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  If you call yourself a baseball fan and don't know who Royce Clayton is, chances are you still own a John Rocker jersey or have an Expos poster on your wall. Mr. Clayton is the top 30 all time when it comes to steals, hits, triples, and he has recently added a World Series Championship ring to his trophy case.



  Mr. Clayton has given us the opportunity to talk about baseball, steroids, and his charity poker tournament. We hope you enjoy our interview with Baseball Superstar Royce Clayton.



LaunchPoker: According the New York Times, the average MLB career is only 5.6 years long. You are going into your 17th season. What do you attribute your longevity to?

Royce Clayton: I think I've just been blessed with health, and whole health is a lifestyle, both inner and outer. You just can't say that you are healthy by your outer [body]. Your inner peace has to be there as well. That starts with family as well as giving to other people and just being at peace with the world. I feel fortunate to be healthy not just in a baseball sense, but in a whole life sense.



LP: Was baseball your first choice?

RC: Absolutely! When I was about 11 or 12 years old my dad took me to a game here in LA at Dodgers Stadium. They were playing the St. Louis Cardinals and I saw Ozzie Smith playing shortstop. I remember telling my dad that it looked like he was having so much fun and that looked like he was doing things on the field that nobody else was doing. I fell in love watching Ozzie and I said to myself, "Hey, that's what I want to do when I get older". After I made the decision, I pursued it from that day on.



LP: It has long been stated that putting a round bat on a round ball is the most difficult thing to do in sports. You are currently 29th all time in hits. What do you do that makes you better at the plate than most other players?

RC: I think it's just preparation. You practice over and over again. The funny thing is that in a two and a half hour game if you get four at-bats they last just a few minutes. It shows that you really have to be focused and have your attention on the task at hand. You need the discipline to pick your pitch and try to square it up. There are a lot of factors into just getting hits. There is a little luck involved, so when you hit it, you have to hit it with a knot. It's preparation that goes in before the game that is germane to being successful at any craft: fielding, hitting, throwing. All these things look great on TV, but all the grunt work is done behind the scenes.



LP: You have been with 11 different teams in your career, what was your favorite team to play with?

RC: I would have to say that your first experience is like your first girlfriend. For me San Francisco was that situation. It was also the tradition that surrounded that organization. When I came in as a young player it was also the people I was able to surround myself with, not only on the field: Will Clark, Matt Williams, Willie McGee, the list goes on and on. To be able to have great players be like a father figure to me, while away from my father in LA, along with Willie McCovey, and others - all these guys were great influences to the all Giants players at the time. It was like family. So it was a really special situation, especially to come up in that system and be welcomed. So I would have to say it was the Giants.



LP: In the final analysis putting steroids and Human Growth Hormones don't help a player put the bat on the ball. Do you think it is being blown out of proportion?

RC: Absolutely not. Will I be proud to say, when I talk to my kids about it, will I be proud to say that I played through the steroid era? No, its not necessarily a part of the whole baseball picture that I'm proud to say I played during. I can be proud to say that I did it clean and was able to sustain even on the uneven playing field where a number of guys were obviously using enhancing substances. Even under those conditions I was able to go out and be one of the top players in the game. I don't think it's overblown because it is a problem in society.



Actually I had a dream about it, thinking to myself last night. You sit around amongst friends, comrades and colleagues, and you're playing the greatest game in the world at the highest level. For some people that's still not enough and I have a hard time figuring out why. We're blessed to play this game, like I said, at the highest level in the world and to compete against the best in the world and get paid handsomely for that. Some people still don't think that's enough. That's just greed.



This is something that we as a society need to deal with. Our kids need to get a better picture as far as what they hold valuable to their life and what's important in life. It's not about their egos and being bigger than anything, than the team or what you are dealing. It spreads to so many places I just think it's a bad, bad scene.



For anybody, and I hate to say names, but for Andy Petit to say he's a religious man and still do these types of things is just, to me, at total contradiction because it's just not right and it's not setting the right type of example that he's speaking on.



LP: From a fan's perspective, its cheating...

