Fantasy Baseball Talk (Hour 2)

Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay.

This is Night Light with Pete Chihuahua.

Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.

And now, a guy who likes pina coladas but hates getting caught in the rain, Pete Chihuahua.

It is so much fun tonight talking about sack lunches.

Even the phrase sack lunch cracks me up.

Probably because I'm very mature.

But Brian from Milwaukee says turkey stuffing, meatloaf, and sweet potato fries, green beans, and cranberry sauce.

That's a great one.

That's like Ross Geller's sandwich on Friends, the favorite sandwich.

Annie from Watertown says tune the salad sandwich and Cheetos.

became this great lunch, sixth grade field trip, eating mom's brown bag lunch, sitting in the bus in the rain outside the Chicago Science and Industry Museum, 1968 or 1969.

Still a favorite weird drug of food, despite the paths my diet has gone since.

It's interesting, food truly is medicine.

You're absolutely right, Andy, that's a great text.

And Steve from Florida says, great lunch sandwich is liver worst and sliced onion.

Finish it up with a little Debbie brownie.

Mmm.

I Don't know about that.

I

love little Debbie's

you love onions.

Yeah, you put onions on anything but alright Steve I'd probably start with a little Debbie brownie and Finish with it as well if liver worst is in my lunch

We'll get to the rest of your texts as the show goes on.

Please join us.

We have the question tonight in honor of National Pack Your Lunch Day is, what is in your sack lunch?

My guest right now is Dan Davies.

He is a local filmmaker and actor who's doing some really cool things.

Very busy guy, taking time out here to be in the studio with me tonight.

We'll get to some more of Dan's projects in a minute, but I guess we have a phone call, Conrad.

For Dan.

Yes.

All

right.

Dan's getting all his calls here.

Wow.

Do I owe you money?

Yeah, just a dime though.

We're going old school.

Who is this, Conrad?

Susan from McFarland.

Susan from McFarland.

How are you, Susan?

I'm good.

Thank you.

I was calling because you piqued my interest because there's nothing musical about edginess.

So I was just trying to figure out how one makes a musical

to

take away the sting from edginess.

It's

a great question.

Yeah, that's a great question.

Thank you, by the way, Susan.

I'm from Wapaka about 15 minutes from Plainfield.

My grandfather worked for the Washera County DNR.

His best friend was the arresting sheriff who arrested Ed Gein.

He actually knew who Ed Gein was.

When I did the film in 2010, I interviewed a number of people from Plainfield.

I also did about three years worth of research to find out who Ed was from when he was at Wausau.

It was called The Hospital for the Criminally Insane or Mendota and had all the psychiatrists and psychologists in the books from Robert Galmer and literally learned as much as I could about him.

My film is a psychological treatise on why he became who he became.

His dad physically abused him and his mom.

they say sexually abused him.

So this was a recipe for disaster.

And there's gallows humor throughout the film as well as in the theatrical play, but it's done with respect.

I don't glorify Ed.

I don't glorify his actions.

I don't demean the victims and I don't minimize what he did And it's but there's some funny stuff and there's great music in it But just like Sweeney Todd is how could you make a you know play about a guy who's a cannibal and serving?

Yeah lunch counter meets with a human in it And you know so it's again, it's it's it's funny and it's you walk away with

Hopefully you walk away with an appetite.

And it's not because I wrote it and then I'm in it.

I think it's an amazing stage play.

And I think it's funny and it's lighthearted, but it's also psychologically meaningful

as well.

Susan, thank you so much.

I hope Dan answered your question

there.

Thank

you, Susan.

It's on to be right now.

It's

on.

Thank you so much.

Have a great night.

Drive

carefully,

Susan.

Thank you.

So how did you get started in?

Oh, wait, we have one more.

I don't want to miss, we've got two more comments for you, actually.

Daniel from Anasha says, was it difficult to make a tongue, kind of the same question, similar question, was it difficult to make a tongue-in-cheek version of Ed Gein's story if you want to give a condensed version of what we just said to

Susan?

And again, first of all, thank you, Daniel, for that great question.

It's not really tongue-in-cheek.

The interrogation, I've actually used a lot of the

the actual words and the things and the questions that the sheriff was asking during the interrogation.

