Inside a television studio designed to look like a ballpark, Kevin Millar is using a yellow Wiffle Ball bat to knock imaginary dirt off his cowboy boots. Ryan Dempster is standing on a makeshift mound, reaching into a bucket for a couple of plastic balls.
The premise of this talk-show segment is that Miller and Dempster never faced one another in the big leagues, and now that they’re co-hosting MLB Network’s longest-running show, they’re going to finally face off on national television.
Except, Dempster throws the first pitch a little harder than necessary and bounces it at Millar’s feet.
“Whoa, whoa, that seems a little aggressive,” Millar says.
Two pitches later, Dempster drills Millar in the back and comes off the mound pointing at his old friend and saying the beanball was retaliation for a simulated game at-bat on a back field more than a decade ago. Apparently Millar took Dempster deep, rounded the bases, stepped on home plate and left.
“The whole entire park,” Dempster says. “He left. He touched home plate, and he ran straight past all of us.”
Millar interjects.
“When you hit a home run off your buddy and you’re so excited!” Millar said. “He was actually cranky about it! So, I had to go and let him know like I’m Rickey Henderson. I’m giving him all the skits. He’s actually mad at his best friend!”
It’s June of 2023 now at the MLB Network Studio in New Jersey, but it’s been like this with Millar and Dempster for more than two decades across various locales. They poke fun at themselves, make fun of one another, and never run out of material. Millar, 51, and Dempster, 46, met as teammates on the then-Florida Marlins in the late 90s, grew their friendship across time and distance in the major leagues, and now they’re co-hosting Intentional Talk with Siera Santos every weekday. The show will be a centerpiece of MLB Network’s on-site All-Star coverage Monday and Tuesday in Seattle.
At its heart, the show is about a shared passion for baseball. The trio of hosts analyze the game, share insights, and interview current players, asking about mechanical adjustments but also digging into the personal side of the game. One of Millar’s favorite questions: “Who’s your cheapest teammate?” Anything to get a laugh or an unscripted response. The show revels in both the joy of a tremendous catch and the absurdity of an embarrassing blooper, and its hosts walk the line between reverence for the game and appreciation for a light-hearted insult.
“We know in our hearts,” Millar said, “that we will not let the network down.”
Marlins spring training: February 1998
Dempster and Millar are trying to tell the story of the day they met, and they agree on the basic details.
It was the first big-league spring training for both of them. Dempster, the jolly jokester from Canada, had been traded to the Marlins from the Rangers. Millar, the loveable loudmouth from southern California, had signed out of independent ball and hit his way onto the prospect radar. Within a few months of meeting, both would make their big-league debuts.
“Ryan and I got very close literally minutes after we met each other,” Millar says.
Dempster had the same experience.
“I think my first impression of Kevin was I just marveled at how much fun he had every day,” Dempster says. “He was just vibrant. I got that right away. It hit me in the face.”
As if to illustrate this point, the two clarify that their initial meeting was in 1998 because both were still in minor-league camp in 1997. At this point, Millar begins to answer a question absolutely no one asked.
“That wasn’t a big deal, guys,” Millar says. “You guys are embarrassing me. I was just Player the Year that year (in Double A). Thank you for that.”
Dempster follows this sudden shift of topic with ease and immediately chimes in.
“132 RBIs!” he says.
Millar actually had 131 RBIs in 1997, but Dempster is close enough. He has the gist. Clearly, he’s heard Millar’s tale of false modesty before, and he knows just how and when to play his part in telling it.
MLB Network studio: April 2011
In the debut episode of Intentional Talk, Millar and Chris Rose sit side-by-side in the MLB Network studio in New Jersey. Millar has a laptop in front of him, a baseball glove on his left hand, and something in his hair.
“I wasn’t sure if anybody was going to be able to look past the frosted tips,” Dempster said. “But I tell you what, the way he keeps it real and speaks the truth and has compassion for people as human beings — he never forgets how hard it is, how hard it is to hit, how hard it is to pitch.”
Intentional Talk has been on the air now for 13 years. Millar co-hosted with Rose for a decade (2011-20), setting the casual-but-passionate tone that’s been the show’s hallmark, and making Millar one of the network’s most enduring and consistent stars.
“There’s a little bit, sometimes, of a turn-up on the TV,” Dempster said. “But this is just life with Kevin.”
Adds Santos: “I’ve never met someone who’s so openly willing to be roasted.”
