Hello, we're all welcome to WFHR's Playmakers,
where we speak sport.
Want to send a shout out to Quality Plus Printing
and Family Natural Foods?
Sponsoring this opportunity for us to hang out
and have an episode of Meet Your Raptors.
One more where we get to hang out with the boys
of summer for a little bit longer.
As the season is wrapping up, we're gonna sit here and talk.
And we've got one of the players with us right now.
We're gonna introduce Harrison,
you might not let me say your name
and your position and everything.
Hi, my name is Harrison Garrett.
I'm a catcher from Knoxville, Tennessee.
Thanks, Harrison, that's perfect.
That's great.
And now the audience knows your voice
and they don't mix it up with mine.
No, that was not gonna happen.
We also got Ryan with us.
Man, introduce yourself for the audience, it doesn't know.
My name is Ryan Williams.
I'm a Meet Your Relations intern
for this year's Wisconsin Rapid Draftors.
Happy to be back here.
Working on building a somewhere for Ryan to stay
because we want to keep him here.
Ryan's awesome.
Anytime, I'm not even kidding, bad enough.
You've been great all summer.
And I've really been having you on the air with us.
You've been really helpful.
I'm not only getting us the details
of all these events and everything,
but just getting the know you and having fun.
Absolutely, yeah, fun.
As we're getting close to the end of all this guys,
I did have something that I wanted to ask.
I didn't get a chance to bring this up in the pregame,
but I wanted to know,
we'll kind of go to Harrison here in a moment with this,
but for you, Ryan, is there something
about this summer, this experience that really stands out to you?
I can only imagine how many memories you've created,
how much you've enjoyed about it,
but is there anything that really stands out?
You don't have to pick just one,
but anything really in particular that stands out
about the experience.
I think the biggest thing for me is just the camaraderie
I've had with my coworkers.
This is by far the biggest intern class I've ever worked with.
We have 17 interns.
One of them is one of our starting pitchers and Kenny Schultz.
So with three front office people and 17 coworkers
were a tight knit group, tight knit family.
Most people in the Northwoods,
you look at teams like Madison,
you look at teams like Kalamazoo.
They have 20 plus front office and about 30 interns.
And that's a big group.
And for me, I really enjoy being around,
seeing people's faces every day.
And I've had a great summer here in Wisconsin Rapids.
You guys have been doing a great job.
The front office has knocked it out the park.
They did a fantastic job about all season long.
And I've heard great things,
whether it's the events that have been going on
or the specials, the jerseys,
all the different things the ballpark has been popping.
They work really hard, yeah.
It's been really fun.
And if I can say this,
and we don't use kid gloves around here,
we're a very honest show.
And we have an honest relationship with the rafters.
They know how we handle things and stuff.
Season hasn't gone the way we would like it to.
Now, to be fair, we'd like to be undefeated
like all season long.
So to be the bar is high.
But being honest, as we are around here
with the audience, with everybody,
it hasn't gone exactly the way we wanted it to
in a lot of ways.
That's all, I bring that up as a point of the credit
to the front office and the work that you guys have done
where you've just kept moving, kept things going
and kept the vibe and the energy really good.
And Harrison, now I flip it to you
where in the clubhouse, in the dugout,
one of the things that I've enjoyed.
And part of my job is to catch rafter baseball,
make sure that we're playing on the airwaves
that we're taking care of our audience
and they can hear that rafter baseball.
But I also, I love baseball.
So I'm going to course listen.
And whether I'm at a game or I'm watching these games,
it doesn't matter if you guys are down 10 rounds,
runs or you're down a couple,
there's not so much fight in this team.
There's so much, there's no, I don't see heads down.
I don't see guys yelling at each other.
I don't see these things that we see
on a major league level all the time.
But you guys seem to have kept it together
and just keep fighting.
Is that it might just see in that
or is that something you felt,
especially coming to the clubhouse a little later
in the season?
You know, I think it's almost an embodiment
of the people of Wisconsin rapids, you know.
We all bring this kind of fight every day
to the clubhouse and we're all just,
an energetic group, we have a lot of things going on,
a lot of reasons to smile.
So we're always out there giving our best
and trying our hardest, you know,
the difference between winning a lot of games
and you know, not winning a lot of games.
It's just a few runs every game.
So it's, you know, whether it's been a rough season
or not, we've played our hardest.
And I think we embody the city, you know,
we try and go out there and put a lot of fight on.
Yeah, and it shows, it shows.
I think they're a perfect answer, man.
One of the things that I always hesitant to
because my father was an athlete
and I was raised around athletes and everything.
So I never want to take winning and losing lightly.
But at this level, the game's so much bigger
than wins and losses.
The things that Ryan was talking about
from his perspective and from the front office
perspective and all of that and these interns
and the experiences they get, there are,
and you know this as well as I do, proper, right?
