New Sports Director Edition

Good afternoon, Wisconsin. Welcome to WFHRs. Play my cars.

Let's start the show. Hope y'all are having a great Wednesday afternoon out there.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Your host, James, with you, and I am joined by our newly crowned sports director,

Michael Comer.

Very happy to be here, and that's still doesn't sound right.

Takes a little get a year's to.

Yeah, I still, my dad will tease me, calling me PD or something like that.

And I'm like, what do you, I didn't, that's a nickname, a vaulted name.

See, gave me. That was one I wasn't familiar with.

We appreciate you being here, everybody. We're going to get into some fun today.

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715-424-2600.

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That is fine. Whatever you got to do to get us those sports takes and feelings.

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Also looking forward to getting into some fun things with Michael today.

We got a baseball talk to do, of course.

I want to get into a little bit of college football, some NFL draft news.

Even getting the NBA playoffs if we have time, Michael.

I want to get your takes and everything that you got to,

because you just got done doing some work last night.

Definitely. There's plenty of high school sports for me to talk about.

Let's get them to go right into that.

I guess I'm not going to the game that I was at right away.

I've been doing sports journalism high school, the high school realm,

some college here and there for about almost 20 years now.

And for the first time in my 20 years of the schools that I report on,

I have now witnessed in the stats.

One of them I watched personally, back to back, no hitters.

Man.

Nakusa Softball did it on Monday and Tuesday.

They won 11, nothing over Athens on Monday.

No hitter by Jackie Bidell and then on Tuesday.

Dragon Willhorn.

She threw a no hitter in four innings against Austin when they got that run rule victory.

I'm both games are run rule victories.

So no hitter back to back days, both pitchers.

That's the, I'm impressed.

It's incredible.

It's something, you know, you may never happen again to you as a broadcaster.

So that is really cool.

That is really deep.

I want to touch on that for just a second and then we'll get into the actual athletes.

I mean, I am proud of Nakusa for that.

Yeah.

And we'll get in right into it a second.

But for an announcer to be in that spot, to be able to do something like that,

you know, you are, you do a great job.

You, Randy, all of our announcers are walking the line.

You're not rooting for one side or the other.

You're just rooting for the game and covering them.

I want to see a good game.

Yeah.

But you've got to, I can't imagine you can't help but be a little nervous for that athlete out there.

Just with everything on the line.

Yeah.

As an athlete, as a former athlete.

I don't know why we say former athletes.

You're always an athlete.

Your body may not be.

But you have your mind and your heart.

You're always an athlete.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, I look at me.

I like to think I'm still fairly athletic.

No, I'm not.

But I'll tell you what, you know, watching the, watching the River Kings, you know,

you start getting to that about three minute left in the game and it's a shutout.

You start getting a little nervous for the goalies.

And then watching the pitchers last night and, you know, that, the game on Monday against Athens.

It's first inning she gave up a walk.

And I forgot about that.

And I'm watching that and we're getting to the fifth inning.

And I'm thinking, I think she's got a perfect game going.

I've maybe only seen two.

Yeah.

Okay.

And one of them was Ava Schill from Assumption just the other year.

Yeah.

Who plays at UWGB now.

Division one.

And I'm watching that.

And I'm thinking, well, then one of the defensive players kicks a ball a little bit.

So in the air.

And I'm like, oh, well, there was a perfect game.

And I said, but that means that it's still in a hitter.

So I looked through the app on my phone that I wish every team used that app.

Yeah.

But don't want to give them a shameless plug.

But it's a nice easy one for me to follow.

And it's got to be pretty simple for me to follow.

And I'm walking them like, well, she gave up a walk.

There's nothing in that H column.

And I said, well, let's see.

And then boom, boom, boom, struck them out, struck out the side.

And that was it.

So I'm like, this is awesome.

So I got to talk to coaches about it.

I wasn't able to talk to her.

She left right away.

So I'm like, you can't do that to me, kid.

Yeah.

But I did.

I actually, the coolest thing about that one though is her grandfather lives right across the street for me.

And down the street from where I live, local watering hole, her, I think it was her cousin.

Cousin her aunt was bartending.

And I said, hey, wait a minute here.

Tara, wait a minute.

You are, you know, anyway, you could probably talk to her mom to give me a phone call here.

And so went to the back room and wrote down on post at notes what she said and included in my game story.

And there you have it.

That is important.

That is journalism, baby.

That is awesome.

There's been several times where like when Tanner Gormanson, for example, won the state championship heavyweight wrestling this year.

I obviously was not down in Madison.

I had to be up here for the River Kings.

But texted Scott Bennett says, hey, when you and Tanner have a moment, do you want to give me a call?

And yeah, yeah.

And this was after the River Kings game.

And I was at that same watering hole to be here before going home.

And I, because I get better reception there, which is not an excuse.

It's honest to go.

Right.