RC: Well also from a player's perspective. You know, the neatest thing for me in this game is sitting around players that are currently playing, that are past players, and we talk about the game. I guarantee you that when these conversations come up in the future we are going to know who amongst our circle has cheated, and they are going to have to basically sit there and feel that uncomfortable feeling of knowing that you competed against us and you weren't on an even playing field. So basically you shouldn't be in this conversation.



LP: Well you were mentored by Willie Mays, one of the greats, and he didn't need anything extra.

RC: To tell you the truth, none of us at this level need anything extra. At this level it's who wants it more, it's determination, it's will and to me that is the beauty of any sport. It's that will, that extra mile that you're willing to go from a working out/preparation standpoint. Anything else that you obviously know is going to put you at a whole different level that doesn't require the same type of work, to me is not fair. It's cheating yourself and cheating the game.



Following that, my biggest thing that I'm concerned about is the welfare of those players who decide to do this because we have not seen the fallout from years and years of doing this. These are young men we are talking about that haven't hit 50, 60, 70 years old who will have to deal with what is happening to their bodies after using these substances. I think it's going to be an ugly scene.



LP: Did being part of a championship program feel the way you thought it would?

RC: It's a little different situation. I played in over 2100 games and for the first time in my career I wasn't playing on an everyday basis. The last half of the season my role was as a backup with the Red Sox. I really thought that it would take away with it, but to share the experience with my family and my kids, it's something I will never forget. Earlier in my career I wouldn't have had that because my kids are young: our triplets are two and my oldest is four. Any earlier in my career I wouldn't have had that experience. That's what it's about. Everything that I've done, everything that I do is shared with my wife, my kids, my family. It basically put baseball at a point where I said, "Okay I've done it all now". I was just really grateful for it to be this year with my family and to have it happen in a great city like Boston where you have the greatest fans, to me, in baseball. It was just a really special thing. On another note, it was just the reception that my teammates had for me and the respect that they showed. I can't explain to you how much it meant to me. It was just a perfect, perfect scenario.



LP: If you could play for any throughout baseball history, who would you play for (i.e. the 1916 Red Sox, the 1984 Tigers, etc.)?

RC: I would have to say the 78/79 Dodgers. As a kid I fell in love with the Dodgers, watching them play. From that point on I could name you the lineup year after year after year. That was the beauty of baseball. Unfortunately, it's not even close to that anymore. I played probably in the last era where you were going to see anything remotely close to players playing together for a number of years. That was the beauty, those guys were able to mature together, they were able to know everybody's moves, the fielding, everything just moving together in a perfectly orchestrated form. Now you have guys that are lucky if they play more than six months together. It's a whole new ball game. I actually think it makes the game less enjoyable to watch, to play, and from a player's perspective I have been on the other side and saw how it's supposed to work and how it can work. Unfortunately, I don't think we will see that again and it takes away from the game.



LP: You just finished up the 2008 Poker Celebrity Bowl. How did it go?

RC: It went great. It was the first time I was able to host an event. I've always done golf tournaments for my charity or participated in golf tournaments for other charitable endeavors, we came together with Robert Williamson and Karen and helped orchestrate a beautiful event. The Royce Clayton Family Foundation raised over $50,000 from the poker tournament. In poker, everybody's in the same room so they are able to have conversations with various people involved in the event. It made it very special. We had a lot of fun and raised money for a good cause.



LP: Was the Poker Bowl successful enough to continue doing annually?

RC: I would really like to do this. The Superbowl is a great time for this event. I really think it brings out a lot of sponsors to help make things happen. We're thinking about doing something in Vegas annually, because I think Vegas is not a hard draw to get people to come out. It's definitely something I would be willing to explore and see how the sponsors feel about going forward. Especially the people who participated in the event this year.



LP: What is harder to do, bluff successfully or steal second?

RC: I would have to say bluff successfully. You can steal second in various ways, but when you're bluffing I think the only effective bluff is when you have chips. You're just not going to be imposing when you don't have any chips.



  LaunchPoker would like to thank Mr. Clayton for taking the time from his busy schedule to talk to us and bring his insights on baseball, charity, and poker to our site.