Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to WFHRs. Play, make cars.
Welcome to the show. Good afternoon, everybody. Happy Wednesday to you.
Seth and James hanging out with you this afternoon. We'll take your right
up to six o'clock, taking your phone calls, your sports feelings and moods and
energy and all of that. We want to send a big thank you to our friends at
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there for all your printing needs. Yep. Phone lines wide open, 715-424-2600. Feel
free to call up and join the conversation. I will not be paying attention.
You're not going to be paying attention. No, Seth, there is a, I had three, four
places I wanted to start with. I was just telling Seth where we were going to
go with our show and everything in our pre-game, but I am distracted. My man
be okay and finally wrapped up. Okay, now I can pay attention. Because I know
how much of you guys care out there about the Colorado Rockies in Boston Red
Sox game. I don't know if anybody saw this. The final score of that game that
just wrapped up 20 to seven. Oh, that's your typical course field game right
there, including a five run inning, a six run inning in there. Like, I mean,
geez, just actually Boston started to come back a little bit of that one,
but not doing that enough. That's kind of an insurmountable read, a lead
there. There was a, there was a little tiff earlier in that game too. Couple of
players started John at each other. The bench is clear. There was nothing
that happened. No one was ejected or anything, but still, you know, we're
seeing a lot more of that in sports right now. We've seen it, of course, we've
always seen it in soccer, but it's been more cover. It's been covered more.
And I think because in part North America hosting the World Cup pretty soon,
the soccer coverage getting a little bit more always around the Olympics,
but it's still interesting because some of that has been happening here in
this country, where we've seen some more of the like the craziness that
happened in Miami a couple of weeks back and everything. And then you've got
what's happened in the NBA with a lot more fan interaction, a lot more yelling
at players and stuff, seeing a little bit more of these things. Keep an eye
on that, everybody. Yeah. What I wanted to start our show. And we're definitely
starting our show is because we are a local radio station. We cover local,
not only will we get into rafters and brewers talking a little bit,
but I do want to talk about the is local as it gets and local heroes.
And that is Joe Povelsky. Mm hmm.
Plover native. Proud. Plover native, I should say, very proud of being from
the area. Joe Povelsky for those who didn't out here has officially announced
his retirement. Wow. More on that in a moment as far as his letter to his
fans and family and to all of us really. A Povelsky, one of the greater
careers of any American born player, one of only 10 American born players with
over 400 goals finished his career with a beautiful 476 goals,
592 assists over a thousand points. His thousandth point is one of my,
I guess what will end up being kind of my favorite last moment of his in his
career. Even though we saw him, you know, playing well on into the playoffs
and everything, it was that moment that was pretty cool to see. And he's a guy
who was given back to the area has come back to the area quite a bit. So
certainly not, not for nothing, you know, as far as those achievements go.
Also Povelsky headed, you know, was that Wisconsin in a proud Wisconsin
Badger. So there's certainly mentioning that in his career. But one of the
things that really stands out about Povelsky is how you there is not a
player in the NHL that has ever said anything bad about him. No, there's
no negative like storylines for that guy in his whole career. You never heard
anything about this guy other than, oh, that guy's going to get me some points
or that guy's going to at least try to get me some points or that guy's going
to defend me or fight for me or take a block shot in the playoffs or something
like that. It's not something you're going to see on any stats or anything
like that. But it is one of the more remarkable things about a career when you
can say that there's a handful of guys in hockey that can. But there's not that
many that were this good. There's a lot of guys that were good, but not
like walking into the Hall of Fame like Joe Povelsky's going to. Yeah, you
know, he seems like one of those guys and there's in every sport they have
these guys, they'll like the lunch bucket guys. Yeah, they just go in, do
their job every day, you know, and obviously he did it at a very high level
because he's getting, you know, Hall of Famer and all that. He's probably he's
going to get in. But yeah, those are the guys, those are the fun guys to
celebrate because you don't think about him that much until after their
career is done. Yeah. And then you're like, wow, he had a really good career.
How about this guy, you know, I also, I feel very naive with some every once in
a while, I there's an athlete that I feel very naive with. I didn't think he
was going to ever retire. I just felt like in Povelsky's going to be
another Gordy Hall 18 years. Is that what he played? He 18 seasons. Okay,
had one thousand 68 points. And one of the all-time leading scores in
Sharke's history along with stars history far up there on that one.
Seventh in points among active players. Povelsky ranked fifth in goals and
games and Seventh in points among players. Okay. And of course, I should mention
as well. At 18 was named in the United States Hockey League, rookie team,
ended up playing for them in Waterloo and going on to, I believe,
Captain to U.S. Hockey Junior Select team to the Silver Medal. Wow. So just
an incredible career. What a career, man. And if that wasn't enough, man,
his letter, his retirement letter, to me, is going to go down as one of the
better, like, written things I've seen. I did not, I just incredibly well written.
I'm not going to read the whole thing for you, but I want to read the
beginning and the ending. For the last 18 years, I have felt like one of the
lucky ones. I was able to make my childhood dream come true, playing in the NHL
with two great franchises. First was San Jose and then with Dallas.
Surrounded by some of the best players, the hockey world has has to offer.
My time in those cities allowed me to build deep connections with both fan
bases and that connection gave me the added fuel I needed to live up to the
expectations I had set for myself. He goes on to talk about a couple of interesting
moments, his, maybe his favorite two moments in hockey, where he got knocked out
basically in both of them. He goes also wonderfully thanking his teammates, his
fans, a beautiful letter to his wife and his son, Nathan, that is just really
hard, very touching. He wraps up with, I guess the theme is, my career was made
better, not by individual achievements, but by all the people who I got to share
it with. Some of you I will get to thank in person, but for the others, this is the
only way I can do it. So thank you to everyone who went on the journey with me.