And went into the back room there and talked to, talked on the phone, wrote down everything I could.

And yeah, from there.

So I mean, it's, what do you got a job to do?

You got to do it.

And I was just fortunate to be able to do that in those couple instances.

This is why you're in that spot, man.

And we appreciate the work that you're doing the end.

I appreciate you, yeah.

So when you vouch for somebody, for me, I've never vouched for anybody.

There was, it was difficult for me.

Because if I'm doing that, I'm 100%.

I'm 100% on somebody.

It was nothing for me to do.

I see it.

What everybody else is seeing right now.

Real quick.

I want to get to the athletes, the players, the games.

But is the farther I get away from it, the more I think my favorite baseball game,

I've seen is Mark Burley's perfect game.

And it would be good.

Because it was on accident, I was at home when I was supposed to be working.

And they canceled work that day.

They closed down the hotel.

So we weren't able to work.

And I'm just happy to be home.

I'm cleaning around the house.

And I'm living.

I'm into Cal.

So I'm only there for a couple of months at the time.

And I remember, oh, yeah, I got WGN now.

I could pull up the socks game if I want.

And Mark Burley's picture, my favorite picture.

Oh, this is awesome.

And I got nothing done the rest of the afternoon.

I was locked into that game.

It was raining.

I can almost remember every single pitch.

There's something about a perfect game at least to our generation still.

I don't know if the younger generation is just going to be this much.

But if it even happens.

Yeah, yeah.

So for them in this game, these two back-to-back games that you just covered and everything,

obviously, the no hitters stand out.

But as far as the overall games and what we can tell from this early on in the season,

what are your thoughts?

You know, if we want to go softball, I would say Nekusa.

Nekusa is going to challenge for that conference title in the South Central Conference.

They've got two pitchers.

They got some pretty good bats.

They got kids that really want to be there.

And that's a huge thing.

Port Edwards, they're young.

And it's just a different transition now.

It's a new coach that it may be a little bit tougher of a season.

But they are getting better just like everybody else.

Lincoln, they have just lost one game.

Then that was to Everest.

And they had the time.

No, they had the winning run at the plate.

So they're not too far behind Everest.

And then assumption, they're getting better.

They are getting better.

And sure, they split this week with Auburn Dale.

And they came up shy last night.

But they're going to be really dangerous when it matters most.

Yeah, and that's...

Yeah, they got thumped by Pichelli.

But, you know, that's the thing.

Those girls are getting better each time.

And I've seen them through several games this year.

They're going to be getting better.

Soccer-wise, assumptions going to be tough again.

And division four.

Rapids is getting better.

They're getting some players back from injury and some other choices in life.

And then, boy, baseball.

Nacousis, another fun one to watch.

They've been close in almost every game.

They beat Athens 5-3 the other night.

They actually took the game to Pitzville in their first game.

They wore up 5-0 at one point.

They ended up losing 8-5.

And then last night, they played Black River Falls and they lost by a run.

So, they're getting there.

Port, they're young.

They got some pretty good senior leadership, but they're young.

And then, Rapids.

For me, they're a little tough to tell yet.

It's in the coach's after 30 years.

They're winning games.

They're losing some games too.

But they're competitive and almost all of them.

Then, of course, assumption baseball.

They can hit the ball.

My goodness.

It's just a matter of if they have enough pitching to get through to it.

And people could say, well, what are you talking about?

They just got their lunch handed to them by Auburndale last two days.

Auburndale's really good.

And you can see what...

I mean, they had one blowout game against Spencer.

But then they should have been Spencer in the second game.

It's early, but they're one of the top teams.

Spencer's good.

I mean, they just beat Pitzville.

And Pitzville's supposed to be one of the favorites in Division 4.

So, it's early yet.

Any given day in baseball, softball, you name it.

Any given day.

And that's what makes it so much fun.

And then, of course, track.

I'm not selling anybody else short on any of that.

But Bella Thomas from Assumption.

She is looking to maybe go three straight in the hundred.

Maybe two in a row in the two.

And I think she didn't say it in so many words last year when I talked to her.

But I think she wants to sweep the sprints.

So, that's the one hundred, the two hundred, and the four hundred.

They are going to be tough in the long distance races as in the eight, the sixteen, and the thirty-two.

Between Lucy Dolan and Brooklyn Shaneck.

They are going to be tough running.

And then some of the relays, if they can get some of them in there.

Boy, Assumption Girls.

A few years ago, I remember that there was one girl from Nakusa that maxed out in five events.

She single-handedly took second.

She was the second of the number two team, the runner-up state team in division two.

She was at state.

She scored that many points.

So, that's why I'm thinking if they can get a couple of those relays,

it may be one field event.

Assumption could win a state title in girls' track.

I'd love to see that.

Think of me too.

Athletes over there.

All they do.

And getting that triple crown and track, if you will, with something as a kid, I used to dream about.

I don't know.