And I did as much research to make it as correct as possible.

Michael Blake, the guy who wrote the Academy Award winner, danced with Wolves at Scenar Film.

He said it's the best film ever on Ed Gein.

Now he's passed.

He's

in

heaven right now, but that was the biggest thing.

So I think it's a really cool film.

That's awesome.

We've got one more for you, Dan.

Don't go anywhere.

You're not leaving yet.

Are you?

No.

Okay.

Hell no Ezekiel on the watching on Facebook says how about some chili made with TLC?

Maybe that wasn't directed to you.

Maybe our sack lunch

So that that's an interior that's a that's an inside joke actually Ezekiel's playing Ed Gein So and the TLC is you'll have to you'll have to see the the world premiere of the theatrical play

That's great incentive.

Thank you Ezekiel for watching on the stream and we have another phone call But this is for our question of the night.

Yeah, this is Ali from the Northwoods Hey

Ali, yeah real quick the old our old school lunch used to be mom would pack a tuna sandwich and an orange and To this day every time I smell orange

I'd go right back to tuna sandwiches

at

that lunch in school.

And another thing that we used to get was every time we went traveling, which we did a lot, mom always packed picnic lunch.

We never stopped at restaurants rarely.

And it would always be a warm ham sandwiches, mayo, and a boiled

egg.

I liked what you offered with the soup question better, Ollie, last week.

I'm not gonna lie.

I don't know about that ham and egg, but hey, thanks so much for calling

it, Ollie.

Thanks for listening.

All right,

Dan, I don't wanna go off on a tangent.

Look at the size of my head compared to yours on the screen.

I feel like my head needs to be in a museum.

Well, you have a ginormous head.

And you're not the first guest who said that no, but but my grandma said big had big wit little head not a bit You're a witty

guy.

I wouldn't say of a small head.

That's

not 25 inch circumference.

That's

you've measured your head

Yeah, because somebody said I could be at the Ringling Brothers Barnabon Bailey with a circus freak like head when I was a kid They said can we show movies on your head and I'm like what?

Yeah,

so I know what

that's like.

I get a size eight hat

You know, I don't even know

what my

I should run

over I don't even know what I could well the average is probably seven Is there

a way I

can make money off the size of my head?

Well, yeah, I put advertising right up there So all right, so ask answer this how did you get start like are there training place like let's say someone from Northeast, Wisconsin comes to you and says hey I want to do what you do.

How do I get started?

Yeah, I tell them you know always go online, you know, there are great

Videos on YouTube that can give you some really good solid acting advice You know get the professional headshots try to do as much film as you can for for gratis for free a lot of times you'll get gas and you know in Wisconsin It's beer and pizza or whatever right do will do as many of those things as possible do as much local theater as possible

If you have the money, go find somebody, Green Bay, Milwaukee, or Madison, that's an acting coach.

Take a few classes.

There's a lot of stuff online.

And just have fun with it.

It's tough to do it in Wisconsin.

You need to also be able to travel.

And that's, you know, the biggest thing.

But I always say, just enjoy yourself with it and, you know, take whatever is given you in

the Midwest.

So even if you have to be a PA, learn what it's like to be a PA and then watch the director and watch the actors.

And you might find out, and this happens once in a while, you go, I don't even want to be an actor anymore.

I want to be a lighting technician or

a

director or the sound guy.

That sounds really cool.

Or the post production guy,

you

know, doing editing.

So but yeah, do as many things for free as possible.

And people

that do

those

things, those

are

good livings too.

That's a thing like in the union or whatever and work a lot.

Oh, yeah.

And I also think people like nowadays, maybe since COVID, but.

how audition tapes, like sometimes my agent will contact me, I'll send, I'll do a file on my phone.

And that's acceptable.

Whereas 10, 20 years ago, you had to drive to Milwaukee, drive to Chicago, then living in here was, was much more difficult, would you say?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's, that's a nice thing about it, you know, to be able to do the auditions just, you know, online.

And if you have a halfway decent phone or even your laptop, you'd be able to do it and send it out.

And yeah, and you're up against many other people.

