‘Pulled me out of gutter’ – Nick Swisher thanks Yankees for saving his baseball life and wants to be MLB manager

Nick Swisher sits on a couch in central London, loudly and proudly spreading the gospel of Major League Baseball.

The modern beauty of hardball, Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani connecting a huge country in 2025, and the relationship that cricket shares with the grand ol’ game.

“It’s been absolutely amazing,” Swisher exclusively told talkSPORT.

“The fact that MLB chose me to come over here and be an ambassador for our sport and to help grow the game, this is right up my alley.

“As much as I would like to say that I could still go out on the field and do exactly what I need to do, that’s obviously not possible.”

While Swisher’s New York Yankees — he’s now a special advisor to one of the most famous sports franchises in the world — face the Boston Red Sox in a four-game series with serious American League East implications, a 44-year-old with 245 career home runs rolls off his favorite memories in pinstripes without blinking.

“Hands down, 2009, the last out,” said Swisher, recreating the Yanks’ final world championship.

“Ground ball to Robbie Cano, over to Mark Teixeira, 27-time World Series champions. I’ve never been in a situation where the energy has ever been higher than that.

“Nobody parties like New York City. Nobody reps their team like New York City. And nobody celebrates their team like New York City. So the fact that I was able to be part of that team and experience that love, that ticker-tape parade, bro, was unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my life.”

To the uninitiated, baseball is super slow, mega boring and too old fashioned.

Spend a few minutes chatting with Swisher, and a discussion of the recent MLB trade deadline feels like sitting behind home plate for Game 7 of the World Series.

He still bleeds baseball, and the man who once turned ‘Brohio’ into a real thing with the Cleveland Indians is unapologetically himself.

talksport

Getty

Getty

“I say this all the time — it could have been somebody else. And for some reason it was me,” said Swisher, who hit .249 with a .799 OPS in 12 pro seasons with the Oakland Athletics, Chicago White Sox, Atlanta Braves, Yankees and Indians.

“I always knew, and I was taught at a very young age, you get one opportunity in life to make a first impression. And so for someone like me, bro, I’m going for it and I’m gonna be prepared.

“I may be off the wall, I may be hyper, but I am planned. I have plans for every single thing I do, because that’s what I need to do.”

That human transparency dates back to 2008, when Swisher left the Moneyball A’s and joined a loaded Chicago White Sox club that featured Ozzie Guillen as manager, and veterans A.J. Pierzynski, Paul Konerko and Jim Thome in the lineup.

The White Sox went 89-74 and won the AL Central, but fell 3-1 to the Tampa Bay Rays in the Division Series.

Swisher batted just .219 and struck out 135 times, producing one of the worst campaigns of his career.

Back in the dugout?

Nick Swisher told talkSPORT he wants to be an MLB manager

Swisher: “I’ve been crazy blessed to have been part of the New York Yankees organization for the last nine seasons. There’s nothing in our organization that I don’t know how it works. The people that run it, the people that are in charge, the people that work underneath them. And I feel like being around the minor league side, at least for myself over the last three seasons, has been absolutely amazing. Learning how the machine kind of works itself and why we have a minor league system.

“At the end of the day, I look at the manager’s position as almost like a CEO. You have your pitching side, you have your hitting side, your base running side, your fielding side. And it’s my job as a manager to make sure all of those facets are working the way they should. To hold them accountable to all of that stuff.

“I’m not going to teach you as a Major League Baseball player something that you don’t already know. But I will get you ready to play for 162 games a season. I will bring that energy. I will bring that sort of excitement. My staff will be vibe guys. We will create the most amazing vibe in that locker room. And, yes, these are the sort of things I think about.

“Maybe it’s a general manager. I mean, I’m not sure. I just think that I appreciate being on that front office side. Because I’ve been able to circle this game as a player for a long time. I’ve circled it from the media. And now I’m being able to circle it from the front office. There’s not any sort of side of the game that I don’t know about.”

“It just wasn’t the spot for me,” Swisher said.

“I don’t know whether it might have been just management or whatever it was, it just wasn’t the best spot for me, on and off the field, bro.

“I was in a bad relationship at the time. There’s just so many things that kind of go into what happens in a baseball season.

“That’s why I feel like analytics sometimes need to take those things into consideration. You don’t always know what’s happening at home with somebody. And so I feel like that’s the manager’s job, to get in there, to pull that out of you.”

As Swisher slammed into his personal ‘rock bottom,’ he turned to a sports psychologist for the first time and focused on creating a routine that turned into a life pattern.

Then came a life-changing call from New York general manager Brian Cashman.

A season later, Swisher was a World Series champion and crowned as a Yankee along with Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera.

“The fact that he (Cashman) reached down and pulled me out of the gutter,” Swisher said.

“I’m the type of guy, if you give me a hug, bro, I will run through a brick wall for you. And that’s just the human being that I am.

“And I think Cash realized that at an early phase. I remember him saying, ‘Last year was not the type of player that we know. You’re gonna be an amazing Yankee.’ And the fact that somebody would say that coming off of a 219 batting average the year before.

“By the way, I needed that. Cause I tell people this all the time — When you’re kicking a** and you’re winning, bro, you’re not learning to fit. You’re just rolling.

“But when you’re down in the dumps and you’ve hit rock bottom, that is definitely some time where you need to do some soul searching.”

Getty

Seven years later, Cashman connected with Swisher again.

He signed a minor-league contract and played 55 games for the New York’s Class AAA affiliate Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders.

A final MLB call never came.

But Swisher was mentoring the next generation of Yankees and passing on the game.

“I remember Brian Cashman saying, ‘Swish, we need you back.’ And I was like, ‘Well, where am I going?’ ” Swisher said.

“He’s like, ‘Well, I have to send you to (Class) AAA. We’ve got our roster set up. But I’ve got some kids down there that I need you to look after.’ “

Swisher discovered a 6ft 8in and 280lb young slugger who looked like an NFL defensive lineman.

It was Aaron Judge, who now has 355 homers in 10 seasons, and is the Yankees’ best hope for a 28th World Series trophy.

“We might be watching one of the greatest right-handed hitters that we’ve ever seen,” Swisher said.

“I think we take that for granted. I mean, two MVPs, All-Stars every single year, 60 home runs, 50 home runs. You just don’t see a whole lot of people doing that.”

MLB’s London Series is expected to return in 2026 after a pause this year.

While Swisher hopes to stand on the top step of an MLB dugout again, his current passion is spreading Judge’s name in London and beyond.

“We have players that are represented from all these countries,” Swisher said.

“But this is the spot that we’re missing the beat on. And this is the spot where I feel like we need to be.”

Major League Baseball’s dedicated UK show, Bases Covered Live, is back each week this summer. Tune in to iPlayer from 7pm on Sunday 10th August to watch New York Mets take on the Milwaukee Brewers – and throughout the season for best of the live action.