It's one of the coolest things in the sport, really.

Being able to pull off one of those, a little bit more, and even two of them.

We'll be following it.

Michael, before we go, move on to some MLB talk.

You got it.

We've got our new newsletter coming out, a new edition tomorrow at noon.

Be sure to sign up for it at WFHR.com.

Michael's got some reporting in there.

Can you preview or give a tease of what you got in there?

There's obviously a softball, no hitters back-to-back.

That wasn't actually what I was going to lead with.

What I was leading with was...

I had to rewrite your article.

Yeah, and we're going to finish that tonight and try to get to Melissa's early as I can.

So, I don't forget about it.

About touch base on that no hitter, that pair of no hitters.

Looking at, I was going to mention the NBA playoffs.

Playoffs.

Because the box in the pace, you'd never know.

That's an interesting series.

This is part three.

We got the original a couple of years ago that we got the sequel.

Now, I believe we got the third one.

Then try factor.

Let's see.

I think of...

There's a couple other ideas I had out there.

But I know there's some DNR questions, the questionnaires there.

That's, boy, I've got Rance and all those too.

Well, some of them, not all of them.

But look forward to reading it.

And you can read it too at just signing up at WFHR.com.

Everybody be sure to go do that.

Before we're going to break, just touching on a little bit of Brewers news.

Brewers 1 today, 5-1, if you did not see.

No, we're in part because I believe...

I just want to double check who got the W here.

I believe, yeah, Jose Quintana did.

Yep.

Quintana.

To know on the season for Jose Quintana, man.

Just interesting and cool to see some of these guys that can hang in there and stay.

Even if they're not the great that they were or anything like that.

Seeing them be able to give you five, six innings or something like that.

You gave five and a half, man.

I mean, that's impressive.

That's at his age and everything.

And what he's been through as far as injuries and surgeries and everything.

Quintana, he's one that I think...

He was in St. Louis not that long ago.

If I remember right.

And I remember when St. Louis brought him in.

Had a bunch of friends up here saying, oh, they're going after the old guys that can't play anymore.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And they signed them.

And I said, hey, remember a year or two ago.

You know, signing guys that sold and beat up and can't play more.

What are you doing?

Yeah, shut up.

Exactly, exactly.

And Brewers have called up Logan Henderson to help their riddled staff.

Henderson is a nice prospect.

It'll be good to see him get some playing time, see how he does.

And I believe that they're playing Detroit.

Well, they're playing Detroit right now.

I think that games over.

Yeah, yeah, he'll be okay.

Colorado or Washington, he'll be facing.

So they don't have him in the rotation exactly.

I want to say that the A's are coming up to town now.

Okay.

So maybe it could be Sunday.

It could be maybe Sunday against the A's.

I don't know.

Before we go to our first break, we're getting ready for it here and everything.

I did want to have a couple of the baseball things.

One of them I wanted to touch on with you in part.

Did you get to see as busy as you've been and everything?

You're Freddie or Fetty for the Cardinals?

Yeah, play he had last night?

Yeah, I didn't see it from last night.

I was mentally preoccupied with a softball and B.

I went turkey hunting, man.

And so I had other things to worry about.

But the day job comes first.

Yeah, but I did not see that.

It's a nice play.

It was a nice play.

When I get a charge in the fall off, go back and look.

As a pitcher, you know, just did a nice move there.

You'll see it for yourself.

But it did get me thinking because of the angle of the camera shot,

it's you see the center field.

You see right out the center field.

And I started thinking about great cardinal like outfielders

and fielders in general with Ozzie Smith and some of these guys.

I call them guys.

There aren't many teams that can compete

with who has the best field of defense of all time.

Like you're taking your all-time players of a team.

And you can put together the best defense of team.

Man, the Cardinals are up there for best defense.

You start right away with the out of your Malena behind the plate.

But you've also got Macarver used.

You was pretty good too in his own right.

But man, now do they have to be full-time cardinals

or just the fact they work cardinal jersey?

You know, I think if they just played.

You know, I'm not going to be too much of a stick.

I like to have fun with these things.

Jim Edmond's in center field.

Yeah.

Scott Roll and I think over towards third.

Honestly, you know more about the Cardinals than I'll ever know.

But had you not said Jim Edmond's in center field,

we'd gone to break.

Well, I would have been fired.

Not even the day in.

Not even fully and I'm fired.

Everything we said earlier means nothing.

Jimmy, yeah, Jimmy, right there.

I wish the young man would have not had that accident passed away.

I wish I would have seen Oscar Tavaris in right.

Some of these are just escaping me where they are at.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, who holds because of the offense?

You got to put them at first.

But there's been some Mark McGuire then too.

Oh, man.

Don't do you put McGuire at a D.H.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, you got to put them both in there.

So yeah, you might as well put them.

Actually, you know, I seem to remember.

And this is him at the A's.

But I seem to remember being McGuire not being bad at first as an A.

