What's going on? Everybody beats you unleashed in
the house. My God, the snow.
I can't stand it. I, I, I cannot stand the snow to
the point where I'm actually in a bad mood today like I I can't
stand it I'm done with it It's cute in January it's fine in
early as February see, this is what I think about right?
And it's so funny because my wife is from Dallas and it's the
snow and I, I'm, I'm, I'm a weather snob, right?
And I'm a weather snob that traces back to my days of when I
was playing a lot of golf before kids, before I was married right
now, playing three times a week, sometimes a little bit more than
that. And I would stretch out the golf
season. I remember actually playing
rounds. I remember playing on New Year's
Day once in in the Northeast. So I would go out and I would
play November and I'd have the skull cap on.
And you know, Wendy, as long as it wasn't raining, if it was
windy, if it was kind of dry, I was out there and I would get
out there as early as I can, right?
So when you want to play golf that way, you've got to
understand the weather and you just lock in, you dial in, you
follow the weather and just suck it up and you go play, right?
Now my mind shifts to, OK, when are we on the baseball field
with the kids? Like that's And then obviously
I'll play a little, little bit of golf myself.
But like, when can I get outside?
Because I can't stand being trapped.
I can't stand it. I can't stand going out in the
backyard, you know, maybe once a month or twice a month to hang
out by the fire pit and shovel to get to the fire pit.
So yesterday as this starts to come down, as I start to say, my
wife is from Dallas. So like, oh, this is so amazing.
This is so fantastic. And all I keep saying is no,
it's not This is this is going to set us back a long time now,
Jay Ron, I want to know what what does somebody go is been
better? Honestly, I'm not in good mood
today like this snow is depressing and I don't very I
don't really get depressed very often.
I'm actually depressed. I can I can't go anywhere to
there's nowhere to go. There's nothing to do.
That to me is not exciting. Like we watched a movie last
night with the kids. It was great.
We watched the Titanic with them.
We, you know, we Fast forward classic that one scene, of
course, when they're in the car. So we did that.
There's only so many movies to watch.
Like I just start pacing the house.
I got nowhere to go. I can't even go for a ride.
I like there's nothing to do. So you're in an apartment.
What what? What do you do today?
I mean, nothing like honestly similar vibe my roommate and I
like. Last night we watched what, the
Tom Cruise movie Vanilla Sky. Today we'll probably, you know,
watch a couple more movies. I mean, do some podcasts and
stuff, you know, in the car, but no, we're trapped.
I mean really the only places like, you know, in New York it's
a little different because at least there's still a couple
corner delis you could walk to within like a 20 foot radius
other than that on your side. Yeah, I hear you.
And by the way, this is the little false, false
representation here at Slay under score kids.
BT acts like he's actually go out and clean the snow today.
I, I always that matter of fact, I've told the story many times
where I have enjoyed going out and taking care of the snow like
when like for, you know, when the kids were little, we lived
in a condo. So they would do that like the,
the building would take care of that once we move to our home.
Like something clicked in first time homeowner, dad, little
kids. I, I embraced it and I enjoyed
it. And I've told you like I would,
I would open up the garage door. I would bring out a little
bottle of Scotch. I would pour a little little
little here and there. I'd have the music going from
the garage and I would get down to work and I would, I would do
it myself. The last one was so heavy that
I'm like, you know what? One of the women down the
street, I guess you sent out a text to all the moms then and
all the wives, all the friends. Hey, you know, so and so hired
somebody to come in and you know, I plow the driveways.
I'm like, you know what? How about do it, Do it.
And it was the easy way out. And she knows I'd never do that.
So she was surprised that I wanted to do it.
And now I'm starting to find my because I'm like, it was 200
bucks. I'm like, dude, I don't care if
it's $2000. Like the way it's out there, I'm
not going out. I'm not messing around with
that. So when I knew what was coming
today, I told her to try to get out in front of this and see if
we can get the same person to come and play the, the, the,
the, the grounds. I guess they weren't available.
So somebody down the street, I think he's like a 19 year old
kid athlete, you know, wrestler, whatever plays hockey, he's
going to come and do it. And now I'm like, but no, it's
not nice because I'm I'm re evaluate like I enjoy it, but
there's just there's a limit. Like I'm telling you, I am, I
am. This is not for Oh, let's
pretend that it's you. I am actually down today.
I am I woke up. I'm like this fucking sucks that
it's snowing this much. I got literally nowhere to go
and I'm depressed. Like I'm, I'm bothered by this.
I am absolutely bothered by the inability to do anything.
I can't sit around all day. I get antsy.
I get, I start pacing. I need stuff to do.
I can only create so many graphics and images and do
things for the show. Like I got to do something.
I have to do something, even if it's to get in the car to go get
gas just to leave the house. And I can't even do that today.
So that's where we're at, buddy. That's where we're at.
Might have to go Leonardo DiCaprio and The Revenant or
something. Go on a a little adventure.
Good line. That's a good movie, by the way.
Yeah, that was a good one. All right, all right, we do.
We do have some stuff for you today.
And real quick before I get to Team USA, great, great job by
the Olympic team. Winning gold yesterday, beaten
Canada. Sick game, sick finish.
Six circumstances. So let me at least alert you
guys about this or of this year. So what I did was over the
weekend, J Rod, I know you saw this.
You helped me with this in terms of the shorts which are doing
really well. So I'm going to start pumping
out some new content. OK, so today apartment yesterday
put up my old time Yankees lineup from 1980 forward and I
ran through it. A lot of debate, a lot of, you
know, points of contention for some of you.
What I'm going to do is obviously The Daily Show will do
that Monday through Friday and you know, from 10 until about
11:30 sometimes if there's a lot going on, I'll stick on it.
I'll stick around until noon. But I, I, I want that and it's
been on my mind. I'm like, I don't want to just
do a live show. I want to be able to provide
some other stuff, some more Evergreen stuff that I think is
going to really come out well and really, quite frankly, give
me a chance to not Only Connect and communicate more with you
guys, but really tap into to one of my what what you know, I say
this very humbly, but what I perceive to be one of my
ultimate strengths and that is connecting history and and doing
all that stuff here. So the Yankee Lotup is up there.
Obviously, again, Reggie's not on my team.
I did not put Reggie on my team. Understand this before I get to
the hockey and the other stuff, there's two things.
There's only two rules #1 you had to it's, it's got to be from
post 1980 on. So really what I could actually
recollect like somewhat watching games and and process like I'm
the, I mean, anybody could put Garrick and Babe Ruth and Mickey
Mantle and Yogi Berra and Joe Di Maggio out there.
Like I want to make it more personalized, which I did.
So that's rule #1 the other rule.
And no, it's not an anti Juan Soto rule.
I know some of you think that I created this just because I'm,
I'm still annoyed, which I'm not, that Juan Soto let the
Yankees for the Mets. But the other rule and these are
the only two rules. Otherwise you do what you want.
You had to have played for the Yankees for at least more than
one year. All right, so Juan Soto
ineligible for this team now he's going to be eligible for
the Mets one, which I'm going to do.
I just started doing the the research there.
I've got something cooking which is going to drop right before
the Big East tournament. My all time Big East team that's
already done like the graphics done.
My team is constructed. I've got to do a little bit more
so I can really, you know, church up the presentation a
little bit, but it's already done and that took forever not
to start supporting 5. That was pretty good and that
was pretty, pretty easy for me. But running through the bench
and then even coming up with the coach lot of fun detail process.
So this is going to be more content that I'm going to drop
to you guys and and even other things like I was thinking about
this just so it's not always about sports.
I've got something coming soon. You know, I love my sneakers,
right, top ten sneakers, top ten albums, top ten concerts, stuff
like that. So well, many, many things that
are coming to beat you unleashed.
Happy to have you like it, subscribe it.
Bang that button in there. All right, can we get something
straight? Yesterday was not a miracle,
guys. It was an amazing moment for
United States hockey. It was a combination of where
the, the hockey world on our soil has has come.
I was reading some stuff yesterday, right?
So, and you know this, you know that there was a large gap of,
of, of, of non winning, if you will, right.
So when they won in 1980, of course, the team of amateurs.
We just saw the documentary the couple of weeks ago, which was
great with Brooks, you know, just putting them through
torture for the training camp and who made the team
phenomenal. I, I love that.
And I'm not even a massive hockey fan, you know that.
But the documentary was great and I appreciate great stories.
So once they won up at Lake Placid in 1980, they had five
straight Olympics without a single medal, not even gold.
No, no silver, no bronze, nothing.
And and obviously USA Hockey was at a distinct disadvantage.
Clearly. And This is why, though it's not
a it's not even close to being a miracle.
And I understand guys, it's a cute play on words.
Oh, and you, I saw this everywhere this morning.
Miracle on Ice 2.0. Wow, we did it again.
Miracle, you know, it's not a miracle because once the the
miracle Lake Placid happened, there was this reinvestment
after that, like the five Olympics that were lean, as I
said, after that, you can visibly see where the seeds for
USA Hockey were planted. Check this out.
J Rod, this is this to me. This is where it really started,
and it usually starts in a way that's fairly benign, that's not
incredibly obvious. Well, USA Hockey in 1990 and
1991 had 100. This was per the USA Hockey
database, right? So these are numbers that are
absolutely legit. I want to do a little digging
here. 195,000 registered ice hockey players.
So we'll just round it up. We'll say 200,000 back in,
199091 registered US hockey players.
And now you look from 1991, a decade after that, it doubled.
It actually more than doubled to over 400,000.
So when you have that kind of that kind of explosion, number
one, what's going to happen is you going to get better athletes
on the ice #1 and maybe some athletes who have may have gone
to different sports back in the day when the number goes from
200,000 to over 400,000. There are some young athletes.
And I don't just mean in the hot pockets of like Minnesota and
Michigan and maybe Ohio and some other pockets where there's
obviously a very fervent hockey base.
New Jersey's got some great hockey.
I know a lot of the that the private schools are really,
really good. Club hockey around here is
really, really good. And then you start to look at
like, and this whole time into a bigger picture, the expansion of
the NHL and obviously go to some warm weather cities, many of
which have proved very viable. And here we are now I, you know,
every time this happens and I'm very transparent with this and I
always have been. So my hockey experience was
limited to playing in the street, not being very good.
Not just there was like the one sport.
I just never just couldn't, I couldn't skate grade.
I just, I didn't, I don't know, I just wasn't very good.