Always a hockey guy forever grateful Joe. Hockey guy. It's just good to
that. Well done, sir. Well done. Excellent. And boy, you know, talk about taking
everything into in perspective, you know, looking back and seeing what was the
important thing about him. You never won the big one, you know, you never won the Stanley Cup.
But in the end, it sounds like he's okay with that, you know. Yeah, yeah. I'm not sure he
would like to have won it, but he sounds like, you know what, that's okay.
I can't imagine, especially when it comes to, I know other sports, everybody's got
passion, everybody cares. Hockey, there's something different with hockey. Yeah.
You were talking about you don't know any, like if a football player never wins the Super Bowl,
they have no problem playing around with the Super Bowl with the trophy with the Liberty
trophy. Right. Then no problem like tossing it around, looking at it or whatever,
taking a picture even with it or something, Heisman trophy, NBA players with the, the, you know,
yeah. Every title except the Stanley Cup. If you don't win it, you don't get to touch it.
Like, and it's, we're not talking like this is just some kind of, you know, old, old, you know,
well, old myth of way of handling. Yeah. Right. Right. Every single hockey player feels this to
their soul. My father barely scratched the surface of pro hockey and to him, he would not be,
when the black ox one had a chance to be in the room with it, he did, but he wouldn't touch it.
Yeah. Wouldn't go near it. Didn't even want to take a picture with it. They didn't feel like,
like, it's such, that's how much this means to them. That's how much it means to actually win it.
So for him or a PK Subon or some of these are these more modern players that I've seen in
retirement, being what you're talking about in that good place, that's really saying something.
Yeah. And I mean, and I hope that means to this second act for them or whatever it is. Yeah.
It's going to be fun. It's going to be enjoyable. PK Subon seems to be enjoying himself.
Good job, too. He really is. He's great. I hope Joe Pavellsky, whatever he decides to do,
has a similar thing. We don't see as many hockey players go into announcing or coaching like we
used to. I wonder if we're going to see more of that. It'd be good to see. It would be good for
the game, I think. Yeah. I think it would be any time you get the old school guys in there,
in whatever capacity, I think it just helps. We are going to talk rafters and brewers with you
a little bit. We'll talk it right now. If you want, call up in 424-2600. I'm still curious how
you guys feel about the trade deadline coming up. And if you think the brewers are going to do
anything, what would you like them to do outside of obviously trading for like, you know,
want sonar or something like that? Nice, that'd be funny. The Yankees become sellers.
They give up, right? They hate them enough already. I would say the brewers needs going in.
I don't want to sound like, you know, that the brewers are still in first place and they're still
playing well. But I'm like, I'm waiting for, can they keep it up? That's the thing I don't know.
Can they keep it up the way they've been going? They need at least another starting pitcher.
For sure. They're probably going to need an outfielder, Christian Yelich.
Yeah, last time. Yeah. With his back. He's always a question.
You're seeing a specialist for it. Yeah. To me, that is one of the modern bad signs of things.
Used to be, to me, one of the worst injuries I could see a player get was a hamstring.
Just never know. Exactly. It could be a week. It could be 20 weeks.
You just don't know how long they're going out. Back to just as bad.
Yeah. So it's been, he's been dealing with this for a long time.
So they need an outfielder. They need probably another left handed bat.
They need Reese Hoskins to do better. Yeah. He's struggled this year.
I mean, sure. It's been looking better. You know, and the other thing, you know,
Jory Ortiz, he's a rookie. How much does he have left in the tank? He's been good so far.
And so I have questions about the brewers. I hope that they can find enough to, you know,
keep it going because I'd love to see him win the division. That'd be great.
But it's like, they need help. They need reinforcements.
I don't, I don't care if St. Louis goes O for 20. I'm still afraid of them usually.
Yeah, that's just in me. Yeah, it's just one of those things. The pirates right now.
They're looking kind of scary. Yeah. Yeah. So there is no guarantee that they can do this,
which hopefully puts a fire under the management to do something. Yes.
Because there, while there isn't maybe a huge name out there, there's some players that
could really do some damage and some help again in their pregame set that I were talking.
And yes, the CC Sebastian trade would be nice. You know, it'd be nice to be able to bring in a big
arm like that or something, but they're just not available. And, and, and I don't know if it
would be worth it, to be honest, especially starting pictures aren't valuable as valuable as they
used to be. And, and you don't use these guys like you did a CC where he that came. I'm not,
I'm not kidding. I was positive. CC's of Matthew pitched four games in a row.
Like four days ago. It really seemed that way, right? I really did. I never to this day seen
somebody use a picture like they did with him. You talk about getting your buddies worth, man.
They sure did. They love still and he loves this area still. Yeah, that's still like a,
a legendary season that that whole run at the end of that season. I can't remember what year was,
but 2008, 2008, it was still something, something to do. I mean, it was something remarkable.
For, you know, while I don't believe that a hater type trade is going to happen this year,
I can see I do like the idea of a, you know, like last year bringing in a Carlos Santana.
Something like that. A nice vet. Yeah. A guy who you can count on. And yes, not flashy,
but that I don't know if you need flashy. And in flashy, hasn't been working out for a lot of
teams. I'll say, I'm talking to you, the New York meds, the San Diego, even the Dodgers to a degree,
you know, they are snake bitten, the Dodgers. I don't, injuries are, they're decimated with
injuries right now. But man, and, and not, and there's a lot of teams that are in that same boat.
I, I own a co-fax jersey and they called me like, I'm like, I can't know. You got a jersey,
right? Yeah, but it's all you need. Come on. I'm going on to you guys. I don't think, I think
you got the wrong number, I think. Clint Kershaw's coming back. Yes. Which is desperately. But
we, who knows what he's going to bring? It's so hard to know what he's going to be able to bring.
His age and his, the health, his questions about his health. I would love to see him pitch well.
