you know, our first step when we were going to put together the Silver Bullets before we knew it had a name just going to do a trying to figure out how to do a women's baseball team that was be as legitimate as possible.

[00:37:54] Bob Hope: The first thing, you know, and Coors said this, we want to know whether women actually want to play baseball. And so the Women's Sports Foundation, which Billie Jean King, uh, founded and still involved with, um, I thought, well, I'll go visit with her and find out. So I went up there, uh, Donna Lopiano was the CEO and Billie Jean King, the chairman.

[00:38:14] Bob Hope: And Billie Jean just said, look, he, she said, when I was growing up, my brother, He said, you know, it was Randy Moffett who played in the big leagues for the Giants for a while. And he said, I was a better baseball player than he was. He said, given the opportunity of baseball or tennis, I would have played baseball.

[00:38:36] Bob Hope: Because I, you know, said I love playing baseball and said, there are a lot of women that just want that opportunity and you do find out. And then, uh, Don Lopiano, who is the CEO said that, you know, a telling moment is when a little girl sits in the stands with her dad watching a baseball game and she sees a 2nd baseman out there who's not big, not particularly strong playing baseball and she looks at her dad and said, you know, that's what I want to do someday.

[00:39:03] Bob Hope: So the dad's got to either look at her and say, you can't do that. You're a girl. Or tell her, you know, to get in the backyard, practice, try hard, you know, get with the team and see how good you can get. Maybe someday you could.

[00:39:18] Bob Hope: She said, you know, give them the chance. They don't have to play in the big leagues, but you know, most, most kids who play baseball, most guys don't play in the big leagues either. 

[00:39:27] Mark Corbett: Well, the doors have continued to open and with you, Billie Jean King and a lot of other folks do a lot with the early days with you and Hank Aaron and Phil Niekro, uh, the young ladies that came on with the Silver Bullets.

[00:39:39] Mark Corbett: It's made a difference. I'm I loved watching this past year, the USAWNT Baseball women's national team up there in Thunder Bay, , playing in the tournament there for the world cup to me. Yeah, it's, it's, it's great to see these things happening. And there's talk of a couple of different leagues starting here. 

[00:39:57] Mark Corbett: There's a softball league with Kim Ng starting up. Uh, there is a thing Baseball For All putting something together and beyond on that. Some of the original folks from All American Girls Professional Baseball League started putting a tournament together with some of the best women in the game that could be seen.

[00:40:15] Mark Corbett: They were in Sarasota two years ago. They were in Durham this year. There's a lot of things going on in the hopper right now, Bob. And I'm, I'm, I'm excited about all of it. I'm just hoping it could coalesce and be strong together. 

[00:40:30] Bob Hope: Well, I think it will. I mean, it's, um, you know, first of all, it's very difficult to start a baseball league.

[00:40:37] Bob Hope: If you, uh, drew an analogy with professional football, you know, I remember years ago when I was in New York, I was talking to Donald Trump and he was going to start, Competitive Major League, you know, like Major League Baseball and I looked down I said, hold on, you know play 162 games That's a lot of opportunity to be successful and a lot of opportunity to fail And by the way, you you know, you failed in the the USFL and you only played 14 games I said, you know, just baseball is very difficult to establish a league in However, there is a way, you know, if little girls And, and teenage girls want to play, uh, and the momentum builds, they'll find their course.

[00:41:18] Bob Hope: And it could be in playing co ed. I mean, I have to say that people like Tammy and some of the better players wouldn't have any problem at all, you know, playing on a, certainly a low minor league team. And some of them would, you know, competitively rise up. I mean, it's just, uh, you know, baseball is probably the only sport where men and women could compete on somewhat equal terms.

[00:41:40] Bob Hope: basis. You know, you're not gonna have as many power hitters certainly with the women, but you, you know, they can play like the old 1952 white socks. They can play a base at a time. In fact, when they the way they beat the New York pen, all stars was really comical. We were in Rochester, New York and Frontier Field, which is in the parking lot of Kodak.

[00:42:01] Bob Hope: And, um, I'm up. And the, uh, one of the suites with the Kodak executives and guy named John Barr looks at me when they're introducing the players. And he said, Bob, this is ridiculous. Who scheduled this game? Because these giant Husky strong, you know, players were being introduced with the, as the New York pin league all stars, and then you have this group of women that just look like they're women in your neighborhood, but in good shape, you know, introduced as a Silver Bullets.

