Yay! Sports!

Good afternoon, Wisconsin.

Evening everyone, welcome to WFHRs, Playmakers.

Seth and James here with you.

Thanks so much for joining us, everybody.

We're live and direct for the next hour here to take your sports thoughts and feelings

and ramblings.

Call up 715-424-2600.

Get in the game.

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local support, local support, those that support us.

Seth, how are you doing today?

I'm doing good.

All right.

Rambling.

That's what I was saying.

You're rambling.

You say, we like rambling around here.

I have to do that.

Like, it's one of those copyright, you know, it's something in the contract and everything

because I rambled.

Right.

So it's really not about the listeners as much as me.

Yeah.

We got some fun stuff to get into today.

Of course, we're going to talk Olympics.

We're going to talk some baseball as well and not only rafters, but brewers and just

MLB.

I've got a couple of interesting stats of the show for us as well.

Nice.

And before we wrap up today, we're not only going to talk Olympics, but we're going to

talk about the, to me, the greatest Olympian of all time in Jesse Owens.

Uh-huh.

All of that coming up.

But first, let's take some calls.

Good afternoon.

You're in the game.

James, it's good to see that you haven't jumped off that building yet.

Oh, oh, yeah.

Yeah.

It's tough.

It's, you know, I'm guessing you're talking about the self-siders.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because it's, well, you got to narrow it down.

Not this point in the year, though.

Well, there's a night.

Well, there's an advantage at least that this time of year, you could only mean one team

really.

That's right.

No, that's easier.

Give it a month, give it a couple of weeks.

And we'll see what happens for that.

We'll see what happens for that.

A wide variety of things that have to be on the edge of the ledge.

Yeah.

So at this point, um, uh, uh, uh, Jerry Rindsdorf has done something to this certain fan

base and I don't just mean white socks, but Chicago Bull fans where we have gotten numb

to a lot of these things.

I was here as a bare fan and then all of a sudden, you know, I got a little bit of hope

here and there.

And we'll see where that ends me up, you know, what that gets me.

We'll see.

But where most fans are right there now are just kind of like blonde and not blind to

it, but numb to it.

Honestly, I could talk white socks all day with you guys and it doesn't affect me that

much.

Yeah.

I say that.

Now, ask me at three in the morning.

Now, you know, ask me or ask me what I'm watching a game where your soul is being crushed,

right?

Yeah.

Right.

Like I'm not, if we're in the middle watching a white sock game, I don't care if it's

game 82 or whatever in a, in a lost season, I still care.

I still want to see that team.

You do.

Yeah.

So it's a little bit different than right now.

Yeah.

Sure.

And the only thing, the only thing that you can do as a fan right now is try to grab

some kind of silver lining.

And in baseball, it's really tough to do that.

Yeah.

Look at the conversation we were having a couple of weeks ago about how many of these

teams truly get better after doing this, after trading away all their talent and not

trying to grow the talent from within NFL teams don't, most teams don't do this.

Like tanking is very different in baseball than it is in any other sport.

It's true.

In baseball, it's like, get rid of all the talent.

In football, it's, well, we still have to be able to, you know, create a winning culture.

Right.

And we can't get rid of all the talent because well, then when good does it do to bring

in our number one pick and he has no talent around him and all that, they've, they've

almost learned from the, how not to tank in that sport and basketball is outlier.

It's a weird one.

Well, and there's the big difference between having 17 games a year and 162 games a year.

That's a big difference.

You can hide it for the long season.

You cannot hide it in the NFL season.

You can't do that.

But there's got to be better things to talk about that.

That's true.

There are radio stations in South Chicago right now that are talking about the socks.

Yeah.

I mean, we don't have to talk about it.

But if there is anything you did want to touch out there, Kevin, I'm always so interested

to hear what you got to say.

Well, yeah, I was like I said, I was just, I was kind of glad that you're, you're still

there with us and you're not, you're not, I mean, I mean, it's, it's just kind of

the same thing with the borers.

I mean, am I ever going to see a world series for the borers in my lifetime?

I have at least 40 more years.

I really don't think so.

Wow.

Yeah, I just, I don't, the way the things are, the way that they, they don't want to spend

money and things like that.

I just, I don't know, I don't know if I'll never see it.

I mean, that's, that's hope they can prove it wrong, but you are not alone in this.

I've been doing a survey.

Oh, I didn't mean to cut you out there, Kevin.

I'm sorry.

I've been doing my own kind of survey with the brewer fans I know in my life and, and

some other people I talk to, listen or wise and everything.

And I've only had one person out of maybe 12 will say, tell me, and that's a very small

sample size granted.

But I've heard other talking people, people in the state talking sports, mentioning similar

things.

And I hear it in your voice, Kevin, that you, you want to believe that they will, but

it's not there.

And that, honestly, man, that breaks my sports heart.

Like I didn't even hear that in cup fans, but when I was growing up, I grew up, I

grew up around nothing but cup fans and not a single one of them.

