Phillies reliever Pat Neshek on paper routes, baseball cards and binge-watching 'Ozark'

Ryan Fagan

Phillies reliever Pat Neshek on paper routes, baseball cards and binge-watching 'Ozark' image

Sporting News writer Ryan Fagan is traveling through Florida and Arizona the next few weeks, stopping at spring training games and talking with as many players as possible. One of his side projects is a quick-hitter Q/A we’re calling “Two Minutes With …”

Today: Phillies reliever Pat Neshek

MORE: Two Minutes With ... Clint Frazier | ... and Touki Toussaint

What’s your first baseball memory?
Neshek: 
We had one of those big bats, and I’d go around the yard hitting the ball. I was probably like 3 years old. I used to carry that thing everywhere. That was one. And then probably opening baseball cards, I think in 1985. I would have been about 5 years old. I really liked the Fleer, but I was a Topps kid. But the Fleer designs were good then. I had a paper route and I’d buy a few boxes, for like 45 bucks. I thought it was a good idea at the time.

What’s the last show you binge-watched?
Neshek:
 "Ozark." That was good.

What’s your favorite free-time activity? 
Neshek: 
Probably just hanging out with my kids now. It used to be baseball cards, but it’s my kids now. They’re 5, 3 and 1. 

What was your first job?
Neshek:
 I delivered papers, so I was a paper boy. We’d load them up (on the bike) and deliver them, then after a while I started paying some of the neighborhood kids to help me. 

If you were MLB commissioner for a day, what’s one thing you would do?
Neshek:
 Um … (long pause) … probably start talking with the players a lot earlier.

What are a few of your favorite Twitter follows?
Neshek:
 Oh, I don’t know. Just the people who break the news. It’s kind of my newspaper.

What’s the best purchase you’ve ever made?
Neshek:
Probably some of the signed baseball cards. I don’t really have any in particular, but just some of them from like 10 years ago, the ones you can’t find anymore. 

Ryan Fagan

Ryan Fagan Photo

Ryan Fagan, the national MLB writer for The Sporting News, has been a Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2016. He also dabbles in college hoops and other sports. And, yeah, he has way too many junk wax baseball cards.