is on leash. Are you listening?
Can you hear me? Hear me.
This is on the leash. Are you listening?
Can you hear me? Hear me.
This is on the leash. Are you listening?
Can you hear me? Hear me.
This is on the leash. Are you listening?
Can you hear me? This is on the leash.
Are. You listening?
Hold on everybody, no rules Friday on the show BT unleash
what's going on? Hopefully everybody is doing
well. We've got let's see 12345.
We got about 5 or 6 things to get to no rules Friday also
means we're we're jumping around a lot.
So get those comments cooking and and and I I got to get to J
Rod out of the chute here because I want to talk about.
I mean, this guy was in a raw mood.
I said hello to him down the line this morning.
It's kind of, you know, 1520 minutes ago.
We're getting ready for the show, had done our texting and
everything, but obviously setting up the visual element
and this guy was, I've never seen him like this.
You OK? No, I mean, I would have.
I thought I was watching the the third installment of Weekend at
Bernie's last night every time Vusevic stepped in the game.
Oh, you. Didn't like your Celtics last
night? Carrying around a freaking dead
body with them, but no excuses for last night.
No, you know what? The Jaylen Brown.
No excuse but my I thought we were done with Enos Kanter.
I thought we were done with Greg Monroe.
Greg Monroe. I guess not.
I guess. All right, we'll.
We'll get back to that. I I know you got a lot to RIP
on. It was a really good game.
So we'll do a little Nick Celtics, obviously a couple of
baseball items for you. It's the masters I've got to I
saw a study as well. I saw this late last night on
the favorite sports day of the year for sports fans and and and
it just confused me. So we'll get to that in a little
bit, but first up, obviously today's show brought to you by
sponsored by my good friends and Sullivan Payne, one of New
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And of course, the newest recruit in the BT Unleashed
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There you go. Premio sausage.
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All right, so a week ago today, I was telling you guys about the
first pitch out in Texas, getting ready for that.
We've got the video. All right, Jay, Rod, you ready
to roll this through? And then we get into the show
here. We've got the video, right?
You've got the whole thing. Yep.
All right, let's roll it. You know, leave my mic opens in
case I want to. Comment are you able to do that
or no cannot do that I didn't think you could OK yeah it does
the volume for the video and then.
After you could comment, OK, all right, all good, Let's roll.
Let's see what happened. This was Sunday in in Texas,
Easter Sunday first pitch. Go ahead, ladies and gentlemen,
pulling out the first pitch for today's game.
He is an Emmy Award-winning national sports broadcaster and
he's just launched his YouTube channel at BT Unleashed.
Please welcome to the mound, Brandon Kearney.
Brandon, when you're ready, toss your first bitch to Travis
Jankowski. There you go.
So that was that was a lot of
fun There. You can see I licked my hands
twice. I told you the story how I was
in my head about how the ball was so slick.
So you saw that. I told you I jumped over the
line a little, skip over. You know, I can't, I can't
challenge the baseball gods there.
Janikowski was great. You can see he had to jump up a
little bit to his left and keep that thing from hammering
against the screen. And I didn't even realize this
because when you're doing something like that, you're
thinking about so many things. I was thinking about not messing
up, really. But I love how they played the
music to make me feel at home. Little Saturday Night Fever.
Yeah, that was in the house. That was awesome at the end.
Very, very good. So I had a blast doing that and
thank you once again to the Texas Rangers and and all the
hospitality, not only for me but really for my entire family.
All right, so last night's Knick game I want to get to I want to
spend a ton of time on it. So I got a lot of things we want
to do here. That was a good game.
That's the kind of high level game that if we got games like
that more often than not, we would not be complaining about
the NBA the way that we do now. The Knicks wound up on the right
side of it. I listen, for me, it doesn't
change number one, No Jaylen Brown.
That's a big big, but it got phenomenal top ten player in the
NBA. So that obviously changes the
way the Celtics look, but it had a high level of intensity, a
high level of shot making in the fourth quarter.
I mean they were exchanging bombs, obviously Josh Hart with
a couple of clutch threes. And from my point of view, I
know J Rods take off. From the Celtics point of view,
I really like seeing Jalen Brunson become the facilitator.
And you saw a little bit more of that last night, you know, and
you saw a little bit more the picking the roll and the
relationship with Anthony Towns. I still listen.
I'm not going to change my tune here until I have to, which I
will happily do. I still don't think they were
championship team, but you know, Mike Brown now has what, 52 wins
with two games to go, which is the second most in the last 21
years. Remember, Mike Woodson had 54
back with Carmelo and Amari and Tyson Chandler and Jason Kidd,
that crew. He's not going to get to that
because there's only two games to go.
But he did win at least one more game than Tom Thibodeau did last
year. What does that mean?
Well, I mean, symbolically, maybe a little something.
I don't invest a whole lot in that because the measurement
for, you know, for any Knicks coach moving forward is given
the roster that they have and how they're expected to be one
of the better teams in the NBA. It's all about getting past the
point that you were at a year ago, which would mean getting to
the NBA Finals and eventually winning a championship.
But it was a fun game. I really listen.
I really thought they look good. They look crisp.
They look pretty connected. I thought the shop distribution,
which was something I talked about early in yesterday's show,
where too many times this year it's just been maddeningly one
sided, where, you know, Brunson's taken 21 or 22 shots
and then Cat has like 7 or 8 and it's just all over the map.
I actually thought that last night.
Now you're going to have to react to how defenses play you.
And in the playoffs, it's a lot more game specific, clearly.
But I kind of like that. I thought Brunson had enough
shots. I thought Cat had enough shots.
Now, I don't usually want to see Josh Hart take 15 shots, but
when you're making a highlight, I think he had, I think he had
10 out of 15. That's good in my book.
Knicks look good. Knicks get the win, Celtics
lose. And if J Rod had any more that
he needed to get out a cathartic moment here on the show, by all
means go for. I don't know why though, Jay,
and I'll give you a free reign to do whatever you want.
Like, I get it, you're pissed off you wanted to win the game.
But if I'm you and I'm trying to put myself in your shoes, you
know, Jayson Tatum has looked very explosive since he's
returned. He's played a lot of minutes.
You didn't have Jaylen Brown, so.
I don't know, honestly. Go ahead, I appreciate the
fandom, but I'm a little surprised you're so ordery today
there. Yeah.
I mean, my thought is more so around the lines of, OK, yes,
Jalen Brown's out and yes, Tatum's looking good.
He comes back. He's kind of the, I mean,
Pritchard was kind of the main focus of the offense last night,
honestly. But Tato, you know, Tatum was
obviously up there. He was that guy.
I just I don't the. Taste in my mouth after What did
we fall? Did we fall all four games this
season to you guys or? 3 Did you guys get one?
Maybe we got. One, I don't like how that feels
going in the playoffs. I really don't.
And especially after, you know, Vucevic is playing last night,
like what that showed me was we would have been better off never
trading for him keeping Anthony Simons because men, you think
about it there, Anthony Simons would have had a much better
chance of guarding Josh Hart. Obviously isn't the one supposed
to be guarding shots hard, but any of our backup centers would
have had a better job. It's just like these slow footed
centers drive me nuts because it's like if you can't play
perimeter defense in the what's the point nowadays?
That's a good point. You got to be, you got to be
able to move your feet. You got to be, you know, you got
to be able to move around screens and pursue people 25
feet away from the rim. I agree.
Get your hand up, at least contest the shot.
I, I, I hear you on that. My, my, you know, my silver
lining, though, like you're saying from this game, is Josh
Hart. You know, he's like, even though
he does typically play the Celtics pretty well, he usually
does not that ballistic from three.
Points No, no, no. What are you 4 in the fourth
quarter or? Something.
Yeah. I mean, he had 10 out of 15
shots. That is, that is not Josh Hart,
and that's not a resume. That's why I'm not going nuts
here. Listen, I'd always rather win
than lose. But when Josh Hart listen, I
don't know that there'll be a game all throughout the playoffs
where Josh Hart takes that many shots.
I really don't think he's going to take 15 the rest of the way.
And I'd be very surprised, happily surprised, pleasantly
surprised if he hits that many threes.