And that along with the fact that my dad never watched one
shift at the NHL, not once. So it was never, never, never on
in our home. And, you know, my dad's a devout
sports fan. Every night, Yankees, Mets,
Nicks, St. Johns, every single Sunday,
Jets, Giants, Lord knows what he's betting on.
Because I could see in the old newspaper he's got this circle
then like reverse, you know -110 and all the.
So I figured out pretty early my dad was, you know, was having
some fun with some of these games.
But hockey was the one sport that was not centrally at all in
my home. And and I, I, I really like a
moment like yesterday. There's a part of me now.
There's only so many rooms, so much room for so many sports.
Like you can't be a maniacal fan about every single sport because
I just a little sideswipe here. I remember talking to Donald
Gregg about this years ago. Donnie's great hockey guy and a
great guy. And I remember saying to Don,
I'm like, you know, it's it's almost impossible to have that
equal attention to hockey and the NBAI don't know, I don't
know one person. I don't know one that is equal
parts fervent in terms of hockey and the NBA.
At some point, you got to be there.
Or I mean, totally with you, all of my friends, most people are
NBA guys, but I'd say the ones who are NHL fans, strictly NHL
fans, maybe a little, maybe a little at like they're NANFL and
MLB fans fans as well, but they're NHL fandom.
Reign supreme. Oh, listen, the one thing that
I've always said, now I understand and I agree and it's
unfortunate and there's a lot of reasons, reasons I won't really
get into now just because I think we kind of already know
what they are in terms of the, the popularity.
Well, you know what? Maybe I will cause I've never
really done it on this show. Very quickly.
The reason why, and I don't mean popularity amongst those devout
hockey fans. I mean hockey permeating the,
you know, the, the mainstream cross section of fans.
And I don't want to turn this into what I'm not going to like
a lazy regurgitation of, well, hockey will never be popular
because you can't follow the puck and it's not transferable
to TV like that. That's lazy.
I mean, it's a maybe a little true, but those are things that
people who have nothing to say about hockey, that's what they
continuously spit out. Like if they know nothing,
right? And and I actually do know
hockey, at least from my childhood, I suppress it because
I I'm no longer following the way I once did.
But there was a point where I was playing hockey in the street
every day. As I said, I was I was an
Islanders fan growing up, those teams that won a bunch of
championships with the Bossies and the pot Fins and the Clark
Gillies and Al Barber was the head coach, of course, Hall of
Famer Billy Smith and pipes, I mean, and just more Bobby
Nystrom and then La Fontaine. And like I, I actually did
follow a little bit of hockey. But the point is, right a day
like yesterday, I am envious of of of those who were so
emotionally invested, like those who really love hockey and
really follow the storylines. It's not that I don't respect
it. I do matter of fact, you can
make a case. People say that maybe NBA
players are the best athletes or certain positions in football.
You could make the case that it's actually hockey players
when like the the real skilled guys who are going up and down a
sheet of ice on skates, moving at a ridiculous rate of speed,
holding a stick control of the puck and avoiding getting their
brains blasted into the board. So you you can make that case.
It's not that I don't appreciate the sport.
It's not even that I don't understand the sport.
I am just built when I did you can play a sport like with at at
a fairly high level. My my database of knowledge and
interest. It wanes.
So I'm watching the our country go crazy yesterday.
And I'll be honest, man, I'm kind of on the side of the road
saying I trust me, you know, You know, I love our country.
I'm I'm thrilled for us. It's a great unifier, all that
good stuff. But did it strike me the way it
struck others? No.
And I wish that it did. I wish that it did.
No, I mean, I'm with you. I, I feel like it's been a long
time, you know, because US typically wins gold.
And even if US won gold in basketball, you're not going to
see me going. Oh, my gosh, they won.
But I mean, yeah, I'm totally with you.
It's funny, you know, seeing some people even my age who are
at bars breaking down in tears. Wow. 10 in the morning because
they just won like the gold and you know, and to me it's just
like similar to you. That's something that I guess
it's not really, it doesn't come.
It doesn't hit me emotionally that way.
It's like, OK, great. There's like a moment of pride
for the nation, but it's not like.
We did it. We.
Overcame on logs kind of deal. Yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't
know what I would have felt in in 1980.
I guess when that happened, I was what, 6?
I don't even really remember, like back in the day when
something big would happen in my neighborhood in Brooklyn,
whether it was New Year's Eve or like the Yankees.
I do remember this, and it's funny, but maybe my dad just
wasn't that into it because it was hockey, because this was a
couple of years after. And I do remember very, very
vaguely when the Yankees won the World Series in 78.
I remember everybody going out and like banging the pots in the
pans. And I do, I remember actually
hearing that, that rattle that is still reverberating
throughout my mind, or at least my mind's eye.
I can still remember that a little bit.
And then, of course, you know, a couple of New Year's Eves after
that, you go out there, you bang the pots and the wooden spoon
and you smashed up together. I don't remember that with the
miracle about on on ice in 80, but I would have to think, you
know, especially if I was older, OK, you know, if I'm nine or
ten, which I wasn't or 12 or 15, you're not that into politics.
You don't really know what's going on in the world.
That's one thing. But if you are of the of the age
in 1980 and of the political mindset, or at least you know,
not, not not to even elevate one party over the other.
I'm just talking about an awareness and more of a pride
for our country. I mean, you're talking about
that point when obviously, I mean, the Cold War was at its
height. That's number one.
You could barely buy a home. Like the mortgage rates were
like 19 and 20%. That was the Carter
administration. You had hostages in Iran.
I mean, you had some real heavy heavy.
That was a dark time. Late 70s New York was a
disaster. Heroin hit the scene.
You know, if Times Square was a mess, kids are home.
I don't want to say what it was, but you guys know what it was.
If if you're of the right age, you know what it was.
You know what was going on back then, Some of those movie
theaters. So it was just a it was
disgusting and like the world was at a dark place and that was
a unifier. That was an uplifting moment.
This does, even though there's a lot going in the world going on
in the world now, I feel like there's so much division
politically and emotionally. I'd love to say that this is
going to be the the impetus to, you know, get people.
It's not. Let's not fool each other.
There's no way it is. I mean, you're right back to
whatever you were saying the day before about the country or the
president or the previous president.
But I love moments like this. I don't take them for granted.
I just wish that as transparent as I could be, that it hit me
and resonated more like it has many of you.
I I respect that. I get it.
It's awesome. But they really played their
asses off. And by the way, 41 out of 42
saves, that is the most saves in any medal game in the history of
the Olympics. 41 saves on 42 shots, including some shots that
were insanely, I mean, ridiculous.
It's great job by our country. I'm proud.
Really, really good. Let's go.
Really, really good. Alright, got a few other things
for you here today. Is the Is the unleashed fam
jacked up about this? Yeah, I mean, it seems like
people, what do we know? We got awesome game.
Thanks for talking about US hockey.
Amazing morning and game. I'll remember forever.
Nothing better than hockey except golf.
Not a miracle because NHL players.
That's part of it. Yeah, totally.
That's part of it. Yep, Yep, yeah.
And I just wanted to again, that's that's not me being Mr.
Negative. I'm I'm as happy as anybody
here. But it's it's not.
But let's not lose position. And because I think if you
position this one as a miracle, what you're doing is you're
really, truly marginalizing what really was a miracle when you
had a collection of collegiate students, you know, college
athletes going against grown men, professionals in the Soviet
Union. No, that's not even comparable
here, but it is, you know what it does too.
And you know, and I've often it bothers me because it takes away
from our product, But you're going to see, you know, I, I
don't know if it's ten years, 20 years or 40 years, but
eventually the efforts by the NFL going to play in Germany and
going to play in London and Brazil and Mexico and some of
these other markets and, and you know, off away from our soil,
You're going to see to what extent I'm not really sure, but
you're going to see an explosion somewhere and that's going to
permeate the NFL, which is largely stateside, obviously,
because you know what happened there.
Listen, there's, there's evidence of this.
This happened back in 92 with Barcelona.
And we've all seen the documentaries.
I know you love hoops as well. And we've all seen it, Jay,
where the world was so enamored with Jordan and Magic and Bird
like they were they were The Beatles, they were the rock
stores, Barkley, obviously the entire team.
And then it went from an incredible admiration, like we
have no chance to beat you. Can you please sign my jersey?
Because suddenly you look around the NBA.
Let's face it, there are more, you know, white.
Europeans of influence in the NBA there are then there are
white kids who grew up in any state in the United States
easily. I mean, not even close, not even
because the last, you know, I, I feel like my roommates and I
will talk, we'll talk about this sometimes.
Like who was the true last Great American white guy in the NBA?
Like great. OK, let let me hear you what
what what comes up in the conversation so.
Right now, I mean the last, Well, if you were to use the
word great, you might have to go back to like Mark Price,
something like that. So Mark brought point guard.
Georgia Tech Yeah, Mark was really good.
But like. Steve Nash's kid.
So it's not Nash. He's Canadian.
Yeah, no, Canadian doesn't count.
Then I I would throw him out of there.
I mean, you know, you think of the All Stars, OK, you've got
Gordon Hayward. I mean, yeah, like he's not.
There's no. Greatness there there's.
Goodness, he was certainly good. He was good Cooper flag
obviously looks like he'll be that he will guy for the future.
He certainly will be. But like in terms of the 21st
century, like a true, you know, not not like I'm trying to sound
like some guy here, but like it's a funny it's a funny
question. Like I can't think of a a true
great like American white dude of the 21st century.
Well, think about this. I mean, just think about and and
and and for a moment, just from a separate the the actual like
roots of the country. So like Canada, I'm just told
like what just light skin, right, Like Dirk, not American,
Steve Nash, not American. There's very few.
I mean, you know, Jokic, not American.
No, your points well taken. I mean, really, if you want to
talk about like true superstore, it's bird, it's bird mullet,
it's bird. I mean, you know, is, is that
where we're going? Might be it might be, it might
be. I mean, it really might be.
I mean, that's that's a long time ago so.
This is my buddy Steve Novak. Come on.
Come on, Stevie Novak, Stevie. Like, you know, Stevie could
shoot. But yeah, Stevie was a role
player, as we know. The the one thing too.
And I'm curious and I want to learn more about this how the
USA Hockey like what, what pages have we taken from other
countries? Like we know that they took some
play some pages from our basketball playbook and they've
caught up in and in some areas they far exceeded what what some
what some Americans do right. But one of the things that I
know for a fact that they do in Europe, overseas for bad I don't
know about I don't know about hockey, but certainly in
basketball is that they basically practice six days a
week and they play one game and if you look or maybe 2, but they
basically it is a constant theme of training and drilling.