And like I was saying earlier, a lot of times people see something that I'm in in Netflix or Hulu or PBS and go, we like you, we want you to play this.

Or can you play a Russian?

Can you play this?

And I always tell them, yes, I can, even if I can't.

Then you learn.

And you Google something else and try to sound like Igor Szerovinsky.

All right.

We got about a minute and a half left, Dan.

Who are you acting?

influences like who as a kid or even as a young adult could you not turn off when you watch them on TV or in the movie?

You

know the first real actor that I always said the first natural actor everybody says it was Marlon Brando it was actually Jimmy Stewart

Jimmy Stewart was the first natural actor.

Prior to him, they'd be like, hey there, Bobby, come on over to the

soup kitchen.

They were doing characters.

They were doing

characters.

You know, where Jimmy Stewart's like, well, you know what you are, Mr. Potter, you're nothing but a scurvy little spider.

The people here live in this community.

Is it too much to ask that they live in a nice home?

You know, he was real.

And

he's my hero.

And Humphrey Bogart as well.

What did you think about our favorite Humphrey Bogart movie?

Casablanca is my favorite.

Rick Blaine.

All I want to do when I see that movie is hang out at Rick's American Cafe.

It's such a great joint.

Isn't it?

That movie is just magic to me.

What did you think about Gene Hackman as an actor?

Were you a fan?

Oh, I loved him.

Again, every

man.

He

played Gene Hackman.

But he played it well.

And he never made a bad movie.

Boy, that's a great point.

There are some actors who are so great, even a bad script can't.

Yeah.

Make, you know, they

can

help.

I don't know.

I, he's great.

Tom Cruise, I think, is another one who does not, whether you like Tom Cruise or not personally, because I went through a phase where I was like, eh, and then he's jumping on Oprah's couch.

I'm like, whoa, what a weirdo.

He's got the Scientology thing always in the forefront, but the guy doesn't make a clunker.

He doesn't make a clunker.

People that work with him love him.

Yeah.

Right.

That too.

They love him.

Dan, this was fun.

Thank you, my friend.

Thank you, Pete.

Come back soon.

Crush it at the Green Bay Film Festival.

This

Friday.

And then the world

premiere, Ed Gein musical, April 4th.

Outstanding.

Thank you, Pete.

Dan Davies.

Go see him this Friday at the Green Bay Film Festival.

Coming back with some fantasy baseball talk, it's Pete Schwabba and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Gain he's referring to was partial to fava beans and chianti served cold I Cannot nor do I want to confirm or deny that and Tyler says in his sack lunch.

I would imagine so Fictitious character we can give him whatever we want, right?

Tony the trucker says Pete my lunch bag is the biggest igloo cooler made so it's like a small suitcase in it.

I have three bottles of water a bottle of Craner G Cran energy drink.

I'm guessing yeah

Yogurt granola and energy bar carrot sticks cheese sticks and orange and orange grapes a banana and Trisket crackers I usually work 10 to 12 hours a day.

So this covers lunch and supper sounds like a lot, right?

Yeah, it sounds like you're preparing for the apocalypse Tony That's great Tony the trucker.

I thought he was our overnight listener Or is that a different trucker?

This

is Tony the

Tiger.

Tony, thank you

for the text.

That's

awesome, dude.

What is in your sack lunch, folks?

It's National Pack Your Lunch Day.

That's the question of the night.

Did I get all these kind?

I think I'm caught

up.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

People love food questions.

We gotta have a, you know, maybe we'll do like a recipe thing.

It's just not the question of the night anymore.

It's just food questions.

Just food questions.

We'll do that.

All right, so very exciting folks.

Tomorrow night on the show, from the Overture Center, Tim Sowers will join me.

I'll be live from Madison, and then Jeff Blankenship, the director, will join me.

And we might have a surprise guest.

We'll see what happens.

It'll be another fun night on Nightlight.

Right now, we are turning our attention to something I know nothing about, and that's why I'm excited.

A guy that works here at WGBW, he's got great accounts, he works his butt off.

Peter Van Doren joins me now.

He approached me about a couple of weeks ago and said, hey,

Would you ever want to do a fantasy baseball thing?

I said, yes, because I don't get it.