I don't ever remember saying that in their lifetime, they wouldn't see it happen.

Now, my papa thought he'd be in his hundreds, so he actually got ahead of that.

Got a little bit ahead of it.

A little bit ahead of it, but, you know, but genuinely, they still felt that to, it's

not like, when I first heard people mentioning this, it was before the trade timeline was

done.

And I felt, well, you know, that's that, that, that sucks.

That fan base doesn't deserve that and everything.

I know this fan base very well.

It's a great, there are most, there are at least 20 major league teams that would kill

for the boroughs fan base, at least 20 that would.

It's a great fan base.

They die hard one to think that they feel that way really bother me, but I looked at it

as, oh, they're, they're beaten down or they've gotten close and not made it or something.

Then I start asking questions, follow up questions and it's all about management.

It's all about the way that the franchises run.

And then it becomes, well, wait a minute, is this a situation where they can win a world

series?

Are they, are they automatically starting behind the eight ball on this?

And where it's not, in the, they were never written in to be able to get a chance for

every Arizona, for every time a team that comes out and nowhere is able to do it.

It's just an outlier.

It's not actually baseball.

This isn't the way that the higher ups I want this to be.

That I hadn't thought of before.

I generally had, I feel naive saying that, but I hadn't really thought of it that way.

I just felt, well, I've been seeing the Oakland A's compete for almost two decades with

their management trying to sell them to anybody that will buy them.

I'm surprised they aren't the Albuquerque athletics by now.

You know, it's so, I take those things, but every team has to be looked at differently.

Every market has to be looked at differently.

And to think of Brewer fan thinks, I don't have a chance, not because of the players,

not because of managers, not because of even other teams, but my own team is shooting

itself in the foot and not even giving us a chance.

That's heartbreaking to me.

I don't, and without them making that splash that, and I know they didn't want to break

up the farm system too much, but, you know, you want to kind of look back and what would

have been different if Yoltsch went to one on the DL.

Right.

Right.

You know, I mean, they would have opened up a little bit more to maybe, you know, maybe

the Garrett Mitchell or maybe Freelich, those guys would have probably maybe been put on

the trading block.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, Yoltsch would have stayed healthy at the time, you know.

But we know, we can't right now, we need them in, in, in, in, in playing.

So, I mean, I think the Yoltsch injury or him going on the DL kind of, at the wrong

time, kind of played into why we didn't make that splash.

And we go after some, in one more, maybe starting pitcher, you know, and, you know, and,

and see where we go from there.

But, I mean, I want, I mean, as much as I love talking baseball, after watching Saturdays,

I, I recorded it at night, fast forward through all the commercials, watching the Packers

family night, and seeing how fast that defense is, and seeing how, and more accurate love

has been this year.

I'm some of those passes to Wix, and, and, um, trying to fit it in there a little bit,

to Watson.

I mean, that was kind of scary play, but just though, that's fast, as fast as they're playing

right now.

Ooh.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that, I think the North is going to be in trouble.

Oh, I agree.

I agree.

I think it's, it's just a two, two horse race between Detroit and Green Bay, and who can

get there first?

Who can stay healthy long enough?

That's how he's up.

Yeah.

And how exciting is that?

You know, like that's just cool that we're, like the, not only that, um, it's not just

one team that is going to be leading the way, but that we have a race and the teams that

it is, the Green Bay storyline is very interesting to me.

And Detroit ain't going to get old any, Detroit could pull off a New England type run, and

I still wouldn't be tired of Detroit.

Well, it's because of all the, the drought years for Detroit.

You got to give them, you got to give the fans a little bit, man, watching how excited

they were last year was fun, you know, seeing how the Detroit fans were reacting.

That was pretty cool.

Yeah.

So if you, if you look, you know, he posed this question to both fan bases with Detroit

and Green Bay, is it super ball or bust or is it that make it to the NFC championship

or win a couple playoff games or win a division?

I mean, to be a successful season, where do you look?

I mean, obviously those two teams are playoff teams.

So you got to take one or the other as a packer fan, I think, to make it, we need to make

it to at least the chance, the NFC championship this year to be a successful season.

They don't have to win a division.

They just need to make it to, you know, maybe to the, the NFC championship to be successful

and who knows it could end up being a NFC North championship.

I, yeah.

And the NFC championship.

I agree with that.

I agree with that.

I will say I also think that there's certainly this is going to be spread out, but I think

that there's a portion of the fan base that's super ball or bust.

It would have been different had they had the Jordan love sign the extension and it's

your regular old extension.

The fact that it was the, it's the biggest contract in football and that's as of 514 on

August 5th, 2024, this could change by 8 by 520, you know, but as of right now, that

big deal, there's, there's that portion of every fan base, not just packer fan base,

football, the football fan base, that is the fan that just sees headlines, that just

sees certain things like that and pays enough attention to the game to be able to get upset

by the game.

Not necessarily be excited or happy or anything like that, but to be upset about this or that

or what have you, football is a breeding ground of this more than almost, well, not as much

as soccer, but almost as much as soccer.