And if you look at our model in the United States, it's the
exact opposite. It couldn't.
Yeah, it couldn't be flipped more, Jay, because what happens
now, even guys like Cooper Flag, I mean, they went through this,
right? We're on a Saturday, you play at
a Sunday, you play 5 or 6 games in succession AAU game after
game, after game after game. And really you you don't now you
work individually on your drills, otherwise you're not
going to be that good. But one of the reasons why the
Europeans seem to have a more cohesive feel for the game is
because not only there are they drilling jab steps and pump
fakes and shooting mechanics and those things individually, but
they are drilling. They they are, they are, they
are playing together and they are learning the like the fabric
of team basketball, cut and moving without the ball, without
the ball setting screens, seeing things before they happen.
And you don't you don't get that on the AAU circuit.
You just don't. It's going out there and you
know, try to throw down 30 or 40 to impress, honestly, to impress
somebody, to get a full ride, get some nil money and increase
your worth, which I have no problem with.
But it's just a very different concept.
And you see the flawed, the flawedness, if you will, of the
American, not all, but of most American basketball players
versus their European counterparts.
It's a real thing, Charlie. F with potentially the only
other answer, John Stockton. Oh yeah, there's no doubt John
Stockton an absolute all time great point guard.
I look at John Stockton as now. Stockton came in a little bit
after, obviously after Larry Bird.
To me, Stockton is more Mullins era.
You know John Stockton, he came in, he was on that 92 dream
team. What I feel like he can you
double check when John was drafted out of Gonzaga, I know
Mulley was the 85 draft. I want to say Stockton was
around the 80. 4. OK, there you go, 84.
So when when Bobby Knight was coaching that Olympic team with
Jordan with Mullen and that and that crew, Stockton, I believe
had already gone to the NBA was drafted the year before.
We know that doesn't make sense to hold on because Jordan was
drafted in 84. So maybe Stockton was maybe
Stockton got cut. Matter of fact, I think he did
get cut. Either way.
Stockton to me, I don't think Byrd, I think that Mullen ear
it. That's what I think.
All right, so let's get some other AJ Rod.
You see something pop up with a good text about hockey fired up
USA really proud of the boys played awesome.
But again, not a miracle. You know, 46 years after being
on top. That was a hockey miracle.
That was a sporty miracle. Yesterday was just the the
continuation of a revamped hockey approach and more
athletes. The number doubled from the
early 90s to the early 2000s in terms of registered US hockey
players. This was not an accident.
This was not some colossal, massive, unexpected
overachievement. I mean, they got a crew.
I mean, in that picture with Hughes, you know, bleeding,
missing the tooth and then banging in the golden bucket or
the gold part of the golden buck.
You see, that's the the golden, the golden shot, golden goal.
Incredible stuff. I mean, really, really
incredible stuff. Now some other stuff that we
have. We're going to get to our
burning questions a little bit here.
Let me set you up with not yet though, J Rod, let me set you up
with this. So it's also a big week guys, is
the NFL combine. So obviously Lucas Oil out there
in Indianapolis going to be front and center.
Now, listen, I do think like everything, there's an
expiration point myself. Maybe you guys enjoy this.
I do, But again, with with with limits here, just how much of
the combine coverage I generally can consume because usually what
happens, and this is not to impugn the broadcasting
integrity or the approach of anybody who does this right.
There's a market for it. It's a dead point in the NFL
season. You may as well throw it on TV,
get some clicks, get some eyeballs out of begrudge him for
doing it. But there's only so many, you
know, reps that I can watch and then hear the same people
regurgitate the same verbiage. Oh, look at those hips.
Like you talk about a cornerback doing these, you know, backward
drills. Oh, look at the shuffle.
Look at the whatever he's, you know, look at the change in
direction. Look at the receiver, look at
the catch radius, look at the high point going up to get that
ball. And then we've seen it a million
times. And maybe I am burned by this.
So with the quarterbacks, I I really don't care anymore at the
quarterbacks. But how many times have we
watched the guy? Wow, 60 miles an hour 61 Let
that rib throwing 65 yards on a on on a run across his body like
Zach Wilson. I just don't get overly enamored
with with the combine. Again, I'm not here to denounce
it because there's obviously great value, especially the
interviews and some of that stuff and also some of the
measurables. You want to know what guys are
running not at their pro day on on their campus where it might
be a little, you know, a 10th of a of a second off.
I want to know what these numbers are.
I want to know exactly how how strong they are, what they check
in what I know this sounds nuts, but a quarterback, how big are
your hands? Like I do, I do pay attention to
that stuff, but usually I I check in and then I very quickly
check out a little bit different for me this year, it's a little
different and and not just because The Jets have a lot of
picks. I think it's a very intriguing
draft this year. I can't wait for the draft
coverage. I've already told you that we're
going to do some amazing content here on unleash.
It's going to be fantastic. So let me at least give you the
schedule, tell you what I'm excited for.
So we have a couple of days. I know they'll they'll check in
Now whatever it really starts on Thursday goes to Sunday.
All right. Now the first day you'll get the
D lineman, you get the you'll get the linebackers, you get the
kickers. That's day one.
Day 2 you get the the D backs and the so you go D lineman,
linebackers, kickers. Then you go defensive backs and
the tight ends on Friday, Obviously Saturday if you want
to see Ty Simpson, I don't even know if Mendoza is going to
throw. And you can make a case that
like, why would he? I mean, there's really no need
to throw unless he's just that ultra competitive and wants to
let it RIP, But we'll see. But day three on Saturday is the
quarterbacks, the receivers and the running backs.
And then obviously on Sundays the offensive lineman.
And by then I'm I'm really checked out because I mean, what
are you going to see the old lineman doing these little back
drills said come on, it is a weak quarterback group.
Unfortunately for those teams that need a quarterback.
We know, I think that it's a very weak draft for the for some
of the interior spots on the on the old line, like particularly
the, the guard position seems to be very weak and the running
back crew outside of Jeremiah Love and a few others is thought
to be very, very kid from Notre Dame, thought to be very, very
thin. Now where is it strongest at?
You got the edge rushers, you've got the the corners are pretty
strong and the wide receiver group is absolutely very strong.
So depending upon what you guys need, that's probably going to
be is is going to impact how much you watch here.
Now Mendoza's going one, I'll give you a quick little
snapshot. Names you're going to hear
early, names that will impact The Jets and the Giants, names
that I believe will be called very, very early.
This is just some cursory stuff. Many of you know this.
Obviously Mendoza, I don't think there's any trade offer that can
entice the Raiders not to take him.
Ruben Bayne, Jordan Tyson, receiver.
Obviously Arizona State, you're going to get Carnell Tate called
early. Ohio State's going to be, it's
going to be a procession of Buckeyes up there in the top 10
or 12. It's absolutely amazing.
So Tate's a wide receiver, he's a Buckeye.
You're going to get Reese, who is connected, Arvel Reese,
linebacker, Little Edge as well. Again, you seeing him in a lot
of mocks at #2 to The Jets. I wouldn't go there myself, but
you know, Muji has shown some early chops and if he likes them
then I'll prefer. I wouldn't pick him right now,
but there's a chance The Jets will ease a Buckeyes.
Well, you know, I love Caleb Downs, I've talked about him a
lot. Safety from Ohio State, Peter
Woods, he's Clemson D tackle Jeremiah Love, running back,
Notre Dame. I don't know where the running
back, where he will go was a running back, but he's going to
go high. So I just think that of those
names I gave you about 9 or 10 names.
I would have to think that. I mean, maybe Love doesn't go
top ten, but any, maybe even Woods from from Clemson maybe
drops out of the top ten. Those are names you're going to
hear incredibly early. And I think from a just from a
local perspective for a moment, Jets at #2 Giants at #5 I
believe of within those eight or nine names I gave you, those are
the names you will hear for The Jets or the job.
I would be stunned unless The Jets were to trade out of two.
Wait. I mean, I don't know why you
would but. And I think the Giants, we heard
Harbaugh just lusting after Caleb down.
So if he's there 5, they're taking them.
And I think it's, I mean, I'm, I'm running to the podium.
If I could do that for sure, I would absolutely do that.
I think those are the names that you will hear.
I don't think The Jets do anything wacky at quarterback.
I'm very curious, though, where the rest of the league goes with
with with Ty Simpson. I was talking about this the
other the other day on the show. I think he's getting a bit of a
bad rap. I think he's the kind of player
and maybe this could impact The Jets at 16.
I still don't think that they will, but if they were to maybe.
And by the way, Jets aren't the only team, you know, the Browns
and some other teams. Obviously we'll see what the
Cardinals do. You know, Kyler Murray going to
be gone. There's some other veterans who
will be cut. So there there's always a a
potential sleeper or outlier right now that we're not really
thinking as a quarterback, you know, locked into the
quarterback market. But if Ty Simpson has a great
combine, Ty Simpson's going to skyrocket.
I'm just telling you right now, now many of you are going to
resist that. Oh, I don't like Ty Simpson.
Oh wow, the Babel wasn't that good.
That's fine. And if that's your opinion, I
respect it. But my next question would be
how much of this Alabama team do you really know about?
Because let's face it, you know, this is not too, you know,
denigrate your football acumen. But I know the way it works cuz
I know a lot of guys that even I've worked with in the past,
they know nothing about college football.
They just don't they start to get up to speed right about now.
What they'll do is they'll look at The Jets and the Giants and
they obviously know what positions The Jets and the
Giants need. So there will be names that will
they will be able to spit out, you know, reflexively.
But like, if you actually talk about some of the in the weeds
stuff pertaining to some of these players, you know, it it
really it's just it's it's not as deep a dive as you think with
the ability to deep dive is just not there.
And the one thing I'm telling you about Ty Simpson now, if he
doesn't have a good combine that different, I think he'll
interview very well. But you know, you want to see
how fast is he, how big is he? All the other stuff?
Yeah, Ty Simpson's a player because I don't think there's
any other quarterback that's going to shoot up the draft
board. Like nobody is going to get
drafted a quarterback before Ty Simpson outside of Mendoza.
I don't see it now. Beauty's in the eye of the of
the of the beholder. It's incredibly subjective.
