Now 44, he has been an ex-player for five years, having retired after 16 years as a journeyman catcher around the major leagues. He won a World Series title with the Florida Marlins, but his longest stretch with any one team was the five years spent in Toronto, where he now works as an analyst with Rogers Sportsnet — an analyst known for his polarizing opinions.
“If you know me and if you spend a good bit of time around me,” Zaun said, “I’m a pretty happy-go-lucky guy.”
That being said, he added, “nothing irritates me more than poorly played baseball.”
Nothing?
“Well,” he said, “maybe the pedestrians here in Toronto.”
Pedestrians and cyclists cause “90 per cent” of the traffic backup in the city, Zaun said, pointing to his upbringing in Glendale, Calif. — near the traffic vortex of Los Angeles — as his qualification on the matter.
“I fancy myself a bit of a traffic whisperer,” he said. “I have major solutions for the mayor, if he would take a meeting with me.”
Instead of the mayor, Zaun met the Toronto Star, talking about a boy named Schleprock, flat tax and a cherished autograph from a guitar legend.
What was I going to buy if I walked into Jewel City Glass, in Glendale, Calif.?
You should definitely buy a shower door. No doubt. We built, probably, the best shower doors in the world at that time, when my parents were running that glass company. I like to give my mom full credit for the frameless shower door. She was putting frameless shower doors in the homes of Hollywood stars like Jeff Goldblum back in the early-to-mid ‘80s. Eddie Van Halen and Valerie Bertinelli were clients of my parents.
How strong was the lure of the glass business?
It had zero lure for me, at all, whatsoever. In fact, my dad celebrated the day I was drafted because he knew I wasn’t going to be a potential person to take over the business. I had earned the nickname Schleprock around the building because I used to do some pretty dumb things. I broke a lot of stuff. I cost my dad, probably, more money the year I was 16 years old than I actually saved him by being his employee for nothing.
It probably would have been a car. My dad, at that time, was a reserve police officer. They picked on the wrong guy.
Your dad sold the business and became a rookie on the Glendale police force at 50. What career did your mom start to pursue as an empty-nester?
She went back to trying to be a professional golfer. My mom started playing golf when she was 19, as a way to get out of the house and try to get back in shape from having me . . . My mom’s always been a single-digit handicapper since I’ve been aware of her golf. Now, she’s slowed down a little bit because of the Parkinson’s disease, but she’s a darn good golfer.
How many strokes do get when you two play?
Oh, man. I don’t get any, anymore. My mom knows there’s every possibility I could shoot 78 or 79 as easily as I could shoot 109 — it just depends on whether the drivers are straight that day. And she’s ruthless. She doesn’t give me anything. She’s never given me strokes, not on the golf course or in life.
Speaking of police, why did you say this, as a member of the Milwaukee Brewers, in 2010: “I would characterize myself as a bit of a policeman.”
I felt like my job as a veteran player was to inform and educate and police the clubhouse. I’ve always seen the veteran players in the clubhouse do that. I felt like I’d been around long enough to where my tenure as a Major League Baseball player afforded me a certain amount of respect. At the same time, I didn’t want to see the kids make the same dumb mistakes in the clubhouse that I did as a youngster.
You have spoken of how, when you were breaking in with the Baltimore Orioles, Cal Ripken “worked” you over physically: In retrospect, was that initiation, or was it bullying?
It’s not bullying. I chose some poor words, speaking casually as I do most of the time. We live in a world now where those kinds of things are never acceptable. The word hazing strikes a chord. Bullying is something that strikes a chord. I’m 100 per cent against it . . . Cal’s a fun guy. He’s a big kid at heart; he loves to wrestle, he likes to play games. He’s a very competitive guy. He loves to play basketball against his teammates. He likes to wrestle. He’s very hands on, you know, and I stepped over the line a couple of times.
What do you think Cal would have done if a teammate had written “this is a sinking ship” on a board inside the clubhouse, as someone did when you were with the Blue Jays, in 2006?
I don’t think that sort of thing would have ever been allowed to take place. There wouldn’t have been the opportunity for that to happen.
Were you acting like a policeman when, as a Sportsnet analyst, you were highly critical of Blue Jays catcher J.P. Arencibia two years ago?
Not so much as I was asking as a policeman. There were a number of things about his situation that irritated me. One, he stopped asking questions. He followed me around like a puppy dog his first year in a big-league camp, and we did — Ernie Whitt, me, any other guys who were there. And he was shaping up to be a pretty darned good defensive catcher. I had such warm feelings for him as a person . . . He stopped asking questions when he got to the big leagues, and had developed the attitude of he knows it all, he’s got it all figured out. I represent my comments as extremely fair.