So you got that part of the fan base and that part of the fan base is certainly screaming

super bowl and I think management is looking at it that way.

They didn't sign this deal.

If all the organizations we are just talking about the burrs in their situation and not being

able to get above things or get a, you know, the ownership not doing certain stuff and everything.

If I'm a green bay fan, yeah, I would love them to be able to go out of their way and try

to get one of these receivers in or pick up a big name free agent or anything.

Are lifetimes?

I don't know what more you can ask for management in many ways.

It's easy to poke holes at, well, they should have gotten far more help.

They should have gotten Rodgers more help.

They should have done this.

They should have done that.

Did you not hear of any of the other conversations, any packer fan or any football fan has had

for the last 30, 40 years about trying to survive in this industry and all of that?

I don't know how you can complain, especially when you look at the rest of the north.

There's nobody, there's only one or two teams in the NFC, let alone no teams in the north

that can have both what the fan base can't hear with the GMs or the management can there

and everything.

Well, right, right, and I just, I mean, I guess that I don't know if you can really

say, I mean, the window is starting now.

I mean, with everything that, you know, we have love for five years and that contract,

really, you know, if you break it down and look at it, it's not that bad of a contract.

Yes, it's the highest paid quarterback, but they front-loaded it here at the beginning

and they can get out of it in three years if he's a ball.

None of it's guaranteed.

Yeah, none of it.

Outside of the care, obviously, the guaranteed buddy, which is the highest standing quarterback

subher head.

But that's done.

You've got that already off the books.

That's already taken care of.

You've literally already paid that money to that man.

So when you look at, and especially when you look at the fact that, again, it's 517,

any moment now, there's going to be a bigger contract out there, hand it out in a year

from now, even a year from now, you could be looking at this much like Kansas City does

with the boat.

My home's contract and wow, we got a steal.

I was going to say, did we underpay him?

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

I mean, with all that and consideration and not for nothing and look, you know, far

of and Roger started out this way too, but this seems like a good kid.

Seems like the kind of person that you would want to invest in, not only as a organization,

but as a city in the green, in Green Bay and what he does in that area and in that community,

what he represents to be blunt, what he represents in that too.

You haven't had that really.

You've had a little bit of it with Reggie, but you really haven't had that much outside

of that.

At that position, at the most important position in sports to be him, to look like him,

all those things, it matters.

And boy, is he got an opportunity, he's got a runway in front of him.

He's got every opportunity to succeed with what they're doing over there.

I can't believe how many talking heads have not made more of the Josh Jacob signing.

That's gigantic.

You can do a lot with receivers, but I will take a strong running back that I can lean

on, especially in that offense, over a Diva receiver any day of the week.

Give me my two third year receivers that are still trying to prove something, still out

there working their tails off and give me a running back that is a thoroughbred that has

been proven.

Hey, coach, I got 200, 280 carries this season for you.

Go ahead and just give me the rock.

Give me the rock.

Jacob's is one of those top running backs, I think, in his prime to be able to do that

behind that offensive line.

I'm sorry, Aaron Jones.

You were great.

Thank you for your time.

Enjoy Minnesota.

They got some great fishing up there, but you got to be excited about Josh Jacobs.

Well, yeah, I'm excited for it too, and with our offensive line, I think once they get

all healthy, that's by far going to be probably one of the best offensive lines in the NFL.

He's going to, I mean, you know, the funny thing is, you know, what, he's three, four years

and in Los Angeles, he'd never caught a passing touchdown.

Yeah, crazy.

Crazy.

They just didn't use him right.

Like a lot of these guys, I think.

I can't wait to see Leflore what he'll do with him.

I imagine that was part of the selling point of getting him in Green Bay was Leflore

him talking like, look, man, look at what I was doing with Derek Henry.

Look at what I can do with it, you know, you and stuff like that.

I think that's going to be exciting.

I will say, like as excited and silly as some bear fans are being right now and everything,

one of the biggest excited and silly bear fans I've known my whole life, my father, he's

not even paying attention, like he is all locked in on Baltimore and what's going on with

that team and having Derek Henry in that offense, and he's so excited to see what that looks

like at everything.

There's a lot of really cool storylines going into the season and we haven't even talked

about the kickoffs yet.

No, no, we haven't.

You know what, Baltimore?

Baltimore may be the first team that will score every single time they're in the red zone.

Yeah.

If not that, I'll say this, even if this isn't, I don't think this is a stretch, every

drive at least getting one first down, like, could you imagine that?

Wow.

All Derek Henry and Lamar Jackson have to do is lay down and they will get a couple of

yards.

They just go forward and you will get a couple of yards or at least going to get a first

down on every drive.

That's a team where you look at injuries.

That's what stops them, injuries.

I don't see much else that's going to defeat a team like that on the offensive side.

And you look at their defense.

It's pretty solid too.

Oh, yeah.

Some excitement and we're finally here, our long drought of missing football is finally

here.