I, I admit I could be wrong on that, but it's rooted in, you
know, not just throwing a dart. It's rooted in opinion.
Like I do think Ty Simpson is very good.
I think Ty Simpson's getting a bad rap here because not enough
people understood or really understand that this was a very
down Alabama team. They could not run the ball.
I'm not going to reset this. I did this the other day, but
really the main reason that Ty Simpson and he didn't play well
in that playoff game, but he got hurt as well.
But I think if you evaluate him fairly and you incorporate that
they're running game was among the worst in the country, let
alone in the SEC and let alone nowhere near vintage Alabama,
you will have a much greater appreciation for what Ty Simpson
did in college. Now, I know he hasn't played a
lot. I get that there's a connection.
You know, when you have more than 16 starts, you become this.
When you have fewer than 16, you kind of become this.
And that is not exactly three that I'm looking to challenge
right now from a Jets point of view or from any team.
Like from the Browns point of view, I'm not looking to do
that. Like if you're a bad moribund
franchise, you haven't earned the right.
Brian Cashman is not earned the right, you know?
You haven't earned the right to take a flyer on a quarterback
who hasn't played that much. Like it's not up to you to defy
history. Leave it as somebody who knows
what they're doing to defy. You want to tell me Sean Payton
wants to take somebody a little bit early, All right, that's
fine. You won't even tell me, you
know, I was going to say horrible, but you don't need one
because you have Jackson either way.
You know that you, Andy Reid, you want to take a flyer on
somebody, go for it. Even Siriani, who a lot of
Eagles, Eagles fans can't stand or don't trust or a lot of
football fans dump on, like there's certain franchises that
have earned the benefit of the doubt.
We know the ones who have and we know the ones who have not.
So there's a lot of history there.
But Simpson to me is a guy that I do think could really
skyrocket. Wouldn't surprise me if what
it's all said and done, he's inside the top 15.
Won't surprise me at all. All right, let me read that in a
second here. All right, this one is from boss
girl 18 BT Reese going to be an all pro edge for The Jets for a
decade. All right, we thought that with
Vernon Goldston, even though, you know, I'm so tap the brakes.
Strongest linebacker for a linebacker guy or pound for
pound guy in the draft. They go LB that that was tricky
to mess up. You can't deal with it.
Come on high school and high football IQ only 20 pictures, 35
inch arms demolishing Campbell's T Rex arms twice a year.
I like Reese. I I do I like Reese.
I don't love him at #2 I'm sorry.
I just don't now. I always thank you for the text
though. I also appreciate the thought
like, and this does make sense, like if you love somebody, I
think it's actually kind of dumb to say, well, I'll pick up at
5:00, but number 2 is a little bit too rich, a little bit too
early for my blood. Why?
Because the objective of drafting somebody inside the top
10 is that you believe that you're drafting a future Hall of
Famer. And that's on the the highest
end, of course. And, and even if it falls a
little short and you get 6 or 7 Pro Bowls and one or two old
pros, that suffices. So I get it.
I just, I, I think there's better players.
I do, I think there's better pure pass rushers.
There's things about him that that I hesitate on.
So I'm not saying they're not going to take him to number 2.
And I'm not saying that after this process, I can't come
around and get down a little bit more.
With Reese going #2 right now going into the draft process,
Reese from Ohio State at #2 for The Jets seems like a not a
reach. That's not fair.
Just a little a little ambitious a little there's other players
that like more. All right.
Is there a sleeper quarterback that you like in the draft?
Like like, you know, it depends what you define.
Thank you for that. What do you define as a sleeper?
Like you talking maybe have a second round pick and you jump
back in back into the first round and you you draft somebody
there. You know, going into the season,
I thought, I thought the kid from LSU might be that guy.
He's definitely not. It's a weak quarterback crop,
guys. It really is like I am, you know
what I'm done with? Here's what I'm done with
because it sounds so good. It really does.
Look, I'm going to dispel something right now.
It sounds great and it sounds appealing, and the more you do
it, time and repetition is on your side.
But how often does it really work, right?
Let's grab a guy, you know, Round 2, even round three, maybe
even round 4. Let's grab somebody and put him
in that developmental laboratory, let him get some
reps in, you know, let's insulate him properly with
coaching and, you know, let him do some work on the side and
eventually he's going to be ready to take over.
Isn't that what they said about Kellen Clemens back in the day
with The Jets? Isn't that what they said about
I was the dudes? I won't forget to say the dude
from Penn State who stunk. What the hell was his name?
Never even played big dude 65. I'm forgetting his name off the
top of my head right now, but you know what I'm talking about.
Second round pick. I, I just, I don't subscribe to
that. I'm looking for ball players.
I'm looking for guys that I know can step in and get the job done
and commensurate with where you get drafted.
That's what I expect you to be like.
I'm not going to burn a third round pick on a guy that I hope
with perfect coaching and perfect circumstances could
maybe transform himself into a viable player in the league.
I'm not doing that anymore. I'm just getting dogs.
I'm going out and I'm going to stock those cupboards with
horses, period. Guys who could play, guys who
could run, guys who I know on film, on tape.
Look the part, you know, because if you think about this, hold
on, I'll get that and keep that up there.
J Rob, please, Sir, if you think about this, then like if you
just continuously draft on potential and possibility and
hope, that's a really dangerous to me without enough reward
route to go down. And if you're a team that
consistently wins, like you want to tell me that the Buffalo
Bills, if the Buffalo Bills were sitting here and they were, they
were going to subscribe to this thought process.
Like, all right, hey, we got our Hall of Famer, we got our guy.
We know Josh, you know, I'm knock on wood for Bills fans and
for the NFL, knock on wood. Josh Allen stays healthy for a
while. Well, we, we're good minimally
for the next 6-7 years, he's going to be an absolute rock
star and make that new stadium, you know, pop even more than the
old one. And hopefully he gets to and has
a chance to win a Super Bowl and hopefully the Bills continue to
draft around him and, and build around him.
The point is, if you have somebody like Josh Allen or
somebody like Mahomes or again, varying degrees of of where they
are injuries now, some disappointment, I'll throw the
more on that list as well. If you've got a guy like that,
well, sure, that developmental prospect is appealing because he
doesn't have to play. You know, you're not leaning on
the guy when you draft the a developmental quarterback when
you don't have a quarterback. The thought is like, all right,
let's let's you know, let's let's put them off to the side
for a little bit and then, you know, hopefully when oh, he's
ready and hopefully he saves us. It's the wrong way to look at
it. It's it's an ass backwards
philosophy. Find a quarterback that can play
and then find players that can help that quarterback.
Like I'm just done reaching and throwing darts and hoping I'm
not doing it anymore. It's over at Jim hard 10 SBT,
Oh, rock Tavern, New York. There you go.
What up there? Nice.
Will you get into WBC this year? What is your stance on the
tournament? Matter of fact, I'm going to get
into it and it might be a part of something I'm prepared to do
a little bit right now when we're going to get to it.
But that leads us up into it. How about little little 3
burning questions there, J Roddy, ready to have a little
fun? That's right.
Look at that graphic. Woof, look at that fantastic,
beautiful graphic. So every Monday on the show, 3
burning questions with BT brought to you by my friends at
Sullivan Propane. Get fired up with Sullivan
Propane at every St. John's home game this season at
the Garden. Remember the name Sullivan
Propane. A winning team on the court, in
the courtroom as well. Find
sullivanpropane@triallaw1.com. That's trial law1.com.
Sullivan Propane. Remember the name Sullivan
Propane. All right, question number 13,
burning questions with BT Boom, look at that.
Are you excited for the WBC? Going to be honest with you
here, generally don't get that fired up.
I'm pretty excited about it. Now, listen, you know, I love
baseball. I'm one of these guys who, you
know, I've got the SEC Network. If there's nothing going on and
I'm buzzing between the Yanks and the Mets, or now that the
college season has started and I get a chance to watch a little,
I don't know, Vanderbilt, which, by the way, played my alma mater
over the weekend. Poor Marist had to play
Vanderbilt. Didn't go very well.
But anytime I can see like a Tennessee or you know, a Florida
or, you know, big time baseball out West like USC or UCLAI will
watch it. I love baseball.
I am excited for this one and not just because Aaron Judge is
the captain for team USAI was loaded their lineup.
Now they might very well have a very different configuration.
How about Bobby Witt leading off?
How about Aaron Judge Batten second?
How about Cal roley Batten 3rd? If you want to really mess
around, you can go Bobby Witt one, Corbin Carroll 2.
How about that speed power combination?
Judge 3, Cal Roley 4. You can put Kyle Schwarber in
the two spot just be on base all day.
Unconventional, but we've seen the Phillies Bees and he's let
off many times, right? You've got Bryce Harper going to
be somewhere in the meat of the order there.
I mentioned Corbin Carroll. So yeah, when when the WBC comes
along, you just pray that your players, you know, get out of
there unscathed there. And I am excited for it.
It's a great, great tournament. It is an amazing compilation of
the best players out there. And from a time frame, what does
it start? I think it starts like May or
March 3rd some, yeah, pool players March 5th.
And then you've got, you know, the 20 total teams.
I know Lindor is not playing and you know that that team's going
to be diminished a bit. That's a great team as well.
But you get the quarter finals on the 13th and the 14th of
March, and then the semis down to Miami, right?
You know, the day before Saint Patty's Day and on Saint Patty's
Day, the semifinals in the finals.
So yes, question number one, are you excited for the WBCI AM?
I am very excited. All right, question #2 Birdie
questions every Monday here on BT Unleashed.
All right, is it OK to begin trusting the Knicks again after
this weekend? Interesting weekend for the
Knicks. I mean, wow, You want to talk
about two different sets of emotions?
And I watched that entire game against the Rockets on Saturday.
Quite frankly, didn't watch a ton of the Knicks Bulls
yesterday, but of course they won.
And and you know, Bridges with that big, you know, that big
three late and the Knicks did just enough.
And by the way, the energy to be fair to the Knicks.
So I've been all over, especially Cat and the head
coach and Bridges is playing like a mouse, invisible and
Brunson's been a little too ISO dominant.
There were signs over the weekend that maybe this Nick
team could regenerate a little bit and and maybe as they tweak
their identity and and maybe become more of what they're
destined to become this year, maybe it's better than I
thought. Alvarado was clutching the
fourth quarter on Saturday. I thought that I thought that
Karl Anthony Town, I mean, this is amazing.