And they were clutch. But he the one thing about the
Knicks team, they were talking about it through the broadcast
like they're clutch numbers. They're the most clutch team in
the NBA in terms of fourth quarter, you know, deeper dive,
analytical, statistical stuff. So a lot of that is rooted
around Brunson. And the more that Jalen Brunson
can get his guys involved when they run that second, you know,
that second defender his way, which you're going to because
he's the head of the snake. You cut off, you cut off Jalen
Brunson, you in essence and the Knicks.
And it seems like he's made some adjustments.
Mike Brown's trying to make some adjustment.
Alvarado did not play last night and.
How I saw that? Yeah, so he said this is our,
this is our playoff rotation. So he moved away from him.
He had a chance. He played early.
Well, early when he first got here.
I I don't love that because to me, Jose Alvarado's the kind of
player that's going to light up the Garden.
I don't care if he's over 8. He's going to stick a big three.
He's going to make a big steal. He's going to do something to
get that place, you know, head over the heels with energy.
So I don't love that, but we'll see how it plays out.
And listen, I'm sorry, lost last night.
What do you want me to tell you? Man, also I don't know, this is
also just a random off thought. I don't know if you caught this
while watching. Yeah maybe it was just like the
playoff esque environment of the game, but it really felt like
dudes were just like on the floor every 10 seconds like
that. Like that was the most jump
balls I've seen in a bat in a regular season game and I don't
know how long. Like there were probably 5 or 6
just jump balls off of the the, you know, the little struggle
right there, so. I have become and I did notice
that and listen, there was a ratcheted up amount of
intensity. That's good.
You know, the jump ball to me has maybe become like the bane
of my sporting existence because you know, when when you watch
and when you coach as I do, you know, so many youth basketball
games, the amount of jump balls or it's mad, especially with the
girls. You're talking like 7-6 rec game
or 85 rec game or hey, we had a shootout tonight.
You know, we won 12/9 or we lost 1211, whatever it might be.
There's so many tie ups. And so because the kids at that
age, they, they, you know, the boys a little bit more, not the
stereotype, but the boys, they're also a year older.
My son is in and his crew. So they're a little bit more,
you know, ripping the ball out and trying to extend the play.
But the referees and I get it. It's, you know, wreck and it's,
it's low. It's, it's mid level travel
ball, but they don't let the play play out.
So the moment somebody gets that second hand on it, there's the
whistle, alternating possession. I can't stand the jump ball.
It drives I mean nuts No, but you're right.
There was a lot of them last night.
Let's start banging at a lot of these.
It is a no rules Friday on the show.
Hopefully everybody's doing well.
Tyson Gates 4726 Tyson, what's going on?
Great toss. BT had a little juice on it.
What was the conversation with the catcher at the end of the
pitch? Big fan.
Well, I appreciate that Tyson. I actually spoke about this a
little bit yesterday. So first I forgot that the
mascot was there. Then the mascot, I'm like, wow,
this, this big horse is next to me.
And I was, you know, it's, it's hard to describe when you're
really in the moment. You try to take it in and some
people hit me up and they're like, man, why'd you rush it?
I'm like, I don't know. And the Rangers were so good
about this. They're like the, the woman,
like who sets up the, the logistics of the day, the
national anthem singer and the cheerleaders.
They have, they've got cheerleaders out there.
So it's all timed out. There's a whole menu of things
that she's got to follow and it's literally timed out to the
second, you know, so she has to be on top of it, which she was.
And I remember distinctly, even though my head was really, you
know, all the ball slippery. There's 30,000 people.
I don't, you know, don't mess up all you don't fall if you go to
the slope. But you know, all those things
you think about. I remember her saying, you know,
very clearly twice early. And then right before I went
out, take your time, soak in the moment.
And I had this whole thing in my mind planned.
Like, you know, I was going to salute everybody.
I was going to try to say Happy Easter so that even though you
couldn't hear me, you could see me mouthing on the Jumbotron.
You know, I was going to ham it up a little bit.
And then you get out there. Let's just get this moving here.
So, you know, it's like a lot of things in life, you know, where
things, so many good things go so fast and it is really hard to
enjoy the moment. You know, I know I talk about
golf a lot, you know, and not that much in terms of thoroughly
going through my rounds, which nobody cares about.
But I have a lot of golf analogies and, and I think it
applies here as well. Like I played the other day for
the first time, I don't get mad anymore because I'm just nowhere
near good enough to get mad at all.
I'm just happy my back, which has been surgically repaired is
good and, and I could play whatever.
So I'm I'm grateful for that, but like think about you, the
the couple of good shots you hit on the golf course.
You know, if you're a relative hack like me and how you know
yet you enjoy it for a second, but that it dissipates.
But then think about all the bad shots.
You know what how you kind of shuffling your feet a little
bit, or maybe some of you still get really angry.
Got now throw at club. Get over it.
Come on, curse whatever you do, you know, kind of isolate
yourself from your buddies for a little bit.
Like it's just hard. No matter how much you try to
really, truly soak in and enjoy the moment, there's a a lot of
things going on. And just to answer the rest of
that question, what I said to Janikowski, who's the first base
coach, you know, he was catching that.
He played in the bigs for about 10 or 11 years, bounced around
4th outfielder type. Good energy guy, you know, good
glove, good wheels, good clubhouse.
Dude, as I said, he's now the first base coach for the
Rangers. He played for the Mets for a
year. So a lot of New York fans will
remember him. I think he was here in 2022.
Yeah, I think it was 2022. And I just told him, exhausted.
Dude. Thanks for saving me, man.
That's exactly what I told him. And then what he told me was I'm
like, man, I'm a little nervous. I have, you know, I didn't think
I would be and he said I was nervous.
He's like, you know, I saw you go up there and I'm like, he's a
pretty big dude. It looks like he's going to
throw a heater, which I did that.
There was some below on it. Horrible throw in terms of
accuracy, but I did throw pretty hard and he was telling me that
he was nervous. I was telling him that I was
nervous. And then really I just thanked
him for saving me from being a Baba Booey or, you know, $0.50
and, you know, somebody that just, you know, guy spiking
balls. I mean, I, I didn't think that
that would happen, but you know, it, it's just crazy how forget
about the first pitch for a moment.
But things that you do in like inflexively, like without even
thinking about it when there's a little bit of pressure, like the
power of the brain, even if it's internalized pressure, like
trust me, most of the people in the stadium, the overwhelming
majority of people in the stadium #1 didn't know who I
was. Now they do, which is a great
thing. And that's why I'm very thankful
to the Rangers for that. But amongst other reasons, the
hospitality, nobody really knew me and #2 nobody really cared if
I threw a ball or a strike. It's not like they're out there.
Oh, you know, oh, this guy look good.
Maybe the Rangers can sign him, put him in double play and, you
know, see if he's good enough to move up the move up the ranks.
They're stuffing their faces, they're enjoying Easter Sunday.
They're with their families, they're with their friends.
But in your mind, and in this case, in my mind, you're like,
Oh my God, all eyes on me here. Don't butcher it.
So that was a lot of fun. And again, I wanted to get that
video to you. My God, I didn't even notice the
music. The Saturday Night Fever music.
Phenomenal. Well, we got New York locker
room media. 7 out of 10 on the throat.
BT at least your launch, it didn't spike it like 50.
Yeah, I mean, 7 out of 10 now. And that, you know, I think
that's a little low. I mean, it depends what the
grading mechanism is. Now, if you get to penalize me a
couple of points, which by the way, I I totally understand, it
was nowhere near a strike. So if you want to deduct 3
points right away, OK, that's a fair measurement.
It did have some juice. The wind up looked like I played
a little bit, like I had a little bit of a baseball
background. I thought I had pretty good
presence going out there, jumping over the line, waving
the people and, you know, yucking it up with Jadakowski
and eventually the mascot. So, but, you know, 7 out of 10,
is that a fair depiction there? J Rob, why don't you give me and
and I won't get mad. You know that.
Give me your odd. If it's lower than 7, by all
means. Later, no, it wouldn't be lower
than 7 because at least it's still like a solid throw like
lower than 7 would be like you're, you know, at the level
where. Like one of the Yeah.
Like, I don't know, like, like that one, like not a baseball
throw. Got it.
I'd go I'll give you like a 8.18.
Point OK, OK yo, you love these fractions band.
I think it's the only way you can.
It's the only way I can like, really compartmentalize.
Understood. I appreciate that, Professor.
Yeah, I'd go, I'd go eight, yeah, 8 out of 10 if we're round
and down. That's it was good.
I think it was solid. Listen, you dock 2 point.