Have you not been paying attention to the Canadian football league James, come on, you could

have been doing that.

That's what I was going to do this year.

I wrote that down.

I meant to make another note.

I'm going to make a note.

No respect.

Kav, we appreciate the time, man.

Thanks for joining us.

All right, guys.

That's a great name.

You too.

You too, man.

The phone lines are open.

715-424-2600.

We'd love to hear from you.

Did you have a note on the Burwer talk that we were having?

I was actually.

Yeah.

And that's cool that Kim wanted to talk about the Packers.

But I was going to, the thing I was going to add to it was, man, I have to disagree because

the way the playoffs are in baseball right now, man, look at what, I mean, the Diamond

Backs last year.

Great example, man.

You get in to the playoffs and anything can literally happen.

Anything can happen.

When's the last time the best team in baseball meaning that had the best record won the

World Series?

Yeah.

I can't even think of the top of my head when that happened.

So I mean, yeah, it's just, it's getting in and then, you know, and then it's going to

be a combination of, you know, how good your starters are, how good your bullpen is,

and if you can score just enough runs to make, you know, more than the other guy.

This is what it is.

This is where I've been leaning, especially when I've been talking to my little brother

about it and everything, because Nick, just get to the dance.

That's, yeah.

You can say that maybe more than, and now hockey, hockey, you can definitely say it.

But maybe more than hockey in baseball, maybe more than any other sport we've seen, especially

in the last five, six seasons, since they've really opened it up.

Not only is I think the final week of the season more exciting than it's ever been.

Maybe, no, that's not fair to say.

That's not fair to say.

I apologize for that to old school baseball fans, because when it just, you pen it or nothing,

that it was, I don't, I'm sorry, there is something really cool to me about that.

That's true.

And I understand why baseball opened it up more and it's made it very exciting and everything.

But my goodness, it's, it's wild to look back at some of the, like, last place that

it came down to a whole hundred and, back then, 140 or whatever game season and stuff.

And it comes down to this final game and they just happen to be playing each other and

all that and everything.

That is pretty exciting.

That is pretty, sports, sports drama 101, you got to love it.

But we are where we are and it is really opened up more.

And with that being said, now, even if it did take winning a pennant, well, guess what?

Milwaukee's been in the first place for almost two years now.

So even that argument kind of goes to the wayside.

And then, yes, getting to the dance, I am a hundred percent with you on this.

My, my, my, where I've been coming from on it in the last week or so was just that I had

not realized how, I don't, for lack of a very, lack of a better word, damaged brewer fans

can be, you know, and maybe I need to be looking into the mirror here on this as a white

sock fan.

Right, right, right.

But I won't.

I would never have that.

I could never relate to that.

I've experienced it.

No matter what, this is part of the reason why I can go numb.

This is part of the reason why when the white socks are literally not just the worst team

in baseball, but the worst, one of the worst teams of all time, I can stomach it because

well, as a sports fan, at least I got to see a world series.

And I know people that haven't.

Right, right.

And then that's, and that's something that we, I can say the same thing because of the

twins winning when I was a kid, you know, two years, right?

Yeah.

Which by the way, I saw a guy at the, the rafters game wearing a shirt that just said 1987

and 1991 on it.

Oh, no.

And I was like, oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

That's a kind of a cool shirt, yeah.

So I want to just, to give the, the brewer fans a little more hope on this, you know, there

are, this is how you do it with a small market team.

Okay.

This is how you do it.

The twins have been doing it for years.

You know, you, you got to build up your farm system every now and then you got to be smart

with your trades.

And you always got to, and this is the part that the bugs meet sometimes too.

You got to just kind of keep one eye on the future.

You can't just go all in like the Yankees do sometimes or the Dodgers.

You can't do that every single year.

They can, because they can afford it.

They can do that kind of thing.

Also you got to remember the something that we harp on on the show kind of a lot, it all

comes down to ownership.

They make the final decisions.

You can't, you can blame GM's and managers as much as you want.

It all comes down to ownership.

That's the bottom line.

That's where the buck stops.

It's right there.

And this is why I would say is since I knew who the owners were of the teams that I root

for, I've always looked at them and the words is in, you know, the black hawks history.

Right.

Obviously Ryan's door with the bulls and the white socks, the Cubs have changed management

a bit.

The different owners.

They're current owners.

You can't, you can't really argue with what they've done.

Not really.

Not even just talking about the world series.

I mean, Rigglyville, some of the things that they have done there, whether you like the

Cubs or not, you better be looking at them as, oh, well, that seems smart.

We maybe we want to do that or maybe we should try to do something like this.

Any team should be doing that.

And certainly the Macaskis, which is a swear word to my house, other than Virginia who

we love.

We love you, Virginia.

That's just, he's got the connection to the past and the, and the, and the, and the old

school.

She's a house.

She's a house.

So a Macaskan by Macaskan.