Pete, I've done football.

I've done fantasy football.

I hear that fantasy baseball is much more you have to really immerse yourself in it.

Well, I think I think in some ways it is a little more involved.

But the way I look at it is that, you know, with fantasy football, you're still, you know, looking at your lineup, you're, you know, sculling the.

you know, available players that aren't claimed already on fantasy teams.

You are, you know, checking injury reports, making, you know, making trade proposals.

The difference.

essentially is just with fantasy baseball.

You're just checking your line up more often, you know, right?

And if you're playing fantasy football rather intensely, you're probably on that website, you know, several times a day anyway, at least, you know, once a day, if you're

passionate

about

it.

I have to back up because I think there's a lot of people probably that don't really know.

Let's start like we're five years old.

Yeah.

Tell us what fantasy

baseball is.

Sure, sure.

So I actually want to just, you know, get this presented well.

So I researched Wikipedia.

Fantasy baseball is a game in which participants serve as owners and general managers of virtual baseball teams.

The competitors select their rosters by participating in a draft in which all relevant major league baseball players are available.

So the fantasy points are awarded based on actual performance of baseball players.

in real world competition.

Okay.

And so what that means essentially is that, you know, you are the owner of a fantasy team.

You have real players on this team and you're playing on, on the server in this day and age, like almost every major news sports outlet probably has a fantasy football site to go with Yahoo ESPN, CBS Sports.

I could play all those websites.

Okay.

Um,

with the game of fantasy baseball, there's essentially two different formats, right?

You've got head to head, which is very similar to how people play fantasy football.

Meaning the team that you oversee plays against someone else.

Another

real person.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And basically at the end of the week, you know, you win.

How baseball is a little bit different is it goes by categories instead of just kind of a cumulative

score based on real, you know, FL players performance.

Okay.

Um, so that's, that's one style that's, you know, very popular.

The other most popular format is rotisserie and rotisserie fantasy baseball leagues.

You're trying to build based on select categories and you're trying to lead the league in each of those categories.

So when you think of like major, you know, stats and baseball, you've got like.

batting average home runs, stolen bases.

Okay.

Uh, you're trying to, you know, essentially accumulate, you know, more of that than the rest of your opponents in the league.

So both of them.

And really most of fantasy sports for season long, we talk about season long.

It just involves the regular season.

So it's.

you know, all 162 games of the baseball season.

That's a commitment.

Yeah.

And last year, there was 163 because the Mets played that extra game.

All right.

Yeah.

So when you say there, there's rotisserie, there's one on one.

When you're doing rotisserie, are there still one on one matchups?

There's no matchups with the rotisserie.

You're competing against everybody.

Is that less

like if you were going to participate or join a league, it's rotisserie less time consuming.

I don't know that it's less time-consuming.

I think they both take up about the same amount of time.

I like the challenge of rotisserie because I think that oftentimes in a head-to-head league, you can be very dominant in some categories.

And that'll carry you through.

But with rotisserie, it really kind of exposes those weakens.

You have to have a very balanced team.

And that's why when we look at fantasy baseball players,

Oftentimes the more desired hithers are going to be those players that put up, they call it like five categories.

And, you know, it's, uh, stolen bases, homeruns, RBIs, runs, batting average.

Okay.

They have a very complete player like that.

It's easier.

put them in your lineup every day, you're going to get all those counting stats in your favor.

Do

they, in baseball, do they track defense like they do?

I know that was kind of

an

addition.

There is not.

No.

No, often in fantasy football, you play like a defensive team.

It's just kind of how that squad does the whole in a given game.

Baseball, typically there's no defense involved in it.

Even if a guy wins a gold glove.

He's dead to the fantasy baseball world.

Yeah, it's pretty much often.

It's so terrible.

It's pretty much offensive production

and pitching.

Okay.

All right.

Peter Vandoren is here, folks, for talking fantasy baseball.

I don't know much about it.

I'm trying to learn a little bit about it.

I know.

the basics of fantasy football.

And when I joined fantasy football here at Civic Media, I had a rocker saw that I was not taking it seriously.

He's one of the Maxink radio hosts.

And he said, I just want to remind you, you're in the pro league here.