I'd say maybe you dock one point for it being too high.
Yeah. And that's I mean.
And well, and and and wide as well.
It's not like it was. Yeah, it was.
Kind of like it was. Oh, no, it was, it wasn't over
the plate and high. It was in the right-handed part
of the batter's box and high. So you definitely got two
points. You got to penalize me.
I I got to own it. There's no way that that was a
10. There's no way that that was a
nine. Yeah, I think in the I might
even give myself lower than you. I might go, I might go 7 I
might, I might go 7.17.2. I, I think you're a little
generous, but but I appreciate that.
All right, let me get this out of the way.
Just keep these texts rolling in these chats.
Obviously, no, I did not get to say hi to Nimmo.
I, I was trying to give him a shout out, let you know, I, I, I
don't know him, but obviously he's off to a really good start,
hitting it well. Had a couple of hits that game
playing right field, which I don't like.
There was a play where they tested him on a throw that
you're not going to, not to get into the weeds of a, of a
Rangers Reds game. But, and I remember saying to,
to somebody in the fan was it, I forget it was somebody that was
next to me in the suite because then we went to the suite and
I'm like, that's why he's not a right fielder.
I don't even think he's going to get it.
He's not have a good left field arm.
Forget about right field. But I did not get to say hi to
him. I've got a lot of respect for
Nimmo. Plays hard good ball player has
some flaws. You know, who knows what
happened in that clubhouse with the Mets, but you know, he was
kind of run out and the Mets offense and and the Mets defense
really was sputtering a little bit yesterday and it has been a
little bit this year. I'll get to that a little bit
later. But no, I didn't get to see him.
I'm I'm a fan of them, although I don't think he's a great
player and I had some criticisms of of his as as a met, as a ball
player, but as a dude, as a human.
I think that I think that guy's I think he's I'm a big fan of
Nimmo. All right, so real fast, Dave,
you you can pop that up. I'll get to Jay.
It's all good day one of the masters, right and I was all
over this. Now, I'm not going to, I'm not
going to sit here and just run through shot after shot.
Although it was, we're talking about the massive mush.
Mind, this is on me. So if you love golf and you
watch the Masters and you consume it regularly, you'll
know that every freaking year, no matter how old he gets, no
matter how Gray the hair gets, no matter how big the belly gets
over the belt and no matter how much the back is still
screaming, Freddie Couples day one comes out and almost always
drops A656667. Like Freddie Couples is always
on the first page paging the leaderboard.
And it's a great story. I love it.
And and Freddie couples was, you know, Boom boom was banging it
yesterday early. And, and I tweeted, I'm like,
you know, something, something along the lines of, you know,
what's an opening round Masters without Freddie boom, but
without Freddie on the without Freddie making noise or Freddie
doing something. And then almost right away, I
think he got a nine and then I think he got like a 7.
And then he just absolutely fell apart.
So I did not mean to mush Freddie Couples, who who I love
now. When Freddie was in his prime, I
was not a golf fan yet. I wasn't playing.
I wasn't really watching. But God, he's got any.
And again, this is if you really, you know, watch and play
golf. He's got one of the easiest,
smoothest swing still in golf and the power.
That's why his nickname was Boom Boom.
That the, you know, the, the power that he generates is
amazing. So I didn't mean to mush you,
Freddie, but they wanted the masters.
So the leader right now, they're going to get off a little bit
later, like one or two o'clock -5.
It's a good number. Weather was good yesterday.
Conditions were pretty good. So you can attack the pins, you
know, and, and looking at the leader board here, I almost feel
like this is a leader board for maybe four or five years ago.
It's a very interesting one of the sense that Rory's there now.
Now, Rory knows the course really well and and I would
think that Rory is going to be there all weekend, if not win
it. But how about Jason Day?
I mean, you go back, you know, 5-6, seven years ago, Jason Day
was a great even even maybe more than that young explosive
ascending new generation type of golfer.
Then he had a bad back issue and he's a real blue collar guy.
If you know Jason Day's story, I think his dad left and his mom
raised him and was very poor and his path to become a pro golfer.
A lot of respect for Jason Day. He's a real gentleman.
I love watching him play. So I hope he can continue this
right. Jason Day's a Patrick Reed who
went to nearby, what is it? Augusta State, I think it's
called. And he's had a lot of flare ups
and he's kind of this temperamental nut job.
And, you know, he, he had some big moments, whether it's Ryder
Cup or Masters going back a few years and then he kind of
disappeared. And that happens in golf, you
know, unless you're like a Tiger or Phil or one of these guys
that you Scotty Scheffler in their absolute prime, that VJ
dudes like that where they're just there for 10 years, if not
more. Patrick Reed was one of the best
golfers in the world for a minute.
Then he absolutely just fell off the face of the earth.
He's on the leaderboard. Shane Lowry, who is a great
European player. Was he, I, I believe Ireland,
right? Justin Rose, who I love,
European, Xander Shaw, Flay is up there, Scotty Scheffler's up
there. Tommy Fleetwood's one of those
guys who has won a lot and competes a lot, but it hasn't
won a major yet. So they're all within a couple
of shots. Leaders -5 some of those guys
like Fleetwood scheffler -1 -, 2, two, three shots either way.
So the Masters is going to be a blast today.
I told you I'm a big out fan. Like I follow this stuff, man.
Off to a really, really good start.
Wow. Johnny Boy 17.
Thank you for that, Johnny. Appreciate it.
What's your your favorite wrestling match of all time?
My goodness, you know I'm always down to talk some wrestling.
We talked some wrestling yesterday.
It's funny, yes, that I watched a YouTube video yesterday
literally called like the best wrestling, like all the best
wrestling matches of all time. Really good.
Coincidence. Yeah, OK, OK, listen, I'm sure
Shawn Michaels was involved in a few of those in The Rock and
Cena and and some other guys that that came.
And of course I, you know, in in retrospective, like history,
I've caught up, but I wasn't really watching live at that
point. Even Goldberg and some of those
dudes, right. The Oh my God, I remember just
the quick aside when VHS tapes were were all you had there was.
Well, they were two in in our neighborhood and both were
walkable, right. I would go and I would rent VHS
tapes with my buddies and Titan Sports.
This was when Vince McMahon's empire was just beginning to to
explode where he had like the Tuesday night talk show.
Old heads will remember that you probably call Jay and like in
studio and it was him and it like Bobby Heenan was there a
lot and they had like a live audience.
It was great, man. Ahead of its time really.
And they had all these different VHS tapes from Titan Sports,
whether it was like an individual wrestler or
chronicling, you know, some angles and stuff.
God, I used to love this stuff. My favorite match of all time.
Man, that is a really, really tough one.
I, I listen, it's not my favorite.
I think maybe the best in terms of just watching 2 guys that can
wrestle and you know, one guy had charisma, one guy didn't.
But I think you go back to the, was that WrestleMania 3 when
Macho Man wrestles Ricky the Dragon, Steamboat.
Oh, man, that one. You know, Macho had the great
flair coming off the top rope. The shorts.
Yeah, that that mean like the stars on the back of the show.
Elizabeth, of course, which changed everything.
The sunglasses, the wild eyes. He was all coked up, adjusted to
me. Bam bam, bam, bam bam bam bam
the music as he would come out. So he was bringing that he like
he was bringing that match to an elevated place in terms of
showmanship. But there were very few
wrestlers technically speaking, during that era that could
really match Macho Man in terms of that ring presence and that
dexterity and and Ricky the Dragon Steamboat was 1.
Brett the Hitman Hart was another maybe one of the
Bulldogs. Not many.
That was a great match, but my favorite, you know it it's going
to be it's going to sound corny. I might have to go to and it
wasn't even a great match, but I might have to go to WrestleMania
one when you had Mr. T and Hulk Hogan.
I mean, leading up to that, they and I, I watch it and I've seen
some documentaries on it since I was actually in one of them.
If you guys want to find it on A&E.
It was about a 2 hour doc on the history in the making and, and
how Vince leveraged all his money and really took a massive
gamble, blah, blah, blah for WrestleMania with the pay per
views and stuff and, and the close circuit and then
eventually branched out. And I think WrestleMania too had
multiple spots like Chicago and and and LA.
Like he really just started making a ton of money, but he
took a lot of risks, right? And in that documentary, which
I'm in, and I had a pretty prominent role.