You know, even in the twins who've had actually, I think the, one of the longest ten

years owners, the Polad family, who's owned it since 1982, first by Carl, and now his

family does.

Jim, I think, is the oldest who kind of runs the ownership side of it.

I mean, they have thrived in having a team, you know, in a, considered a smaller market.

One time was considered a prime for contraction.

You know, we're going to get one of the teams that we're going to get rid of completely.

Just get them out of the league.

And, and there's times when they drive me crazy too.

Especially now with the, the mess of the cable TV thing.

And now they say, oh, oh, we're not getting that money.

Now, we got to come.

We got to reel it in a little bit, which is why the twins did nothing at the trade.

And they got like one reliever and that was it.

And that's all because of that.

So yeah, there's frustration at some times.

But if you build up that farm system, you have smart guys at the top.

Like I think the, the twins do, I think the brewers in general have in the past.

I will see it, you know, they haven't been there long enough now to see how they're

going to do in the future for the brewers.

But as long as you have guys like that, I think you're going to do all right.

Brewer's also have some new, not new ownership necessarily, but some new people in ownership

there with the Haslam in some of that.

Right, right.

Or, yeah, yeah.

I can't remember the name, but yeah.

But, and so, I mean, maybe that helped because where I was going with it was certainly,

you know, the change in man ownership one day, and that being something to hang your hat

on.

Yeah, not that much.

Yeah.

So there's that to look at too, but I'm with you just in general.

I don't think you have to scrape the barrel to find hope as it, not just a brewer fan,

but if you are a fan of a team in that market and a market similar to that.

And granted, you know, we're saying this is outsiders, but that's part of the point

here.

If we see this, if we're feeling this way, have some hope out there, I think.

And I got to tell, I got to, I got to be a little bit stern with our Packer fan.

And any Wisconsin sports fans, people out there, man, do you remember what was like in

the 80s, the late 70s and the 80s in the state of Wisconsin?

The brewers.

I mean, they had the World Series that they were in in 82, but that was about it.

The Packers were thinking of moving to Milwaukee, everybody.

But do you remember that?

How lucky have they been since the 90s, man, I'm telling you, you should be very happy

and thankful where you guys are at right now.

And I will say too, you know, I don't think there's any danger of this happening, but

learn from New England fans, learn from that Boston area and how annoying it can be when

you think you're entitled to win.

Oh, please.

I'll never happen out here.

I hope not.

I hope not.

I hope not.

I hope nothing would let it happen.

But, man, again, not saying this to Wisconsin fans, I meet you, the whole sports fandom

like in general.

All the sports, yes.

No fan base for me went quicker from as a kid, although those Red Sock fans are all

right.

You know, they really wanted everything to, oh, God, a Red Sock fan, oh, God.

And I work with one.

I'm not here, but in my teaching and everything, I work with one.

Hey, man, you can deal with the Yankee fans, okay?

They're going to be who they are.

When the Yankees are up, they're going to be like, yeah, we should be here because we're

the Yankees, okay?

When their team stinks, they're going to be the ones yelling loudest at their team about

what's wrong with you guys?

What are you doing?

I can accept Yankee fans.

They never, they never complain to other people.

They complain among themselves and to their, you know, ownership and stuff.

But get Boston fans and St. Louis Cardinal fans, guys, go away.

You are not just, oh, I hate that.

I don't get me.

We're the best fans in baseball.

No, you're not.

No, you're not.

That's the one that gets me.

I can handle a Cardinal fan on almost anything, but the fact that you get to decide the rules

of baseball and that your fan base is the best fan base.

Yeah, they call themselves like, get outta here.

Call up 715-424-20.

How's your football team doing?

St. Louis, huh?

Huh?

We'll be right back.

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out right here in Rapids.

Welcome back, everybody.

Two WFHR's playmakers, proudly brought to you by Quality Plus Printing, getting your

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A big thank you to them.

Seth and James here with you in the phone lines are open, 715-424-2600.

Call up and join the conversation.

We'd love to hear from you.

We kind of have two questions out there right now that were brought to us from our listeners

and shout out to Kevin for this, whether you intended or not.

We got them anyway.

We got them anyway.

Yeah.

Do you think in your lifetime, no matter who you are, how old you are, that you'll see the

Brewers win a World Series, the Milwaukee Brewers will see them win a World Series?

And what is a successful season for Green Bay Packer fans?

Is it an FC Championship?

Is it Super Bowl?

Is it a playoff appearance?

You tell me.

424-2600.

I'd love to hear from you guys about those, especially at this point in the season.

I think it's kind of fun to be, as we're getting ready for all of these things.

And in baseball, kind of gearing up for the last leg of the season.

Yes.

It is in first place in the NL Central, five and a half up on St. Louis.

It's just like every day, it's five games up.

Doesn't seem to change at all.

It doesn't seem to change at all.

It doesn't seem to change at all.

It doesn't seem to change at all.

Who wins or loses?

Yeah.

I did have some stats of the show that I wanted to get to here.

All right.

And I couldn't pick just one.