We have a smaller league if you'd rather do that.

So I won that league this year.

Oh, the pro

league.

Very well done.

I didn't join at all.

I know my limitations.

We're coming back.

Civic Media's award winning news team is about to tell you what you need to know.

And then we'll be back reading your texts and talking more with Peter Van Doren about fantasy baseball.

This is Pete Schwabba.

and Night Light.

So glad you're with me on this Monday night.

This gorgeous Monday night on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Every time I think of you, I feel a shock right through and above all through.

It's no problem in mind, but it's a problem I find.

Living a life that I've never had.

All right, and have a nice day out, folks.

But we're making it even better.

We're talking sack lunches, and acting, and fantasy baseball.

And Bridget checks in from the 818 on the text line.

She says, my mom packed a PBJ sandwich with butter.

Oh, that's a Wisconsin thing.

Butter on peanut butter and jelly.

Oh, so it's...

Or

on a ham sandwich.

PBNB

and

J?

PBNJNB.

Just to complicate things.

She thought it was a treat.

I didn't particularly like the butter, but I thought that was how they were made.

Oh, man, Bridget's mom totally steered her wrong.

Unintentionally, I'm sure.

But no, that's the thing in Wisconsin, two ham sandwiches.

I go to my wife's family reunions in New London.

And they had ham sandwiches.

They were serving ham sandwiches with butter and mayo.

And I thought the guy was joking when he said, I go, oh, what's on this butter and mayo?

And I kind of went, and there was nothing from the guy.

He's like, I'm like, oh, OK, I don't think I could eat that.

I don't think I could muscle that down if he paid me.

And then we got some comments on the stream.

This is Rondo, Rondo Huckbody.

Rondo if that's not made up.

I apologize.

It sounds made up and I love it either way He says knock it out of the park Pete Is that you yeah?

That's a friend of mine.

That's a friend.

It's a real name.

Yeah.

Well, come on Aaron.

It's Aaron

Aaron.

All

right.

Well, let's yeah, okay Oh, what happened?

We got some something going on here with the stream.

So is he in fantasy baseball with you?

He is not no, okay?

I don't like way back of the day.

He's taking out pee buys together where?

Oh, nice.

OK.

And Rondo says, who are the key players on your pro league team?

First, let's get to that in a second.

Pete, what is in your sack lunch?

Sure.

What's in my sack lunch?

Your sack lunch.

You put your lunch together at home?

Well, yeah.

So, like, I cut some venison sausage like

every day.

Some venison summer

sausage.

Yeah, I've eaten a lot of

that this week.

OK.

I can tell by your rosy glow you've been eating a lot of venison.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Peter VanDoren, ladies and gentlemen, joining me in the studio tonight.

He's part of the team here at WGBW.

Does great work.

Sales, and you've got your accounts are crushing, right?

Yeah, man.

Yeah,

yeah.

I'm in sales.

I work kind of between here as well as WISS, which is our Appleton and Oshkar station.

Alpton and Oshkosh are official affiliates of the Milwaukee Brewers.

I was going to ask you about that.

So why don't you elaborate on that

for

sure?

Definitely want to give a shout out

to that.

So we've got all the games, all 162 plus.

Right now we've got spring training going on.

Wow.

We are going to have the playoffs, I think, right up through the World Series.

I mean, potentially, hopefully the Brewers make it.

We'll see what happens with them, you know?

but we are looking for business sponsors for that too.

So if you were a business owner or you do marketing for a company, definitely reach out to us.

You can give us a call here in the studio, Conrad will pick up, take your information, and we'll totally get you set up as an

in-game sponsor of the Milwaukee Brewers.

I'm just gonna tell you folks, here's what a great closer Pete is when it comes to sales.

He got me to buy advertising on my own show.

So it's Night Light with Peach Wamba sponsored by Night Light Peach.

I'm out 10 grand somehow, and it was like I was totally hoodwinked, and I just went with it.

So the guy knows his stuff.

But so all right, now we'll go back to, so I'm sorry, your sack lunch is?

Venison sauce.

That's it?

Venison summer

sausage.

Well,

you know,

I pack an apple,

you know,

maybe like a bag of Doritos.