Nowadays the hosts are scattered across the country and rarely broadcast together in-studio, but they maintain a relentless text chain filled with both the mundane and the ridiculous of their daily lives, including — according to Santos — Millar feeding horses and “doing weird stuff” on his Texas ranch.
“Trust me, we cannot leak those messages,” Santos said.
Marlins rebuild: July 2002
Dempster and Millar played five years together in Florida. Dempster was at one point the winningest pitcher in franchise history, and Millar still has the Marlins’ fourth-highest career batting average. But they never had a winning record together, their half-decade in Florida falling (im)perfectly in between the Marlins’ 1997 and 2003 World Series championships.
“We grinded, man,” Dempster said. “We got our asses kicked a lot with the Marlins. We lost a lot of games. Look at the numbers.”
Millar doesn’t have to see the numbers. He knows the names.
“Glavine, Maddux, Smoltz,” Millar said.
The list could go on.
“It was all the time,” Dempster said. “Go to New York, and they’re loaded. You go to Philly, and they’re loaded. It was just one after another. It was hard.”
Those Marlins teams were talented (Mike Lowell, Josh Beckett, etc.) but too inexperienced to contend, and in the middle of the 2002 season, on the same day Cliff Floyd was traded to the Expos, Dempster was traded to the Reds. Seven months later, Millar’s contract was sold to the Red Sox.
“It was one of my toughest days when Ryan got traded,” Millar said. “It was my first time having one of my best friends in baseball and in life leaving and going to another team. Your life has changed. No more driving to the field. No more laughing in the showers. No more lunches and dinners. It changes.”
Fenway Park: Summer 2004
The exact date and finer details are fuzzy, but what’s clear is that Dempster was rehabbing from Tommy John surgery with the Cubs, and when his team went on a road trip without him, Dempster booked a roundtrip flight to Boston to watch his buddy Kevin from the good seats next to the home dugout.
“I remember Trot (Nixon) sitting in the on-deck circle and he looks over,” Dempster said. “He kind of stopped and looked back at me like, ‘What the f— are you doing here?’”
Millar had tried to get Dempster to be a part of that curse-breaking ’04 Red Sox team, but Dempster wanted to follow Chris Carpenter’s lead and sign a one-year major-league deal with a team option, which he wound up getting with the Cubs. Dempster finally won his own Red Sox championship in 2013.
“Because my good friend Kevin left the juju,” Dempster said.
Dempster was a third-round draft pick out of a Vancouver-area high school, and he’s long respected Millar’s less traditional path to the big leagues. He can still rattle off the Cliffs Notes version of Millar’s story: Undrafted out of high school. Undrafted out of community college. Undrafted out of Lamar University. Millar played for the independent St. Paul Saints before signing a minor-league deal with the Marlins at age 22.
“Signed for a plane ticket, basically,” Dempster said.
“Nine hundred dollars and 27 cents, Ryan,” Millar interjected. “I went to Outback Steakhouse.”
“That was after taxes,” Dempster said. “You were in a lower tax bracket back then, Kevin.”
So, when Millar had his contract sold to the Red Sox in 2003 and almost immediately became an iconic part of an iconic team, Dempster just had to see it for himself.
“Oh, it was awesome to be able to see him go through that, having so much fun,” Dempster said. “It was one of your best friends in the game, one of your best friends in life, all of a sudden (he) gets this chance.”
Dempster’s apartment: Mid-season 2013
Millar jokes that he negotiated Dempster’s final big-league contract. It was a two-year deal with the Red Sox intended to cover the 2013 and ’14 seasons, but Dempster never played that second season. He won the World Series in 2013 and then stepped away to spend more time with family. In his last professional game, Dempster finally won a ring.
In the middle of that 2013 season, Millar came to visit. He flew to Boston with his wife and four kids, and they all stayed in Dempster’s guest room.
“He lived in one of these (apartments) on Copley Street,” Millar said. “You know, Copley Street. The pretty little street. Where the rich guys live, like Tom Brady and those people. Cobblestone and things.”
“Show pad,” Dempster said.
“So, he had the show pad right there by Fenway,” Millar said. “And he’s like, ‘Just stay with us. We’ve got the guest room with bunk beds.’ And literally, we had six people in one room. The AC went out. It was the funniest thing.”
Dempster actually thinks his parents might have been visiting that weekend, too, and the AC really did go out. It was a comedy of errors, and it was about to get even funnier.
