Scott Spiezio was a 12-year MLB veteran and two time World Series champion.
A second generation big leaguer, he followed in his father Ed’s footsteps and carved out a long career in the game including winning a World Series title with the same franchise his father did over 30 years earlier. Scott Spiezio was a versatile key puzzle piece to every team he played for over the course of his solid career.
An injury led to drug and alcohol abuse later in his career but he’s managed to persevere and get his life back together post-baseball.
In our latest Card Back Q&A, we talk to him about some of the comments written on cards from his career, including learning how to switch hit at three years old, a crazy story about his MLB debut– and being the front man for a grunge band.
Tony Reid– The back of your 1994 Bowman rookie card mentioned how your dad was a nine year big leaguer and how he starting to teach you to switch hit when you were three years old. What do you remember about your early time in the sport?
Scott Spiezio-We took it pretty seriously. I would hit tennis balls in the front yard because our neighbor’s house was pretty far away. We had stations in the basement. He had me switch hitting right away. I still have my first bat. He took a Julian Javier giveaway bat from when he played. It was a small kids bat. It was wood. He drilled holes in it so it was light enough for me to use. Back then we didn’t have metal bats. That is what I used for a long time. It got to the point where I started hitting the neighbor’s house. In the backyard we had a lot more room. We put two mounds in the back yard. One mound was closer so he could throw harder. The back mound was there so he could throw off speed. We practiced all the time. I would go downstairs and hit off a balance beam. I hit in front of a mirror. I developed power by hitting into a bag. I had a tee and a ball on a string. I would take ground balls off the wall. I would do agility drills. He would get home from work and we would go in the back yard and hit. On the weekends we would go to the local fields and take ground balls at every position. We would hit fly balls and do long toss.
His whole theory was that he didn’t want me to get platooned like he did. A lot of times they only played him against lefties. He got stuck behind Ken Boyer who was the MVP of the National League when he came up at third base. I learned every single position except for catcher. I played every position expect for catcher and center field. I even got to pitch one inning in the big leagues and I have a zero ERA. It was only one inning but I don’t like to tell that part of it. I got up to 87 miles an hour. Not too bad for an old guy. I hadn’t pitched since 1990, my senior year of high school. That year in high school I was the closer and I didn’t give up a run wither. Zero ERA. Not bad.
TR–Your 1999 Topps card said ‘When Scott first reached the majors on Friday the 13th 1996, he was assigned uniform number 13. He feared the implications and traded it to catcher Izzy Molina.’ I myself am a little superstitious in that way. That definitely had to be a weird feeling. Do you remember that situation playing out?
SS-That’s funny. I still have that 13 jersey. It’s in the batting cages. I forgot I traded that to Izzy. I had a great year. I hit 20 home runs in Triple A. We made the playoffs. I was second behind Big Papi in RBIs in the Pacific Coast League. I had like 90 RBI. I thought they were going to call me up. I got super-hot. I hit six home runs.
I wasn’t a big drinker back then. It wasn’t until the last two or three years before I got into that kind of crazy stuff. I was up in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. I was with the Edmonton Trappers. They said lets go to the hotel bar and celebrate. I get back to my hotel at 2:00 in the morning. My manager Gary Jones calls me in the morning and congratulated me on going to the show. I thought (the person on the line) was one of my teammates. He finally convinced me it was him. Now I find out I am going to Cleveland. I had four bags. I had to go get my equipment and be there at the airport at 8:00. It was an hour away. I got no sleep. I was calling everybody back home.
I am going out to the airport. I get there. I get my bag full of equipment. Now I have five bags. I go through customs. They put me on a prop plane. There was a thunderstorm on Friday the 13th. We fly to Cleveland. I lost a few hours in travel on the plane. I get to the Cleveland airport. They tell me to just go to the field. I get in a cab and go to the field. They drop me off in front of it. I have no idea where I’m going. I’m walking around with all of these bags. I finally get someone to take me to the clubhouse.
I go to my locker and there is number 13. Are you kidding me? I always liked numbers that were tied to the number seven in one way or another. We ended up getting rained out that day. The next day we played a double header. Before I got to the field I begged them to get me something other than 13. That’s when I changed to 21. That’s a crazy one. 
TR–Your 2001 Topps card stated “When closer Troy Percival heads on to the field from the bullpen, he does so to the blaring of a song called “Delusions of Autonomy.” It goes on to say that the band is called Sandfrog and it’s front man is somewhat of a celebrity. That would be you who sings, plays guitar and even has the designation of percussion on the CD credits. How did your love of music blossom and how did you become such an accomplished musician?
SS-That is true. To this day, Troy keeps saying he had a bad season because of that song. It’s funny because that was one of the first songs we ever wrote. Once we got better and better and wrote more and more songs that song never even make it to being played live or ever make it on a real CD. It’s cool that he did that. I’ve always loved music. My dad was a musician. He played in bands all the way through high school and college. He played accordion and piano. He had a perfect pitch. He never wanted me to learn an instrument because he said practicing that took away from learning baseball.
I still love music I can hear things and play them on piano by ear. The off season of 1996, my buddy bought a guitar and started to learn songs. We both really liked the grunge scene in Seattle. We both went to the University of Illinois. We liked Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Green Day and even some harder stuff like Ozzy Osbourne. He basically taught me how to play power cords and the next year in spring training in 1997, I was thinking about buying a guitar and bringing it on the road with me.
When I made the team and went to Oakland I went to the music store and bought a little Mexican Fender Strat and a little amp. I got a lesson or two or three about how to play and then I just stared writing songs. I took it on the road and write songs. They started out pretty simple and then they started progressing and over the course of ten years I wrote about 50 songs. We whittled it down to the best ten and in 2007, we recorded it. We were going to release it in 2008 when I was with the Cardinals and that is when my career fell apart and I got released and I went down the wrong path. We never ended up releasing singles. We had it on ESPN for collegiate baseball and softball playoffs and collegiate lacrosse. They would play it as they were going into commercial and coming back from commercials. Then it was on Dog the Bounty Hunter. One of the songs was in a Christian movie. We had momentum and we could have sold it in St. Louis but everything fell apart.
We have it on Apple and Spotify. You can see some videos on YouTube. It turned out pretty good. One of my favorite bands is Sevendust. Morgan Rose, the drummer and one of the best in the world, produced it and played on two of the tracks. Clint Lowery from Sevendust did a few of the solos. It’s too bad we never toured or really released it or sold it the way it should have been sold. It stands up today pretty well. Tell everyone to go out and listen to it!
More of my chat with Scott Spiezio here.
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