There are so many stories of so and so started
as an intern and now they're GM or they're an assistant GM
or something like that.
And for you, players, the development
and every at-back, getting those reps,
getting a chance to be either seen by a scout
or just add to your experience
and learning the game better and better.
There's no losing.
You can't lose when those are the factors
and when there's the bar and stuff.
So I know that I've enjoyed this season.
I know so many other people have.
And one of the things we enjoy is getting to know the players.
So I'm going to put you under the microscope
for a second here here.
I'm going to stick it over and ask a couple of things.
I have to tell you right away to get to tell you this at first.
I've had one of my best friends growing up
was from the Tennessee area.
So it's great to hear that accent again, Matt.
Great to hear.
This is great to hear.
Why baseball?
What made you want to be a baseball player?
I don't know.
There's something I've always loved about baseball.
It was like growing up.
It's always been baseball.
There's never been anything else.
My parents didn't want me playing anything else.
They thought I'd get hurt.
So I was just playing baseball.
And it's been something I've always loved.
Was baseball big in your area?
Yeah, baseball is pretty big in Knoxville.
There's a lot of people playing it there.
So it's a lot of fun.
That's right.
I know that when Major League Baseball
has been talking about expanding,
that's one of the areas Memphis, Nashville.
They've been looking at makes sense, especially
with the love of baseball over there, right on.
I just hope it's not my white socks.
I hope it's just something.
Why catcher of all the positions?
And this is one that always,
it's one of my favorite things to talk to.
I talked to a lot of goalies in hockey.
And I noticed a lot of similarities
with those two positions in the type of people
that do them.
Why catcher?
So it was a really easy choice for me
because I've always had ADHD.
So I always want to be involved in the play.
So catcher is the best because I'm just sitting there.
I'm going to every single play I'm calling the play.
Everybody else is looking at me,
and I'm looking at everybody else.
So I get the best view of the game
when it's really cool.
My papa taught me this when I was growing up
about baseball because I like a lot of kids,
you know, look at the starting pitcher.
Oh, that's the quarterback.
No, it's the catcher.
The catcher is the starting quarterback.
And such an interesting thing
that you picked that up really young too,
and seeing that completely with you, by the way, on that.
It's such a key position, obviously.
And I think that it's, so Seth and I,
we do this show playmakers
on one of the things we've been talking about lately
with the passing of Ryan Sandberg,
greatest second baseman of all time.
It's a fun debate, and there's really no wrong answer.
You know, you can just throw in your feelings
and your opinions, and you back it up with this or that.
When we got to catcher, and I was talking my dad about this,
it's such a short conversation.
There's like three, four names, and like, boom,
it's either one of these guys, that's your list.
There's lots of great catchers in history,
but as far as you're going to talk about the goat,
the greatest, there's only a couple of names
really you think of, and that position
is ripe for not only all the things you just touched on,
but I think all the action happens right there.
All the fun, all the excitement and stuff is right there.
So that's another part of it that I would think would be cool too,
with as far as influences getting into baseball,
and you know, whether it's family members
or it's actual ball players,
were there any big influences for you?
Oh, the big influence for me would definitely be my father
and my father was always there for me for everything,
all the hitting lessons, everything.
He's always been there supporting me through every bit,
throwing in the yard, hitting me during batting practice,
all of it.
So it's always been my father, and then, you know,
we always make the trip up to Michigan
watch the Detroit Tigers playing.
Oh, right on.
So that's always been a big thing for us watching the Tigers.
I had punch played there for a little while.
Yeah, yeah.
Although I say punch, and that could be like four or five catchers,
I just met her like, it's a nickname,
pretty popular nickname, but that's cool.
That's really cool.
That's a cool story.
I appreciate you sharing that, man.
And as we're wrapping up here and everything,
I did have a couple of more questions.
One of the things that I was wondering is,
and I'll ask you this next round, for you,
what is, when you look at the end of the season,
got nine games left.
Do you have a goal?
Do you want to just go out there and play?
What is your mindset going into this final week,
if you will, of the season?
Going into the final stretch, I think we're all focused
on winning each game.
You know, it's not like, look at it as a whole and be like,
we're going to win these last nine games.
You know, we're going to win today.
Yeah, we're going to win tomorrow.
And then when we get to tomorrow, it's the next day.
You know, it's one day at a time.
And then from there, we just see where we get.
But every day, we're going to go out there.
We're going to do our best.
We're going to put on a good show, and we're going to fight pretty hard.
Right on, right on.
I appreciate that.
Ryan, for you and your, from what you do and everything,
what is your approach at this last kind of stretch of the season?
I'd say the approach is just to finish strong.
Prove that you've already done 64 games, get to 72, right?
And for me, as somebody who aspires
and wants to go work in professional baseball,
those guys work 162 games.