But I would too. I'm also the person. I'm, I'm like, still enjoying, I'm enjoying a handful of
guys while we've got him. Kershaw's one of them, Verlander Scherzer. Yeah. Uh, those three guys,
I, I want to watch almost every time they pitch just because I don't know if we're going to see
anything like them again. Uh, those, the, just the, the workhorses, just, just, those guys,
you go, okay, well, that guy could give me nine. That guy, I don't know. Man, I don't know if there's
a pitcher in baseball right now that I feel like I can look at, and uh, oh yeah, they can get me
nine. I got, I got, I got, I used up my bullpen the last two days. Yeah. Double header yesterday.
My bullpen's decimated. I need somebody to give me at least seven or eight innings. Mm-hmm.
I'm not sure who I'm looking at. I'm not even looking at Gare Cole right now or. No,
no, no, no. Uh, maybe a ranger sword, but he's banged up. I mean, uh, Zach Wheeler, maybe to a
degree, uh, I mean, there's not much. I'm scraping the barrel here. So if I'm looking at trading,
especially a high prospect, which is what did it involve? It will. Absolutely. What am I getting
six, seven innings? And, and don't even know what I'm getting. Something to consider, uh, the one,
the one trade that I'm really interested in is the Garrett Crochet from, from the White Sox. Yeah,
because he's definitely, well, I can't say definitely, but in all likelihood, he's going to get
traded. Yeah. Because he's probably one of the best starters out there that's available.
What the White Sox are going to get for him. How much it's going to cost? Cause I, I get a feeling
there's going to be a bidding war on him. Cause there's so many teams that need. And even though,
like you're talking about, he could like blow out his elbow, his first start for his new team.
Yeah. Who knows? He was a converted reliever. Who knows how long do you go for the rest of the
season? I think you, um, I will say this though. And I don't, I don't think that I'm not saying that
this makes logical sense. Um, but I do think that you almost have to do something. And that,
not just Milwaukee. I mean, every team, so many of these teams, all these teams got to do some,
at the very least, to show your locker room, to show your fan base. We believe in you guys,
we're all in. We're sellers this year. I mean, we're buyers this year. We're buyers, you
guys. That means something to a fan base. It does. We've all grown up in this new kind of age
of baseball. And I know I mean, less 20, 30 years of free agency and trade deadlines matter.
And you've got people that have been following this sport forever that get jacked up about the
trade deadline just as much as they do the playoff run. Right. Right. The trade deadline for
baseball is kind of like the draft for the NFL kind of thing. That's good. It makes, it can make
such a huge impact. Not only, like you said, on the fans, the teams, the players, you saw what
happened a couple of years ago when they traded Josh Hader, what happened to the Brewers Clubhouse?
They were just they were upset about that because it was like they were giving in. No team wants to
say, you know, if they've got a shot at the playoffs, they're like, no, no, no, no, what are you
doing? Why are you selling? You want to take everybody? If they don't trade Hader, I don't think
council leaves. That's not a bad. That's not a bad one. What if, man? The everything started,
the train started going off the tracks as soon as the Hader trade happened. As soon as that happened,
I could not agree with you more, man. It wasn't that council lost the locker locker room,
management lost the locker room and who's the face of management in the in the ball pit in the
locker room? Yep. The manager. Yeah. I think that that immediately, whether council had anything to
do with them, not which I don't believe he did, but as a player, who are you going to look at? Stern
isn't in the in the locker room with you. The owner isn't in the locker room with you. That guy
is and you're going to you're going to blame somebody. You're going to point the finger at somebody
or at least think that they knew something, right? Which probably didn't. They probably didn't.
I mean, you got, I mean, and remember, the final decision is always with the owner, not the
general manager. They're the ones that make the deals, but they have to get to go ahead. So,
who knows if, if, you know, Stern was, if, if Anastasia was, was whispering in his ear, saying,
no, we, we can't afford Hader. We need to get something for him. So you got to trade him like
right now. I don't know if there are a more meddlesome owner than a baseball owner.
Absolutely. And we've got a lot more data on baseball than other sports. But boy, the data on
baseball owners, with a few exceptions at football, I think. Oh, yeah.
A couple of exceptions at football. But I think as a whole, I think you're right. It's
talking to you. Talking to you, Jerry Jones. Yeah. There's definitely some huge exceptions.
In basketball, Mark Cuban used to be when he was an owner. Yeah. So you're right. You're
speaking of this, you just sent me down to the rabbit hole here on the other direction.
I doubt many people have seen this because I can't imagine there's a ton of LA clipper fans
in this area. But the LA clippers are having a new stadium. They're first stadium in
their franchise's history. They're not going to share a stadium with the Lakers anymore. Yeah.
Which is a very big deal in pretty cool. Yeah. And they have an owner that prints money in
Steve Balmer. Steve Balmer. He's also very excitable. He's very energetic and very into things.
They came up with what they call the Halo projector or something like that. It's around, it's
top of the stadium. And it goes around in the circle and you can see it from all different
directions. And it's going to have up to date stats, players like Twitter stuff up there.
There's going to be like a Balmer thing where you're seeing what Steve's doing and stuff.
I don't know if they're trying to get people to not watch the clippers.
I feel like I feel like that's what they're trying to do. I don't know if they realize what
they're doing. They're like, hey, don't pay attention to what's on the court. Just look up here.
We're not going to be that good. Yeah. Oh my gosh. It's maybe our little little
Wizard of Oz thing going on there. Pay no attention to the man behind the garden.
I do find that interesting. The trade deadline talk.
To see what will happen to because like every year it does seem also be like,
oh, they're sellers. Didn't see that coming. Yeah. It's always fascinating to see what happens.
And there's always one trade that seems to be like the big game changer.
Yeah. Every year there tends to be either and it can be negative or positive too.
So yeah, we're going to hit our break in a moment. When we come back, I want to get into a
couple of things with you in the audience. I have an article about a third of sports fans with
good luck rituals that they think really do work. I want to hear your rituals everybody
and the ones that have worked and the ones that haven't. I want to hear all of those.