I spoke a lot about it. I love the build up, like the
way they made that angle and the way they brought in Cyndi
Lauper. I don't understand at that
point, you're talking in the mid 80s, Jay, and in the mid 80s.
Now listen, but I love Michael Jackson's music, like Michael
Jackson the person. It's different, you know, I'm
not. It just is.
But Michael Jackson's music,
amazing, right? Cyndi Lauper, it was on the
radio all the time. Madonna.
Madonna now, please, on every level for me.
But her music in the 80s, I mean, a Titan of industry,
right? So when they brought in Cyndi
Lauper, you had the, it was the rockin wrestling connection.
You had the music, you had Hulk, you had Mr. T from the A-Team in
Rocky. I mean, it was amazing.
And the training montages that they remember.
The montage remember Mr. Perfect.
I think yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They would do, they would and,
and I saw something else where they would, they recently I saw
this where they showed all the takes that it would take to have
the, the vignette Mr. of Mr. Perfect, like throwing parts and
then he would turn around and say, Hey, I'm perfect.
Like, you know, bowl of the strike or hitting 1/2 court shot
or throwing a football 50 yards or, or pure in a golf shot.
And they had all the outtakes because it took a while for him
to sort of hit a little, a little bullseye, right.
And so those vignettes became more and more well done and
theatrical as time went on. But the early ones of like you
look at Mr. T and Hulk Hogan working out, I think in Venice
Beach on the beach. And and like running Hulk's
knees, because he was getting older at that point already.
His knees were so shot he couldn't even run.
And like like. The amount of weight that they
were like pushing, I don't mean Hulk, but more Mr. T like it was
so it was so corny, but you didn't view it as corny back
then. So I'd probably say, and then
Bob Horton got involved and Mr. Wonderful, Oh my Piper, who's
one of my all time favorites. I'd have to say that even though
it was a bad match, it was the moment and the the just the
imprint on the on the history of the, of the, of the sport or the
industry undeniable, indelible. So we got here.
Jay, why don't you read that for me?
But it would have been nine O 8, hey?
What up Vince? Do you remember when you went to
your first Yankee game minus in 1956 and I saw Mickey Mantle hit
a home run to win the game? Wow, my how old?
I'd like to know how old he was so I do now.
I, I looked for this game and I found it on Roto sheet, which is
some of you know about this Roto sheet is basically an old
database and it's perfect for like, I don't know the actual
date, you know, but I remember piercing things together because
I was probably about 5 or 6 and it was a Yankee game.
And I remember, and we used to do this, we used to do this when
we would go to the movies as well.
My family, you know, listen, my dad was at this point, he was,
he was a cop or maybe not, not even the detective yet.
So, you know, we weren't rich for sure.
So when he cut a little side, you know, little side hustle
there and save a few bucks, you do it right.
So whenever we would go to the movies, my dad would go to like
the Tambo, the the store where they would sell like the papers
and all the other stuff, right, And he would get like a bag of
candy or whatever and we'd bring it into the movies.
Right. And we I remember we did the
same thing for this Yankee game. That's remember.
It's it's amazing what your bill little details.
And I want to say, you know, I could actually look this up.
I could. I wouldn't even have you do it,
Jay. It might take too much time, but
I remember Lee Mazzilli, who I know well.
I've actually become friends with Maz Great dude.
I should get him out at some point.
Talk some old school stuff. I really should.
Maz Great and Lee Mazzilli was on the Texas Rangers this year.
It was the Yankees, Rangers. So it may have been 82.
I could just obviously go and check Lee Mazzilli.
I just don't want to do it now. Lee Mazzilli stats and he didn't
play for the Rangers long. Remember, he was with the
drafted by the Mets came up, he was with the Pirates a little
bit. Then he wound up coming back to
the Mets in 86. But before that, Pirates and the
Rangers. And there was no interleague
back then, so he wasn't on the Pirates.
This is how I kind of piece things together.
He was on the Rangers, Buddy Bell was on the Rangers and this
was pre Mattingly, so I'm gonna say 82.
Yeah. And and then I just went to a
million. It was just myself, my mom.
I think something else crazy. What you remember, I think my
mom back in the 80s, J Rod, a lot of the moms would get
together and they would do a tuberware party.
You ever hear of that? No.
What is that explaining? It's.
Like, but you know, like the tuberware like that, that
plastic pliable stuff that you put like pasta in.
Yeah, of course. OK.
And some of the moms, I think I was a little side hustle would,
would sell them, right? So, so they would have like my
mom didn't do it long, but I, I, I do believe that she did it.
And Tupperware, whatever company it was, would send you X amount
of stuff. And then some of the moms would
come over, I'm sure they'd have a glass of wine.
They lay out all the Tupperware on the table.
Some of the moms would buy it. They could make 152025 bucks
back then and believe it or not, that's like gas for a month
almost. Think about it.
You know, unless it was as long as it wasn't 1979, which with,
with the oil shortage. So my mom, I believe she was
hosting A Tupperware party and it was just myself, my dad and
my sister. And then, and then from that
point on, we, we went to a couple of games as a family, but
it was, it was pretty much always me and my dad.
And then we started going to Shay.
I want to see Doc. And he was, he's a Mets fan,
obviously, as you know, as an old Dodgers fan growing up in
Brooklyn, but, you know, and, and it was a little bit easier
for him driving to go from Brooklyn to, to Queens than
Brooklyn to the Bronx. So, but I remember, I remember a
couple times we would go to double headers to my
conventional schedule. Double headers.
Yeah. I remember when I went to
Yankees, Royals, maybe 84, maybe 85, Mattingly was there.
I remember that I saw Mattingly hit a bunch of home runs in
person. Oh my God.
And I remember the best thing about going to the game as a kid
was for me, you know, obviously. And my dad would always want to
leave an inning early, which back then I wanted, I didn't
want to hear it. Now I get it, you know, if you
can beat out. And there weren't 3540 thousand
people at the stadium when I was going, you know, even though
they had some good offensive, like really good players like
Ricky and Winfield and Donnie, they just, it was different.
It just the attendance was down. Look it up.
So it was easier to navigate there.
But we'd always leave an inning early and we'd always get a
pretzel for the car ride home with that.
And it's just the charcoal smell.
And he'd always get me a program which I would wake up every
morning early and read. No joke.
I mean, I there was a in the I don't know if they do this
anymore. They probably don't need to
because it's all digital now, but in the back of the old year,
but I'm not it. Was it a year?
I guess it was, was it the yearbook or the program guide?
I think this would have been the yearbook, right?
And in the back. I loved reading this part.
Don't know why it was called on the way up, all the way up.
That was the slug on the way up, right?
And it was the. Yeah.
And the Mets did this too, but the Yankees chronicling their
minor league prospects. And it would have a good cheer
and like a little write up, maybe 345 sentences.
You know, Bernie Williams, AA, you know, did this.
Did, you know, 20 years old with 19 years old, whatever it might
be. I I love that like that little
minutia. I love that.
I would just read it over and over though computers, you know,
And that's how Jay, I remember this as well.
That's how when I would walk, God, I'd wake up so early on
Christmas morning, I'd wake up at like 435 and I remember my
parents were like, don't wake us because my mom would do
Christmas Eve the night before and all the fish and everybody
over and cleaning up. And then obviously, you know,
making things right for making sure things are right for Santa.
So mom wouldn't go to bed until two or three in the morning.
So she wanted at least get a couple of hours.
So I would wake up and my sister, I'm convinced that my
sister could sleep to noon on Christmas morning.
She not that she didn't have any interest, but she just liked to
sleep right. Three years older and I was
like, you know, even non Christmas, I'm up watching
cartoons and, you know, reading baseball magazines.
But I remember how I would pass the time and the clock.
I would see it go like this. Tick, tick, tick.
And I know I got a mountain of presents downstairs, right?
Jordan's baseball stuff, Star Wars stuff.
And it's, it's driving me nuts. I so I would read those
magazines, which I kept in a drawer underneath my bed and I
would read for about an hour and a lot of it was guy on the way
up and the Knicks magazine. So Oh my God, absolutely
phenomenal stuff. So that was amazing.
