Interview #32: The Drummer

And baseball player, golfer, stock market investor and some other things

Intro

Scott Rhine is a friend of a friend. She sent him my way because he knew he played baseball once upon a time. Scott grew up in Atascadero, California, about 20 minutes north of San Luis Obispo. He grew up a Dodgers fan, making the three-to-four-hour trek to Dodger Stadium at least once a year as a kid with his family. He started off by telling me he wasn’t that big of a baseball fan anymore, and then proceeded to come off as still being a big baseball fan. He knew current players and 2024 baseball news just like any fan would.

He’s also into drumming and from what I was told and what he says, a pretty darn good one, too. He now lives in Live Oak, CA, about an hour north of Sacramento. For the moment, he works a lot and doesn’t make much time for either of those passions (playing baseball/softball, playing in a band), but as you’ll see there are reasons for that.

Growing up hitting rocks into a pond

So you're a baseball fan I take it?

Absolutely. I don't live and breathe it as much as I used to. My boss joined a fantasy baseball league with his buddies, so we always talk. I'm like, you know way more about all these players than I do now. He's a football fan, not much of a baseball guy; I’m not much of a football fan. So we just kind of talk shit and he's enjoying it, and it's cool to talk about it on a personal level.

What's your favorite baseball memory?

Well, I feel like I have a lot that I've thought about for years. One that's pretty big is when I was in the Babe Ruth League. This must have been just before high school. I can't say this is my favorite memory, but it definitely jumped out. I was playing third base for my team and the pitcher got injured. And my coach came out to the mound and said, does anyone know how to pitch? And I was like, yeah. And so I pitched. The first inning I pitched, I threw 4 strikes and got 3 outs. The first pitch was a groundout. Second pitch was a groundout. Third pitch was a strike down the middle. Fourth pitch was a groundout. I just remember everyone laughing, like, what the fuck just happened? A four-pitch inning, that's better than an immaculate inning, technically. The rest of that season I was the primary pitcher and I ended up getting voted best pitcher.

I have a bunch of good memories that I'm sure I'll think of later.

So you were a bigger fan back as a kid?

Yeah. So I played from like 5 years old through my freshman year of high school and then after freshman year, I switched to golf. When I was a kid, that's when I did live and breathe it. I’d be outside hitting rocks with a little one-by-one board, piece of wood into the lake that we lived on. I'd be out there for hours just hitting rocks into the lake or throwing a baseball against the wall working on my pitching. I absolutely loved it. That's when you're a kid and you have nothing else to deal with basically.

The Dodgers are my team. I bleed blue, so I follow them and watch as many games as I can. With everything else going on, I can't watch it as much as I would like to. On Sundays, if I'm being productive, I'll put on the MLB.tv app playing through my PS5 and I'll just watch baseball all day and cook, meal prep, and clean and just have games on for hours.

How did you get into baseball in Atascadero?

When I was five, 32 years ago, damn, I'm old, but I don't know how it started. I remember my dad would take me and my sister to baseball games in LA. We’d see the Dodgers, the Angels, saw the Giants. I love all the California teams, for sure. If I were to say how it started, it would probably just be from that, just him taking us. Mike Piazza was my favorite player growing up, at least in the 90s.

I watched a lot of Braves games on TBS almost every day after school and Chipper Jones became one of my favorite players. I played third base just like he did. I just loved it, and it was my favorite thing to do. Just sit back after school and do my homework and watch the Braves or the Dodgers or whoever.

So it's kind of like that background companion. Like you've got it now, because you use it when you're doing your chores.

Yeah, absolutely. Not only American's favorite pastime, it's certainly mine too. And yeah, it helps that the Dodgers are a stellar team. When we got Shohei, I was like fuck yeah. With Mookie and Freeman, it's just really cool to see future Hall of Famers basically.

So how many times a year did you go to games? That’s like three or four hours to LA from Atascadero, right?

Yeah, quite literally equidistant between LA and San Francisco. We’d go at least once a year. My dad worked a lot, so it's really on his schedule. Driving 4 hours takes a toll on the parents.

So is your dad a big fan?

He's actually not a huge fan. It's a good question. I think he took me, and my sister, but she doesn't give a shit about baseball, but it's just more of a family thing. So maybe I did get into it before he even started to take us. I'm definitely the big fan of the family. I think he just did it for the experience, for the road trip when we were.