I don't remember him as a Cardinal over there.

But I see you remember him being OK.

But at the same time, I was, you know, three or whatever it was back there.

So who knows?

All those guys were great to me back then.

And then, you know, I would say Molina center.

And then first, I'll go Albert D.H. McGuire.

Shortstop Ozzy.

Third would be Scott Roland center.

I want to say Jim Edmonds.

And I'm spacing on some of these other guys.

I don't know why I'm spaced.

Well, maybe it's because I've been up so long.

I have a Ray Langford.

Yes, a Ray Langford.

Yeah, because I was thought he was good.

I mean, I've never really got it, got to put it together for a career.

No.

But especially not only had moments, but had seasons.

Yes.

And he was competitive.

And one of the last two sport guys too.

Yes.

Forget about that.

Yep.

But some of these other classic cardinals, you've got to have them ready to come up off the bench.

In a slaughter's one, you know, country.

You know, you got to go with him.

Ducky Medwick.

Rogers Hornsby.

You got to go with all these other ones too that have their number.

They're my dad.

So happy.

Stan Newshornsbury.

Stan, you can't forget Stan the man.

Oh my god.

Yeah.

What a franchise.

And then there's me look either scraping through my Chicago white socks history book.

I have to talk about the black socks.

As you can.

Oh, yeah.

That's my guy.

No.

No matter what.

He's a South type guy.

Oh, yes.

He's got us a title.

Well, it's a title before the Cubs got one.

You should.

Yeah.

Like that, like that rap car commercial that they had with the blue, blue penella.

And I saw that.

I'm a North type guy.

Yeah.

I know I could tell.

Oh, my god.

I remember that.

That's what you just brought.

But such nostalgia.

Well, I'll tell you what.

Because when you have blue penella.

Rapping?

Yeah.

I mean, that's quality.

But you can't watch it.

It's like a trainer.

Good luck to the marketing team trying to top that, you know, in their next run.

Yeah.

Good luck.

Oh, yeah.

The car shillsman's there.

Oh, they better have made their millions.

We started something here that we were having some fun with you.

Have we?

About having a stand of the show and a story of the show.

So I want to get into some of that.

And first, for those who did not hear yesterday would have been the anniversary of 1947, April

15th.

And made his debut in that debut.

He went over three.

I think that might be a little bit well known.

But his first hit came in the following game on April 17th.

Some may not know that Jackie decided to deciding run in that game, though, for Brooklyn.

You know, so that was kind of cool.

You know, had a 297 batting average at season 29 stolen bases led the National League

and stolen bases and a nice game.

Now I bring this up in part because of the noteworthiness of it.

And certainly they were so close to it in history.

Yeah.

I said something the other day when I was talking about Jackie Robinson of how my, I don't

know if it's my favorite thing in sports, but it's a top three top five favorite thing

in sports is seeing like seeing a guy steal home plate.

It's such a wicked like just incredibly like I can't think many things to me.

That is more like if a guy stands there and looks at the picture after he does that is

much more bad.

You know what?

Then a guy whipping the bat up and it never lands or anything like that.

There's no home run to me that can compare to that.

Especially because of the daringness of it and the, just the belief in oneself to do

something like that.

And I just kind of threw out there and I really try to catch myself on these things because

there's way too many people doing this stuff in sports nowadays of just hyperbole and

Jackie Robinson is one of the greatest home plate stealers ever and everything and it was

very good.

Yes.

But I went and just happened to look up at about two in the morning.

The Major League baseball records for stealing home peace.

I was, I was wondered where you were going with that.

And interestingly, a guy who I do mention quite a bit and everything is the all-time leader

in this tie-cob.

Oh yeah.

I like to bring tie-cob up because I think tie-cob is one of the best examples for modern

day athletes.

Tie-cob is, is oftentimes thought of as the, the, the, the, the boogie man of baseball and

the bad guy and all these different things and he sharpened his spikes and stuff.

And not a day.

What is, you know, slaughter, I mean, none of it is true.

Not one bit of it was true.

What happened to tie-cob was he was a great baseball player who was boring.

He just, it was not an, I'm interesting of a guy.

So you get sports writers back then and a guy in particular who had some problems himself.

Yeah.

Um, gets, it gets an idea of, of making tie-cob into something he isn't and starts

making these stories and stories and before you know it, especially in a day when there's

no way to, you know, look it up and prove it and everything.

Yeah.

And then he's labeled as something for decades.

That he wasn't.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And tie-cob was one of the guys who was actually pushing for, uh, not just, uh, African

Americans, but Native Americans and anybody that wanted to play baseball, they needed

players back then and tie-cob was like, well, we need players.

I don't care who you are.

Come and play.

Absolutely.

Really good guy.

There's a great, um, book about tie-cob.

I always like to reference, um, when this comes up a terrible beauty.

Uh, it's, it's a Charles Lee Shan did an amazing job.