And then the thing that that I really enjoyed probably the
most, aside from sitting there watching the game with my dad
and getting great food and leaving and getting the
pretzels, I said, I just remember being so, so captivated
when now the old Yankee Stadium and Shay, it was so built so
differently than the stadiums now the corridors were tighter
and I when you first get that first look and somehow, even
though you know, it wasn't swimming and money always got
good tickets, man. When you first see that grass,
when you first see that entrance to whichever exit your or or
gate you're going into, it was just mesmerizing to me.
And I would and I would like my transfixed on it.
My eyes were wide open. I'm sure my mouth was open.
And I would just watch the game And the grass was so green and
it seems like so big, like the it's felt like it was 900 feet
down the right field line. And I remember watching the game
and saying to myself and saying to my dad, I'm going to be out
there. So I'm going to be a Major
League Baseball player. I'm going to be on that field
someday. I mean, I wasn't, although I
was. You were out there.
That was for the high school all.
Star game. Oh, really?
That's what he said. I was going to say no.
You've certainly hit a MLB field now a couple times.
I did. That's true.
The A's first pitch, etcetera. Charlie F 6675.
Thank you for that. Appreciate it Charlie, great
show BT do you think Ryan Weather is going to keep a spot
in the rotation throughout the season?
I know Cole's coming back and obviously he was going next
here. I mean, I mean if he keeps
pitching like that, you better believe he's going to be out
there. He was phenomenal.
A lot of upside with that young man and it's really it's a good
window to get the baseball stuff in because I want to get to a
bigger topic in a minute. But I mean, the Yankees offense
and a lack of the Yankees offense is I'm not going to go
over the top, But it's just annoying because I really
thought that the Yankees for the first month of the season with
their rotation, you know, I, I, you know, Freed's going to be
good. And I really thought that there
wouldn't be any sort of sophomore jinx or slump for Cam
Schlittler. Will Warren's good, but Will
Warren always has that one inning that drives up the pitch
count that you know knows, you know, knows you know that
there's going to be a lot of bullpen arms because, you know,
you look up, it's the 4th inning, 67 pitches.
I'm just throwing out numbers. Third inning or second inning,
41. You know, it's not sustainable,
certainly not in 2026 for a young pitcher.
So I thought that the way the Yankees were going to kind of
get through April as Cole comes back and rolled on was to hit
their way to some wins. It's actually been the opposite.
It's amazing. Now they opened up with the
Giants. Giants can't hit a lick.
Morelands, you know, aren't that good.
Obviously, you know, but you can't lose.
I want to say you can't. I mean, you can't.
I mean, is it really a big deal? I mean, you lose 2 out of three
to the A's. No.
What does it mean down the road? Not a ton, but the Yankees have
a lot right now of guys that they're trotting out there that
are automatic outs and weathers. Before this start yesterday,
Yanks had one hit one. So I mean, come on now.
Eventually Judge goes on a heater.
You know, I don't know what kind of year Jazz is going to have.
You know, this ties into him talking about 5050, which I
think is going to mess with, mess with a swing.
I already don't love his swing anyway because I don't think
he's fundamentally buttoned up in terms of reacting to the
situation. He's a guy who's swinging from
the heels and doesn't make any adjustments.
And in a contract year, you know, he's going for the moon.
And I think it's going to have a real adverse impact.
So I'm not reacting to Jazz Chisholm slow start.
Listen, he's going to run into some missiles and he's going to
steal a ton. And he he too will go on a
heater at some point. But I don't think his production
is going to be with some Yankee fans.
Maybe thought it would be at the end by, you know, at the end of
the year. So listen, look around the
Yankee infield. Let's just call for what it is.
You take away Ben Rice right now, you basically have a ton of
automatic outs. Now.
Jazz is different. I got to show him respect here.
Much different than a Caballero. Ryan McMahon played shortstop a
couple of games ago. Hopefully Volpe comes back and
is actually good. But you know, reacting to what
Volpe's been so far. And Caballero who's a sub.
And McMahon who stinks. And Austin Wells who looks like
he's going to be a 220 something hitter forever.
But if if when he gets there, you know, that's just too many
guys that you're rolling out that aren't doing a damn thing.
In sequence, out, out, out, out. Now you mix in the fact that
you've got Trent Grisham, who's off to a really rough start.
And, you know, I didn't love bringing him back for $22
million, but whatever, he's back.
So I'm going to deal with it. And like, if Judge isn't going
bonkers and Bellinger is not a consistent force, which he
generally is, you know, and you know, and I love Rice and
Stanton's all through a good start, but it's just a lot of
automatic out. So I don't know, to answer the
question, I I at the end of the day, I don't think he will be.
I mean, let's play it out, guys, right?
So Freed, this will be optimal, all right, optimal circumstances
for the Yankees. Freed 1, Cold 2.
Schlittler 3, Rodon 4. Yeah, I mean, he could actually
saw it into that five spot. He could pitch, put, push, Will
Warren maybe to the pen and then Clark Schmidt comes back down
the road. It depends.
He does have high end top shelf stuff and I know that they like
them and they're usually pretty good with the pitching, you
know, identifying reclamation projects, whatever.
So I think there's a chance. I mean, I wouldn't bet on it,
but I think there's a chance he's in the he's the number 5
guy at the end of the year. All right.
And in regards to the Yankees yesterday, I'm very surprised
that Michael Kay didn't say one God damn it after the game was
over. Rod Power 78.
No, Michael's not going to say that on the air as we know.
You know the other thing too, as we're on baseball because I
don't want to get to this other topic.
So, you know what was the buzz phrase around the Mets this
offseason? I'll tell you run prevention,
Brett Beatty yesterday on skates, big moment, right field
game time, double hard play. I'm not saying it was easy by
the way, the probability rate for that was 45%.
So even you know, a more skilled, more well trained, if
you will, outfielder, there's no guarantees making the play, but
his route was was very off all right, number one.
And then Vientos, who dropped the pop up the day before and
then caught one and then had a little.
I like that actually had some fun with the crowd because he
caught it like very shortly thereafter.
You know, made a good play yesterday on the ground ball
infield up and this is the winning run and he spikes at the
dirt. See, the problem is guys, when
you have players out of position, right, it's one thing
to take balls off fungos and in a controlled environment, what
you can't control and what you can't replicate really more
important, you can't manufacture the urgency when a ball is hit
at you. And you know, especially those
line drives for outfielders, right?
Or if you're an infielder like say Ben Rice learning how to
play first base, he can take a million ground balls.
He's probably going to catch, you know, 999 + 1000 of them
during warmups, but like a 99% of them.
But during a game, you know, when, when say, if he's holding
a runner on and he bounces off the bed, couple of steps to his
right and there's a, you know, ground ball that's kind of in
between first and second, you know, and maybe maybe Jazz is,
is covering second or doesn't go for it.
Ben Rice takes a step there. Then he's like, I'm in no man's
land. Like, is it my ball?
It's in right field now He's kind of retreating to first base
because he doesn't know if Jazz is going to go get the ball.
Like those are the little subtleties that you just can't
reproduce in pre game stuff. I don't care how diligent and
how hard working you are, it is impossible to do that right?
So guys like Beatty in right field, Beatty in left field, you
know, lesser extents. I think Rice will be fine.
I think if he's been pretty good so far at first base, but Rice
in first base, Vientos in first base.
Now, Vientos more of a natural third base, but he's just not a
good one. Who else out of position there?
You know, I mean, McMahon playing short, all right, he's
can catch ground balls, but those little things he's not
trained for as a pro. They're going to show up and
they're going to show up in close games in high leverage
spots. And for the Yankees and the
Mets, both teams who should be playoff teams this year, they're
going to show up invariably at the worst point.
And that's October. It's just going to happen.
So, you know, the run prevention stuff, which was a big thing
for, for Sterns, which I get, I understand and I'm a believer
and I'm a supporter of that, but it's kind of a contradiction
when you're espousing run prevention.
And then he got 3-4 guys playing out of position like that
doesn't make any sense to me. So they got to get their act
together. Mets aren't hitting right now.
Yanks aren't hitting right now. McClain was filthy because he is
filthy. Weathers was filthy because he
has filthy stuff. You know, but I, I just, I, you
know that the offenses right now are very, very problematic.
And let me throw this out there very quickly.
What I don't want to see happen, although I'm sure it's going to
now you're going to start here in about George Lombard's off to
a quick start. Yanks got to call him up.
They don't have to do anything. He can't even go into a bar and
order a beer. He's 20 and it's not like he
crushed double AA year ago. He had an OPSI believe that was
under 600. However, he is off to a
phenomenal start in Somerset. So he's played five games,
right? He's got 4 double s and he's got
two home runs, six extra base hits in five games.
