Unplugged with Brandon Steiner

New York Yankees pitcher Sonny Gray joins Steiner Sports CEO Brandon Steiner to discuss his baseball career, what life was like growing up, his experience pitching at Vanderbilt for Tim Corbin, and what it means to play for the New York Yankees.

1984 Olympic Gold Medalist and 1988 Olympic Silver Medalist in the 4 x 400 meter relay, Diane Dixon, joins the show with Brandon Steiner. Diane is a native of Brooklyn, New York and is on a mission to revamp and revitalize sports programs for kids across the tri-state area.

Mark Teixeira played 14 seasons in Major League Baseball and won a World Series in 2009 with the New York Yankees. Now a broadcaster for ESPN on Baseball Tonight, Teixeira joined Steiner Sports CEO Brandon Steiner at Yankee Stadium for an in-depth Q&A with Yankees season ticket holders about his career.

Bernie Williams is a New York Yankees legend. With his #51 retired in Monument Park at Yankee Stadium, it would have been easy for him to lay back and bask in the glory of World Series success on the diamond. But, instead he followed another passion: music. Playing the guitar, Williams has released two successful studio albums, tours the country with his All-Star Band, and received a Bachelor of Music from the Manhattan School of Music in 2016. Here's Brandon Steiner's chat with Williams in front of a live audience at Steiner Sports.

Austin Romine is a catcher for the New York Yankees. He was drafted out of high school by the team in 2007 and made his Major League Baseball debut in 2011. Romine has caught games from Yankees legends Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte, as well as the current staff. The team is poised to make a deep postseason run and I had a great conversation with him about what it feels like to put on the pinstripes everyday.

Former All-Star pitcher and World Series Champion David Wells sat down with Steiner Sports CEO Brandon Steiner for a Q&A for New York Yankees season ticket holders at Yankee Stadium on August 9th, 2018. They talked about his career in pinstripes, his relationships with key members of the 1990's championship teams, and the 20th anniversary of his legendary perfect game.

Scott MacGregor, Founder & CEO of SomethingNew, has 20+ years of experience as a top sales performer and VP of Sales & Marketing in the technology industry working for and with Fortune 500/1000 companies.

Scott founded SomethingNew based on experiencing firsthand the frustrations in recruiting top talent and in being recruited, which led him to build an organization devoted to delivering better results for companies looking to build high performing teams and the candidates they need to accomplish amazing results.

"Standing O!" is a collection of essays from athletes, CEOs, and entrepreneurs sharing the lessons they've learned from influential people in their lives.

Since 1987, Kevin Singleton has motivated young audiences throughout the world to make positive choices and excel in every area of life. He has spoken to over 3 million students, and counseled thousands about life issues. Kevin's own experiences, his positive attitude, and his unique ability to communicate effectively with young audiences have made him a role model and mentor. Kevin is a former professional basketball player as well as a recording artist. He is currently the executive director of Elevate New York, an educational mentoring nonprofit he founded in 2009.

Ben Reiter is a senior writer for Sports Illustrated, which he joined in 2004. He has written 25 cover stories for the magazine and has also contributed to Time and The Village Voice, among other publications. His SI feature 'The Seeker: The Complicated Life and Death of Hideki Irabu' won the 2017 Deadline Award for Magazine Profile. He frequently appears on radio and television stations across the United States and around the world, and is a regular commentator on the MLB Network. Reiter is a graduate of Yale and Cambridge. He lives in New York City with his family. Astroball is his first book.

About Astroball

When Sports Illustrated declared on the cover of a June 2014 issue that the Houston Astros would win the World Series in 2017, people thought Ben Reiter, the article’s author, was crazy. The Astros were the worst baseball team in half a century, but they were more than just bad. They were an embarrassment, a club that didn’t even appear to be trying to win. The cover story, combined with the specificity of Reiter’s claim, met instant and nearly universal derision. But three years later, the critics were proved improbably, astonishingly wrong. How had Reiter predicted it so accurately? And, more important, how had the Astros pulled off the impossible?