So I'm going all over the gamut here for one.

The other night, the Dodgers beat the A's, 10-0, nothing shocking there.

But what's kind of cool that happened in it is, Shohei O'Tani went 30 for 30.

And that's just still special to me, is that these kids in the 90s kid, seeing people

go 20, 20, 30, 30, 40, 40, 40, still mean something.

I agree.

And it means something a little bit extra here, because he's the first DH to do it.

Wow.

And I did not know that.

That was pretty remarkable to me.

This is just the four-time A Dodgers players reached the 30-30 Club 2, which is another

amazing stat I thought.

Only four of them rump.

Eric Davis was the fastest to do it back in 87 and a shout out to Eric Davis, though.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh.

I just see him as a red.

I didn't even think about it.

Yes.

Oh my gosh.

And I remember, no, because it was like in the early 90s when he and Darryl Strawberry

both ended up on the Dodgers.

So they were friends.

You're right.

At school, they were like great school friends, and they ended up playing together with the

Dodgers.

We got all about that.

Yes.

And I had almost, honestly, forgotten about Eric Davis.

And I feel ashamed of that because Eric Davis was awesome.

Without the injuries, man, he was, he was one of the, I mean, he not only had all the

talent.

He was a five-tool player before there was such a thing as they called five-tool players.

He could do everything.

Do you remember in the 1990 playoffs, the man played with a lacerated kidney?

That's right.

Yeah.

He continued to play.

People got on him for not being tough.

No way, man.

He was tough.

He had injuries he couldn't play with.

That was the problem.

Yeah.

But otherwise, he was great.

He was, he could have been, he could have been one of those all-time greats, unfortunately.

Yeah, he had a really cool baseball card, too.

Yeah, really.

This card was awesome.

And did anybody see this?

And there is not much to talk about when it comes to the California, Anaheim, Angels of

Santa Cruz.

But Ricky Flamethrower, Ben Joyce, was one strike away from recording his first career

save, but there was a problem.

He couldn't hear what Ketcher Logan O'Hope wanted him to throw via the pitch card.

Pitchcock, yeah.

So, Hope jogged out to the mound, told Joyce.

He wanted him to go with his four-seam fastball against veteran slugger JD Martinez.

There's a no-two count.

So Joyce reared back and fired a 104.7 mile per hour heater.

Once again, 104.7 mile per hour heater that struck out Martinez and preserved the win

over the Metz.

Did anybody know that JD Martinez was with the Metz?

Did anybody know that?

Yes.

And I'm sorry, I don't know why I said the Angels here.

No.

Oh, yeah.

It was the Angels.

It was the Angels.

It's the fastest strike out pitch since the pitch tracking began back in 08.

Yep.

So, not a huge time frame, but still pretty impressive time frame.

That runs up to 105.

That's insane.

That is insane.

That's crazy.

And this is not...

This is something else that I don't know if it's lost on people or not.

It's not as if we're seeing these things and, well, we'll never see that again.

Like, this is just the beginning.

Like, we're only going to see more of this.

Now, I'm not saying that every pitcher that comes out to the mound is going to be doing

this.

No.

No.

But going forward with how much these teams value strikeouts and value fastballs and having

moments like this and baseball, where even if your team doesn't win, you get noticed

by sports center and all this stuff because of the flamethrower and everything.

We're going to only see more of this and more kids trying to do this.

The maximum effort on every pitch, which is kind of why we're at where we are with baseball

right now, with bullpen, with nothing but flamethrowers in the bullpen with five inning

starts from starting pitchers, which I understand why they're doing all these things.

But I'm still with most people.

I don't want to see games like that.

I want to see pitchers go deep.

How cool is it when we get to see guys do that and now it's a big deal.

Hey, he's going to throw a complete game.

Wow, that's amazing.

He's going to throw all nine innings, but it's because his pitch count is below 100.

That's why they let him do it, right?

Look at Blake Chanel.

It's now he just threw a no hitter.

The first time he's ever pitched into the ninth inning in his career.

He's never pitched past the eighth.

Yes.

He can't be over that.

He is career.

Two Saiyungs.

And one, I'm not even having to do the Bob Gibson.

Not even having to go into nine.

I mean, this incredible to me.

The way that the game has shifted and changed from that.

And we've talked about this a lot and we're not going to stop talking about it until it

does get fixed.

But it was my roundabout way to get back to, hey, this isn't the way to do this.

This is going to blow out arms left and right.

Dangerous.

It's going to be, you know, talk to Justin Verlander.

He's got a great look at this because we're how things have changed since he started.

Since he started, when he came up in the league and what he was, you know, taught to do

as a starting pitcher to what it is now, it is so different, so different.

He is a perfect person to talk to, not only because of growing up in the air is like you

said there and everything, but coming back from the injuries he did.

And in understanding that better than most, yeah, yeah, I don't know, I hate to see where

it's going.

I don't know the sport where it is, but I did like seeing that 104 mile an hour fast

ball.