I did an amazing job on this book of actually talking to people that actually played with

tie-cob, new tie-cob, uh, people that were on the other side of some of these stories

and they're like, no, tie-cob never, who's sharpening their, their, their, you know, we

got day jobs.

Who's got the time to do these things that they were saying tie-cob was doing?

Right.

But it's just interesting to me and I was like to reference that whenever I get a chance

because I feel like as a baseball, a die-hard baseball fan, I think I am.

Um, it's on us as lovers of this game to tell it correctly.

And that's it.

That's a guy who got mistreated throughout the human, you know, history of baseball here

and here he is.

He's the all-time leader in, uh, uh, in the A L, I should say, with 50, 50 career, uh,

horse, some of these other names.

You got Max Carry in there for the end of, uh, played for Pittsburgh and Brooklyn, uh,

Pete Reiser for Brooklyn, Bill Barrett for Chicago, Eddie Collins for Philly, and of course

Shulis Jo Jackson, but did it for, uh, Chicago and Cleveland, um, so yeah, just some interesting

names in there.

And I thought it was an interesting list of seeing these guys and, uh, and also seeing

dates like, um, um, what is this August 30th, 1907?

Some of the stats when you look up baseball stuff.

So that was interesting to me.

But before we go to break, I do want to give them to our story of the show.

And, uh, this one hits, uh, just, I don't know, all the feelings that I'll be honest

about that.

Um, that a little bit, a little bit, uh, I've got named Bryce.

Bryce Harper is always bringing something different to the field and to the game.

He carried a, uh, an interesting thing to, um, the end of the night's game.

So him and his wife are expecting and, uh, they're, you know, gender reveals are a big

deal and everything nowadays.

And I, I honestly could take or leave that, but I also understand it's not even my generation.

So I'm not even, you know, it's not for me.

I think that.

Bryce, you stopped just had one the other week where he stepped up to the, his first

half bat and had a pink and had a pink arm band on.

Nice.

Well, that was the gender reveal for some couple at the game.

Right on.

Uh, Bryce Harper, uh, him and his wife had this set up.

They have a pink bat and a blue bat and I, he tells Trey Turner one of his best friends

like Trey, they, Trey finds out and he's going to give one of the bats to Bryce.

And that's how Bryce is going to find out.

And he shows up to, uh, says first that bat the other day with a blue bat.

So, um, he, uh, they're having a boy, congratulations to them.

And, um, also want to say a shout out to Trey Turner because not only did Trey Turner,

you know, do something like this and it was a really cool moment and everything, but

he messed with him hardcore and you have to.

I feel like you have to mess with him a little bit, like give him a black bat, give, you

know, give him a green, give him a green, yes, exactly, give him a, a, a battle bat, you

know, what are those little toy bats?

I don't know something.

You got to get on different.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yes.

Trey Turner was messing with him.

I love it.

I love the story.

That was, that's a fun.

I, uh, these gender reveal things can, I could take her, leave them usually.

Yeah.

This one I thought was cool.

That one's cool.

And then when you're, I didn't hear about the one that you were talking about.

Yeah.

That's the other day.

And I'm thinking, oh, I had a boyfriend.

Yeah.

That's pretty cool.

And congratulations to all of them.

Uh, Mausletop.

We'll take a time out.

We'll come back.

Michael and I are going to talk a little, uh, uh, rafters.

We'll talk a little bit of badgers and of course, the draft and NBA playoffs all coming

up for you right here on Playmakers, which is proudly brought to you by family, natural

foods and quality plus printing.

Welcome back, everybody.

Playmakers at WFHR.

We're going to wait for those keys.

Oh, chicken, water, I can't get enough of nicely done, nicely done.

Playmakers back on your radio dial, thanks for joining us, everybody shout out to quality

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Michael and James here with you, going to do our favorite thing to do on the show, take

your calls.

Good afternoon.

You're in the game.

Good afternoon, guys and congratulations, Michael.

Been in your new position.

Thank you.

I appreciate it, man.

Thank you.

Hey, it's good to have you back, man.

It's been a while.

Yeah.

It's been a little bit.

I'm just trying to get through the fuse for you weeks here of the work and trying to

get a routine going.

But it's a go.

I mean, no, it's going.

It's going really good.

I mean, the brain hurts head a little bit at the end of the day because I'm trying to

learn something completely different, but it's worth every day for me.

Yes.

You do want to wake up?

Yeah.

I hear you.

Yeah.

Any time I try to learn something new, it's a what's on your mind today, but you guys kind

of threw a lot there at the end of this first half of the show.

Yeah, we did.

We want to go back a little bit.

We want to go back a little bit in the high school end of it.

I mean, I had a community play with some when I was in high school played on three years

of fantastic baseball.

I think we didn't lose maybe six games in the conference in the three years that, you

know, might be soft software to senior year.