Astroball is the inside story of how a gang of outsiders went beyond the stats to find a new way to win—and not just in baseball. When new Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow and his top analyst, the former rocket scientist Sig Mejdal, arrived in Houston in 2011, they had already spent more than half a decade trying to understand how human instinct and expertise could be blended with hard numbers such as on-base percentage and strikeout rate to guide their decision-making. In Houston, they had free rein to remake the club. No longer would scouts, with all their subjective, hard-to-quantify opinions, be forced into opposition with the stats guys. Instead, Luhnow and Sig wanted to correct for the biases inherent in human observation, and then roll their scouts’ critical thoughts into their process. The numbers had value—but so did the gut.

The strategy paid off brilliantly, and surprisingly quickly. It pointed the Astros toward key draft picks like Carlos Correa and Alex Bregman; offered a path for developing George Springer, José Altuve, and Dallas Keuchel; and showed them how veterans like Carlos Beltrán and Justin Verlander represented the last piece in the puzzle of fielding a championship team.

Sitting at the nexus of sports, business, and innovation—and written with years of access to the team’s stars and executives—Astroball is the story of the next wave of thinking in baseball and beyond, at once a remarkable underdog story and a fascinating look at the cutting edge of evaluating and optimizing human potential.

CEO of LPK esports & Entertainment Matt Prisco and Team Manager and Head Coach of Knicks Gaming Kyle Rudy join the show for a discussion about esports and the NBA 2K League.

About LPK esports & Entertainment:

LPK Esports and Entertainment is a company that represents professional esports players in all aspects. From sponsorship and endorsement deals, to player memorabilia and merchandising opportunities in conjunction with Steiner Sports, our services have you in mind. Additional services include social media enhancement, PR services, and philanthropy bookings aimed at building a player’s brand. We feel strongly that players should not be tasked with building their own brand. Our objective is building your brand by connecting you to sponsors you are passionate about, negotiating contracts using advanced data analytics and strong legal counsel, and managing the business and financial side of your career so you can focus on becoming the best gamer that you can possibly be. Our passionate team will fight for your interests and provide unremitting dedication to meeting your needs.

About Kyle Rudy

Rudy brings over 11 years of gaming experience to Knicks Gaming, two of which were spent as a starter for Throwdown, a competitive NBA 2K Pro-Am organization. His gaming accolades include the 2017 Road to the All-Star Game (PlayStation 4) championship, qualifying for the 2016 Road to the Finals (XBOX), and winning the 2014 $2,000 Gamebattles Season. The 2017 graduate of Anna Maria College also brings coaching experience to New York City as a former assistant coach in both basketball and football for the Millbrook High School Blazers.

About the NBA 2K League

The NBA 2K League is a professional esports league co-founded by the NBA and Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTWO). Launching in 2018, the league will feature the best NBA 2K players in the world. Each of the league’s 17 teams will draft gamers to compete as unique characters in 5-on-5 play against the other teams in a mix of regular-season games, tournaments and playoffs. The league will host tryouts in early 2018, followed by a draft in March and the season tip-off in May. For more information about the NBA 2K League, visit www.NBA2KLeague.com.

Emmy Award-winning actor Michael Imperioli joins the show to discuss his career coming up through the acting ranks, starring on The Sopranos, James Gandolfini, and a number of exciting new projects he just finished filming. In addition, Michael just released a new book titled, "The Perfume Burned His Eyes."

"Screenwriter and Emmy-winning actor Imperioli's first novel is the atmospheric coming-of-age story of 17-year-old Matthew, whose mother moves them from Queens to a posh apartment in Manhattan in 1976...Matt is not an atypical teenager--think Holden Caulfield without the cynicism--but, often afraid and awkward, he is a reactor, not an actor, until the end of the novel, which, without foreshadowing, comes as a harrowing surprise...Imperioli can definitely write, and he gets high marks for the verisimilitude and empathy that he evokes in this fine crossover novel." --Booklist, Starred Review

To purchase the book, visit: https://amzn.to/2pPcAoB