I will not lie about that.

I thought that was pretty cool.

It's cool to see.

Absolutely.

It's not something.

It's like, what?

Did I just see that?

What?

Kind of thing.

But at the same time, I don't want it to happen all the time.

That's one of those things that it's like, no, I don't, you don't need guys like five

guys in your team that throw over 100 miles an hour.

That's, to me, that's not good baseball.

That's not what people pay to see.

So.

Before we wrap up today in our final segment, we'll get to some rafters talk.

I did want to wrap up giving a shout out to Jesse Owens as well.

But speaking of the Olympics, touching that net just for a moment, and we've kind of,

you know, your Olympic coverage is set.

You know, you're not looking for what set that I have our take on track and feel or anything

like that necessarily, but I do think it's been very exciting.

And I will talk at Olympics with you all day if you guys want to.

But I wanted to go a different angle on this because I've heard some people talking about how

this sport shouldn't be in the Olympics and that sport shouldn't be in the Olympics and those

sorts of things.

And, you know, the Olympics started out with five basic sports.

And it obviously has grown across that.

And this year, athletes are competing across 32 sports and 329 events.

So it has grown from the 1896 games to this.

The first modern ones.

Yep.

And that is pretty unique and pretty cool.

Like not only that it's still happening, but that you have that happening.

And you have a governing body that is smart enough, I think, to realize that you can't just keep

trotting out the same five sports.

Right.

It's quite interesting.

But of Aquatics, Athletics, Cycling, Fencing, and Gymnastics, which were the original ones,

they have appeared at each of the 30 iterations of the Olympic Games.

There's obviously such have gone away, like Croquet and Karate.

There's some that have made comebacks, like archery and golf and rugby and some of those things.

Yep, yep.

So we can see that a sport can go away and come back.

That's right.

So what ones would you like to see come back?

And what would you get a word of?

I'm asking the audience that.

I'd love to hear from you guys on this one.

I will throw out there a tug of war.

I think it's a fun one.

I think the only thing that you would really would make it even better and really sell audiences on

and countries on is if you could bring anybody you want.

From the Olympic team, right?

Right.

Right.

From the Olympic team, perfectly said.

Yep.

Thank you, Seth.

Because I'm noticing something in three on three basketball.

The Olympics thought for sure that this was going to be easy sell.

And people were going to love this.

And the problem was, is they had certain requirements for it.

So if we wanted to be on three in three basketball, we had to play in the league for the year or two or whatever.

And obviously, NBA players or anybody who hasn't even sniff of the NBA is not going to be spending any time on that.

There's no financial reason to do that, right?

So you're seeing other countries do better at this than us and everything.

When I am not making light of the sport of basketball, it takes a lot more skill and a lot more planning and play calling than people realize, including myself.

But I feel pretty confident and we put three of our best, three of our benches best out there.

We'd be doing better than we are right now.

Right.

And I think of this with the tug of war, where I like not only the idea of, hey, let's bring on our strong men.

Let's bring on our shut putters and stuff like that.

Yeah.

But what's Shaq doing?

You know, what's Shaq doing?

We need an anchors, what we need, you know.

Let's bring on some people from WWE.

Let's bring on some of those.

Let's bring it on.

I'll be kicked out for steroids.

I mean, those guys are good enough.

I think that that could really, it's an easy sport to sell.

Yes.

It isn't very difficult to explain to somebody, hey, what are the rules of tug of war?

Well, you got a second.

I mean, we're done.

Think about how you could do this, though.

You'd have to have a rules, you'd have to have a total number of weight.

So that means you couldn't just all get all the shut putters or the weight lifters.

You'd have to, you know, mix it up a little bit kind of thing, you know.

It's not going to be cool.

I like that part.

I like that part of it and everything.

And I also want to take into consideration that the Olympic body doesn't just do this on a whim.

They put years and years of debt every year.

They test it every year.

Yeah, every year they do testing on these things to see if people would be interested

if there's enough people in the world that can do it at a high level kind of thing.

I don't like the sports fan that just sits there and always says,

I can do a better job in that kind of thing.

But I do, I do think that it's one of those interesting questions.

Absolutely.

About, hey, you're in that seat.

You're on that board.

What are you pushing for?

What are you looking to see added to the Olympics and going forward?

424, 2600 phone number to call call up and join the conversation.

Bring back baseball.

Bring back baseball.

That's all this conversation was gearing up towards.

What's that?

I just wanted to give you a runway to be able to see that.

The Hall of Fame game was over the weekend and obviously last week and as Kevin mentioned,

the Packers had their family night.

To me, those are some of the signs of, okay, we're right there to propose.

We're in close.

We're in close.

We're so close it might as well be.

Fantasy draft.

Yes.

Very loud.

That means it's ready to go, right?

But with the Hall of Fame, one of the things that I enjoy is watching some of the speeches.

I don't always get a chance to catch all of them.

But I do enjoy them.

And I really enjoyed Steve McMichael's.

It was very moving to me.