Dipping sauce for the venison.

Not too much, like usually a ranch, like a spicy mustard is pretty good, you

know?

And what would make you a real man is if you brought venison sausage and dipped it in the actual blood of the animal.

That would be pretty wicked, yeah.

Wow.

You'd have a serious glow working then.

Peter Vandoren, we're talking fantasy baseball.

Your friend, Rondo Huckbody, real name.

Right?

I think he cleared for it.

Sort of.

Yeah.

Real nickname.

Real nickname.

He says, who were key players on your pro league team?

So we're talking fantasy baseball.

before we get to Rondo's question, it works a lot like fantasy football.

There's just a lot more to keep up on, right?

Yeah, there's definitely

more to

keep up on because there's more players.

Yeah.

But another aspect of it that I do really enjoy with fantasy baseball is that because there are more players, typically the rosters are bigger.

You have a little bit bigger selection of players.

So you may not need to have kind of that record breaking player

on your

team.

like you don't have to have like a paid manning set in the single season touchdown marker, Calvin Johnson, you know, catching the most passes of all time.

And, you know, in fantasy baseball, I mean, sure, having like a Sohei Otani is like a huge asset.

I mean, the guy put up like 50 home, 50 home runs, 59 steals last year.

But, you know, but at the same time, because the rosters are bigger, it maybe is not like, uh, as much of a single deciding factor by having like that player in the middle of a record breaking season.

Yeah,

that's the baseball.

Okay.

And I assume it's like football where the top guys, the guys with the best stats.

are the best are the first to go in a draft.

Does the draft take forever like compared to a fantasy football draft?

Kind of depends on the timer.

I mean, I suppose probably about two hours maybe and like an average 12 team league.

Oh, it's it's about the same.

OK.

So all right.

So like I said, for those who don't play your friend, Rondo's question, who are the key players on your pro league team?

Who did you draft, Pete, that you're excited about?

Well, let's see.

So I so.

You know, I compete in a couple of cash leagues every year.

And one of them I do is actually a keeper league, which allows you to keep three players every season.

OK.

And we've been doing the keeper league for several years now.

This season, I plan on keeping Gunnar Henderson from the Orioles shortstop.

I have Corbin Carroll from the Diamondbacks, an outfielder, as well as Kyle Tucker, who recently got traded at the Cubs last season.

OK.

Does this mean anything to you, Conrad?

Can you vouch that these are good players?

I can vouch that they're good keepers.

Why don't you play fantasy baseball?

Well, I know I actually I did draft a team this year, but I drafted Gary Cole.

So it sucks there.

Oh, yeah, it's kind of a tough break there.

He mentioned that that's like how much does it cost to play fantasy baseball compared to football?

about

the same.

It's however much you want,

you

know, like the keeper league I'm in is the Vladimir Guerrero Invitational.

I

give a shout out to those

guys.

Cox Sammies is one of the team

names.

Watch your language.

Yeah.

What's his name?

Cox Sammies.

One more time.

Cox Sammies.

That's his team name.

I'm not going to tell you about the picture he has as profile.

That's his team name.

That's his team name.

Yeah.

Do you want to help my brother?

I'll just tell this story quick.

He had the Twitter handle at UW Badgers.

When Twitter first came out, my brother Andrew had at UW Badgers.

So obviously, Wisconsin wanted that for their own Twitter account.

And he

said, well, if you don't give it to us, we're going to sue you.

And he said, well, I'm a lawyer.

Bring it on.

And at the end of the day, he graduated from there.

It's his place.

He loves it.

He says, look.

I'll give it to you.

Let's not, whatever.

And they said, oh, great.

Well, what can we do for you?

And he goes, I'll tell you what, like, instead of asking for season tickets, he asked for a signed football from Barry Elvarez and a signed basketball from Bo Ryan.

And they said, yeah, we can make that happen.

So he takes a picture of the two balls and his fantasy football team named that year was special balls.

His son, his son saw it as 11 year old son.

He goes, dad.

You can't do that.

I mean, you know what that means, right?

He had to play dumb because he didn't want his kid to.

But yeah, those are those names, those risqué.

Names are all over fantasy sports, right?

Oh, definitely.