That's what the fellow central, the old cell central, and he had cordage, bearable reads

bird.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Sparta.

Yeah.

When you've had those, yeah, that was the conference.

And my, my senior year, we didn't lose a conference.

I mean, my junior senior year, excuse me, we didn't lose a conference game.

The one and, but on top of that, my junior senior year, we played the Dells and they

may be those, those four or five games that we played against them had a total of two

hits.

Oh, man.

That's brutal.

Oh, man.

Is that way?

I mean, you don't forget that stuff.

Those are stats.

You don't forget.

No, yeah.

Right.

You know, in a high school baseball and softball, I mean, the way they had the schedules

really, to have, if you have a couple, like, especially softball, if you have two really

good starters, you should do fairly well, even getting into the state level, you know,

if they're really good pitchers, you know, the baseball, if you have three really good,

I mean, we had to probably a staff of both four guys that, I mean, on any team would

be starters, you know, and actually we had two guys that mean I actually had a, you

know, ultimately your friends of mine.

He got drafted and, right out of high school, but he went and played football, Wisconsin,

until they dropped the baseball program, and then he went and up going down to Central

Florida, and then he got drafted eventually by the Brewers.

But, um, but yeah, we had some pretty good teams back then.

Like, if they had four good pitchers, and, you know, and then some of the underclassmen

they did pitch, when we played the double headers or things like that, but in high school,

I mean, if you have the good pitching, I mean, that goes a long way, and like you said

with, I think you said with a substrin, if they're pitching shows up, they got enough

bats to score runs, and if you can hold the pitching can hold up, and where now where

the Brewers are, they're pitching struggling because of all the injuries, but, I mean,

I think by the end of the middle of May to the end of May, the pitching staff should

be healthy.

You're going to, you're going to get some of those guys back, and I think the Brewers

are going to be okay, because they have shown even though they've gotten blown out of

few games, they show they can, they can still score their runs, too.

Right.

I mean, who doesn't get blown out a couple of times during the season?

I mean, that doesn't mean anything.

We see plenty of teams make runs at the end of the season, but it's interesting in baseball,

especially, I'd say the last, gosh, almost eight to ten years, um, you almost know in

the first month of the season, I'm not saying you know who's going to win, right?

You almost know, okay, these are playoff teams, these are not, where, like last year with

the Marlins, trading Arisa, like within, like four days in the season or whatever and stuff

where, they're just, now that is an outlier because the Marlins are just the Marlins.

Yeah.

Are they either win a World Series or they're horrible?

I mean, it's just what they do.

We're still in between.

Um, but with that, I agree with you about the health part of this, and I, um, I was,

I got brand of wonder from my fantasy team, I'll admit that right away, but I got them

on there in part so I could actually, you know, keep up on him because whether you believe

it or not, one of the greatest ways to keep up on these athletes is to win fantasy sports.

You are right, man.

It's crazy.

It's crazy how it depthed the details of the jerk, the reporting that's done.

But Woodruff, uh, started, um, there's, he's starting this Thursday in AAA, and I think

this is a second or third outing, um, so you've got somebody like that in the bullpen

that could be coming out.

And even if you're getting 70% of brand of Woodruff, that's better than 100% of most of

these guys.

Yeah.

I don't, I wouldn't, if I'm the brewers, I'm certainly, you know, concerned.

I'm not worried.

Uh, I, I think you've got good things to, you know, to look forward to, especially getting

healthy.

Um, and, and, you know, seeing, hey, it's early.

Why not see what some of these guys like Logan and that can do?

Yeah.

Well, you know, you brought up, you know, Anderson, he, he actually, they haven't

known as a thirder for on Sunday, um, against the A's.

Okay.

So the obvious major league, they will be on Sunday.

Good call, Michael.

I guessed.

I heard.

I heard that, uh, um, something from Murf that, I mean, out of 17 games, you got going

out on four of them.

You go, yeah, you go, yeah, that's a little concerning, but yeah, I heard him say

that.

Yeah.

And it's so you get that butt in there.

It's like, well, because you know, I mean, some of these guys are still, you know, especially

in pictures.

Why they really haven't been stretched out yet because, um, I mean, pictures that

they throw really in spring training.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just a matter of finding those fringe guys that you think might contribute.

Mm-hmm.

That's, that's, I mean, that's a beauty of it.

Kevin, anything else on your mind?

I, I'm dying to talk NFL draft.

So please tell me you're thinking about it.

No.

I, I'm sure to think about it a little bit.

Um, I mean, I, I really see, you know, the, the talk this last week was kind of a little

bit of the tragedy that happened on the LSU with, uh, that that, uh, that gentleman,

um, heartbreaking.

Heart breaking, heart breaking on a lot of levels, uh, you know, that, that's a, that's

a, there's a lot of depth on that one.

Um, that I don't even know if in, uh, three hours a week we have enough time to get into

and everything.