Karl Anthony Towns actually set the tone on defense on Saturday
night. So that was pretty good to see.
They made some big buckets. Brunson was off the whole night,
took four shots in the fourth quarter, hit them all.
Gordon was on fire. Durant couldn't buy a bucket.
That was fun. Listen, I'm never going to be
that guy who says something and then just to be right is going
to stick to it no matter if something to the contrary pops
up. I loved what I didn't like what
I saw from the Knicks most of the game.
But I love the way the Knicks finished on Saturday night.
And even though the Bulls stink and they barely won, you know,
the energy that they exerted Saturday, that could have been.
We're tired. We're tapped Outback to back.
They want it. And and I'm not looking for
style points, just win that kind of game.
So, yeah, I think you could trust them a little bit more
after the week. And I'll say work in progress.
I still don't think they'll beat the Pistons, which is my
ultimate fear because I think the Pistons are tougher and
nobody on the court is stopping Kate Cunningham.
But do I feel a little bit better?
I do. I do feel a little bit better
about the Knicks. All right, burning question #3
here on our lease. BT with you here.
All right, can Spencer Jones make the Yankees opening day
roster? Well, obviously this question is
tied into the fact that Spencer Jones hit a ball out of George
Steinbrenner Field over the weekend.
You know, didn't hit a home run, hit the ball out of the stadium.
I think I saw the exit Velo was about 117 or what about?
I don't think 410 feet. Obviously a bit of a smaller
stadium there down South. But no, I don't think that
Spencer Jones has any chance 0.0 to make the Yankees Opening Day
roster. I don't think that they view him
that way. I'm not surprised to get a home
run right away. I expect a couple of more as
some of these pitchers are still just kind of throwing straight
fast balls to stretch themselves out and get used to being on a
mound again. There are a lot of guys over the
years. Hell, Spencer Jones did it a
year ago where they just show this amazing offensive
propensity early. But then you start getting to
the games and you know the the wrinkles and the curves and the
sliders and the secondary stuff starts exploding and they can't
handle it. So I do not think he makes the
opening day roster at all. I think Dominguez is going to
start the year in the minors as well and that bothers me.
So if Dominguez is not on the team, I don't think there's
going to be any room. I don't care if Spencer Jones
hits 350 with six home runs. He's not making the team.
Because the one thing that the Yankees need to see is that 40%
strikeout rate start to, you know, diminish.
I I, I really just don't see it. So I would love to see it
because he's got a, a very tantalizing skill set.
He's he's plus speed, not not necessarily out-of-the-box, but
when he gets his stride going, he is plus speed, 1st to 3rd,
1st to home, second to home. He's got a rocket.
He's I think he's better equipped to play center than
Dominguez and he's got some of the most ridiculous power that
you've ever seen. But 40% strikeout rate is beyond
untenable. And they need to see that change
in the minors before they mess around with that in the major.
So there it is. Of course, Bernie questions
every Monday here on Unleashed and of course, sports.
You buy my good friends at Sullivan Papayne.
Remember the name Sullivan Papayne.
There you go. How about those graphics?
J Rod. How good did that look?
Come on now, come on, you know it.
No, I mean, to me it is crazy. I mean, I don't know if you know
anyone in the fan base here is like, you know, AI users or
anything like that, but man, the the way this stuff has
progressed into being able to just generate the text and like
a beautiful aesthetic, man. Well, now some of it now, by the
way, some of it's a little wacky.
I'm I'm putting you on the spot. I meant to actually text you
this earlier, so my bad. I know you got the Pat Riley
thing. I'll get to that in a minute.
Not yet. Can you pull up the and even if
you don't do it immediately, just find it and then you can do
it and just let me know pop in interrupt.
It's all good. The update went my filled out
all time Yankee lineup. I want to kind of run through
Yeah, OK, look at this. I actually created a different
one that even looks better, but but that's fine.
I wanted to get it up there. That's good.
So now listen guys, I dropped this yesterday, all right, J Rod
made a beautiful short out of it.
So it's obviously on YouTube and Instagram and all that stuff.
You can keep that up there. I'm going to do this, as I said
at the start of the show a lot more all right, I want to delve
into some different type of content.
I wanted to get some traction with the show.
I wanted to get some views. I wanted to get some
consistency. So even in the snowstorm here I
am, you know, 10:00 AM in the morning do with the show.
So that's not going to change. But I'm going to start doing
stuff like this, right. I've got the Mets line up up
coming up. I've got the my old time Big
East team that'll drop the night before the Big East tournament.
I've got my top ten favorite sneakers that that I that I have
rocked personally, my top ten CDs, top ten concerts, a lot of
different top 10 sitcoms, just some different stuff.
Right. So I was coming up with this
over the weekend and I'm OK with it.
Like I realize many of you aren't.
That's fine. We'll make your own list.
No Reggie, no Reggie. Now this is post 1980.
I got Ricky, I got jeets, I got Donnie, I got Judge in the four
spot. I got a Rod batting fit playing
third, little switch hitter action Bernie and center Winnie
DH batting 7th. I got Jorge behind the plate and
I've got Robinson Cano at second base.
Now, depending upon how old you, you can keep it up there, Jay.
The only, the only points of contention would be for me #1 if
you're really old school, do you want to give Willie Randolph a
little bit of love at second base?
Do you want to penalize Robinson Cano for the steroids?
I elect not to mean Robinson Cano.
I mean one year he had 40, what is it, 46 double S for the
Yankees. He won a championship, 300
hitter. Couple of Gold Gloves like
Robinson Cano is going to be there.
The one that I really struggle with because he did not play
well at all in the 81 World Series.
It was Dave Winfield. I was trying to come up.
I'm like, do I go Paul O'Neill in left field?
Do I put Paulie in right, Judge in center and then maybe, you
know somebody else in left and then have Ricky DH because Ricky
wasn't a great fielder. This is what I settled on.
The other thing was, you know, some of you younger fans, like
how do you put Madeline in the three spot?
This is all based on their prime year.
And what I did was, by the way, I set to grab this hold on.
What I did was I went back and I went and I took their absolute
best years. So like so best years with the
Yankees. So the year that I used, for
example, for for Don Mattingly. Now, of course Mark Teixeira was
terrific. Of course Tino was terrific.
You know, there's other options there and it and it is
subjective. But when I look at Mattingly's
80 now, I could have picked his 84 season when he won the
batting title when he beat out Winfield, which is part of the
reason why Winfield's there for me as well.
All right, because Dave Winfield could run had power also hit 340
in 1980. But the year that I went with
with Donnie, who was 85 when he won the MVP, when he had the
Gold Glove, when he had 211 hits, when he led the league
with 48 double S, when he led the league with 145 RBI's, when
he led the league with 370 total bases.
We had 324 average 940. Opsi know I'm hitting you with a
lot of numbers. All right now you can get me get
me back on the screen there. J Rod, the only number that you
really need to know about Mattingly.
All right, because I was trying to obviously create this where
you know, the first guy obviously is going to run and
he's the greatest lead off hitter in the history of
baseball. You bet you're behind.
Ricky's going to be on this team.
And then obviously I want to say, all right, so if Ricky's
always on who's in the I thought about Judge from I even thought
about Mattingly in the two spot, maybe put judge 3.
But to me, the guy that I wanted in the two spot was a guy who
could run equally and not an equal to Ricky, but could run
like Derek, right? A guy who has a real ability to
hit the right field, set up those first and 3rd situations,
a guy who's, you know, going to bang out a ton of hits.
He's got what, 3536 hundred hits Jeter.
And then when I got to the third spot, and here's the stat.
Those of you who didn't see Mattingly or did, and maybe
you're not a Yankee fan and maybe you don't fully appreciate
it, but that's fine. Don Mattingly.
Now this year coming up, there's going to be multiple Yankees,
McMahon, some others that strike out minimally 180 hundred 90.
There'll be a couple of guys in baseball that strike out 200
times. Don Mattingly in route to the
MVP and 146 RB is and all the crazy stuff that he did.
He struck out less than 50 times.
He struck out 41 times that season.
So Ricky on base and by the way, if you try to throw a cookie to
Ricky because you don't want to have to deal with Jeter and
Mattingly and Judge and a rod 2345 right And you try to just,
you know, throw one by Ricky's taking you deep.
I mean Ricky had 24 home runs that year and we know that Ricky
had some power. If you got if you got lazy, you
know, Ricky always with frequency jumped on first pitch
fastballs goodbye. So you didn't have that luxury.
So you had to mess around with Ricky.
And when you mess around with Ricky, Ricky's usually on first
base. And then obviously somebody like
Jeter, who was a lifetime 300 hitter and six most hits all
time in the history of the game, he can bump, he can run.
Have fun with that. As like, as soon as Ricky steals
second, you know, Derek just lines a base hit to write.
All right, go get him. Donnie 1st and 3rd, nobody out.
And then you got to deal with him with MVP version of
Mattingly. I know.
Yeah. By the way, if you happen to get
one of those dudes out, have fun with Aaron Judge.
So I was thinking about this right and I think it's a great
challenge and I'm going to do the Mets next.
And I've got I've got most of my met players like to me, I'm not
going to give it away, but like first base is simple.
DH is simple for me, catcher, simple, center field, simple
shortstop is simple. Third base is simple.
Second base is simple. Really kind of like the Yankees
left field, although the the the old time Mets lineup is going to
pale in comparison to the Yankees, but the left field spot
for that Mets team is a little tricky.
There's not great options. I've I've got my guy without
divulging it, but I do feel badly that I did not get Reggie
on my team and I I feel a little badly that I didn't get, you
know, to share or maybe more so Tino, who was in the middle of
the order for all those championship teams.
And Oh yeah, by the way, was a terrific fielder as a
right-handed fielding first baseman.
But again, that's why I read you the numbers from Mattingly.
When you hear that, wait, wait, you, you hit three, basically
hit 3:30 with 140 plus RB is and almost 50 double s and all the
other things you and you struck out 41 times.
That's the guy who's batting 3rd for me, you know, And then I'm
like, why do I mess around? Because Bernie, I thought, I
always thought Bernie was a little bit of a of an overrated
defensive center fielder, not an overrated player.
But what, a couple of Gold Gloves had a weak arm, didn't
always get great jumps on the ball.
Like Bernie's makeup speed was what I think got got him some of
that that recognition. I could still if I close my
eyes, I don't see Bernie making a diving catch as much as I do
or certainly from somebody out on the bases.
