Stricker: You won the National League Cy Young Award in 1976. How do you think you became so successful?
Jones: Thanks Danny. Its always great to be back here on the mound, a fitting place to talk a little baseball. Now, the only way you can have success in baseball is through hard work. The great thing about baseball is that you do all that hard work, but its really something that you love to do. You get to play in the grass and dirt and have fun at the same time as you put in your work

Stricker: Did you have someone you admired and looked up to as a role model?
Jones: Early in my career I had idols, I would say Sandy Kofacs, the left handed pitcher for the Dodgers in the Hall of Fame. Sandy exemplified what I wanted to be, a successful pitcher in the National League. Now I couldn’t throw as hard as he could but I could use him as a model to become successful and that’s what I did. I think that’s still important today for kids to have something to shoot for. Everybody you see on the Padres has had that dream since they were little boys, to be professional baseball players, and you achieve that by working a little bit harder than everybody else.

Stricker: What kind of traits does it take to have that success?
Jones: With Kofacs, I think it, one thing was just a lot of belief in himself. The way he went about his business when he pitched, very confident, he didn’t wait for things to happen he made them happen on the mound. That’s what you have to do if you want to be successful. You can’t be defensive, you don’t hope to get somebody out. You’ve got to go up there with the aggressiveness and confidence that you know you are going to get the guy out.

Stricker: What advise do you have for kids to be successful?
Jones: Well were not just talking about baseball here. What ever your dream is in life, you have to go after it with a work ethic and chase that goal. Its not going to come to you. The only way to do that is to work hard. Go to college, get your education. whether its being a surgeon, an attorney or a baseball player.

Stricker: I understand you want to teach more kids about baseball. Can you tell me about your Baseball Academy?
Jones: At the Randy Jones Baseball Academy we have camps for young kids to teach the fundamentals. Everybody needs a good foundation of the fundamentals if you want to be a successful baseball player and that’s what I do at my baseball camp. If you have a better understanding of what you want to do, that’s going to make you more confident.

Stricker: What about your restaurant here at the stadium. Can you tell me about that?
Jones: We started on a whim eleven years ago and its grown every year. We've got my own barbeque sauce in stores now and we are looking forward to being in the new ballpark next year. Its a lot of hard work, but its a lot of fun too.