So it was more of you and your friends playing a lot?

Made a lot of good friends growing up playing, for sure. It was kind of my thing. I got into music, started in band around 4th grade. I got into music a lot too. I'd say baseball was my focus. I would play every year up until freshman year, 2001, and then I switched to golf. I played golf from sophomore through senior year.

How has your baseball fandom level gone up and down over the years? How far are you from Sacramento?

About an hour, and I’m actually stoked that the A’s are coming there actually. I feel bad for A’s fans and everything, but hey, good for me, I guess. I think my love for the game has pretty much remained the same throughout my whole life. When you're focusing on other things, it's not a priority, obviously. Baseball is almost as important as music to me. I'll always be excited for Opening Day. I get super stoked when rookies are just killing it, I think that's cool. I don't live and breathe it like I said, but my love has never altered.

I'm not a stats nerd by any means, but I do love to see all these random stats. Like Glasnow on the Dodgers, he had a 14-strikeout game, and it was cool to learn that that is the highest number of strikeouts with less than 90 pitches pitched, like he set that record. There are all these obscure fucking stats, of course, but just stuff like that is pretty fucking cool.

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Atascadero is considered “Southern California” as far as TV markets go. Same with San Luis Obispo. So unfortunately, when I went to college I was in for a rude awakening when the A’s and Giants became the Dodgers and Angels. And the Sharks became the Kings and Ducks. Actually, the Sharks became nothing because of the 2004-05 NHL lockout. 🤬

Anyways, here’s another great example of access to baseball causing a love for baseball. As he said, Scott’s dad wasn’t super into baseball, so it’s not like me where I was born practically in Jack Murphy Stadium. The Braves being part of your basic cable package meant a kid growing up 3,500 miles away could still watch and become a huge fan of players like Chipper Jones.

Again, baseball still needs to rethink their access. Cable is basically dead, they have the ability to stream every game to every home on the planet and probably the International Space Station, too. I’m totally fine with the MLB package costing whatever it does, but I feel like any local market should be provided free to their closest team. How’s a 7-year-old kid supposed to become a fan of the team if she only goes to 2 games a year, and the other 160 are blacked out on tv?

(note: an immaculate inning is when a pitcher strikes out the side on 9 pitches, it’s been done just 114 times in MLB)

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High School Baseball… then golf and marching band

Why’d you switch to golf?

Good question. I don't know, I kind of lost interest. There's a lot of politics involved, coach’s favorites and stuff like that. I was a third baseman and a pitcher prior to that, and I was kind of a brat, right? So I remember they wanted to start me at second base, and I didn't want to play second base. And they didn't throw me at all. I was kind of pissed off about that. So I was just like yeah, whatever, I don’t care about playing as much. Golf was just more chill. I just kind of got over playing it, I suppose. My love of the game never went away, but my love of playing did.

So your love of playing went away because of things that weren't related to baseball. Do you think if you had been able to play third as a freshman you would’ve stuck with it?

When the season started, I was just coming off of a broken collarbone I broke snowboarding in late February. So I missed the first month. It was supposed to heal in six weeks, but I'm also a drummer, so I played with a broken collarbone, which prolonged the healing process. I came in late, like they knew I was a good player. Every year I played, I was an all-star; I was pretty damn good relative to my peers, certainly not the best or anything, so I think they were giving me a chance. He didn't like me as a pitcher. My velocity was on the lower end, I was more of a contact pitcher. I didn't have a lot of cheese. And my buddy was a very good third baseman and I didn't want to play second base. Like I said, I kind of was immature about it, but I just lost interest in playing.

Were a lot of your friends on the baseball team?

My best friend, my brother, essentially brother from another mother, played. A lot of classmates played together. My buddy Marco. Darren. Robert. Paul…

Are you just listing the Beatles?

I still had a lot of love for them. We still remained friends, but I mean I didn't get to play with him anymore. I think by that point I was far more into music. By freshman year, I was pretty hardcore into drumming and drumline and marching band and concert and wind ensemble. I just kind of focused on that and still wanted to play sports, do extracurricular stuff and golf was pretty natural to me. I just tried out for the golf team, which obviously is the same season, and made the team and that was that.

Did giving up baseball free up more time for other things you liked to do?