“I wake up in the morning,” Dempster said, “and (Millar)’s down in my kitchen in his underwear signing a thousand autographs.”
Turned out, Millar had agreed to participate in an autograph show but wasn’t planning to attend the actual event, and so he’d asked to have all the cards and pictures and whatever else delivered to Dempster’s apartment. Dempster forgot to tell his wife, who was in for a surprise when she woke up that morning.
“This guy comes over with like 1,500 items,” Millar said. “And I’m downstairs in the kitchen.”
“(It took up) the whole kitchen island!” Dempster said. “I didn’t know they were bringing everything they had in Boston!”
All-Star Game: July 2008
Dempster’s career was trending in the wrong direction. He made his first All-Star team as a 23-year-old in 2000, but his ERA climbed higher and higher each of the next three seasons before he underwent Tommy John surgery at 26. When he returned from surgery, Dempster was pitching out of the bullpen. But he made the most of it.
Dempster became the Cubs’ closer for three seasons before moving back into the rotation in 2008 and, at age 31, having the best season of his career. He had 17 wins, a 2.96 ERA, got some down-ballot Cy Young votes, and struck out the side in the All-Star game.
“I always thought the word ‘experience’ was overrated,” Millar said. “I’m like, ‘Come on, dude!’ (When) you’re the young guy wanting to get called up to the big leagues, (you think) I can play in the big leagues! I’m hitting this and that in the minor leagues. Experience? Blah, blah, blah.
“Now you get a chance to see Ryan, who always had a top-five slider in the big leagues but didn’t have the innings under his belt, so the command of his fastball wasn’t perfect. And now you see these steps go (to make him even better). … To see your buddy (succeed) and watch him on TV, it’s like a high school buddy watching us on TV (today). You’re just so fired up.”
Millar goes on and on like this for another two and a half minutes, talking all about what a thrill it was to watch Dempster’s career resurgence from afar. When Millar’s finished speaking, Dempster says two words softly.
“Thanks, pal.”
MLB Network studio: May 2023
After a decade co-hosting with Rose, and two years with Stephen Nelson, Millar found himself in need of a new partner this offseason. Nelson was leaving MLB Network to join the Dodgers broadcast team, and Intentional Talk was down to one host and an empty chair. Millar had an idea.
“Show the world Ryan Dempster,” Millar said. “Our personalities are so similar and so different. He’s a comedian. He’s a card shark. He’s that kind of a skit guy. I’m the loud guy saying everything that everybody’s thinking. I’m not a guy that can walk around the showers naked. I’m a guy who’s going to go to the shower with my towel on, and Ryan would be the guy to go do a funny naked joke.”
Millar said this knowing he’s been shirtless on television with unusual frequency for a baseball talk show host.
“Everyone knows that Kevin Millar loves to be topless on television,” Santos said. “That’s not a secret. And Demp is always a willing participant in the ongoing banter about his hair. And they’re always ripping me about, who’s your boyfriend now?”
The new Intentional Talk lineup with Millar, Dempster and Santos debuted in April, but those three weren’t in-studio together until May. Santos called it a “vibe” when they were finally in the same room.
The show airs weekdays at 5 p.m. ET, meaning it’s often on in big-league clubhouses as players prepare for games. Millar has become a familiar presence, whether broadcasting from his Texas home or visiting ballparks and making small talk around the cages. Dempster walks the line between Matt Foley and Harry Caray impressions, and also genuine outreach like running the Boston Marathon to benefit the Lingzi Lu Foundation. Both have kids playing sports, and both said they still watch as much baseball as anyone they know.
“I don’t care who you are, on the day you retire, they play another baseball game,” Dempster said. “Baseball stops for no one. Kevin and I have a lot of great things because of this game of baseball. It’s afforded a lot of different opportunities and relationships, and (now) it’s about the next generation of players. And just like before, it’s about the (former) players making sure the (current) players continue to respect the game of baseball and play the game hard.”
Or, as Millar put it: “It’s all in love. We want all these guys to do well. There’s not a jealous bone in either of our bodies. This is what it’s all about.”
It’s a show about baseball, and a story about friendship.
With some boundaries.
“I’m glad you didn’t bring up that story about Tijuana,” Dempster says. “That’s for the next one.”
(Top photo of Millar, Santos and Dempster at MLB Network’s studios: Courtesy of MLB Network)