I close my eyes and a vintage Bernie Williams defensive play
was Bernie in either gap, a left center gap or right center gap
on his horse making a play and and and having such great top
speed once he finally and it took him a minute to get there.
That's why I didn't really steal a lot of bases wasn't great off
the jump off first base right. And he his instincts were like
he didn't grow up as a pure, pure baseball.
He was wrong when he was coming up, but once he got cooking and
he had 100 mph, like I could still see Bernie snagging that
ball in the gap and then decelerating very gracefully and
making that play. But that's that's the Yankees.
And I think that if you go, if you go around and this is the
challenge for some of you guys, if you go around the game,
right. And again, it's post 1980 and
you had to play for the team for at least at least two years.
So Soto. And you imagine if I put Soto in
this Yankee lineup, but and I didn't make it to just keep Soto
out. Or maybe I don't know, Did I?
I don't know. It's the Soto rule.
Right. So he's not eligible because he
only played one year, but go around every team in baseball
and again post 80. So the big Red machine, you're
going to lose components of that, right.
You want to talk about some other teams?
Like I think that I'm very curious how somebody would
construct all time Red Sox team, you know, from 1980 on, because
at that point you'd have Wade Boggs at his absolute apex
powers, you know, hitting 3435358, never striking out,
always on base. You'd have a big poppy, you'd
have a Manny, you'd have a no more like there's there's only a
few. And again, all time nobody can
touch the Yankees. But post 80, I'm not even sure
if anybody can. Maybe the Red Sox.
I was even thinking about like the Oakland A's, like you get
the Bash Brothers and then obviously Ricky as well.
She'd have Ricky with the A's, you'd have McGuire, you'd have
Conseco, you'd have Giambi. You know, I mean, that's there's
a couple you'd have to hop at shortstop.
Anyway, a fun exercise. I hope you guys enjoyed it.
Get those comments going. We're building out some cool
graphics, doing some cool stuff here.
I want to get to Pat Riley in a moment.
All right? Paul was good.
Real deal, but not great. Some good years, but nothing
amazing. Yeah, I mean, I I think that,
well, I think of Paul O'Neill, right?
I think of the absolute, you know, just a gamer and is so
reliable physically in a like just a really good field.
Or think about the play he made on on Polonia, you know, in the
in the 96th world with a bad hamstring.
I mean, think about the slide to second against the then Indians
on a bad hamstring. Like the guy was just the
warrior. It's his nickname.
Could field, could hit power average good eye grinder, just
an A phenomenal ball player. He's not judge, so he's not
playing right field. Yeah.
I mean, I I I guess if you want to really push back a little bit
and say maybe should be in left field.
OK, but that's why I do this to, you know, to to show you what
I'm thinking and then some of you guys disagree.
It's fine. All right.
I don't know if you'll disagree with this.
Get this up on the stage. If can there J Rob Pat Riley
said something interesting about a tire old school, new school.
And I'm both like, I just because I'm older doesn't mean
that I gravitate to every old school thought.
Like there's some things about the old school that are weak and
there's a lot of things about the old school that obviously
will always resonate with me because I'm old school.
And just based on what I was born anyway, quote, I never
changed much. I wish they went back to coats
and ties. I think an audience wants to see
somebody on the sideline who looks like a leader and quote
the great Pat Riley on the dress code.
So on the left you see the suit and the tie, and on the right,
nobody's really wearing that kind of a hoodie.
But you know what they wear that's AI for you.
But they're wearing like the zip up suits or like that golf thing
that you wear in September in the Northeast, like a little zip
up, 3/4 zip. All right, So I agree with Pat
on this. I would love to see NBA head
coaches rocking suits. I don't need the assistance to
wear the suits, but there is something to be said for it's
not even a class thing, But again, protect projecting like
an elevated role, like when all the coaches look the same with
whether it's a golf shirt and I know it started COVID the
bubble. I I I get it.
I would love for coaches to go back to the that's why I love I
love what Rick Pitino does. I love it, you know, and Rick is
old school like Pat Riley and Rick has said, you know, let me
just shut that TV off. Now I'm seeing an extra
reflection. That's the other thing you get.
It will be fixed soon, promise. So if I was coaching now, my
age, there's not a doubt in mind, doubt in my mind I'd be
wearing suits now, I'm sure, to the chagrin of my wife, maybe I
would have a turtleneck and then a nice blazer or whatever, a
nice pocket square and church it up the watch.
And, you know, maybe I might even still wear like, suit
sneakers. I don't, I don't know, but it's
just a sloppy look. If there's anything that needs
to be re examined really, you know what it is.
I'm going to tell you because hockey coaches get suited up,
they look great, they look distinguished.
There's no doubt who's in charge on the ice, right?
You know who the where the pecking order is, It's the head
coach. He's got the suit.
The thing that really should change.
Why in the world does a baseball manager have to wear a uniform?
Like if you want to change something like that, that to me,
it's probably time to change that now, especially, you know,
used to. I know the games got a little
bit younger, but you see some of these older pitching coaches or
what did the older third base go?
Do you really need to see some of these guys looking like
Weeble wobbles out there, you know, just waddling out there
trying to stuff their bodies into a baseball uniform?
Like, what's the appeal of that? You know, Aaron Boone still is
in pretty good shape, pretty good shape.
You know, sometimes Boonie looks a little thicker than other
times. He'll be the first to tell you
that. But you know, you could tell he
he was a former player. He's a big guy.
And you know, when he came to hang out with Meet Me and Sal
for the BT and Sal Live show at Red Bank at the Vogel Theater in
January, like the way he presents himself in a, in a
sports jacket and a shirt. Like, you could tell he's an
athlete. Like, he's an inch bigger.
And I'm a fairly big guy, 6-2 ish, maybe a tick more 2:20-ish.
You know, Booney is, is even bigger than me.
And he just, he like, he looks like he played, you know, he
played something. But then you see him in the
dugout depending upon what shirt he's wearing.
Yeah. I don't know.
I don't know that we really need that.
I would love to have like the first base and the third base
coach in in not in uniform like a literal uniform, but uniformly
dressed. So wear this like a zip up,
whatever it might be. Keep the hat on.
You want to wear the hat. Yep.
Basically do what I do when I coach third base.
I got the hat for my team, for my son's travel team and my
daughter's team. And then, you know, I've got a
depending upon how how cold or warm it is, I'm going to adjust.
If it's really warm out, I'm going to wear suit.
I'm going to wear shorts. Sometimes I'll wear those those
like, what do they call those? Like not this like the, the, the
leggings, like the spandex that come down all the way to the
ankles, right. I'll wear those and they'll wear
shorts. I'll wear shorts over it.
I've got a couple of sweatshirts.
Some are cut off. Not that I'm, I mean, of course
I'm always going to wear AT shirt.
I'm not going to go out there like John Travolta in grease,
you know, when he when he's cleaning up the car grease
lightning. But I've got the I've got that
sweatshirt. I might have like a long sleeve
shirt under it or if it's really called the turtleneck, you know,
but I so I've got some variants there.
I just don't think like managers need to wear uniforms.
They don't look good. They don't like uniforms don't
do anything unless you're an amazing shape.
Like if you're like soda looks great uniform Jeter looked
great. Judge looks like Zeus in a
uniform. I mean, players for the most
part look good in uniforms, but as you're aging, it's really not
flattering here. The man boobs, you know, what
are we doing? So I would like to see baseball
change that. You know, I don't need a suit
and tie. Just give me a zip up.
What do you think, J Rod? You're younger When you see an
old like you, you know, you see Boonie or you see Mendoza, you
see, you know that they look fine, but you know, do you
really see need to see men in their 40s and 50s and beyond
wearing uniforms like they go to play softball?
I don't know. I mean, right when you started
getting on this point, I started cracking up just because like
the other week I was doing like one of the clips and it's just
like a picture of Boonie in the Yankees uniform.
I don't know, there's something it, it's weird.
It's like a weird agita. I think that like it brings
about when you see one of these older dudes and they're kind of
stuffed up in it. They look kind of like, I don't
know, they look kind of young, like, and young and like like a
Little League sense, like they're wearing like when
they're wearing the uniform. So, yeah, I mean, listen, I'm
all for the tradition aspect of it.
I think it's fun. I think, you know, it's
something that kind of gets passed down.
But do I think it's a great look?
No, no, it's not a great look. It's definitely, definitely not
a great look there, homie. I would have got homie Simpson
370 texts here. Some people act like putting on
a suit as a kid to Superman putting on his camp or
something. I don't think leader when I see
somebody in a suit, I see a corporate puppet, I mean.
Corporate. Puppet.
Well, I mean that's OK. I mean, I don't I don't I
understand you. You might disagree with the fact
that, but I mean so so everybody that wears a suit's a puppet.
That makes no sense. I mean come on, that's
ridiculous. I respect your opinion not
wanting a suit, but I would even challenge your opinion that that
that a suit doesn't provide at least some aesthetical some like
the of, of the just the, the, the eye of the, the mind and the
just the overall presentation. That a suit doesn't elevate that
person, even if it's perceptual, doesn't mean they're going to be
a great coach, doesn't mean they're going to be a great
leader. But if you see, you know, 12
guys who were suited up in uniforms, you know the players
and you see, you know, now they have like 9 coaches, 9
assistants wearing zip UPS and you see, you know, Mike Brown
and these these other coaches wearing actual suits.
I know they don't want to do look.
Yeah, it yes, there's definitely an elevator.
There's definitely an elevation. So I agree with Pat Riley on
that. I do.
Let's see. Kneeland in the uniform was
funny. Terry Collins, too.
Well, how about, yeah, how about Don Zimmer?
I mean, you get to you get to some of the older guys.
That's what I'm saying. At that point, it goes from like
Zim was older. So it goes from like not
flattering to like cute. Like look at him.
He's still look at his guy. Oh man, well, that is a that's a
funny picture of his army helmet.
Oh, that's the best. That's what he got basically
because he. Zimmer had a plate in his head
from an accident back in the day.
Yeah, literally had a steel plate.
And then there was a couple of foul balls in the dugout.
And I remember Jeter. I don't know.
Jeter actually got the helmet, but they put the helmet on him
and like they were making sure he was OK.
Those are the things like, you don't get that anymore.
What was the, you know, and I don't know if it's because a lot
of the coaches are younger than they used to be.
So it's it's closer. They're they're older than the
players in most cases. But there was such a gap back in
the day. There was a different level of
affinity and a different interaction between player and
old coach or older coach. I kind of like that.