And I want to talk about a little bit of the USA losing the France here just a couple of
and was like 10, 20 minutes ago was that it happened. Okay.
Some other interesting stories out there. We want to hear what you guys have to say as well.
But we're talking trade deadlines and some of these. So I would like to wrap up this segment
with a plea to the Toronto Blue Jays. It's not working. It's not working. Stop it. Stop it.
Trade Vlad, trade Vlad, trade whatever you can. And this is completely selfish. I want you to
do this for the storylines. I want you to do this. I am a white sock fan. I have nothing.
And soon you'll have even less. You'll have even less to talk about. So true.
Sad is that sound. It's the truth. Yeah. It's about that could happen. At least give us something
as I'm not alone. There's Marlon fans out there. There's Rocky's fans. There's other
fan bases out there that we need something to get us interested in baseball. These trades are
interesting, man. It's something to talk about. Now, certainly, I actually think that it'd be
really cool to see Vlad in a different uniform playing for a contender because we haven't gotten to
see that. Not really. Similar to what O'Tonney was and what trout is. I'd like to see some of that
with any great player, of course. But I don't see Toronto trading anybody because the
talent is just too hard to get. I think that they're going to weather the rest of the season.
There might be a tear down at the end, I would say, because Boba-Shet and Vlad, I mean,
it's you're right. It's not working. They had their shot. They tried. It just didn't quite work out
the way they wanted to. But if they do, I think they do need to trade Vlad because, especially soon,
while he's still playing like he is right now, because then they can get a decent hall back for him.
It almost feels like he's playing like a guy who's playing in a contract here, even though he's
not, so which makes me feel like he's playing to be traded almost. Like, hey, I'm the shiny
object on this team. Get me out of Toronto. It's a shame, too, because Toronto had an exciting young
team that was fun to watch for a while there. Think about this. Vladimir Guerrero playing with the
Mariners. Oh, yeah. They desperately need hitting. Really desperately need hitting. I hate when this
happens to a great young up and coming player. But we just haven't seen the Rodriguez all season,
really. I mean, he just hasn't been showing up. And now he just got hurt. Yeah, he may be out for a
while. That's really a shame. It's an exciting young player. And you just don't know, it happened
in yellow. I mean, it happens to players all the time where they just something clicks or something
doesn't clicking. And they get either caught up in injuries or something. Hopefully he can turn
that around. The good news. He's only 23. Yeah. Oh my god. That's right. 23. He's got time. He's
got some time. Incredibly. I know. Yeah, that's insane. That's it. I did not. I only think I realized
that. That was 23. Yeah, he'll be fine. Yeah. But it is. And it was hopeful for this season. I would
love to see that just to see the Mariners be competitive again. Because I like when teams like that
are the only the only team now who's never been in the World Series. That's incredible stat.
Incredible. 30 teams have all been to the World Series now. There they are. 29 of the 30. So
they're still waiting to Mariners are the only one. I'd love to see him get in at some point.
We will take a quick time out. Check in with our partners. And we'll be back with more fun on
Playmakers here at WFHR. Probably brought to you by quality plus printing. Getting your words out
here in Rapids. Welcome back, everyone to WFHR's Playmakers.
Seth and James here with you. Thanks so much for joining us, everybody. I'm going to get into
some fun conversation I think here. We've got we've got a good one lined up for you. We'll get
into that moment. Do you want to talk a little rafters first? Remind everybody that rafters
of course off for today. But this is their last day off. And man, thank goodness they've had this
break. I was going to say that I was talking to the bath before I came. I was like, man,
it's a good thing that they had the all-star break because the next two days are going to be rugged
for them. So they get right back into it and jump right into the fire. Not only with the playoffs
on the line here for the rafters in third place in their division. But chance to make some
damage here. They get four games against Lakeshore. Not an impossible team to beat. Four games
in two days. That's the catch. Yikes. You talk about having to the really the onus of a manager
and how you use your relief pitchers, how long you leave your pitchers in. Just to try to plan
it. Well, you're in game one and you got to worry about game four. Yeah. And tomorrow tomorrow.
Tomorrow night. That's insane. Like a shout out to baseball coaches. You're just a period.
Oh, they deal with all baseball managers, I should say. Good thing these guys are young.
Hopefully they can recover a little sooner. Three 50 start time tomorrow at Lakeshore in game one.
Game two will start preemptively. Hopefully about six 20. Yep. And same thing for Friday.
Same schedule for Friday. And of course, these are makeups from a June third rain out.
A July 13th rain out. Hopefully no more rain outs. I believe these are seven inning games two.
Yeah, that helps. They do shorten them a little bit. So that does nice. Yeah. And staying on the road,
pack a big bag. I have a voice Saturday of five 50 going to be in mad time to take on Madison.
Sunday early game 1250 hosting Madison. And those that's going to be real important because
Madison is one of the teams ahead of them in the in the standing. That's I am circling those
games. I am circling those games. I'm all glued to them this weekend. I cannot wait to see how those
go. I feel good about our chances. I feel good about this team. I have all season about the second
half. Not so much the first half, but I really feel good about the way that this team lines up
and everything. They've been no problem scoring runs. This team can score runs. It's the pitching
that's been a little shaky. No game on Monday. We will have a playmakers for you. That's when we'll
be back because we will not have a show on Friday. Everybody. Of course with the double header.
We just told you about Sunday. Make sure you're at the ballpark. It is ACW pregame wrestling night.
Horn swagger. Oh my gosh. I forgot. I forgot they had moved it. And it's coming up now. It's
Sunday already. It's going to be great. It's going to be a fun one. All inclusive benefits available.
You can get your tickets at northwoodsleague.com. Be sure to head on over there for that and
enjoy no matter what happens. It's been a fun season. We've been really thankful to have the
rafters and have some rafter baseball. It's look forward to throughout summer. It's been a blast.