It's very

immature.

It's a very low-brow humor at times, yeah.

Peter Van Dorn is here.

He is part of the WGBW team here.

He does great work regarding sales, and he was just pitching how Civic Media got the Brewers on WI Access.

Yeah, yeah.

Email

me.

I'll tell you more.

Yeah.

Peter at CivicMedia.us.

Very simple.

How did you get started in fantasy baseball, and when?

Was it already kind of in the throes of its popularity?

or were you an early entry?

I would

say it was in the throes of its popularity.

Bear in mind, the sport precedes the internet.

That's how long it's been around.

I want to talk about that, too.

I actually did some research on this.

That

surprised me.

The sport of fantasy baseball, apparently back in 1980, a bunch of writers assembled at a cafe, Lotisserie.

Fran say it was the name of the cafe.

And that's why

it's

history baseball.

Yeah.

It's

crazy.

But who knows?

You know, sometimes the origins are very obscure.

Like I know John Madden took credit for starting fantasy football.

Is that not true?

Yeah.

Well, I don't know.

I mean, I watched some kind of NFL pregame.

He talked all about it.

Yeah.

John Madden also took credit for writing all the code for Madden the video game.

So you know, it's kind of full of great guy.

But come on, let's be honest.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right,

so you started what

year was that

about?

Oh, so probably I started probably around like early 2000 like yeah about 2000

so how did that work before the internet how on earth did did fancy baseball or football for that matter happen

people were like literally just you know reading their daily newspaper checking box scores You know they were drafting in person over the phone You know all the scoring was basically just done.

You

know

how to talk

about how they each earlier talked about how each category is like scoring categories.

We're trying to get the most home runs in the league over the course of the season.

Well, for that, I mean, people had just keep track of it manually.

Trust that everybody else in their league.

Well, it's hard to lie about that stuff.

I'm sure stats or stats, but like,

wow, what a that's crazy.

Yeah, it's so crazy.

It's just evolved so much, especially when it comes to like

daily lineups where you can just, you know, kind of assemble the perfect team for just a day and see how they perform.

Yeah.

A lot of people legally bet, you know, do like legal betting on that now.

So

it's crazy.

You can bet on fantasy baseball.

Yeah.

Pete Rose bet on actual baseball.

Right.

And paid the price for it.

Yeah.

Yeah, he did.

Yeah.

Wow.

I have mixed feelings.

We have two.

That's all on the topic.

seems like kind of a jerk, but you can't deny what a phenomenal player

he was.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, he definitely was.

But for me, like, I think it was the new commissioner came in and he met with Pete Rose, you know, kind of Pete Rose made one last plea to be inducted in the Hall of Fame.

And he kind of was turned down because of his his actions.

Like they said that Pete Rose hadn't changed his lifestyle at all.

He was still, you know, very much a compulsive gambler still in Vegas all the time.

And just right.

You know, it was just kind of that he, uh, hadn't really shown any, I guess remorse with what he'd done.

And that's like, I don't have, I don't have much knowledge, but I feel like if he didn't bet on his team, even if he bet on baseball, that might be with time, you can forgive that.

But if you bet on his own team and affect the outcomes of the game, I have no problem with him not being in the Hall of Fame.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Way off there.

I

think it's definitely, you know, in line.

Yeah.

So your friend Rondo Huckbody says, I just love saying that.

Did you draft any Packers?

Wait a minute.

You know, well, I mean Packers be football,

right?

But the thing with any fantasy sport, I think, is that you really, you know, don't want to.

hold a grudge against anybody.

I mean, for instance, you know, I mentioned I have Kyle Tucker of my fantasy baseball team.

He's a cub.

Well, you know, you really want to be open minded and not just limit yourself to your favorite team or your

favorite

players.

So, um, unfortunately, you know, oftentimes we do play in these leagues in Wisconsin, like we're in, you know, you, you find that people are, uh, paying up a little bit more for, you know, players in the Packers, the Brewers.

So, um,

I'm trying to think of a draft at any Packers.

I think I had Jordan Love in like one league.

Oh, yeah.

It was kind of mixed results.

Yeah.

Had like an okay,

not like

stellar season.

