NL DIVISION SERIES: BREWERS VS BRAVES

October 8, 2021

Kolten Wong

American Family Field

Milwaukee Brewers

Pregame 1 Press Conference

Q. I think you shared -- because you saw Counsell talking about you yesterday. What did that mean to you? He's done a little bit in this game.

KOLTEN WONG: Yeah, just to get the praise from somebody like that, a guy that I looked up to growing up. And just when you can impress somebody of his stature, has seen a lot of players, a lot of guys do this, it just makes you want to work harder and continue to push, push the envelope.

Just how he said it too, the fact that he respected the way I played it my way, did it my way. It was something that I was pushed as a younger kid. I just knew that, growing up in Hawaii, I played the game different than everybody else.

Coming up here to be told to play a certain way was tough. It was cool to get that recognition.

Q. The offense kind of sputtered down the stretch for you guys in the regular season. I'm wondering, do you have confidence that you guys will be able to turn it up and get it going here, starting with Game 1?

KOLTEN WONG: I hope so. If not we might as well go home now. This team's been doing it all year. And I think we've had doubters the whole season regardless of what we've done. So we know what we can do. We're going to stay quiet. We're going to keep doing our thing in the clubhouse, keep pushing away.

At the end of this whole thing, hopefully we can make everybody eat their words. We know what we can do.

Q. When you talked to us after you signed here, you talked about there's a reason why you wanted to be here and the culture and atmosphere and chemistry. Did it meet or exceed expectations? Was it beyond what you were expecting?

KOLTEN WONG: For sure. I mean, to celebrate here after we clinched was pretty special. I've never been in a place where we had the confetti dropping on us after we clinched and whatnot.

Just to see the excitement of the fans and how excited they were to finally see this. We had the Bucks earlier in the season and now to bring this excitement to baseball. I think this town is buzzing right now. Everyone's excited. We're hoping to continue to push and go as far as we can. We want to make this city and this place very proud.

Q. You've talked about playing the game a different way growing up in Hawaii. What do you mean by that?

KOLTEN WONG: I mean, I think you look at people from the Dominican, you look at people from California, everybody plays the game a certain way.

I don't know if that's something with how coaches are or just how you grew up, but in Hawaii we play the game a different way, too.

It's really hard-nosed baseball, but understanding that we don't have the type of coaching and technology that people in California or people in the main United States have. So you learn how to play things different. You learn how to do things different.

We have these different fields. Where I grew up it was all dirt. You understand that for us funneling is huge when you're fielding ground balls. You understand that the bounces are always going to be crazy. They're always going to be different. In Hawaii you learn how to use your hands a lot more.

Seems like the same way in the Dominican. You don't have the best fields so you learn how to work with what you've got. Where I feel like when you grew up in California, you grew up in Florida, all these baseball -- Texas, all these baseball places -- you have these immaculate fields as kids. Your coaches are able to tell you to keep your arms out. Don't funnel. Do these different things.

So sometimes I feel like that gets caught up in teaching kids. I think it really comes down to where they're from and the things that they had growing up.

That was something with me, I grew up on fields where it was all dirt. You had the crazy bounces you and had to be aggressive and learn how to field on all these different places.

I didn't have the luxury of having a field that was like this carpet up here where the bounces were easy to read. So I think that's where the flare comes from. And that's where the differences in styles come up.

Q. (Question about a news article). Did you have to declare that one with the Mrs.?

KOLTEN WONG: Absolutely, she was the first one who saw it, had to make sure it was okay by her. She loved it. It was such a cool story, especially for this being our first child. She was very excited about it. It's a cool story to have.

And later online he can look at it and laugh at it and realize that all this was based around him. So cool.

Q. What about the fan response? Looked pretty good.

KOLTEN WONG: Everybody thought it was awesome. People were laughing about it, reaching out, saying, like, fans said that they were doing the same thing. And it's funny to see how everybody, no matter what your status is in baseball, you all tend to have that compassion, that love for the game, regardless of how big the situation is. You're at task right then and there. My wife was cool with it. Nothing went wrong. It was all good.

Q. Is that because that was your first kid? Do you think that's going to be a legend in your family, just the way it all played out?

KOLTEN WONG: I named him Kash, so he's got to be pretty good, I guess. So we'll see.

Q. How do you think you guys are able to take advantage of the four days that you had off and the work that you guys were able to get in?

KOLTEN WONG: I think it was -- honestly, after 162, it's such a grind just to get to the end of that season. The four days, some people look at it as it could be making you sluggish or it could be taking you out of that rhythm. But I feel like it helped us a lot. Gave us that two days where we had completely off to kind of rebound and get your feet under you again, kind of slow things.

And the other, too, building up and getting ready for who we were facing, the bullpen who we're about to step in against. Just game planning.

I think we're all rested and ready to go. I'm just excited to get back out there. Sometimes when you get taken away from the game a couple days, it tends to light a fire in you. Hoping it does that for all of us and we can get going.

Q. This team has been in the postseason pretty regularly as of late, one of the best divisions in baseball. Why do you feel like you guys have been disrespected or embracing that underdog mentality? Is it just a simple small-market thing?

KOLTEN WONG: I think so. I mean, obviously we don't get the recognition like everybody else. But you look at who we won against. We played the Dodgers and we did well against the Dodgers. We played against the Padres, did well against the Padres. Played the Giants and did well against the Giants.

We faced all the dogs that we needed to face and we came out doing pretty dang well. I feel like people overlook that and don't realize that we are a pretty good team and we're not ready to go away quietly.

So I think that's kind of been the biggest thing is us being a small-market team and not getting the recognition has lit a little fire under a lot of guys in there. We just want to go out there and prove that, we don't have the money like the Yankees or stuff, but we're here.

Q. Building off that, the Bucks embraced that similar mentality on the road to an NBA title. What did you learn from just watching their journey to a title, and how did that influence you guys?

KOLTEN WONG: A lot. We got a chance to go to actually to the Finals championship game and see it go down. And you see the type of guys that were out there. Everybody knew their job, everybody knew their responsibilities.

And they came and they executed every single guy to a "T". It wasn't like one guy -- obviously you had Giannis going out and doing his thing, but for the most part every single guy knew their responsibility.

That's the same mentality we've been taking in the clubhouse, is understanding that everybody on this team is going to have a job. Don't worry about being Superman; just do what you have to do to help this team win, regardless if it's putting a bunt down, going out there and having a solid at-bat, being a pitcher and coming in and closing out that inning. Whatever you have to do, just do your part and the rest will take care of itself.

We all know how good we are. We have belief in every single guy in the clubhouse. So, let's just go out there and next guy up.