And more importantly for me, he struck out twice in 23 or 24
plate appearances. Putting ball, you know, putting
back to ball, making good contact.
All the numbers are there. The deeper analytics, what you
want, you know it's. But what can happen is Volpe
comes back and let's say he's still the same player that he's
been, you know, McMahon in third base and he's not going to hit O
60 this year, but he very well might hit 190.
I mean, Scott Brosius hit 199 or two O 1 the year before the
Yankees got him. You tell me Ryan McMahon can't
do that. I mean, he is just he is
wretched. He stinks as a hitter.
So what the Yankees can't do, and I don't think that they'll
do this. So I'm not really worried about
this more to the fans and not not to the Yankees.
Don't start amping up the noise. Bring up Lombard.
The Yankees basically had Volpe
skip AAA. How's that looking?
How's that working out? To me?
There are checkpoints now The old school way is that generally
the way players were viewed is that they wanted most
organizations wanted players to get at least 1500 at bats, the
minors and and generally if you could, depending upon where you
start, high, a low, a rookie, whatever.
But you want to have 505 hundred 500.
You want a nice big sample size at each level to gauge the
progress. But now you know a lot of the
young stars in the game in Major League Baseball, because the
game is shape. AAA is no longer what it was
really AA is the new AAA, just more viable, more explosive,
better baseball, even though it's a little bit more raw
because the kids are younger than AAA.
But you don't really see that, that progression path as much.
You know, you get kind of let's all right, let's, let's
microwave them. I'm not looking to do that with
Lombard. I'm not.
But I love that he's hitting. He's off to a great start.
I think he's going to be a great fielder.
Everybody raves about his IQ and, you know, have 4 double S
and two bombs in five games of AA.
Coming off what a lot of Yankee people said was a very good,
productive winter. It's an awesome sign because and
I tweeted this yesterday and of course people don't understand
it. It gets lost in translation.
I, I can't help you like one thing I'm never going to do, I
just won't do it. Now if I say something on the
show and what have you guys asked me about it on the show,
Of course I'll go back and I'll provide context.
What I will not do is tweet something and I'll you know,
obviously I'll see the reaction, read some of the comments.
Most of the time I won't, sometimes I will.
And you know, people basically take not even to start trouble,
just taking what I said and kind of hijacking it in a different
direction. It's not incumbent upon me to
provide context. You saw what I wrote, you know,
you guys react to it. If you disagree, that's fine.
And that's the way the world spins.
That's fine. That's good.
I don't profess to know everything, but I did tweet
yesterday and I mean this and I will give you the context here.
All right, So I wasn't going to go back and quote tweet myself.
Here's what I really meant. I got no time for that nonsense.
Not interested, right? Figure it out yourself or watch
BT Unleashed and you'll figure it now.
So I, where is, where's my thing here?
Let me just get my actual phone. It was about Lombard, right?
So with the Lombard, I took it off to a great start.
It was about basically a dearth of, of Yankee prospects outside
of Arrow Judge really doing anything, you know, for a
minute. All right, so I tweeted this
yesterday. The Yankees need Lombard to
truly be the the real deal more than any other prospect they've
had in the last 30 years. I mean that all right.
They need him to be the real deal more than any prospect
they've had in the last 30 years.
Now, of course, people are like, well, they, they, they took it
as either shaded Aaron Judge or they just went a different
direction. That's fine, you know, But it
was it was nothing. It had nothing to do with Aaron
Judge because Aaron Judge is the greatest player I've ever seen,
right? That was obviously a home run
when they drafted him out of Fresno State, but there's been
an absence. I don't need another Aaron
Judge. But I mean, can you have an
above average player that you develop?
I mean, really if you think about this, you had a trade for
Jazz, you traded for McMahon. You know, I mean, you traded for
Caballero, you traded for Trent Grisham.
You know, you made the move for Bellinger.
Basically everybody outside of Ben Rice and Wells and Wells
can't hit right now and there's no evidence that he's going to
you got from other teams. So we all know the Yankees
inability to to develop these prospects.
It's madding. It is a massive, massive failure
and a massive problem for the Yankees because then downstream
what you have to do to kind of course correct that you got to
spend exorbitant amount of money on a guy like Bellinger or you
got to give Trent Grisham $22 million, even though we all
know, most of us know he's not a lead off hitter, you know, but
hey, hey, Spencer Jones ready. Nope.
Spencer Jones is is his strikeout rate this year in the
minors is a but it's 54%. He's striking how 54% of the
time in the minors. What is that going to be in the
majors? 70?
He ain't the answer. He's not the guy.
So if he was the guy and he was more ready because he played in
college, remember that he's not a young kid that got drafted at
the age of 16 who's 19. You're like, I go get him.
Good luck, buddy. That's 25 years old.
So if he's not ready now, he's never going to be ready.
That's the point. So they didn't develop him or
they just drafted the wrong guy. And then obviously Dominguez,
who's tearing the cover off the ball in the minors, which I love
to see, they don't believe that he's a good enough defender to
play center field. We've seen him and and they're
probably right because we've seen him play left field and he
butchers left field. Now I know I get it got
different angles, different spin, different reads.
Center fielder say it's harder to play left field and center.
All right, fine, I get it. But when I see a Major League
last year left fielder stumble around and and look as lost as
he did too many times, just not a good defender.
So they didn't do a good job developing his defensive prowess
either. All right.
In addition to being a right-handed hitter.
So the point is about the tweet. Why I stand by that with
Lombard, it's because if he is, and I'm not trying to put
unnecessary pressure on the young man, but like if he really
is the real deal, like if he's the Yankees version of Wit or
Gunner Henderson or just some young Baku comes up and, you
know, is a stud and he's going to be an All Star.
And as he matures and puts on weight and fills out and learns
the league, you know, he's going to be in some All Star games
and, you know, might mess around and, you know, be top five MVP
might win one like that kind of player, right.
If he can become if he is that kind of player, well, now you
can number one, you don't have to spend more money to get that
kind of player here, which allows you to build out the
roster, I think more effectively and differently to support Aaron
Judge. So the tweet was about Lombard,
but in a lot of ways it was speaking to the the broken
nature of the Yankee prospects. That's what that was about.
South J Rod, I saw a pretty interesting a study.
I wasn't a reporter. Alright, best sports days of the
year. OK, Now using the A through F
grade, I'm going to give A grade A's.
The best F is awful. I'm going to give you 246.
I'm going to give you 8 things based on your interest and your
willingness to sit, sit there for 456 out, whatever it might
be to consume that. I want your letter grade as
well. You ready?
Master? Sunday for me is an A.
How about you for me? Yeah.
C OK. Super Bowl Sunday for me.
That's going to sound weird. Is is is really more like AC.
Of course I'm going to watch it, but the way the pregame drones
on, I can't stand it. The long halftime show.
I can't stand it like I myself enjoy wild card weekend more
myself every once we get a bad game, you know, like that nine
win team that shouldn't be there.
So I'm going to give the Super Bowl Sunday AC in terms of
watching the game. You B OK, Week one of the
college football season. It's about AD for me.
Whatever. Wake me up when there's really
good games and you get a couple. But it's not like I'm sitting
there. Oh my God, Week one of the
college football season. I guess when I'll be honest with
you. When I was in school I had
greater intrigue. Obviously.
Now, nowadays it's a little different.
Yeah, I'll go similarly D. OK, what about the Kentucky
Derby? You're not a big Derby fan.
Yeah. Now the Derby's interesting
because I met my wife at a Kentucky Derby party, right?
Yeah. OK, Yeah, I told you that story.
So there's great symbolism in the Derby, so I'm going to give
it an A out of that. But in terms of like all the
pomp and circums, I don't know a lot about.
I mean, horses are an amazingly beautiful animal and it's just,
it's crazy how how beautiful they are.
But the mechanics of horse racing, I don't, I don't pretend
to understand that at all. I don't really even really know
how to bet on horsing on, on horse horsing on horse racing.
So I don't need all those hours of lead up.
Like I don't need it for the Super Bowl.
The race is over what, 2 minutes, right?
So, a, because if I don't, I'm probably going to get in
trouble. But in terms of the other stuff,
reality, whatever. All right.
Indy 500 F Couldn't care less. How about you, FFF?