Keep up the great work you guys. We've really appreciated it. No matter what happens,
we'll be rooting for you and cheering you on. A little bit later, I want to get into our midday
magazine lineup as well. I wanted to mention, I'm sorry, that midday magazine will not be
on the rest of the week, of course, because of the rafters, double headers and everything.
But we'll be back next week. Big thank you to all of our guests. And of course, Pam
healthy with the great schedule. She does week in a week out. I don't know if Pam has got any
superstitions. That's a good question. You know, I'm Pam for over 20 years. And I'm not sure if
I know she has any she doesn't seem superstitious to me. No, no, she doesn't. Are you brother,
because we've known each other for three, four years at rest. And I don't think I know this
about you either. No, no, I'm not a superstitious person at all. I find it kind of silly and stuff.
So I'm with you. My only hesitation is that because I grew up with not only a literal genius
with a mother, but also a superstitious mother who would throw salt over her shoulder in these things.
So it would it would be one of the things that I would do to kind of like poke the bear and
jabber a little bit is kind of go against superstitions. Right. And I've noticed this also in theater,
where a lot of people in theater are very superstitious. And there are certain names of certain
plays. You're not supposed to say when a run is going on and all that. And I want so bad to do it.
But I know it would freak everyone out around me. So I don't do it just to make sure that everyone's
not like, oh, no, everything's bad. It can happen and then becomes itself a feeling processing.
Right. I have done it. And I've done all of them. And I never had a perfect show because there is
no such thing. Everything. There's always something going to go wrong. It's a live show. So it,
of course, is going to be, you know, make the superstition right because there is no such thing.
No actor you've ever met has had a perfect show. No, ever, ever. It's part of what we love about the
years. It's spontaneous. It's fascinating. Yeah. But I did find this article interesting about
superstitions and good luck rituals and some of that. A poll recently found 22% of sports fans
have good luck rituals like your team won't win unless you wear a specific hat. And almost a third
of them feel like it really does make a difference. Like they genuinely believe this to their bone,
to their core. They believe this matters. If I don't wear this old smelly hat that I've worn since
I was a kid, it's not going to go out into the ether and whatever. Yeah. If you crunch the numbers,
it means around one in 14 fans think that they are doing in front of their TV is affecting the
game in some way. The most common rituals include wearing certain things, eating or drinking specific
things and just praying for your team to win. Because God's not busy. That's what he needs is to make
sure that your sports team wins. Yeah. That's important. I do like the idea of your praying,
but like God's got it, but he's got the other teams hat on. He's like, wow, man. Oh, bad luck for
you, man. Sorry. Sorry. Actually, actually a big fan of theirs. The poll also found casual fans
spend 376 dollar a year on things like hats, tickets, and streaming services for bigger fans is
up to almost $600. Wow. And the average sports fan will watch 120 games in matches this year or at
least portions of them. And if their team doesn't win, trend lightly. 39 percent said that they
tend to be more sensitive than usual when their team is not waiting. Really? Oh, that's interesting.
Now, that may be the most interesting part of this because I have, there are big differences.
And there are huge parallels between Chicago Bear fans and Green Bay Packer fans.
And growing up with those states, I've seen this all my life. And neither fan base likes it when
I bring these things up. I'm not allowed by either fan base, but it is, it is, you can't deny certain
things. No, no, you're absolutely right. There are a lot of parallels, a lot of things that are
interesting in connections, but there is one big difference that I have noticed where Chicago Bear
fans, I feel like they're more used to losing at least these younger generations. Yeah. And when
they lose, yes, it's bad, but they find something else to carry on with their day. And it hangs with
you a little bit, it haunts you a little bit, but it doesn't bleed into your whole night or the
next day so much. Right. Certain losses more than others, of course. Right. But my whole life in this
state, I don't have to pay attention to the scores to know if the Packers lost.
You feel it. It's seismic. You feel it in this whole entire state, which is actually me
complementing the fan base. I generally mean that is a compliment in some ways. I do think it's a
look, it's all well and good. Well, how you feel until you make, you make other people feel bad
around you. That's just being a baby. That's being a child. Yeah. Right. If you take your stuff out
on others or anything like that, that is that, that ain't cool. That ain't no fuck. If it
causes you to eat a whole can of cheese whizz, that's at least you're only hurting yourself then.
Right. Right. Right. I got no problem with that. But it's true. And I will, I will die on that
hill. But I also think that it's interesting too, where that that's the same fan base that that
next Sunday, they're going to, all those people are going to be there. All that same, and they're
short memories for that. Yeah. Right. This is kind of what you have to have as a fan. So it's
interesting to me to see these kind of like different types of fans, where you have the fan that
generally thinks that they affect the game. You have the fan that generally feels the loss and
thinks that they were on the team. And like they cost the team or they could have won the game for
the team or any of these things. Right. There's nothing in life like sports. There's nobody who is
sitting back and and watches a mechanic working and immediately, man, he, no, that, that, that,
if he messes up, grab the wrong wrench, man. If he mess, if he, oh, I grabbed the wrong wrench.
Grab the wrong wrench. Oh, it's over. It's over. Fire the coach. Fire, fire the manager.
There's no other job. There's no other thing that we watch or take in. It isn't as if a movie
can disappoint you and make you sad, but you're not yelling it. Fire the director. Yeah. Get the
director out of it. What was that actor thinking with that delivery? Right. It is weird. It is so
strange when you think about the whole idea of sports and being that connected to it. And now,
when I was younger, man, I felt it a lot more than obviously I do now. I mean, I'd take it much
more in stride at this kind of thing because it's, I'm like, I'm not going to attach my happiness
to a bunch of strangers. Life has a way of doing a game. I'm not going to do that. Rounding out the
edges. It's a good thing to have. It really is. We have to be so depressed all the time.