And that's a leap that I'd like to strive for.
And that's something that I want to provide myself with
and going into that.
Just making sure that I'm doing everything that I set,
I want it to do, and just don't give up.
Just keep going.
It's great answer.
Great stuff, man.
So one last thing I wanted to ask Harrison,
because you have played it for a number of teams in this Northwoods league of ours,
a couple of things.
And that's why I think a lot of our audience will recognize your name and stuff.
And when it comes to the, not to say one is better than the other,
I don't like to do any of that or anything.
But how have you enjoyed your time here in Rapids?
Have you been an experience in the place?
My favorite part about going to a lot of different places
and seeing a lot of different faces is always the, it's always the people.
The people in Wisconsin Rapids make it such a beautiful place.
It's already, it's beautiful enough without the people,
but it's really the people you meet here that separates it from other places.
I'd say everybody here is awesome.
They're so nice.
Everybody's always got a smile on their face.
So it's hard not to be grateful for places like this.
Yeah, again, well done, man.
Well done.
And if you ever want to run for politics around here, you'd be great.
You'd be great.
You do a great job here.
And a wonderful answer.
Yeah, right.
Same here.
Appreciate you guys hanging out with us.
I wanted to wrap up talking a little bit about some of the fun things that they're going
on over at Witterfield.
One of them happening tonight, the rafters are changing,
they are turning into superheroes, changing their identity.
They are turning into the mashers.
Can we talk about this a little bit of Ryan?
Absolutely.
So as we previously mentioned, you know, we're still finishing strong.
A lot of more fans are coming to the ballpark recently and the ballpark's getting full
at Witterfield.
So tonight we're going with our basically city connect night.
This is awesome.
You see the breweries do this a lot at the MLB.
This is our way to give back to the community and to grow our fan base because you know
us as Wisconsin rapids.
This time we're central Wisconsin.
We're incorporating everyone north all the way to Warsaw and south to Madison and everywhere
in between.
And this really is like our showcasing of giving back to the community, being central
Wisconsin, being as one.
This is going to be exciting night, Firework Friday, last one of the year, 635 first
pitch.
Got to love it.
Get on Witterfield, everybody.
Take this game in and be listening to playmakers.
We'll be giving away Raptor tickets throughout the whole rest of the season.
We're going to make sure that you get no excuse not to get over there and show the other
team what home field advantage is.
Make sure to get on over there and check out this game cheer on your mashers.
Keep an eye out for those auction jerseys as well.
That's I know how much I see them all season all year long.
I see the different red jerseys around and love seeing that.
Also keep in mind on August 6th.
We're going to be having a national night out night over at Witterfield with a replica
of police badge.
Give away.
That's kind of fun.
Us here at WFHR will be down there representing and having some fun with the guys and wrapping
with our Rapids Police Department and some of that.
I was trying to get Rapids Police Department.
I just wasn't rolling for me.
Yeah, it really was.
How much Harris and you enjoyed the kind of different jerseys that you've been able
to do and stuff with not just this team, but other teams is a fun thing for you.
It's a lot of fun.
I started out in Macon, so there was one night where I was wearing the kids championship
belt.
Awesome.
Awesome.
I'm used to the different stuff, but it's a lot of fun just because you see the kids out
there and everybody's having a good time.
It's hard to be looking up for the T-shirt toss and everybody's losing their mind.
Right.
Yeah.
Right.
You've been a part of a number of these kind of things this year.
How have you been enjoying them?
Love it.
One of the biggest giveaways I enjoy doing it.
I've been looking at your bubble hit collection.
We need to add a Ziggy one.
I do.
We're going to get that one for you.
Right.
That was last night's one.
And those are one of the favorite promotions that we love to do.
We put a lot of hard work into this one tonight.
He also played for Thunder Bay last year.
I played from Bismarck last year.
So we're very familiar.
It's like the Northwoods league, kind of how we do promotions and promoting and getting
fans to the ballpark.
So nights like these, this is what you look forward to all year.
It's going to be a blast.
Take in every one of these games that you can.
Everybody, of course, Rafter Baseball right on 97 5 FM WFHR where it belongs 620 start
time for tonight.
Take it on Lakeshore at Winterfield.
Get on down there.
Check out those cool jerseys and have some fun.
Keep in mind Saturday's game.
Going to be a 620 start time at Lakeshore for that one as well as for Sunday.
Earlier start time 1250 boys will be in Green Bay on Monday.
We'll talk more about that on playmakers when we get to it.
Both of you.
Thank you for coming to town hanging out with us.
Thank you for coming up with my questions and enjoying the area because we've enjoyed
you and we appreciate you.
Thanks for being here.
Thank you so much.
Appreciate it.
It's been fun.
Thank you everybody for joining us for another edition of WFHR's Playmakers.
