'I think we’re going to have a lot of fun': Worcester native J.P. Ricciardi takes to the mic with baseball podcast
J.P. Ricciardi recently retired from his front office position with the San Francisco Giants, marking the end of his panoptic, 43-year career in professional baseball, but signifying the start of his new gig as a podcast host.
“The Brushback with J.P. Ricciardi” debuted late last month, and its first two episodes, which featured interviews with ESPN’s Buster Olney and former MLB player Frank Catalanotto, were entertaining, informative and insightful.
“I think we’re going to have a lot of fun,” Ricciardi said.
Listeners can stream “The Brushback with J.P. Ricciardi” on Apple, Spotify and YouTube.
The 64-year-old Ricciardi, who grew up in Worcester and starred at St. Peter-Marian, brings his professional and personal experiences as a player, coach, scout, general manager and executive, as well as his passion for baseball, to the podcast, and he has some great ideas, stories to tell, and upcoming guests planned to share insider knowledge.
“We’re going to mix it up,” Ricciardi said. “We’re going to have media members on, ex-major leaguers, anywhere from Hall of Fame guys to guys who had a scrape in the big leagues, player development people, scouting people, front office people. We want to try to show everybody the inner workings of baseball.
“Everybody talks about baseball,” Ricciardi said, “but very few get exposed to what it’s like to be a minor league player who gets sent up, gets called back down, gets sent back up, or what goes into a trade. How does a trade formulate? All the little things that people hear about but don’t really know about.”
Future guests include ESPN’s Howard Bryant and former Miami Marlins GM Kim Ng.
John Arezzi, whom Ricciardi has known since his early 1980s playing days with the Mets minor league affiliate in Shelby, North Carolina, approached Ricciardi about the podcast.
Arezzi, along with media consultant Mark Milliere, had worked with John Gibbons, a minor league teammate of Ricciardi’s and the Toronto Blue Jays manager when Ricciardi was the club’s GM, on Gibbons’ podcast, “The Gibby Show.”
Gibbons gave up the podcast earlier this year when the Mets hired him as bench coach.
“I basically took Gibby’s spot,” Ricciardi said. Arezzi co-hosts “The Brushback with J.P.,” and Milliere works on the podcast as well.
Ricciardi’s podcast is national, but there will be segments on Central Mass. baseball.
“We want to make people aware of the great history of baseball in Central Mass.,” Ricciardi said, “and the people that have come out of here and the good things that have happened here.”
Social media, its platforms, followers and hashtags were all unfamiliar to Ricciardi, who prefers reading a print edition of a newspaper, before he started the podcast.
“I told John (Arezzi), ‘You’re dealing with a straight amateur with this,’ ” Ricciardi said.
When it comes to talking baseball, though, Ricciardi is a natural.
“That’s the easy part,” Ricciardi said.
Ricciardi’s wife, Diane, helped him get his X, formerly Twitter, and Instagram accounts (@RicciardiJP) off the ground, and she records podcast highlights and promos for him to post.
“She’s my director and producer,” Ricciardi said.
Their sons, Dante, who is a Boston Red Sox scout, and Mariano, who recently retired after a three-year minor league career, help collect questions and feedback.
Ricciardi records and releases the podcast on Mondays. The plan is for the program to be 30-35 minutes in length, though the first two went a bit over that.
Ricciardi said he spends a good amount of time preparing for each podcast, researching, preparing questions and, of course, following baseball. He formulates his plan for each episode while taking his 3-year-old dog Bruno, the family’s fifth yellow lab, for a 5-mile walk around his West Boylston neighborhood.
“It’s the same way I used to get my practice plan ready for Holy Name,” said Ricciardi, who coached the Naps boys’ basketball team in the 1990s.
Ricciardi worked for 16 years in the Oakland Athletics organization, most notably as director of player personnel. He was the Blue Jays’ GM from 2001-09. For eight years, he served as special assistant to former Mets GM Sandy Alderson. Ricciardi was a Giants senior adviser of baseball operations since 2018.
Ricciardi hopes “The Brushback with J.P.” will reach listeners of all ages.
During last week’s episode, Catalanotto talked about being selected by the Detroit Tigers in the 10th round of the 1992 MLB Draft out of Smithtown East High School on Long Island, signing with the Tigers and foregoing a chance to play college ball, and his rise through the minor leagues to the majors.
“It was a great episode,” Ricciardi said, “because I wanted him to talk to the young kids out there about being a high school kid, signing and what that’s like.”
Ricciardi is planning an episode on the college baseball recruiting process.
Giving “The Brushback with J.P.” a personal element is important to Ricciardi. For every episode, he opens the podcast with the same question, “What made you fall in love with baseball?”
For Ricciardi, that answer is easy — his father.
The late Johnny Ricciardi was an all-city high school baseball player in Worcester who spent time in the Red Sox farm system.
“Ever since I was 4 years old I always remember having a ball in my hand,” Ricciardi said, “trying to play catch with my father until I could. My father instilled that love. It took on a life of its own and became a flat-out addiction.”
—Contact Jennifer Toland at jennifer.toland@telegram.com. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, @JenTolandTG.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Worcester native J.P. Ricciardi takes to mic with baseball podcast