But no, you're not wrong, man. It's something that you can feel and it's not like I've never seen
it anywhere else. You know, I grind Minnesota. People would be disappointed, you know, but then you're
from a franchise, you know, again, that is as a Packer fans will remind you constantly, you know,
they're like, oh, we're in a Super Bowl. Yeah, four times. You know, so get a little used to. Yeah,
right. Exactly. So it's like, yeah, whatever kind of thing. I like the idea. It'd be interesting
to me to see this in music. Like if I wear this certain thing, the musicians going to have a great
show and he's going to play my song. And if I don't, that he's not going to or something like that,
we don't, there's nothing like that. It's very weird. And I want to be really, really clear about
this. I don't begrudge you of any of that. In fact, I encourage it. Go for it. Because I like,
like, again, to a degree as long as you don't take it too far, you're not hurting anybody. And
generally, I don't care how corny it sounds that you're taking care of your mental health.
I got a good example of this. So when I was in Little League, okay, I'm playing right field.
And then come on, in Little League, no one ever hits it to right field. You know, you're sitting
out there, you're bored. You're nothing to do. So when the pitcher would throw the ball, I would
say spaghetti and meatballs. And he would throw a strike. So I kept doing it. And he was really good.
And we kept winning and everything like this. So I was, you know, at the time, I was thinking a
little bit like, maybe I'm doing something, but it was because I wanted to be a part of things.
When you're out in right field, you're not doing anything. You're bored. That helps you become
a part of the team. You know, it's like you say, oh, yeah, I'm contributing in some way. And I
think a lot of fans feel that way about the whole superstitious things. It's like, I'm helping.
I'm helping them. I'm putting it out there. And maybe it'll do something.
There's there's something I think that is almost childlike about that that is as unique and beautiful
only two sports. Yeah, there's just nothing like you're right. It would be very weird if we did
it in anything else. I do, I do like the idea of us trying to do other things. Just to see how it
goes. I know we're not even talking about the players. Or because, well, that's where I was going
next. Well, I was going to say because all the players are very superstitious. I mean, there's
very few that aren't, but that's also the same with actors that is also the same with, you know,
any number of kind of people that are in that. It's they still are very superstitious about certain
things. So Mark Tashera was in the middle of a huge slump and decided to start wearing two different
socks. He would go on to do that the rest of his career. And yet it ended. What are you doing,
Mark? It actually happened when we were on the CC sabatheus socks accidentally ended up in his locker
and he put it on on accident because he was in a hurry. A little tieback, a little callback there.
Not bad, not bad. Here's often get often like to get close to their bats.
Ari Dickey, he was known to like carrying around, sleep with the bat, like all kinds of different
things. And he was a pitcher. Yeah, right. Jim Leland boxers, always the same boxers.
Wash them. That was going to help you laundered them in between games. That would be good.
There was a lot of that in here. A lot of like interesting, probably the two biggest ones,
wearing the same socks or underwear and chicken. A lot of chicken superstitions, a lot of eating
chicken. I blame Wade Boggs for that one. Yeah. I don't know if you remember it was a big thing
back in the day. He had a couple of them. He kept his bats separate from all the other players'
bats because he said they picked up bad habits. I never heard that. Oh, is that a great one?
Oh, that's going to be one of my favorites. He did this all very time in cheek by the way.
Yeah. I don't know, even like half joking and half serious about that. But he had a 14 day
menu for chicken. A different way to prepare chicken and every two weeks he wrote to
he just started over again. During the season, he would not eat anything but chicken. I didn't know
that. I heard the story about him eating so much chicken before having like a huge game or whatever
once. But I hadn't heard about that. Yeah, it started the miners. According to him,
it started the miners and then he got the clubhouse people, you know, who do the meals at the
games. He said, he put them on the special menu so he could have chicken every day. It definitely
worked. Yeah, it's for sure for him. It's Matt Garza before every start when he Popeye's chicken.
And it had to be pop. Oh, specifically, Popeye's chicken. Okay. That was a little more interesting.
Ryan Dempster would go to the same Italian restaurant the night before every start that he makes
that he made it wriggly field. So it's not too crazy. But it was only an obviously,
you couldn't do it on the road. Yeah. Not the same place there. Yeah. And not too crazy of one.
But I just get the chance to bring up a name that every once in a while, I like to bring up
because I just to look on people's faces. Tim Linson come. Yeah. Just think what I like just
I was fun player, man. And just gone as quickly as he felt like he came around. He went he went
back to back side young awards and then kind of disappears. Yeah. He was on at least one of those
world series teams. I believe he was on two of the three. Okay. Okay. He was still on, but he was
kind of he was towards the tail end. I remember there. Yeah, except you remember like in a I seem
to remember in a game, Madison Bumgard and they're having a great game and him coming in as
relief. Yes. I thought, wow, you're going from Bumgard and to Linson come like that.
Seemed pretty cool and everything. Those giants teams are going to be something we study years
from now. Still doesn't make any sense. Anyway, any sense. One would not make any sense.
Three, it must have been Bruce Bochi because he was the one common denominator. I don't know.
Linson come would wear the same cap every time he was on the mount. There's a lot of players
that do that. And you can tell because they're really ratty looking man. We were talking about
bogs before. How about this batting practice is not the only time the Wade Bogs was exactly
with what he was doing. He also did the did his specific thing when he was in the field. Bogs
would take 150 grounders. No more, no less during warmups. He went two gold gloves. So yeah, and
and that's actually kind of cool because he always said he had to work a lot harder on his defense
than his hitting because he was always a much better hitter. But the fact that he won those gold
gloves, he's always very proud of that because he worked very hard to get there.
