Interview #7: Dennis Cohan, and how to bond over baseball and hockey
And he and his brother’s lifelong baseball story
Background: Born 1953 in Chico, CA, Dennis Cohan grew up in the Bay Area with his brother, Greg, and sister. He would go to college at Chico before moving back to the Bay where he started a successful small business. He married his wife of 40+ years, Carol, and had two sons, Sean and Ryan. He retired to Arizona a few years ago and spends his days golfing and enjoying life.
The Transistor Radio Days
What was your first baseball memory?
“I guess the one that sticks out is watching the games. And I remember sitting, you know, laying in bed with the transistor radio at night listening to the ballgame, the broadcast, falling asleep. A West Coast game and starts at 7:30, 8:00 back then. Maybe 7:30, I guess. By the time 9:00 rolled around we were in the 6th inning, 7th inning. I'm you know, 6 years old, 7 years old. I'm already asleep.
Going to games, I can remember my parents. You packed the family up, my mom had this cool thing to keep the food, she made the sandwiches, she brought potato chips. Nobody does that now, but people used to bring stuff in and then the sandwiches would get handed out, turkey sandwiches. I think my dad would probably buy a beer there back when it was a buck, buck-and-a-half maybe. I mean, we'd sit the stands and and watch the game right. I was 8 or 9, never night games, always day games like a Saturday game. It was awesome.
And I loved baseball, so I’d sit there. I was learning how to keep score, so I was one of those kids that would sit there and keep score and got into it.”
You packed the family up, my mom had this cool thing to keep the food, she made the sandwiches, she brought potato chips.
“Baseball, more than any other sport… I mean, we watched football, my brother and I played football. We watched basketball, we played basketball, but it was not as big a deal then. But we both watched and played baseball and I really played it through high school. It was great, loved it.”
You played in high school? What did you play?
“I was a pitcher. I always tell people that I think our memories, as we get older, we were always much better than we actually were. But when I was in high school and especially when I was younger, I was a really good outfielder. I could get to balls fast. I had a great arm. I couldn’t hit at all. So I thought, well, if I've got a good arm, I'm just going to try out for pitcher when I get into high school. So that's what I did. And I was mediocre. I started a couple of games on varsity, I wasn't their ace. I wasn't throwing 85 or 90 miles-an-hour like these kids do now. I was probably throwing 70, which is like a little faster than Little League. Maybe 72 or 73, but I loved it. It was great.”
Baseball and his brother, Greg
Did you ever play with your brother on a team?
“No he was six years older. I was the bat boy on his Little League team. He was 12. I was 6. So I was the bat boy.”
Who was better?
“He was a second baseman and he hit better than I did. And he was a good second baseman, but he would probably tell you that I was a better baseball player. And then later on, when you can't play baseball anymore and you're over 20, you play softball, and so we played softball for a number of years together. That was fun.
My brother was probably the biggest baseball fan and he knew everything. Part of the thing that made it fun for me is my brother talking about the nuances of baseball. Not just, ‘Oh, look he hit X number of homers’. He taught me nuances about the game like, ‘Watch how he steals bases. Look at the lead he gets, look at how he tracks the pitcher.’ He was probably that biggest influence in terms of watching it and understanding it.
The one thing that was great about my brother is even when I was really young, he included me. Like, if all the guys were playing basketball down at the park and he was 14, 15… even though I was 8, or 9 I learned to play basketball from him. He included me in all that stuff. So even though there was a big size difference and a big age difference there, he included me all through his life in basketball, baseball, you know, whatever he did. He was my idol.”
Your brother was a fan forever. Did he keep you involved as a fan?
“Oh yeah. Up until he died seven years ago, we’d get home at night after work and he’d put the game on, we’d watch the game. He’d always have the game on, and we’d have a beer or a glass of wine and we’d watch.”
Note: Dennis was still working in the Bay Area but in the process of moving to Arizona during this period so he would stay with Greg when he was in California. This was during the Giants championship run in the 2010’s.
“And he was so predictable about everything. It’d be early in the season and he’d go, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe they lost! That’s such a big loss!’ and I’d say, ‘Greg, that’s game 10… they have 152 more to go.’”
So this was during their championship run of 2010, 2012 and 2014. Those were teams you could root for.
“Oh yeah, and I’d see where they were in the standings, but I wasn’t watching every game. My brother would watch almost every game. He’d always rip the sports page out and check every stat.