I've never watched you once. All right, Yeah, I mean, I I
I've certainly never watched it start to finish.
Although I and I'm not trying to disparage the sport of motor
racing. Some of the people who go there,
like the infield is amazing and the party is awesome and it's
you know, but but for me, it's zero.
All right, NBA on Christmas. I was a.
All right, yeah, yeah, I'm going to give it a pretty high grade
as well. I'm going to probably AB plus,
you know, it, it's very high. I I always there was a point
where maybe it was an A like what I would get like Ewing
versus Jordan. And there's only like more than
two games. Like now it's like 5 and it's
cool. It's there if you want it.
You know, you get you know, you get Steph and you get LeBron and
you get the Knicks. Now, when you get the Cavaliers
with Donovan Mitchell, you get the Celtics, obviously Denver,
you know, so, so it is good, right?
MLB Opening Day Absolute A+. A yeah.
I mean, come on. Like, on it.
Like, I haven't been as locked in with baseball ever.
And like this year I was so hyped for opening day.
So yeah. OK.
And then for me, how about why won't you get this first day one
of the NCAA Tournament day one? Oh my goodness.
Oh well. Day one.
Day once, it's just a day. 112 first game till midnight.
What the first games? The first games of March mad.
This is your answer, so let me hear it.
B minus really I I feel like I get more hype for like what for
like round two, you know, OK, the first one, the first games
with the premier schools. Yes, we're getting into, yes,
I'm watching, but I think like a lot of the, I don't know, a lot
of the worst match ups, like they don't I'm not up for I
guess. Listen, there's a lot of games
that that I don't, I mean, especially now with the Portal,
I just, you just don't even know who's on most of these teams.
And I do it for a living. Jeez.
It was funny because, you know, obviously it's different last
couple of years with St. John's being in the middle of a
lot of it. And I remember I was in the
hotel room, it was in San Diego when St.
John's played the first game. So they played, they beat Kansas
on a Sunday and they played on Friday night.
All right, their first win, Northern Iowa.
So it was the Friday night and I'm in a hotel room and I've got
the itinerary, team bus leaves at this time, blah, blah, blah.
And I'm like, all right, I got this amount of time before I
shower, suit up, shave, all that stuff, get ready to go down, get
on the bus, head over to the arena, and it's amazing.
Like, there's nowhere else I'd rather be at that point than
calling a St. John's game with make in the
NCAA Tournament. But I had to leave just based
on, again, their itinerary. And I've got to follow their
itinerary for sure. When Sienna was, you know, kind
of messing around and maybe getting ready to beat somebody
that they have no business beating.
And obviously McNamara was coaching Sienna at that point
and they were playing Duke. I'm like, wow.
And I did like, I, I didn't want to leave the hotel room.
I'm laying in my bed. And I just kept postponing
getting in the shower, put my suit on.
And then like, as soon as I did that, I'm like, God, I got 9
more minutes. I got to get downstairs in case
there's a lot of people at the elevator.
Big hotel. I can't risk being late, you
know, because again, St. John's not waiting on me.
I've got to be there early. That's how I view it.
So I'm like, I got 4 minutes. I have to go to commercial.
I wanted to watch the game so much so I couldn't.
So day one to me has taken on a different tone now involved in
it, right? And I miss a lot of stuff.
And it's funny, the deeper St. John's goes, the less I actually
watched the tournament because I'm so fixated on what St.
John's is doing because I'm at that venue, you know?
And it's a trade off I will happily make any day of the
year. But for me, taking away St.
John's, I would say of these three things, I would say #1
would be MLB Opening Day #2 would be Master Sunday, and #3
would be the NCAA Tournament day one.
And even though, you know, you get a lot of teams you haven't
really watched or don't know a whole lot about, it's just I
love how it all starts. You know, I love how the court,
the different courts, the different venues, like the
different pods around the country, the different
storylines, the different announcing teams and the music
like it just hits, right. It's a culmination of of what's
been, you know, a very long and most times a really fun good
COVID season. And then you store, I think the
first game is usually 1212, I think I think that's what 1222,
something like that, right? And then literally, Jay, you're
going from 12:12 to midnight as that last game generally tips
off at 9 fourty 10 O1 depending upon of the game before it goes
late. So it's wall to wall hoops.
That is a true story, that is, and it's proven by data that is
it is the day where the it's the highest amount of vasectomies
for men in the United States. Yeah.
Is there some kind of correlation that sure people,
what would you say? OK.
I'm going to tell you I'm going to tell you exactly what it is
when you get the snippage and you guys know what I'm talking
about. I mean, I want to get, you know,
2 crass here, but we get the snippage.
You got to have a bag of ice on the on the jewels.
So that's like one of the few times dad can just sit there.
Oh my SO. That's no idiot.
Dad's like, let's see. All right, day one March Madness
here. You know what?
I don't want to go in Thursday morning because, you know, I
might get back with being a little bit of pain.
Whatever my let me get it done. Wednesday.
It's it's an out procedure. So I get to spend the night.
But hey, then he can milk it a little bit, you know, God, it
hurts. So honey, can you get me a
drink? Honey, can you, can you order
some food? Honey, can you get me some more
ice? You know, and then Friday, you
know, you lay it on thick, like when you're sick, when you're a
kid. Mom, I don't feel good.
I feel terrible. The fake cough, the fake sneeze.
You know that's why that's true. Ha ha.
I knew that stat because when I did it.
You see what I mean? Yeah, I'm telling you, man, I'm
telling you. I don't know the number I.
Don't know the sheer amount of of of, you know, actual
procedures or the percentage compared to other days, but I
know it has been proven medically that there are more
vasectomies during the NCAA tournament than any other point
in the in the calendar year. Yes.
Yes, Sir. Hey, listen, we might be
simpleton creatures, but at the end of the day, we're not dumb.
No, no, we listen. We listen.
We know how we want to relax just.
There. Relax.
What do we got here? Anything good that's you're kind
of monitoring the chat there, Jay?
Anything pop up there, buddy? Let's see.
Here. Oh yeah, here's a good one from
the beginning that. Oh, this was from early, right?
It's from early in the day. I saw this.
Yeah, when I when I jumped on to let everybody know we were going
to talk about today at pity, right.
BT interested on your thoughts about this proposed NCAA rule
about having five years of college eligibility once you
either graduate high school or turn 19, whichever comes first.
I would love it. I would absolutely love it.
I mean, there's guys who are 26 years old playing college
football. It's an absolute joke, dude.
And I'm not even talking about the money.
But at that point you were a full-fledged physically
developed grown man and you're playing against, you know, kids
who were in high school the year before.
It's just not right. I also saw it's a little bit in
the weeds. I don't, I don't profess to
think that everybody you know, knows about this or cares about
this, but you know, Providence fired Kim English, their their
former coach. They brought in a very, very
well respected, but a lot of people like the hire.
So do I and they have been crushing the portal already.
And I they, I believe they did they off No, they signed well,
they've already got a couple of commitments.
They signed a kid who was in the league for a couple of years.
Oh, I saw that. Yeah, I saw that.
That's. What I mean, what are we doing?
It's not it could be Baylor, it could be SMU, it could be
Gonzaga. It's not that it's in the Big
East. I don't care.
St. John's getting ready to destroy
the portal. I'm not worried about that.
So it's not a competitive thing where me trying to shade
Providence, but that is just fundamentally wrong.
He's a pro when you are in and that's he's not the first one
when you're in the G League, you literally get paid to be in the
G League. So how the hell can you go back
and play college now? The the reason probably is the
NIL it it changes the amateur status, Obviously you're in
essence a pro. And Rick Pitino said he's like,
they're pros and he's right. But aesthetically, just think
about the way that looks now. Providence fans won't care.
And to be fully honest with you, if Saint John's dipped into the,
they almost did last year, really, yes, I, I think they
almost did it mid season after the first semester when Rick
didn't like the the point guard play and the guards actually
wound up hurting them. So they're they're going to
address that in a big way. But they were flirting with the
idea of getting somebody from the G League who played point
and bringing them in mid season and Rick declined.
Not that they had the money. You know, he was going to do it,
but he didn't think it would be good for chemistry and all those
other things. Especially the way he coaches
and his system. You know, you need a couple of
months to get used to the Rick, you know, you know, experience,
you know, he's going to be on you.