I don't know. I mean, I was very undisciplined. I’m still undisciplined. Old habits die hard, I guess. I always did what was fun. Sure, growing up, I wanted to be a pro baseball player like anyone. Then I got into music and took that more seriously, wanted to be a pro drummer. Obviously, I’m neither of those now. I guess this goes back to like, I don't want to play second, I want to play third. If I'm not having fun, then I'm not gonna do it.

What about when you were in band? Did you have similar kinds of experiences there or was that more a solo thing?

Band was awesome. I loved marching band and drum line. My favorite memory of band... I guess I got two. So freshman year, I played cymbals. Super lame, but I made those symbols cool, man. But I learned all the snare music, like, literally the whole halftime show, I knew how to play it. We were playing Paso (Robles High), our rivals. We always did a little drum battle after the game. Our two snare drummers went to the other side to talk to the other drumline. So we didn't have any in our mind marching band. We were just in the bleachers. So we didn't have any snare drummers, and I told our band director, “I can play this, I know how to play this song.” It was Mr. Roboto by Styx, which is also my favorite band. I just played the snare and I remember him being surprised, like, holy shit, yeah, you can play that.

My second favorite moment of band was my senior year. My junior year was my last year of being in the marching band. I quit. But we played our drumline thing during the dance show. I remember going into the gym just saying what's up to my old friends. I don't know how it came about, but I remember my buddy was like, dude, go out and play. They played the same cadences that we did for the three years prior so. So I'm like, OK, fuck yeah. I was well known at that point by from drumline; I eventually did make snare in junior year. And I just remember going out there, totally unplanned, no one knew that I'd be out there, and I just played the cadences. There was this one little section that I had no idea how to play, but I listened to it for like a measure and joined in. I didn't play it perfectly, but it was good enough. And I remember the crowd going wild cause they could tell that I was learning that on the spot essentially. That's probably my top memory.

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If I ever had to play an instrument in front of a huge crowd… well that’s what nightmares are made of. I can play the bass line from Seven Nation Army at least. Anyways, this is now the fourth person (out of only 32 so far) who ran into the Coach Firewall in high school. It sounds like of all the high school sports, baseball has the biggest problem with favoritism and politics. They all do, of course. But in baseball, past successes stick with people longer. Maybe this kid isn’t bad, he’s just in a slump. Baseball is full of slumps. Whereas a kid might be able to show his worth on a football field with strength and speed, in baseball, if you’re not getting hits or let a few ground balls eat you up, and that’s all the coach sees, how do you play your way out of that hole?

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An Epiphany

Why did baseball stick around like it did?

I mean, that's a good question. A lot of nostalgic reasons. I do miss playing it. I was obsessed with it as a kid, and I think it's just one of those things that I'll never not love. I don't know how else to explain it. It’s a lot of damn good memories.

Sounds like you miss the team aspect of it.

Yeah, for sure, all the camaraderie. I met a lot of good people like my friend Paul. I haven't spoken with him in years. But he was one of my best friends, he was always someone that I had a lot of respect for, a lot of mutual love and respect between one another and we never really hung out outside of baseball. I developed a lot of relationships through it. I suppose I do miss being a part of a team, or something bigger than myself.

So you haven't played any kind of baseball or softball since?

No. Last time I played was freshman year. That’s a good question. I never intended to stop. I've always wanted to join adult leagues or softball leagues. I was actually just talking to a coworker of mine about joining softball. I've been wanting to do that since freshman year because I do miss playing it. But now I have a bad knee, so I don't even know how well I can run. But I still think about that stuff, and I honestly hope one day I will do it. It hasn't died, I guess, but you know, how practical is it? I don't know. But I would still love to play. Have you continued playing since high school?

I played a lot of softball in college, just to meet people. I think I want to go back to softball now, just to meet some new people, but you just have to go do it. Nobody really cares if you can't run, by the way.

No, I totally feel you on that. You just got to do it man. I literally don't have any friends up here. My coworkers are cool, but I mean they're coworkers and not friends. I'm pretty much a loner, and it would be really nice to get out and meet people and play. I know I would enjoy it. Maybe after this I'll consider it a little more.

The worst part about being on a team is joining it, getting off your ass and putting yourself out with strangers. I just had to realize that they were all strangers to each other at one point, too.

It's difficult. A big thing with me is, with everything that I want to do, you just gotta fucking do it. You're completely right, it's just getting there, I guess. And I'm not adverse to change. We all get in our routines and what we're comfortable with.