I, I agree with you, though, and I appreciate you noting it.

Um, I, I got a quick question and I hope I'm not cutting you off there.

But, uh, when it comes to, and I, I, I have for packer fans because I couldn't imagine

what it'd be like to have your team hosting the NFL draft, like in the, in their good, you

know?

I really don't, I really can't even imagine what that's like.

I literally, I've got a great imagination.

It's very difficult for me with the team that I wrote for.

So it's hard to imagine that.

And I'm, I, I thought there was a lot of, uh, uh, you know, fun excitement coming into

this month.

Yeah.

I feel like in the last couple of weeks, it's almost like the air's been taken out.

And, and I, I'm not hearing it.

I'm not feeling it as much.

And that may be because there's baseball, there's other stuff going on the boxer in playoffs.

There's other things and there's only so much bandwidth you have.

But the other part of it was that I was a little surprised by is the, the lack of, I,

I don't want to say concern, but the lack of interest in, in like fans and what the packers

are going to do.

There's been some talk about them training out of the first round.

There's been no talk really of them moving up.

Um, and these are kind of usually talking points for fans.

Yeah.

So, uh, for one, I think that this is just a credit to packer fans.

And I think that they're, you know, maybe the most rational I've ever seen packer fans

is this version of packer fans right now.

Yeah.

Um, so I think that there's a credit to that I want to have that more sports fans need

to have, but there's also a kind of, I'm also a little like frustrated with it because

again, I'm living bicariously through and for me, I'm like, come on guys, move up in

the draft.

Let's do something.

Let's get a guy.

Let's go do something here.

And, and, and I feel that way, not every draft and not just to do something, not, I,

I, I hate the idea of doing something just for doing something safe.

Right.

This particular draft, we all understand, you ain't got to be kiper.

You ain't got to be the pop a door to understand.

There's a handful of, uh, thoroughbreds in this draft and the rest are question marks.

And if you are a team that is close and you're a team that we've been saying from, uh, almost

a year now, where are your playmakers?

Get a playmaker.

This is the way you get them.

This is the way the packers get their playmakers is through the NFL draft outside of Reggie

White and a couple of scenarios here or there, they get their all pros.

The guys that are on the Packer Hall of Fame that are retired over there, 90% of them,

I would almost guarantee are drafted guys from that team.

Get one of your guys, especially when a couple of factors here, one, where you're picking

in the draft, those guy ain't, that guy ain't going to be there.

You can go ahead and tell me all the scenarios you want, show me 20 different mock drafts.

I'm telling you right now, that guy that you want is not going to be there.

You're going to have to move up to get them.

And where you're picking and the team that you have, if everything is going the way that

it's supposed to, you're basically got a glorified second round pick anyway.

You're picking, if things go the way they should for the Green Bay Packers, they're picking

no better than 30.

And that's a good, that's a bad scenario almost for that team in the outcome and the expectations

that that franchise should have.

So get your guy, go up and get a guy, get a playmaker, shut everybody up and go up there

and do something.

Get a guy because you couldn't do it in free agency, you couldn't do it through trades.

And now you're going into the season as, well, yeah, but look what we did that one year

when everybody said we should have a playmaker.

We made a run, nobody thought and everything.

What about this one year?

You can't build on outliers.

You can't build on just, well, it happened that one time, no, that one time was great.

And you don't get in those situations without some luck, it was some skill.

But come on, you can't build a franchise on that.

You can't just sit there and hope you got to go work for it sometimes.

And those draft picks that you're going to give up to move up to get that guy aren't

going to mean nothing if it works out and you're picking and you're in the Super Bowl

or you're winning the Super Bowl.

It's a glorified second round pick that you're paying first round money for.

But what if it's one of those situations where it doesn't pan out and those picks that

you gave up?

At least you tried.

At least you tried.

There is something to be said for doing your job and your job is to make this team better.

And the team isn't better, you stand in pat.

There's nobody they're going to get at that number eight team pick the next day when

we're talking about this on playmakers that Friday.

There's nobody they can get if they stay in that spot that we're going to be, oh, this

is a game changer.

This is the guy.

This is the guy that's going to change everything.

No, there's going to be a guy who's going to be good and he's going to have some great

potential.

And Packer fans should be excited about who knows what can happen with him.

But it ain't going to necessarily be the guy that's going to help you win today.

And that the hourglass on Jordan Love has been running since the kid before the kid even

took a snap.

It was running when Rogers was taking the snaps.

So you got to win in this window.

And one thing you darn sure can't count on is another Jordan love.

You got lucky three times, like I mean, at a certain point that well is going to dry

up.

Well, maybe.

I say that.

Yes.

I don't know.

Maybe the Packers for the rest of our lifetimes will have great quarterbacks.

I don't know.

I can't.

The odds are in their favor.

One of the things that I did, you know, they always talk about, you know, we should have

helped.

I learned from the mistakes, but let's help Jordan for it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let's get these guys.