Probably the person I was closest to about baseball was my brother. And Sean, maybe over a five year period, but my brother for 40 years… or more. When I think about it, and I’ve never thought about this, but my brother is the one that got me into it. My brother is the one who helped me develop and understand the game, in Little League and in high school, and then I played softball with him for ten years after that. And then even during the early days of having kids and all of that, we still followed baseball together.
There was maybe a five-year period, an eight-year period in there where I didn’t see him much—
Well, that’s not true either. Greg and I were in the same office for almost twenty years. And I would see him almost every morning. And as I think back on it, 9 times out of 10 the conversation, if it was during baseball season, was something about the Giants.
I’d never thought about that. “
The Strike(s)
“What pissed me off was the strike year (1994), and it really bothered me. I thought, these guys are getting paid a fortune to play a game that I would give my you-know-what to play. And these guys, they're making a lot of money and here I'm a guy trying to make 20 grand a year, 30 grand a year. And they're making a couple hundred, three-hundred thousand and they’re complaining. And I know I didn’t understand the whole story, but it really turned me off. And I didn’t go to many games after that. I was pissed at Matt Williams, who was the player representative for the Giants.”
So your brother was pissed in ‘94 too, then. But he came back.
“He was. He loved the game so much, he was so passionate about it. He said, ‘This is America. This is what we grew up with. This is who we are.’ And I said, ‘That’s true, but those guys just pissed me off!’
Do you think if there wasn’t a strike, you’d be a little bigger a fan currently?
“Oh yeah, it just pissed me off. And once I lost interest, you start filling your life with other things. So it gets back to those priorities, what’s important in life. And for me, I was at that point in life where work, my business, I was trying to develop who I was as a businessman, how do I grow that. So my focus changed.
So I wasn’t as big a fanatic as I was in the late 80’s, early 90’s. The 90’s were Robby Thomson, Will Clark(!), Kurt Manwaring, Royce Clayton, J.T. Snow, Kevin Mitchell making one of the greatest catches of all time as he’s running to catch the ball and goes to put his glove up to catch it and misses it, but he catches it in his bare hand… unbelievable.”
“And then 10 years before that… Johnnie LeMaster at shortstop, John ‘The Count’ Montefusco was pitching, Ed ‘No Hit’ Halicki. Those were good ball teams.”
Baseball’s Lessons
“You know, when I'm watching a game, I don't get so excited about guys that do ordinary things. I get excited about guys that do extraordinary things and I get pissed off at guys that do stupid things. Like running through your third base coach when he’s got his hands up. And you run through it with your head down. It was in the World Series! (Christian Walker). Ran right through the third base coach and gets thrown out at home.”
“It’s a metaphor for life, I think baseball is. You play by the rules. It's hard to cheat in baseball. You can cheat in football, you can hold people and everything. You can cheat in basketball. It’s hard to cheat in golf, plus they’ve got a really strong ethic going. Baseball, other than somebody sandpapering the ball. How do you cheat?”
(note: I know, I know. I see you screaming about the Astros. Carry on)
“You know, you steal signs. You still gotta hit it. So it’s a pure sport. So I just like it.
You know what is? It's like a lesson you learn when you're young. You know, there's things that your parents teach you… right and wrong. There's things that you learn about how to be a good human being. And baseball taught me a lot. It really did.
And yes, you're gonna fail once in a while, but you step back in the batter’s box. There’s a never-give-up attitude. If you're down 10-to-nothing in the 5th inning in a six-inning league, you could say, ‘Oh yeah, gosh, we lost,’ and there's a lot of kids that do that. I was never that kid. I always thought we can come back and then after it was over and the reality sets in, then you ask what could we have done better. That's the lesson. Never giving up.
I used to get accused when I was younger of being too competitive. My sister said it to me one time, my mom said it to me one time. They sat me down and said, ‘You’re just too competitive, can’t you just calm down?’ And it’s like no, it’s who I am.”
What made them say that?
“I’d get upset. I was never upset at others, I was always upset with me. It's like something happened… you know, Sean gets pissed at guys that take shots at him, and I never had that happen. If I got pissed in a game, it’s because I swung at a bad pitch, or I thew a pitch that was too juicy.
I was small, I wasn’t physically my strongest until I was about 28. Until then, I did the best with what I had.”
Coaching and Raising Sons
“When the kids were young, my big deal was I’m not gonna miss any of their Little League games. And the only ones I ever missed were when both of them were playing at the same time, so Carol would go to one and I’d go to the other.