Do you still play the drums?

Play it pretty much every night. I'll probably play them in about an hour from now.

Have you been in a garage band or anything like that?

Yeah, I haven't played in a band since I was like 22. At one point I was in two or three bands, but I was really only serious about one of them. “Serious”. I remember going to San Diego and playing, played in Vegas, just like dive bars and shit like that. I haven't been in an actual band for 15 years now.

And would you do that again?

Absolutely. If I were to be in a band again, I think it would be something that I would want to start, at least co-found. It'd probably be all instrumental, not many vocals or anything. I'm a big progressive rock guy. I love playing funk, so it might be a mixture, but I don't know. I don't really put a lot of thought into it. But if I were to be in a band, it would be something that's our own stuff and I don't want to play anyone else's music.  I want to write my own shit, basically.

What do you do?

I work in commercial lending for a credit union, basically an underwriter, I look at financials and spreadsheets all day. Nothing too exciting but I dig it. It's a good gig and cool people that I get to work with.

What do you do in your free time now?

I work. I'm a big stock guy, stock market guy, so I spend a lot of time researching stuff I guess. I play my drums, but yeah, basically work is kind of my life. I don't get out much. I just kind of do my thing. I guess I kind of got stuck in the mentality when I moved up here to finish my finance degree, so that was from 2016 to 2018, and I didn't care about befriending anyone. I just wanted to do my schoolwork, get my degree, and get a job. I guess I'm kind of one of those people who are OK with being alone. My family's up here, and my sister, she's my best friend.

As far as friends go, I don't know. As you get older it's hard to meet people. Well, up until recently, I haven't really cared too much but now I realize, shit, I do need to live my life outside of work and all this other bullshit that I do. Something I'm working on. Maybe by the time I'm 40, I'll have some new homies. Life is good. I can't complain too much.

I got a lot of shit to work on. Not to get too personal, but yeah, I got some personal shit I'm working on. Yeah, but life is good, dude. And you're completely right.

Well we didn’t do this interview for me to be a therapist.

It’s all good. It's all lighthearted.

Well, it sounds like you got all this stuff you want to do. What's holding you back from doing those things?

Good question, therapist. Like I said, I got a lot of things I'm working on. Alcoholism, to be quite honest, is a big one. That's kind of the main one that's been getting worse. I don't know how much Sara talked to you about me, but I actually reached out to my band friends. We’re on an e-mail chain and they do an annual camping trip. And I won't get into too much detail but yeah, I've been struggling with a lot of shit lately, for years now, and so I reached out to them to say, hey, I'm sorry I haven't made the annual camping trip, and this is kind of why. I love you guys very much. And this was only literally a couple months ago.

So maybe when you asked her if she knew anyone that played baseball, she literally texted me and said, “I thought you were a multi-sport kid and I think you played baseball. If you don't mind, Graig’s going to hit you up. She thought of me, which I'm glad she did because this is really cool.

She's a really good person, so that sounds about right.

She's an amazing person. She's been extremely supportive. All of them have been, and I got a ton of love for her and all those guys. No doubt.

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Well, there you have it. Scott said I had all these good questions that made him think and realize all these things he wanted to do… all I did was ask why and why not. I guess if I was smarter, I’d ask those same things of myself, but not today.

When we started talking, for me it’s still hard getting into this while knowing nothing about the person except at some point we’re gonna talk about baseball. But Scott was so relaxed and easy to talk to, I instantly liked him. And so the beginning of the interview, as he started listing off what he loved about playing sports and music, and then to try to match that with what his life is now, it didn’t add up.

But alcoholism is no joke, and it sounds like he’s on a path to recovery. I hope that path continues. Everyone has been affected by alcoholism at some point, whether it’s a friend or loved one or they themselves struggling with it. I know there are lots of major changes and milestones and steps, and that no one every fully “recovers”, but I hope Scott keeps making progress. I hope he does join a softball team. Just from the hour I spent talking to him, any group would be lucky to add him to their mix.

And even though it’s a small detail in all of that, I do think having that baseball background noise on Sundays, and making small talk about the Dodgers or fantasy baseball, that’s all helpful. Having even the slightest distraction from the heavy stuff in life is so important, and I wish sometimes we would take a break from arguing about player contracts or whose fanbase is the worst and just appreciate that the sport is still a positive aspect of so many lives.

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