You know, get out there and get these players.

You know, and to me.

And yeah, I think you kind of hit it on the head a little bit.

I'm not excited about this draft because it doesn't really do anything in free agency.

And if you take a look at what you think it gets last year, you brought two guys in and

look at the impact of those two guys made on the stage.

I'm sorry.

You can't sit there relying on Lucas Van Nass to be your man this year, hoping that your

three is going to be his year.

You can't hope on that.

Yeah.

You got to bring somebody in that's going to even push them even more.

I'm not saying that those things couldn't happen.

The Luke Van Nass might not end up being an all pro next year that Romeo doves might

not end up being an all star, something like that.

These things could happen, but you can't count on that.

And you certainly, to your point, can't do it without any competition or without bringing

in somebody.

I keep bringing up Deandre Hopkins because I think it'd be such a perfect fit for Jordan

love with his style of play.

I know he's not in his prime anymore or anything.

You don't need him in his prime home.

You need a leader in that locker room, even the guy who's been there before and a guy

who will lay down and do everything to get you four yards, let alone a first down or

a touchdown.

Deandre Hopkins has proven that his whole career.

That's your man there.

Get you somebody like that that pulls somebody's number one, pulls their corner off or pulls

a safety up or something like that and gives Josh Jacobs that much more lane or your tight

ends more room or any of the above that Matt LaFlor knows a heck of a lot better than

I ever will.

Get those guys though, give them the pieces because I don't know.

I don't know how well I can judge Brett Farve or Farve's not exactly a better example

here because they made some, they got Andre Ryzen, they got some guys for Farve.

Don B.B.

Andre Ryzen.

They brought in some free agents back then.

Aaron Rodgers, as you were saying there, Kevin, it's, I mean, one of the more famous things

in his time here in Green Bay was they're not doing enough to help Rodgers.

We're going to go through that all over again with this new kid, with Jordan Love.

If they don't do something, now I think you could already make an argument, well, that's

over with they got Josh Jacobs.

But that's not doing your bottom off.

That's, not enough, agreed, it's not only not enough, it's not what we're talking about.

That's a whole other part of the game.

That's a whole other, it does help him, obviously.

But we're talking about something that literally helps Jordan Love become a better quarterback.

Get to that next level.

Instead of throwing the pick at the end of the game, he's throwing the touchdown at the

end of the game or he's throwing it away or something like that, receivers that make

him smarter and better.

That's only, that's something only veterans can do.

It's nothing against young receivers.

It's reps.

You can only learn by this game, by reps, like anything in life.

Oh, yeah.

The more you do something, the better you're going to be.

I do like the Nicole Hardman thing, I obviously like that move, but I like that for the opposite

reasons, because he's still at that prime age where he's got speed still and injuries haven't

taken some time, father of time hasn't taken some of his speed.

But as much as he's a veteran and he's been there before, he's caught a Super Bowl winning

such damage.

Yeah.

He's not the leader you need in that locker room and nobody believes that he's going to

make Jordan love a smarter, better quarterback.

Can you get better stats when Nicole Hardman's sure?

That's not what I'm concerned about.

I want him getting smarter in the pocket.

I want him not making some of the mistakes he made last year.

Good receivers help him do that.

And to be fair, a rookie receiver's not going to maybe necessarily help him do that at

all.

So moving up in the draft in that department, I hear you on maybe not being a good idea.

This franchise is going to do, I think they've earned a benefit of the doubt in some ways.

But again, going back to the Rogers complaints and to the complaints in this off season, it

is not without some concern.

Right.

You could maybe make the argument that maybe just just the small sample size we have, of

course, that maybe Jordan love needs a little more help than air in Rogers.

I wouldn't say it, but I mean, I mean, just it's a small sample size and I'm not saying

that.

Well, Jordan doesn't have it.

Get rid of him.

I'm not saying that by any means at all, guys, but everyone's different.

Farve could do it.

Farve could do it with his athleticism and just rock and arm.

Okay.

Rogers did it with his brains.

Now I'm not saying Jordan loves an idiot because he's not.

You don't play professional football quarterback by not being smart.

But does he have a good enough mix of the two?

Does he lean one way over the other or the other way over one way?

I don't know.

I still say the sample size is pretty small on him that he had once, I mean, how much,

what more do we want?

Both years as a starter, he's made the playoffs and every one of those games, even though

he's one and two in them, they were all close games.

There's most of the teams in the league would give up their quarterback today for Jordan

love.

Denver?

Yeah.

Well, maybe not Chicago anymore.

Yeah, up until a year ago, you got my point, yeah, yeah, Kev, so I like your points about

the draft, too, about the off season and being a little bit of us, you know, that is exciting.

So it's hard to get excited about the draft.

I hadn't thought about that.

That's an interesting point.

And, and I think too with it where they're picking that comes into play, too, it's not

a top five pick.