No, there's something like kind of sweeter about it, like more
endearing because now it's like, I mean, you look at the NBA,
you've got a lot of head coaches who are younger than their
players. You know, Missoula, like when he
had, when we had Horford or whoever, he was straight up
younger than like two players on the roster.
Yep, Yep. No, I hear you.
What do we got here at Coke Boy? OK.
At Coke Boy 35. Hopefully he's talking soda.
BT Keep up the great show. Shout out from Allentown, PA.
Allentown, PA. Let's go.
My first job, brother. My first job.
Yeah. Oh, God, that's where it
started. I remember when do you want to
laugh here a little little. We got we got to come up with a
graphic story time with BT like when we start.
To I'll cook something up today. Cook something up there, maybe
even a little like the the harp music, you know?
Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, I can't force it.
That's why I want you guys to let me know where, where you're
texting from or where you're watching from this way, because
I've been to 43 of the 50 states.
So there's a good chance I've been where you're texting from
or listening from. And you never know what it could
propel anyway. So I'm in Allentown, right?
And my, it's my first radio job. Little teeny tiny station.
Always, always have great love for them, great affinity, great
respect, great people. Anyway, I'm doing the morning
show and I, I know I've said this part before.
It was also like the promotions director, whatever it was, I
didn't even know what I was doing.
I'm trying to make promotions to run on the station.
I don't, I don't know how to use the equipment.
All I want to do is do a show. So I'm basically mailing that.
I just want to open up the mic and start yapping.
That's all I care about. That's and that's, I was going
to say that's all I know, but I don't even really know that yet
because every show that I've done was like a simulated show
because it's my first show, right?
But I knew I would figure it out.
So I'm doing the show and I'm making $16,000 a year.
That's what I was making. Now, I was only there eight
months because as I've said one other time, this the the station
got, it was it got sold. It was by a little private, a
private family, right? And it got sold and it was
reformatted to salsa music and I think it was sold for
$2,000,000. So your boys out of a job.
Yeah. So your boys out of a job right
after about 8 months. But I remember like 2 months in,
I remember my boss coming to me, man, I just so happy that like
if they don't hire me, I mean, who knows?
I mean I'm, I'm sure I'm going to find a way to get in the
business. But you just, you can't lose
that appreciation for somebody that gave you a chance.
The, and I know it's changed now with podcasts and different, but
back then for somebody, even though it was a menial wage for
somebody to actually pay you to get on the air, that was the
deepest level of trust. And without that first bridge
that I crossed there, who knows how long it would have taken
anyway. So I'm making peanuts and I'm
having a blast and I'm young and I remember my boss is coming and
saying, Hey, can you, can you do high school?
Get can you do football play by play?
I've never done it once in my life.
And I'm like, Yep, I can absolutely.
I could do, I could do anything. Basketball, football, whatever
you need. So I remember I'm going to some
of these high schools in the Allentown, PA, and very good
high school football, very good. I remember a couple of teams
came in from Ohio. Becca High was one of those
Catholic schools there. Central, like just great, great
Pennsylvania football. You know how good it is.
And they give me this machine, this little device called the
Marty, and it was like an antenna that you'd have to set
up. I didn't know how to set it up.
I'm just praying that I'm on the air.
I have no idea how to do that. I really have no idea how to do.
And I figure it out. And that's the first time I had
ever done play by play outside of like faking it in my basement
or faking it when I was an intern to WFAN or in my car.
And it started up and the game was, I'm like, oh, I could do
this. I, I, I know I could do this.
Then the game starts. It's like I'm like stumbling,
I'm a mess. I'm missing everything.
That's where it started in Allentown, PA.
So I appreciate you listening from there.
Oh, yeah. Shouting out for the PA.
What does that say? Hold on.
Put the glasses on for this one. All right?
BTI always wanted to see how you and Evan went back and forth.
Or you want to see, all right, Mets and Yanks anyway, to have
them as a special guest before the season talking about Evan
Roberts. Yeah, I would have Evan on,
Sure. I mean, but when you really
think about it, to be fair, why would I invite Evan on when he's
never invited me on? Like, doesn't it have to be some
sort of return engagement here? I mean, Evan's the one who's had
the Rico for how many years? You ever invite me to come on
and talk about the Yankees or about baseball?
I'd have to think I know as much baseball as anybody at the
station, if not more. I mean, did did Evan ever reach
out? Gotts is what Evan did.
So I like Evan, but 0.0% invites.
So no. Why am I going to be the first?
I'll I'll, I'll get Sal back up on the show.
I'll get Tiki on the show to talk about Giants, maybe some
others, maybe not whatever. But no, no, I think it's
incumbent upon Evan to reach out to me to see if I want to go on
his show. And if he does, I'll happily
come on and chop it up. Maybe it's because it's Mets
intensive. He sees, sees no need for me to
come on. Maybe when he sees my post 1980
all time Mets lineup, maybe he'll be inspired to challenge
that and and maybe that's the impetus for change.
Maybe Evan will then invite me on.
But no, no, Evan has been doing it for I would have to guess
because all the time that Hoff was my producer going back to
what it was me and Tiki before me and Sal Hoff was producing
the Rico and I worked with Hoff for at least I think at least
four years. So, and I don't think that he
just started the Rico then. So it's probably 5 or 6 years.
So no, no, no, no, Evan reaches Evans got and I like Evan, I
really do. He's an oddball.
He's out of his mind. He's, you know, he's he's
definitely different. But I think Evan's a good dude.
I I have nothing bad to say. And even if I did, I wouldn't.
I I really do like Evan, but he's got to invite me.
I'm not inviting him first. That's the new rule here.
Anything in FAN? They got to make the first move,
honestly. No, I I think that's totally
found me AM. I going to go start kissing
their ass. No, you you want you know what I
got you know what I did hit me up.
I'll come on. Omar is a yeah.
Is Allentown, PA sports rated just covered in Philly sports,
no matter of fact. And that's, that's one of the
things that I don't think as many young broadcasters really
get a chance to do that. Just Omar, I'll answer the
question, but I, I just a little backdrop here, a little
background. So, you know, when you start a
podcast, and again, I don't, I don't begrudge those for younger
people for doing it. But back in the day, you really,
you know, you had to really pack up your bags and for the most
part go somewhere to get a job. And that's what separated a lot
of people from pursuing that. Now somebody like Don McGregor
who I'm definitely going to have on.
I've already asked him. He already said yeah, love Don
former colleague at 10:50 back in the day.
Hockey guys so happy with his Devils job and just awesome.
Donnie's Donnie's terrific guy. Somebody like Don was able to
carve out this great career and never leave New York like sports
phone and then at the fan part time and then climbed way up a
little bit doing updates there and then obviously 1050 open
open their doors basically 20 years ago, whatever it was and
right spot first voice on 10:50 and then he earned more and more
reps and he's done what he's done.
But back that like that was very, very rare.
For the most part. You have even Gio had to go to
Pittsburgh. You know, like that's just kind
of the way it was. You know, Evan, I think was in
Washington DCI know he bounced around a little bit did did some
stuff for Sirius as well. And I'm not talking about the
athletes like boomer or Tiki. I'm talking about the more
conventional, you know, hey, study journalism.
Want to get on the air. And when you do that, I just lay
all that out. When you do that, I you have, I
don't want to say you're going to be better.
I'm certainly not saying that because there's so many people
who are incredibly successful who never did that.
But I think you have maybe a little bit of a deeper
appreciation for the grind. Maybe, maybe maybe that's not
true. I think it is.
But that's just my perspective. And the other thing that you get
to do is you learn how to cover teams, usually small teams.
So now I could get to Omar's question, like, did we talk
about just Philly teams? Well, the station that I was on,
and it's 13. Do I still have it?
Oh, I put it away. I have my Mike flag from back
then. I was going to pull it up for
it. I have every Mike flag I've ever
worked at. Yeah, except the fan I should
have. I'm going to go with a steel
one. Right.
I got other stuff from the fan. So we were the home of the
Steelers. I remember, even though
Pittsburgh is very far away, but I remember going to Lehigh
University, getting credentialed, which was a big
thing for me. I was 23 and I get my first
credential and I'm going out to Lehigh.
And that was Andy Reid's first year coaching the Eagles.
They had just drafted McNab. Doug Peterson was the starting
quarterback until and they just let him get his brains beat in
until they they thought it was safer.
McNabb and that Eagles team was hideous man, But you really
learn. How to navigate like a scrum
and, and to be in there amongst reporters and you learn how not
to be nerd. I remember I'm, I'm on the field
at Lehigh on one of the backfields and I, I do a call
in, even though I'm the morning show host with my, with my
partner Tom, I do a call in and because it was like sponsored.
Hey, you know what, we're out at Lehigh camp, BT whatever, what
whatever it was the sponsored by whomever.
And I'm like, Hey, I'm watching this, this this guy bang 60
something yarders with ease. It was David Akers and nobody
knew about him. And I'm not saying I was some
amazing scout that was like, oh, this guy's going to be a bit.
But I'm like, this guy looks different.
I mean, the ball is just banging off his foot.
How is he not going to make this team?
And he wound up making the team and having a great career in the
NFL. And like I remember interviewing
him when he walked off the field doing his work and I was
nervous. Like, how do you structure?
How do you, first of all, how do you approach a pro athlete?
Hey, you know, excuse me, so and so, you know, I'm so and so you
have a couple of minutes like that.
It sounds easy when you're used to doing it, but it's but it's
not So that's the value to me of but I know the world's change of
starting at a small station in a small market.
And then maybe it's even like Lehigh football.
I would go and, and, and I would go to their weekly press
conference at some hotel and, and they were actually really
good. They were very good one AA
program. And the reason, quite honestly,
why I would go is because it was a great, it was a great buffet
and I had no money. And I would get ziti.
I would get, you know, I get meatballs.
I'd eat, you know, I'd really eat.
I was making no money, but I got to know the coach a little bit
and he wound up becoming, his name is Kevin Higgins, Look it
up. He wound up becoming a
quarterbacks coach in the NFL and then you know when he's in
the NFL, you know somebody that I know in the NFL.
So that's how it starts all more.
We did a lot of Sixer stuff. So it was Philly, it was
Philly's. But you know, I was bringing my
Yankee stuff to the table. There was Knicks 6 or stuff
because this was 1999 and the Knicks went to the Finals.
And I remember this to the cool thing.