I think the other thing that brought me together with both kids was I coached. I coached Sean’s baseball team, I was an assistant coach. Al (Roman, the manager) was a great guy, Al knew what he was doing. Then he played for the Pirates, Sean did, and I coached him that year.”
“I helped coach Ryan when he was in t-ball.”
Ryan broke my friend’s dad’s nose.
“I was there that day! He swung and threw the bat running to first, the guy was standing in the wrong spot. He was a nice guy.”
Note: he was my childhood best friend’s dad, and I remember I went over to their house that night after and he had the full nose brace on and swollen eyes. Keep your head on a swivel out there in t-ball.
“That was fun, I liked coaching. It’s funny, I never felt like I knew enough, but I really did. I knew more than the other guys knew about baseball and all that, I just wasn’t confident in my coaching.”
Ryan’s only home run! Off of Lance Mantle. I said, ‘How’d that go, Ryan?’ He said, ‘He hit me the next three times I came up to the plate!’ I told him those are great bragging rights to have.
“The other thing that makes baseball unique is the bond from parent to child. It’s funny, I was listening to this song the other day, it's a Trace Adkins song and he talks about taking his daughter fishing, that she thinks we're just fishing. They’re not just fishing. (Just Fishin’ - Trace Adkins)
When I was taking Sean to a game, it wasn’t about the hockey, it was about spending time with my son, sitting in the seat and bonding and talking about, not just hockey, but everything else in the world. Where you know, at home, he's going to play a video game or homework or he’s gonna be running around. I’ve got him for three hours sitting next to me in a seat and we’re talking about everything. Hockey, mostly. But everything.
Same thing is true in baseball. Most people who go to a baseball game, even the season ticket fans, they’re watching intently, but a lot of them are having fun and conversations. It’s bonding, right?”
Opposites Attract
Is your wife into sports at all?
“No.”
So how did that work? You're a sports nut.
“I'm a compromiser.”
So you guys didn't go to games together?
“No. I bet you in 8, 10 years of having hockey tickets, she went to one game. I took my mother to more hockey games than I took my wife. I've been to one baseball game with her. Down here, her cousin Debbie and her husband are baseball fans. So they got seats one day for a Diamondbacks game and my wife went. I said ‘how'd you like it?’ I would rather have stayed at home and read a book. So I've never been to a basketball game with her. We went to a couple of ASU football games. I named all 5 sporting events I did with her in 42 years. I mean, I wish she did (like sports). On the other hand, she doesn't need me to entertain her and we’ve been very happy. You know, she's happy. I'm happy.”
Note: I did find this interesting because in my interviews so far, there’s been a wide range of how baseball and sports are involved in relationships. Some couples are both really into it, some have one into it, one not so much and some are complete 100/0 splits, yet every scenario, they’re doing great and happy.
Takeaways
I think there’s two takeaways from Dennis’ story. First is how he took some of the life lessons baseball teaches you and applied that to his professional successes. Just like baseball, most people with an entrepreneurial mindset or are trying to get a business off the ground will fail at some point, and possibly several times. But it’s also the knowledge that you can take a lesson from every at bat, every pitch and prepare yourself for the next one. So while you might go down swinging this time, the next time up, as long as you keep that confidence up and know you can succeed, you set yourself up to win. And just like in baseball, in business a few big wins go a long way.
The other thing was hearing how much of an impact his older brother had on him. It was great to hear how much Greg loved baseball and how he instilled that in his younger brother. It was even greater hearing how he would always include Dennis even with the age gap (which when one’s a teen and the other’s still in grade school is a big physical difference). As an older brother myself, I wish I’d been told this when I was still a teen. Maybe I was told, but I wish I’d been forced to actually listen to these words. Since my brother and I are currently in a one-text-per-year relationship going on 15 years now, if I’d been better at encouraging him or maybe being nicer? I dunno. All I would say is if for some reason you’re 15 years old and reading this and have a younger brother, don’t waste that chance to build that relationship, because it’s not easy to do after everyone moves out.
On a lighter note, the hockey part was interesting. So the Cohans got me into hockey. It was the last game of the season for the San Jose Sharks and we were invited to go to a game with them. I was hooked five minutes into the first period. Naturally my favorite player immediately became Murray Craven because he wore #22. The next week, we all went and got some roller blades and gear and started playing in the driveway. Then we got a bigger group of kids together and started playing on outdoor basketball courts, and eventually roller rinks and now Sean and I played over 300 games together on ice hockey teams together since I’ve lived in Arizona.