[00:42:28] Bob Hope: And he said, this is ridiculous. Let's see. Said these. Women shouldn't be playing these guys, but then we had a pitcher. Um, Pam Davis and Pam Davis, um, was like a little Greg Maddux. I mean, she, you know, her fastball may have been 80 to 83 miles an hour and change up. It may have been 60, 55 or something, but she could hit the corners.

[00:42:50] Bob Hope: And when she was on, she was unhittable. Nobody could hit her and she wasn't always on, but that particular day she was on and they got up there and about the 5th inning or so it was 0 we're going to be around here forever until Pam Davis's arm wears out. But then somehow the Silver Bullets got a runner on 1st and a runner on 3rd and they did a delayed double steal.

[00:43:13] Bob Hope: So, well, you know. These guys had never seen a delayed double steal. They had him so messed up. The catcher, you know, started the throw to second base. And then he looked at, here comes a runner from third, and then he ends up trying to stop, and he bloops the ball in the center field and two runs score. And then, uh, I remember John Barr, who had told me earlier this who scheduled this game.

[00:43:34] Bob Hope: You know, it's ridiculous. He looks over at me, said the women are going to win. The women are going to win. Well, you know, the guys were getting so, you know, flustered that they were getting beat by a group of women, but the women played great baseball. It just wasn't, you know, it wasn't going to be power hitting baseball.

[00:43:51] Bob Hope: It was taking a base at a time. It was very, very, very well executed baseball. 

[00:43:58] Mark Corbett: Wow, man, I tell you what, those are the moments I guess you live for when you're putting something like that together and you could just see it out there on the field, take place. Geez, Bob, I would have loved to been there with you guys in the stands to see that.

[00:44:13] Bob Hope: Well, I mean, you just realize there, you know, it's a real team, you know, it's a, uh, Phil Niekro, um, being interviewed. We had a riot in Albany, Georgia. We were down there and I remember I wasn't, I didn't, wasn't there that night when they had the riot and they call me afterwards telling me we had a riot and I said, a baseball right?

[00:44:32] Bob Hope: And I said, hold on a second. Let me call Phil. So I called Phil up and I said, well, Phil, hold on. You had a baseball brawl on the field and he said, yeah, we had one. And I said, well, let's go. You've seen a lot of them over the years. How would you rank this one? He said, Oh, I'd rank it right at the top. But Phil being interviewed, the way it started was the pitcher on the other team threw at one of our players, Kim Bratz.

[00:45:00] Bob Hope: He she started to walk towards the mound. He laughed at her that made her mad and she charged out. Both teams empty the dugout and uh, Phil's comment was look, we're a baseball team. You know, you can't treat us that way. We're a baseball team and they were, I mean, the, the attitude of Phil and the coaches.

[00:45:17] Bob Hope: This is a professional baseball team. And they're going to handle themselves well, and they're going to, you know, stand their ground and they're going to play baseball the way it's supposed to be played. 

[00:45:29] Mark Corbett: I love it. I absolutely love it, Bob. I mean, that's it. There it's, it's about showing the respect to these women, giving them the opportunity to play and back them.

[00:45:38] Mark Corbett: You better treat them with respect. Like you would any other ballplayer tip one to hit the player and then take two to laugh. Now, guess what, buddy, whoever that player is that you hit, whatever the gender. You should expect a comeuppance, a comeuppance right there. Oh, gosh. Oh, wow. Well, Bob, I can't thank you enough, brother, for being with us today.

[00:46:01] Mark Corbett: Is there anything else you think you'd like to cover that we haven't talked about today? 

[00:46:04] Bob Hope: No, this is good. And I appreciate you caring enough to do this. This is meaningful to me. 

[00:46:09] Mark Corbett: Yeah. Well, you know, you, I also like to point out. You do things above and beyond this. I saw something, and perhaps you can help me, uh, come to it.

[00:46:19] Mark Corbett: I think about folks that give back, and I saw something in passing about you and maybe your organization doing something with some folks in Honduras. 