I've got it getting credentialed.
So I remember I actually this was as a fan, I remember going
to the old Veterans Stadium and the Yankees are in town to play
the Phillies. So Inter League started.
It was at 97, I think not Inter League began and this was 99.
And I go, yeah, I'm young and I don't have my credential.
I get a ticket with my couple of buddies that came in from from
Brooklyn, right? I'm in right field and I'm, you
know, banging a few beers back in the parking lot and I'm there
early for batting practice and Tito Martinez hits a bullet.
I'm like, I got it, I got it, I got it.
And I go to catch with my bed. Broke my finger that the, the
impact on my and I dropped it, the impact on my hand from that
line drive home run in batting practice was ferocious as
anything I've ever felt. Broke my finger immediately, you
know? Yeah, yeah.
That was when I was working in Allentown, you know.
So crazy. What else do I have here?
Maybe a couple more techs going to wrap it up.
Who is that from? Veteran Stadium had such
terrible. I'm sorry.
My, my bad. Yeah.
Oh, God, The Astro turf was was awful.
And you know it. The place smelled like urine.
It was an absolute shit hole. It was it was dangerous.
You go in there, you know, if you're a fan of the other team,
get ready to fight for your life because it's going to be some
drunk knucklehead who's going to push it in the wrong direction.
And you know, it. It was a that's that's where
that was the first jail. I don't know if you know this J
Rod going to educate you here. You can look it up when we're
off the show today. The first jail ever in a stadium
was at Veteran stadium. They created a little jail where
they would detain people that they, you know, I don't mean
something a little tiny, but you know, like a real violent
physical fight or something out of bounds.
They actually had a jail in Veteran Stadium because of oh.
My gosh. Yeah, yeah, I'm looking at the
pictures. Yeah.
What year was that late 90s about?
Let's see Veterans Stadium Jail 1997 there you.
Go yeah. Nuts.
So I was there in 99 for that, for that Yankee Philly game.
Stadium was awful. It really was terrible and the
turf was dangerous. Like you look at some of the
quarterbacks I even even like Boomer on in Cincinnati, like
the the Steelers on that turf back in the day when those
stadiums were built like those cookie cutter 1970s you had.
Now the Astrodome wasn't a cookie cutter, but it had that
same turf, right? Yeah, the Astrodome, you had
Three Rivers, you had riverfront, you had the vet like
it was like concrete. And when those quarterbacks
would get would get grabbed and I mean any player obviously, but
it just gets slung down and the rest not blowing the whistle.
Guess where your head's bang? Guess where your head's banging
off? It's banging off the concrete.
It's like, it was like, and I walked on the old veteran turf
from my early days in in radio and it was wow.
Like now my kids play on turf. We have a really nice baseball
turf field slash stadium that that we built a couple of years
ago in town. It's gorgeous, right?
And the turf is really bouncy and really springy.
And just remembering what that old turf was like, incredibly
dangerous, incredibly violent. And thank God that's gone.
What else? Let me see if I get one more
here that jumps out. Anything jump out here?
Anything. Let's see, stadiums like
veterans had personality brings added elements to rivalries.
Well, hold on a second. Let me challenge that there,
Charlie. It had personality.
I would venture to say that it had no personality because it
would, it looked the same. Like really try to delineate
between where the Reds played, where the Pirates played,
talking about before the new stadiums where the Phillies
played. Like it looked the same.
It was one big massive, you know, I think it was 3 tiered
bowl. Can you look real quick?
I'm going to take a guess. Can you tell me the capacity of
veteran stadium 7070 thousand I'm going to put up.
I'm going to guess. I would venture to guess that
all of those stadiums were within a couple of thousand
seats of each other. Yeah, you were close, 65.
I was gonna actually. Go on 66.
Yep. Yeah, but they weren't gonna be
80 or 90. And they were sterile and they
were very antiseptic. There was no signage, nothing
that distinguished it as wow, this is the Red Stadium like
now. Or look at the Pirates where you
know, in Wright Field, which is a beautiful field.
I love it in Wright Field. The Wright Field wall literally
is 21 feet high in honor of the great Roberto Clemente.
Like you don't have those little tiny homages, if you will, to
history. It was just it was spawned by
the 70s and they all look the same.
They all had about the same amount of seats.
It was always the same vantage point.
Foul territory was about the same because they were built for
football and baseball. They were multi purpose stadium
so I would disagree significantly.
I don't think they had any. What was the word he used?
Identity or aesthetics? What was that?
He said they gave him energy for rivalries.
Well, that's different, OK. What do you say that brings an
added element? They had personality.
That's what I disagree with. I thought they were personality
lists now. The astronome was different.
The astronome was inside it just look different.
I got a great trivia question for you.
So now I know you're not going to get this.
I don't expect you to get this, but next time you're at a bar,
next time you want to win a few bucks, golf course, whatever it
might be, then I'm going to wrap it up.
I, I, I, I might actually start shuffling.
I can't sit here and do nothing today.
I got to go out and do this even though I don't want to.
I got to do something today. So the the question and you can
look this up and don't give me the answer yet.
J Rod, just Google. However you're going to get
there. Who hit the first home run in
the history of the Astrodome? OK, so and and don't tell us
yet. You think Astrodome like Colt 40
fives before the Astros became the Astros and a great great
hats, great unis, by the way, great throwback tradition.
I love I I've got a Colt 45 shirt and you think, well, the
Colt 40 fives. You think about the AT maybe
Rusty stab. You think about the Astros,
right. Nope, it was actually Mickey
Mantle. It was Mickey Mantle in, I'm
going to try to guess the year. I might be off on the year, but
it was an exhibition game where the Yankees went and played
there and Mickey hit the first home run.
I'm going to say I think I'm going to be wrong on this 64
let's. I don't, I don't think the year
is right. Or I don't You're close 65. 65
And it was Mickey Mantle right there you go so even if you ask
an old timer this their their heads going to be spinning with
Astros or National League players.
They're not going to be thinking Mickey Mantle exhibition game.
There's your answer for you something else you get on
unleashed. You know we let you win some
board. Yes Sir.
Make sure I didn't miss anything talked about the NFL combine
gave you a little Pat Riley stuff there a little something
on the on the Knicks 3 burning questions brought to you by my
friends at Sullivan for pain told you about that Yankee light
up, which is a separate content. It's only about 16 or 17 minutes
so go jump in there. You'll get my entire rationale
for constructing the team that I did.
I think you guys will really enjoy it obviously want some
likes want some subscriptions there subscribe get that digital
traction J Rod enjoy. I almost think I have to give
you some homework today for because.
It's not. Yeah, I I need something to
watch. That's what I'm saying.
Let me give you some, OK? Let me think about this here and
then we'll we'll get out of here.
So it's a movie day. It's a it's ATV day.
I want to go with something I know you haven't seen or, or
strongly surmise you have. You have not seen.
I told you about. I told what I told you about
Beach Street. Beach St.
Making Zeppelin. Oh yeah, yeah.
Beach Street's the movies. Zeppelin is the documentary
which is for not very long but you'll like it as a musician I
might even give you. Have you ever seen the Warriors
from the late 70s? OK, I've seen parts of it, never
the full thing. That's something you're going to
have to get your eyes on at some point.
Yeah, that that's I'm going to give you a couple of options.
So Beach Street is 1 old school origins of hip hop.
For those of you who are new to the show.
J Rod, he does he he sings, you know, he raps.
He's he's got some stuff going. So that's definitely a genre
that he loves. Same with me.
So B Street will be 1. The Warriors was about the
gritty, lawless 1970s. I mean, it was.
Wow. That's certainly one that that
that I think you'll really, really enjoy.
Have you ever seen Raging Bull with De Niro?
Have not. That's like one of the greats
haven't seen yet. Oh.
Boy, I better stop asking you, because the the more I ask, the
more disappointed I'm going to get you, and the more and the
more it's going to it's going to alter my perception of you.
I've got a great perception of J Rod.
I can't be influenced by his lack of cinematic experience.
So I gave you a couple. Latch on to one or two.
Knock yourself out. Have a great Monday, buddy.
All right there, J Rod. Yeah.
Let me stop here. Stay warm.
There you go, J Rod, sign it off there.
I'm going to do the same here. Hey, like it.
Subscribe and check out the content.
I'm going to drop. Let's see.
So the Yankees want us. I want that to live at least a
week. I want to work up to the start
of opening Day here. So we are, you know, February.
What is the 20? That's the 23rd already.
My God, I would have to think that.
Yeah, I'm thinking by March 1 I'll have the all time elite
post 80 Mets line up up there for you.
And then the let's see, I know St.
John's plays Seton Hall March 6. That's a Friday night.
That's the final regular season game.
So then 7-8 would be they won't play the first day because
they're rocking it. So I, but I, I, I will drop my
old time Big East team right before the Big East tournament
starts. And then some of the other fun
stuff like my, my top ten sneakers and top ten albums, top
10 sitcoms. So other stuff is coming.
I appreciate you guys. You know that like it, subscribe
it, get it out there. More views we get, the more that
we can do. And also, Sam and I were texting
over the weekend. We are going to do at least once
a week and we'll alternate. So I was on his show last week,
remember with the Ashes. I came back from Ash Wednesday.
He will be on my show this week. We have listened to the demand
and then the week after that I'll be on his show.
We'll find a way to collab where both channels get action, but
that's coming. So I don't know what days I'm
going to have Sal. I don't know when Sal's to be on
the show this week, but he will be on so look forward to that as
well. Have a great Monday.
Go get the shovel, go start digging out the good news.
If there is any solvus with this slop, which is one thing, if
it's December or January, I'm all for it.
When I want to be on a baseball field with a fungo and coaching
and watching. I don't want the snow now, but
the solvus would be by Wednesday.
I saw cause normal weather's not as I said, high 40s fourty 6,
fourty 7 going to start to melt obvious.
Now if you have turf that's good.
If you don't, that's worse. But it it, it seems pretty
shitty now. I do think eventually it's going
to go away maybe certainly quicker than the last time
because we had some frigid. We had 9 and 10° days.
That's obviously done. And look at the 10 day forecast
at least in the Northeast got a lot of 40s and even into early
March I saw a couple of low 50° days.
So it's unfortunate. Now most importantly, be safe.
Don't try to be a hero. If you don't have to get in the
car, don't go anywhere. Enjoy the rest of your day.
I will catch you guys tomorrow at 10.
Have a great day. Bye.