I loved what Devon Hester did up there.

I thought he did a great job.

Devon Hester may have the coolest and maybe the best looking NFL bust I've ever seen.

Cool.

They've gotten way better at those things.

Oh, yes, they have.

They have really.

If you look at some of the old ones in the actual Hall of Fame area, they're like, aren't wet.

It's hard.

He didn't look like that.

That's harsh.

But one of the things that I was excited about was one, the idea of what teams have the most players in the Hall of Fame.

Oh, yes.

That's always an interesting one to me.

We'll talk about that more on Wednesday.

We'll save that.

That's very cool.

We already got our stats at the show with.

But what I came across from and a shout out to Bill Barnwell at ESPN staff writer over there.

It does a great job of looking at the predicting the next class of Hall of Fame.

And then it has a list of the people that are up for the 2025 class.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

And who we think should get in and who should.

And I think that that's a fun conversation that I would love to have.

And it's one of those things that we're looking at a really elite class of athletes going in for this next class.

So that's one I'm up for talking about if anyone wants to.

I think that would be quite an interesting one.

And I will again recommend to people.

Justice for Eric Metcalfe.

Justice for Eric Metcalfe.

Thank you.

He needs to he needs to be in the Hall of Fame.

Especially if it looks like it's going to go the way it is with returning.

And exactly being so different.

We're never going to see I think like Devon Hester.

Would he even be Devon Hester in this game with the rules they are now?

I don't know.

Maybe.

But it would be a lot harder.

He definitely wouldn't be the return man.

That's yes.

Yes, absolutely.

That would have been very different.

Yes.

So call up.

You know the conversation you'd like to talk about that one.

And I'll keep that conversation in the back pocket anytime you want to talk about everybody.

I certainly wanted to get to not.

Obviously the kickoff in the NFL is quite interesting the way that they're doing that.

Any early feedback on that one.

We've only seen eight plays of it yet.

So literally there's a lot to be said.

What I'm excited about is what happens when these special teams.

Matt scientists like a you know not Dave to but guys like him.

I'm also Davis some of these guys.

These are usually in the football spectrum.

The mad scientists are crazy.

When they get a hold of this and they start seeing holes in this.

I'm very excited about what that might mean.

That's could be interesting.

One thing that I did want to know before we go to our final time out.

The NFL is testing hawk eyes.

The hawk eye camera thing for a lot of line to gain in some preseason games.

So they've essentially got rid of the chain gang.

Oh in the preseason games here.

Oh wow.

They're looking to get away with the get away away from this completely.

And just have computers do it and all that.

And I don't know that anybody's going to necessarily get on a hill to die on this.

No, they have to keep the chain gang.

But it is quite interesting to me.

Yeah.

And it does bring back a lot of like the drama that football doesn't have a ton of drama.

Now unfortunately some drama they've created out of almost a sickness.

You know, kind of thing that they have with penalties.

I can't be the only person that every time a big play happens.

The first thing I do is look like.

But the idea of did they get it?

It's fourth and inches.

Did they get it?

We got to wait for the chains.

We got to wait for the chains come out there.

Instead of a ref just going to a computer screen and saying they got it.

Yeah.

Two seconds later moving on.

Now that speeds the game up and that's progress.

And I'm not talking down progress.

But the idea of getting rid of just a little bit more of the drama in the game does make me a little sad.

It does make me a, I'm going to miss that if that does look like that's the direction they're going.

Right.

I'm with, I dislike, I have no problem with getting these new things in there.

You know, like in baseball they're talking about, you know, the automatic balls and strikes.

And maybe the challenge system that kind of thinks, that kind of thing.

I'm cool with finding ways to make it more accurate.

That's cool.

I'm for that.

What I'm not for is taking more humans out of it.

I guess for me, you know, in like I always refer to baseball.

You can't take the umps off the field.

You got to have the umps there.

Okay.

For lots of reasons that we don't have to go into right now.

Let's, or any official, you have to have officials on the playing field.

You got to have it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You have to be, you know, and I know there's, there's a lot of NBA fans on there.

Like, oh, really?

Do you?

Not with the state of officiating the NBA.

But you got to have that human element there.

You got to have it.

Yeah.

You do.

And that's something where I'm in piggybacking off your drama thing because I agree.

That can be very dramatic.

You know, ooh, how close are they kind of thing?

There would be something missing there.

I really think.

Yeah.

It's not, it's not going to destroy the game.

It's not going to make it unwatchable.

But there's something that I would definitely miss without having the chain game there.

And not for nothing.

This is how empires fall.

They don't have, it doesn't happen overnight.

Right.

It doesn't happen from just one thing, one, you can point to, oh, this one thing.

And this is why Rome fell or something.

It's multiple things and tinkering with things.

And sometimes, you know, alienating your core fan base more and more and more.

To where they just don't care.

Right.

And that's the most dangerous thing for any organization or anybody in the sports world is the fan that doesn't care.

It's one thing for the white sacks to be bad.