Each time that Wade Bogs would come to the plate, he would take his bat and write the Hebrew word
chai, which means life in the batter's box. This superstition was obviously helpful to bogs
who batted 328 during his career in the majors. How cool is that? I wonder why? I'd like to know
the history. That's interesting. Fascinating. Yep. How about Ken Griffey Jr. One of my all-time
favorites. I know the favorite of yours as well. Griffey Jr. would love to drive in Mercedes
Benz. Griffey bought himself one, but something just did not seem right to him. He eventually sold
the car for the sole reason that he did not believe that it had, that it was why he hadn't had any hits
since he had bought it. That's an interesting one. Bob players will come up with anything. I swear
to God. Turk Windell would always have to. Oh my god. That's a name. That's a name. He was the most
superstitious person baseball player ever, I think. He's got to be. He would have, uh,
oh, Mitch Williams was pretty far up there too. He was close, but wasn't he the guy that you,
oh, he'd jump over the baseline. That was Turk Windell. Was that Turk Windell? That was Turk Windell.
Yeah. Okay. Okay. I didn't do this either way. Yeah. He would have black liquorice in his mouth
every time on the mouth, every time on the mouth. He would chew four pieces of black liquorice during
each inning that he went pitching. Oh my gosh. And I hope he had he brushed his teeth after that.
My goodness. He would also brush it. So he would brush it. Always brush his teeth. In between
innings, Windell would spit out the liquorice that he was chewing on brushes teeth and then grab
four new pieces of liquorice before he ended out in the mouth. If you saw, I mean, you knew what he
who we was because he always had like a necklace of like shark teeth, I think. Yeah. Yeah. All right.
He always wore. Yeah. He was a he was not duck. Windell wore the number 99 on his jersey when he
was with New York, with the meds, Phillies and Rockies. He also signed a contract in 2000 that was
for $9,999 and all this and it's a big, big, nine, nine, nine. Newrology guy with meds.
And whenever he faced a batter, Windell would have the same response regardless of the outcome. He
would always pick up the rosin bag and throw it down when the next hitter was on the way to the plate.
Yes. I remember that too. You mentioned his necklace. Windell wore a necklace that was made out
of teeth hunted animals as a good luck charm whenever he was on the mound. So it wasn't just
shark. It was all kinds of animal teeth. Okay. All right. Very just wow. He was he was so famous for
it. I believe he ended up on Letterman or the tonight show just to talk about. I do remember
his superstitions, which was which was fun. It was it was it was he was he was a character. Just a
fun one. That was a fun one. I want to hear anybody else's superstitions out there. Of course,
if you have any and what you do for things, I will say I've never done this for anything until
the Black Hawks were in the Stanley Cup finals the first ones. And they they were down like
O2 in the series. And it wasn't things weren't looking great. And my I was watching what one of my
best friends and we started watching I was living in Illinois at the time, but I was here visiting
my parents for one of the games. We're watching the game. And Chris and I both are big fans love
fish tanks. And like we both have one and everything. And we started looking at these, you know,
on YouTube, like all these big crazy fish tanks people have and stuff. We're like a shark's
in them and everything. And we're watching all Sun Patrick Kane scores a goal. And that's all it
took, man. For three Stanley cups. Anytime the Black Hawks were doing, man, Chris and I, if we
weren't in the same city or watching the game, we'd text each other. Hey, man, here's a video.
And we'd start watching the video. And all I know is the Black Hawks won three Stanley cups.
Even James. There you go. See? He just banded. He just destroyed your whole argument. My whole
argument is out the window. No credibility. None. None. I know if I do nothing else superstitious,
the rest of my life, I will always have to face that. That I have to tie that to those series.
I honestly do. I have to order right before we wrap up on this one. There's one of my favorite
stories was an old-time manager named George Stallings. And he was really good. He managed a couple
of teams to the world series. But he was like horribly superstitious to the point where at one point,
his team was at bat. He bent over to pick up a piece of garbage. And the hitter got a hit.
And he wouldn't move. Bent over. They went like on a, they scored like eight runs.
He couldn't straighten up afterwards. They had to carry him off into the clubhouse.
It could be dangerous, man. You have to be careful.
We got to go to break. I never heard that one. I just, I just picture it. I'm just leaving it over.
Cast it up. Cast it up. Please stop scoring. Just stop scoring. I just want to set up my back.
We'll go to break. We'll come back. That was more fun on the Playmakers.
Welcome back, everybody. To WFHR's Playmakers. We're round and third. We're coming to the end of
the game. We're taking it right to the top of the hour.
Seth and James here with you. Got to get around eight, nine minutes left. We'd like to
fill it with your calls. 715-424-2600. Feel free to call up and join the conversation.
We'd love to hear from you. Love to hear about your superstitions or maybe some of your favorite
superstition stories. We want to get our stat of the show in. And I mentioned before many times,
a big Nolan Ryan fan. I like Nolan Ryan stats. I always find them interesting. One of the ones
that people love to bring up is him having zero-sai youngs. I think that that's a famous one of
Nolan Ryan. And obviously, maybe one of the most famous stats of Nolan Ryan's is number 7th.
Seven No Hitters. But did you know that he also had 12 one hitters?
I know that. I couldn't remember. Nolan Ryan was 12 hits shy away from 19 No Hitters.
That is just insane. Seven No Hitters is almost untouchable.
Right. He was that close to having double digits. You don't even have to give him 19.
Give him 10. Give him 10. It's still just incredible. Just the I-7 is insane. The next closest
person I believe is Sandy Kofax who had four. I mean, the difference between four and seven No Hitters,
that's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. It's really remarkable too when you look at... I think that a good
comp for him. If you're trying to think of like, oh, okay, I don't know baseball. I know football.
Nolan Ryan was a lot like many ways of Brett Farff. Where he got you the big ones. He got you
those strikeouts. Also a lot of walks. A lot of walks. He did. Especially younger in his younger
career. If you look at a stat line when he was with the Angels in the 70s, that's when he had
like the 380 some strikeouts seasons. I mean, that's insanity. For this day and age, I mean,
it's crazy. But then you see he walked 150 guys too. That was part of it, which is why, I mean,
he was one of a kind. There's no question about it. Probably the most intimidating hit or picture,
probably of that era. You hear players say, I can't remember who it was, but someone said,
you know, it was very fussy. He was like, you know, you go in there and most of it, you know,
you go into the batter's box and he's like, boy, I hope I get a hit. When you step in and
get someone right and it's dear God, I hope I don't get hurt. That's how intimidating he was.