[00:46:29] Bob Hope: Yeah, I've done that for, golly, I guess, almost 30 years now. I just started, you know, you can't do everything, but you can do something, and I just started taking a group of friends to, you know, I say a group of friends, it's a big group now, maybe about 65 or something, but the first year it was about six or seven, to an extremely rural area in Honduras that had no schools and no medical care.

[00:46:51] Bob Hope: It was just, you know, it was like stepping back in a century. I mean, you had to go through, you These mountain roads for about 11 hours, and, you know, there were no bridges. So you'd have to find a shallow place in the river. And it was really back then. It was, uh, you really felt like you were at a different time, but, uh, we just, uh, started to build schools.

[00:47:10] Bob Hope: And now the schools are excellent. Uh, you know, the kids all end up going to college. I mean, it's just, uh, you know, I have about 65 people that go. It's, you know, it's just, uh, the campus looks great. You wouldn't, you know. You'd be proud if your kids went there. It's just a, you know, it's just been very interesting to see the evolution, 

[00:47:29] Bob Hope: but you realize that the 2 things that build goodwill or if you can help people with their health care, , and if you can help people with education, give them access to knowledge and the people out there just love our group coming in and, and, uh, you know, we love to do it and, and, you know, they have a good staff down there that handles it all.

[00:47:51] Bob Hope: It's just something I always look forward to. We're going March 1st through the 8th this year. I always tell people we go one week a year because we're uninvited guests. We're not going to come back again. 

[00:48:03] Mark Corbett: Oh goodness. Is there any way that the rest of us could help with that? Is there donations or just things that we should be doing otherwise?

[00:48:12] Bob Hope: Um, well, I mean, if somebody wanted to donate, they could, you know, send some money via Zelle to, um, 678 362 4883 and just make a donation. If somebody wanted to go on the trip, they could call me at that phone number and they certainly are welcome to join us. 

[00:48:29] Mark Corbett: Okay. Well, I'll make sure I put that in the notes on the show because I, there's so many people that give back and you know, you're not beating your chest.

[00:48:38] Mark Corbett: A lot of people aren't elsewhere, but I'm glad to see that happen. I'll just tell one quick, brief story. And that, um, A fellow see an author we've had on here before Rick Vaughn, who I absolutely love. He's done a lot writing books about baseball. Used to be with the Orioles and the Rays organizations. Uh, but he does some things here in the Tampa area over actually we're in St.

[00:49:01] Mark Corbett: Pete and it's a homeless empowerment program. And they do a lot as far as, uh, helping folks who are in need, uh, not just feed them for the day, but, uh, you Help them with housing, have ways that put them on a path to a career and independence. And when I see those sort of things, it's just like I want to share them because that encourages all the rest of us to do something.

[00:49:25] Mark Corbett: If not specifically that, something like that. So thank you for giving us some light and some opportunities to see, you know, what we all should be doing anyway. And that's helping one another. So thank you, brother. 

[00:49:37] Bob Hope: No, I think it's always in the trips are good. I always tell people, you know, don't just go thinking you're helping the people down there.

[00:49:44] Bob Hope: You're helping yourself, you know, down there. I mean, if there's 65 people on the trip, Trip, I guarantee you there are 3 or 4 people that didn't know anybody when they came down there and they'll have, you know, 60 new friends when they come back. Just, uh, you know, plus you have a wonderful experience. We call it a wilderness trip.

[00:50:03] Bob Hope: But the truth is a wilderness is just another name for a paradise. 

[00:50:08] Mark Corbett: I 

[00:50:08] Bob Hope: like that. 

[00:50:10] Mark Corbett: All right. Well, Bob, thank you once again for joining us here today, a baseball biz on deck and keep on doing what you're doing, my friend, and I'm looking forward to seeing more, you know, so thanks again. And, uh, look forward to talking to you again real soon.

[00:50:22] Mark Corbett: Okay, great. I appreciate 

[00:50:23] Bob Hope: it. Talk to you later. Bye bye. Links & Resources:

 You have been listening to BaseballBiz On Deck with Mark Corbett on a special Women In Baseball episode, Remember you can find more episodes at BaseballBizOnDeck.com

You can also find Mark on BlueSky at @baseballbizondeck.bsky.social

Special thanks to XTaKeRuX for the music “Rocking Forward