Yeah.

That probably

didn't help things.

Yeah.

It didn't help too much.

What is, what do you prefer?

Do you prefer fantasy baseball over fantasy football?

I do.

Yeah.

I like, I like the challenge of it.

You know,

like

drafting, you know, like just being able to like go after players.

It takes a lot of patience, you know, because I mean.

Baseball is fairly inconsistent at times, you know, and also there are a lot of stretches that go along with it.

You know, that's how you kind of look at it with fantasy football is that, uh, you know, every, every, you know, every Sunday is just like, wham, here's all these results.

Whereas baseball is a little more drawn out.

Yeah.

That's interesting.

So, uh, do you think you can keep up with this Conrad?

Yeah.

Okay.

Every day you got to

update, right?

I mean, it's like, yeah, every day you got to update, you know, um, you know, I, uh,

I follow some fantasy baseball podcasts.

You know, I

also

like CBS sports, one of my favorites.

For football, though, I mean, I listen to like lots of NBC sports, lots of, uh, uh, yes, peon Matthew Berry is a great fantasy columnist for fantasy football.

I have to be honest.

All you can think about right now is you wolfing down venison sausage and listening to podcasts.

This is just what I do.

Yeah.

I like, I like

check my lineup all doing that.

Peter Van Doren is here.

We're talking fantasy baseball.

So, all right, so how are you doing so far?

Or how did you do last year, I should say?

Well, let's start with that.

Let's do a quick break.

We'll come back.

I want to find out just how good you are at fantasy baseball.

We'll do that.

I'm going to ask Peter what he's watching on TV and movies.

So be ready for that.

No fantasy there, buddy.

It's the real thing.

Fiction.

We're going to come right back and close this thing up with our pal, Peter Van Doren.

He's very tall.

Can you dunk?

No,

not quite.

No?

All right.

I can

take credit

for dunking.

Talk about that.

We're coming right back.

Great to have you with me on this Monday night.

Beautiful day here in Wisconsin.

It's Pete Schwabba and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio

Network.

Turn around.

On Nightlight, I'm live from Madison, which will be fun.

We'll have our old pal Tim Sowers.

He is going to literally walk across the street from the Overture Center and join me in the studio.

And we'll talk about some fun shows coming up the Overture.

And then director Jeff Blankenship joins me tomorrow, possibly in studio as well in Madison.

And we might even have a surprise guest.

Lots of fun every time we're in Madison.

And then Wednesday night, I'll just take this opportunity to plug.

There's a political event.

And then we're doing a shortened show.

It's just an hour, but it's going to be all big Lebowski talk.

We're going to celebrate the day of the dude.

and do a Lebowski quiz.

It's gonna be great fun.

So join me Wednesday night as well, although that will not be live.

And a great guest the rest of the week too.

Mary Mack joins me on Thursday to make the popcorn pick of the week.

And Appleton-based comedian Rob Brackenridge will be here in studio.

Rob is always a blast.

And Barbaton Friday night coming up.

All kinds of fun stuff headed your way on Nightlight.

Peter Van Doran is my guest here.

We're talking about fantasy baseball, and he is a big enthusiast and a big guy.

What are you, 6'4"?

About 6'3".

You think he could beat Conrad in an arm wrestle?

We should try that after the show.

What if Pete's arm was like a foot longer than yours?

It probably is.

I

have short arms.

Can we make, can we make like a fundraiser out of this?

Oh, that would be good, yeah.

We'll go for a high spot.

Let's get in on that.

Take a place of better two.

Have you ever seen, I watch Reels sometimes at night when I'm bored, like on Instagram?

Oh

gosh,

yeah.

That clip, I don't know if you guys saw this of Lenny Randall, a pitcher, this is like in the 70s.

I remember him as a player.

A pitcher threw at Lenny Randall.

I didn't hit him because he was still up.

So he went down, just missed his head.

Lenny Randall on the next pitch lays down a bunt to the first base side.

The pitcher goes after the bunt.

Lenny Randall goes out of the baseline and just drills him.

as payback that was baseball in the 70s like when it was just I mean it was insane and obviously both benches erupted and yeah I'm sure they got kicked out but well it's a great clip