That's a big difference. Yeah. The first and only postseason cycle came when Brooke Holt hit for
it against the Yankees during the 2018 ALDS. It's kind of interesting. Wow. There's been more
no hitters in postseason than cycles. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. Very weird. I'm still a big fan
of the cycle. I still it's one of those favorite my favorite things in sports. I just enjoy when a guy
hits for that. I don't care who it is. What team it's for anything always catches my attention.
It's hard to do. First of all, you know, and kind of with analytics, the stature of the cycles
gone down a little bit because, you know, you'd rather hit four home runs, right? That's better in
terms of helping your team kind of thing. But I'm with you. I still think it's great. I love it.
I love the cycle. Just interesting. There's so many fun things about baseball. I'm looking forward
to the wrap of the season seeing where it goes. And certainly how again, the trade deadline in
some of those situations where they go with that. And I want to also see I'm going to see some of
these younger players. How they and like Paul schemes and some of these guys doing a second half.
I think that's going to be an interesting storyline too because we're really excited about
a lot of these young players. But none of these guys have ever played a season like this before.
So yeah, we got to hold our jets on some of them and see where they go. Although
schemes last start eight to third. Yeah. They're stretching him out, man. He's getting he's
turning into something. He lost the game. Yeah. He gave up like two runs. It's definitely.
It definitely doesn't seem like he is like they're they're they're they're being easy with him.
They're they're going to take they're going to take it easy with him in any way. Yes.
The for those that did not hear interesting news going on with the NBA and the rights deals.
NBA ESPN renewed their deal. NBC returns while Amazon replaces Warner Brothers.
The NBA signed its 11 year media rights deal with Disney NBC and Amazon Prime Video on Wednesday
after saying it was not accepting Warner Brothers discoveries 1.8 billion per year offer to continue
with continue its longtime relationship with the league. Media rights deals were approved by the
league's board of governors. So it is all set and done. Of course, Warner Brothers. That means
that the 24 25 season will be the last for TNT after a nearly four decade run. Wow.
Has it been that long? Yeah. Just incredible. Which it may be even more importantly to some means,
of course, the greatest sports show really there is pre game show at least or even after game show.
I'll say NBA tonight that's done. And there is still chances because nothing much like superhero
movies now and everything. Nobody really dies in these movies anymore. Everybody can come back
and nobody really retires or nothing is really done until it's done. We see this happen with
TV shows all the time where a TV show gets canceled and picked up by a streaming service or something
like that. It doesn't mean that for sure it is. But with Charles Barkley saying he's retiring after
this year and some of those things. Maybe it does. Either way, it's been a heck of a run.
It has been. I would be surprised if someone didn't make him an offer though. I mean,
there really is nothing out. I mean, it's one of the bright spots of the NBA during the regular
season. Okay. We know people pay attention to the playoffs in the NBA, but the regular season
has really been a tough sell for them over the years. So this is they got to work this out because
I actually I've never I am not a Ted Turner guy and has nothing to do with sports. Right.
Ted Turner is one of the main reasons why we have black and white smoothies colorized. And it
drives me insane. I refuse to watch a movie that has been colorized dry. That is a hill. You
don't want to get me started on man. I do not like when they colorize movies, especially the way
Turner did it and all that. Yeah, it was a big flop. But I actually agree with Turner sports that
strongly disagree with the NBA's moves saying that they believe the league grossly misinterpreted
their their contract rights and really the fans. Like you get more money from Amazon. Okay,
I get that. So sell them a couple of games. Get your couple bucks. And it's not like 1.8 billion
is not a lot of money. Like take take something for the fans here. Do something for the fans and
let them keep that show and keep it working. And you can make your money back whatever you lost,
whatever couple grand you lost or a couple million even you lost off of it. You can make up
if you're smart at business and if you're good at marketing. How about some goodwill? How about
that to the fans? Absolutely. Yeah. You know, I the pivot to streaming for a lot of sports I think
is in the end is not going to be a winner. Maybe baseball can weather it, but that's because it's a
regional sport. Yeah. And it can it can get away with it. I don't think that ones that are
supposed to be national sports except for maybe football because of its popularity, but I don't
think it's going to help basketball and I don't think it's going to help that seem like hockey either.
So I don't think it's getting in the long run. It's going to do many good. It's a mistake. It's a
big big mistake. The one that I really hope that they're able to counter and fix. Well, we will see.
We will not see you on Friday. Everybody knows show on Friday. We'll be back on Monday with more
playmakers. Do appreciate you guys. Spread the word about the show. Yeah. More and more people know
about the work that we're doing here. Yeah. And and and having some fun with us. Thanks so much
Seth for hanging out today and everything. No, I can I can talk to the baseball for the long time.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You sure can, man. You got to get better than I can. I'll tell you that.
Again, Raptors in action. Let's play two Ernie Bank specials. Well, if they're going to play two,
let's play two. Do it twice. Let's do it. God. I think even Ernie Banks would want to do that.
But anyway, good point. Uh, 350 start time tomorrow for your Raptors at Lakeshore 620 game two.
Same thing for Friday. Let's bring it back. Run it back. 350 start time on Friday and a 620
start time for that second game. Raptors in Madison on Saturday of 550 on Sunday, 1250 hosting
Madison Hornswaggo going to be in town. Uh, we'll have more on our weekend lineup tomorrow.
Seth and I will be here with the morning show. Great show, man. Thank you. Be good to each other.
We'll talk to you soon in the later right here at this is locally grown radio WFHR 1320
and W24 ADE Wisconsin Rapids and always streaming on the Civic Media app.