Blue Jays manager John Gibbons took exception to the criticism in part because he said you had not dropped by the clubhouse to discuss the matter, saying “people view that as gutless.” Do you have any regrets?
No. Because the whole notion of me dropping by the clubhouse to talk about that stuff is ridiculous. We’re not talking about 1952, when the only contact journalists had with the players was face-to-face on the field. I sit in exactly the same space every day. If somebody needs to find me, I have email, I have a cell phone, I have Twitter, I have Facebook, I have Instagram. We don’t live in an age where I have to physically go down to sit there.
What do you think when people call you “Zaun Cherry?”
[Chuckles] I think it’s flattering, because they’re drawing a comparison to a sports icon in this country. I know what the comparisons are for; the easy one would be the wardrobe. But then again, I don’t think my suits or my choices in fashion are nearly as flamboyant as Don’s. I love what he does. I think it’s fantastic, because it’s an attention grabber. You know, when “Coach’s Corner” comes on, one of two things is going to happen, if not both — you’re going to be entertained by what he’s got on, and you’re probably going to be polarized by his comments.
How do you pick your suits?
We try to stay somewhat connected with what’s happening, fashion-wise, as far as the tailoring goes, as far as the colours. At the end of the day, I’ve made some choices where I’ve said, ‘Yeah, let’s go for it.’
How much of a challenge is it to be a baseball commentator in hockey country?
I find it to be pretty easy, to be honest with you. I find that I’m lent an additional amount of credibility because there are people who defer to my experience automatically, because I played the game so long, and now I’ve been doing the broadcasting so long. And I think they find me to be quite honest and up front. I don’t try to sell them a bill of goods. You get a lot of attention, because there aren’t a whole lot of places to go for that information in this country, whereas you can turn on a number of different entities, (such) as hockey.
Canada is only days from a federal election. We know Don Cherry would lean conservative: Where would Gregg Zaun lean?
I’m very conservative when it comes to finances, but I’m a little bit more liberal when it comes to social. I would always lean to whatever candidate was going to make it as fair for everyone financially as possible. I’m a big believer in flat tax. I believe that everybody should be taxed the same percentage of their income. I don’t think the people who work hard and are successful in their lives should be taxed at a higher rate.
How far are you from becoming a Canadian citizen?
I’m eligible to apply right now. I’ve been a permanent resident long enough. I actually became eligible on Canada Day this year. But I’m still talking with attorneys and accountants on whether or not that’s going to be a beneficial thing for me or not . . . I’m married to a Canadian woman, and I have a half-Canadian, half-American daughter. Whatever it is, I’m not going anywhere.
You interviewed the guitarist Slash for MuchMusic in 2005, and you asked him whether he thought Guns N’ Roses would release “Chinese Democracy” before the Blue Jays won the World Series. Did Slash lie to you?
That was one of the funner days I’ve had in my career. I have a signed guitar by Slash that is just one of the most epic autographs you’ve ever seen. He doesn’t just sign his name, he draws pictures. It’s pretty amazing.
As a former player, what has it been like to watch the Blue Jays climb back into the playoffs?
Absolutely amazing. I’m tickled to death for Alex Anthopoulos and the fans. This guy stuck his neck out and made the moves. He put his stamp on the organization. Right, wrong or indifferent, as a player and as a fan, you just want to see somebody take a stand and make their mark on the organization.
With more and more viewers tuning in to watch, what have you learned about the power your voice can carry on the airwaves?
The whole notion that over a million people would tune in to see our pregame show, and then two million for the game, in a country that’s got 38 (million)? That’s pretty powerful. I’m starting to experience the power of it in public. It’s difficult for me to go out in public and not feel the barrage of Blue Jays questions . . . I also find that the level of the questions is getting a heck of a lot more intelligent as we go along. These Blue Jays fans are educated.
On that power, three years ago, why did you post, then remove from Twitter, messages in which you referred to being in a shoe store where there was “so much estrogen,” and also that women in one Toronto bar were “tubby, unfortunately man-ish, and super stuck up”?
Well, we all make mistakes. [Pauses] I can speak to the bar. There was a situation where a group of female friends of mine were being treated disrespectfully by some young bar patrons, and instead of having a face-to-face altercation with these people — or, the smart thing would have been to just have security remove them — I reacted. And I reacted in public. It’s something that I regret doing. I didn’t think the way they were treating my friends was nice or fair, and I reacted in probably an immature way. The estrogen comment? I thought I was making a joke . . . But I’ve realized that social media, it’s not for comedy, I’m not a comedian.
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