Jimmy Scott's High & Tight: The Donna Candiotti Interview

It's one thing to be married in real life, where you've got the kids and you've got the home - house, apartment, teepee - and you've got bills to pay, in-laws to keep happy, and a significant other to get along with for, like, the rest of your lives.  Now, add this to the Real Life: Baseball.  Add in the travel, the long absences, the groupies, the (sometimes) insane amounts of money, and the temptations.  What do you have?  The makings of either a marriage that can survive anything or a ticking time bomb just waiting to blow up in your face.  Either way, Donna Candiotti has seen it all.

PART I

Donna was 19 when she met her future husband, then Indians pitcher Tom Candiotti.  Tom was coming off a divorce and Donna was looking for where the rest of her life was going to take her.  Little did she know she was in for a major lawsuit that would later go all the way to the California Supreme Court.  In Part I of Donna's interview on Jimmy Scott's High & Tight, she talks about meeting Tom, getting used to The Life, and then, over and above that, getting into a major court case with Tom's ex-wife that lasted years and hundreds of thousands of dollars.  What happened and why?  Listen to Donna and she'll tell you.

PART II  18:30

Once she became a Baseball Wife, how did the other wives accept her?  Donna talks about being a (very) young Rookie wife, what the mindset of the other wives was toward her, and what she learned as she became a more mature Veteran wife.  She also talks about road trips and the various characters and family members who'd travel with the team.  Then, she shares the unwritten rule of the road that is a cliche today but so very true in the world of Major League Baseball.

PART III  32:00

After her husband was done as a player, Donna & Tom stayed together for a number of years.  How was the transition from Baseball Family to Civilian Family.  And when the marriage did break up, how did Donna's life as a baseball wife prepare her for her current career in real estate?

PART IV  42:00

Here's something juicy which guys are gonna like.  She's not married anymore and she's got looks and a pretty cool personality.  Does she date much?  Is it intimidating for men to ask her out because she was once married to a professional athlete?  How does she feel about that?  Finally, we talk about Scottsdale, Arizona and how it appears to be the retirement ground for ex-athletes, from Mark Grace to Jeff Fassero to Billy Swift and Tim Salmon.  Meanwhile, what happens when the teenage sons of two former superstar pitchers go head-to-head on a Little League field?  Donna details the story.

You're going to love this interview, if only because Donna gives it to us straight.  As she says at one point, and I'm paraphrasing, "I'll say anything now."  She's out of the game and out of her baseball marriage, but as you listen to Donna talk, you'll know The Baseball Life is still a major part of who she is.

Enjoy your Donna Candiotti interview at Jimmy Scott's High & Tight.  We did it all for you.

THE MUSIC

Terri Clark - One of the Guys

Pretenders - Talk of the Town

Squeeze - Tempted

Mary Chapin Carpenter - I Take My Chances

The Kinks - Better Things

Soundtrack to the motion picture Jude