I mean, like a lunatic. And you know, you need the
summer to get used to that and summer workouts and kind of, you
know, coalesce as a team. So they didn't do it.
So I mean, other teams could do it.
If St. John's did it tonight, the kids
are stud and it gets into the final four, I'm all for it.
Right, But but only, only because other teams are doing
it. If I really had my way, I would
just get, I would not allow any team to do that.
I, I don't know, see the problem.
Yeah. No, no, it is the problem here,
Jay, is that we can have these strong opinions.
And I mentioned on Monday how Jay Bilis, No, Tuesday, because
I was off Monday. Jay Bilis was dropping bombs
over the weekend. He and Calipari on set on the
national semifinal Saturday from Indianapolis, like on on their
set before the two games, they were having some really good
discourse. And Jay's got a legal
background. And, you know, Calipari was
saying some stuff. And I think, I think Bruce,
Bruce Pearl on that. I think he may have been on that
panel as well and and Jay was on fire because he's got that legal
background. The problem is we can sit here
and come up with a lot of ways to make it more pure.
And I'm not talking about NIO money.
Again, these kids deserve to get paid.
But you got to streamline this a little bit, whether it's, you
know, you have kids now you look at St.
John's will sign because I've already done this.
St. John's will sign players.
And as I start my research, the moment that I find out that they
signed them, I will go to their college stats.
You will see a lot of times a kid playing say at one school in
the, you know, in the ACC and then his second year he was in
the Big 10 and now he's joining Saint John.
Like that is common. 3-4 conferences represented over the
course of 3-4 years. Now that's a problem in the
sense that, and we haven't really realized yet because
we're still in the early stages of this.
But one of the things that I loved about my early and, and
for me, it's Saint John's. For many others, it's other,
other teams. But the, the ability, like I
watched Chris Mullen play for four years.
I watched Walter Berry, now he came from JUCO, but he played
for three years. I watched Mark Jackson play 4
years, same with Shelton Jones and Willie Glass and you know,
all the, and then obviously old Malik Sealy, those guys and, and
Wennington before that. And when you watch somebody play
3-4 years, you just develop a connection.
There's a familiarity. There's just something that you
really carry on throughout life. And I'm not even an alum, an
alum of Saint John's. But when you're an alum of a
school and you look back 5101520 years, like are there going to
be that many retired numbers? Like, why would you bring one, a
kid back who even if they win the championship and he's there
for one year, but he played for two or three other schools, are
you going to really hang that banner?
With no, it's kind of. Weird Balkins or Christian
Leighton or Bobby Hurley if you're Duke.
I wouldn't. No also wait, here's my my
question. Yes can.
Can G League players who have played NBA minutes go back to
college? Like on those two way contracts?
On a on a two way contract or like they get called up or
whatever. I don't know the answer to
that's a really good question. I would probably say no, but at
this point, who the hell knows. Yeah, no that.
One, because that would just be absolutely unacceptable.
Yeah, I mean, if that's the case, I mean, jeez, you know, I
wish St. John's could have gotten Danis
Jenkins back. He already knows where St.
John's is. You know we averaged 20 points a
game when when Kate Cunningham was out for the Pistons at
Christopher Christopher's Have we seen this St.
Marie, I think I I busted out yesterday, but.
The key though I would just go St. is STI know.
Maybe. Marie.
That's what I mean. Like, I don't know.
That's good. That's a tough one.
My first Yankee game had a headline.
The Post or news that read Rookie Cooks Goose.
Wow. Pat Kelly lit up Goose and was
on his way out on the Rangers. Yeah, I remember Pat Kelly went
to Westchester AI believe it's AD 2 school in Pennsylvania and
Pat wore #14 second bait good fielder.
Pat was on those teams where they were just he's on some bad
teams too. But Pat was they would just turn
the corner like, you know, like right after early buck, you
know, post stump mero those horrible Yankee teams, even
though I'm pretty sure he was with with stump.
But yeah, Pat was a good fielder.
What posters did you have on your walls as a kid?
Louisiana Lightning. No, I never had a Guidry poster.
No, I had let's I had Mattingly everywhere.
I mean, let's start with Matt. I had the Hitman poster.
I had a Don Mattingly poster. There was a Jay.
You won't remember these. It was about A2 year window
where sports maybe a little bit more, but where Sports
Illustrated put out posters. Do you remember this run or no?
Like when they would do kind of like the fold out sort of deal.
No, no, it wasn't in the magazine.
It was a conventional poster that you would buy in a sneaker
store or something like that. But no, so it wasn't that it was
it was legitimately full size poster.
But their marketing campaign was like basically experiencing a
game the way the players do. So I had a Mattingly poster,
right? And like he it was in mid swing
connecting with a ball and it said, how's it feel?
How's it feel to turn a fastball into a souvenir?
And then it said Sports Illustrated get the feeling they
were all man, that was money. So I had I had every Mattingly
poster number 1 I had. I had a Chris Mullen poster.
I had a couple of Jordan posters.
I had one or two Dominique Wilkins posters.
Yeah, I had, I had this with this, one of the first posters I
ever had. It was, it was called Superstars
of the NBA and it was one of those posters, like it was built
up in quadrants. So there would be like, I think
there was like 369. I think there was 12, like 12
little squares, you know, and it, it was a normal size poster,
but within the normal size poster there maybe it was 9 or
10, whatever. It was 9 or 10 of the best
superstars in the NBA and all across the NBA.
And it had like Isaiah and I think I got it because of
Bernard King Bernard King Mikhail Bird magic.
I feel like Alex English was on that poster, maybe Mark Aguire.
I think Kareem was dropping a skyhook.
That was a good one. God, I had so many poets.
I and then I'll tell you what, even when I got to to college, I
was hanging posters everywhere. Yeah, dude, Wolf Campus.
Oh my, yeah. Even now, even now, I mean, at
least for people my age, like honestly, I will say a lot of my
generation now you're kind of transitioning to the framed
picture a little bit. But no, I mean my room and I
definitely have some posters. Well, look, if you look right
over here, if you look to the to the, where is that?
Hang on to the right. You know, I'm still reconvening
some stuff here. So that's my Mattingly.
And then if you look over here, I've got my map of the world.
I've got, that's Bernard King, who actually signed that, you
know, 2. BT that's awesome.
Then I've got the first team I ever coached, that was T-ball,
and then I got Reggie signed. That's hitting the home run.
That was his third home run in the World Series, and yeah, and
it's signed. Then I got a bunch of other
stuff, whatever, but maybe I'll give you guys a better tour at
some point. But yeah, now and then the man
cave, everything's pretty much framed.
Like I've got Joe Namath, I've got Bernard King, I've got
Ewing, I've got Mattingly framed stuff, the Hitman one
autographed as well. I've got the something from what
I did that show on Discovery Man versus Bear.
That's rain. I've actually got I, I got AI
got AI. Don't know how I would bring
video. I guess I could record it from
my phone. One thing that's pretty cool in
my man cave, I've got it's like the size of a jersey.
Only what I did was I went and I probably I did this when we
moved into our home and I actually got a man cave rather
than an apartment where I had limited space.
I had it made myself laminated, mad at all that stuff.
And I took God, probably 20 credentials that were of high
value to me. And you know, they, they kind of
cut it off. And so like, it wasn't like some
massive, it was just a picture and the, the accreditation.
So like, like I remember I've got I've got 1 from when the
Yankees won the World Series in 2009.
I did I was at 10:50 ESPN Radio at that point.
I did my show from City Hall, like steps from City Hall where
the where the parade ended. So like I if you go back and
find video on this Jay-Z and like CC they are and Robbie
Cano, they are doing New York State of Mind on on City Hall
steps. That was right there.
So I've got that credential. I've got like a Jet credential.
I've got a Yankee Mets. So you know, the Raiders, the
Niners, a couple U.S. Open for golf.
Yeah, some smaller ones. When I first got in the
business, yeah, I got a lot of cool stuff.
I got to give you guys a better look at that some point.
I'm still kind of reconfiguring this.
I think I'm gonna do away with the logo, man.
I'm not. I'm not feeling the logo
anymore. Probably what behind you.
Yeah, I got, I got, I got a really.
Yeah, I'm gonna. I gotta mix things up A.
Little let me say like I loved how it looked behind you during
the Stephen A slash collective. I mean, I don't know.
If yeah, wait, wait. When we had this, right?
Yeah, yeah. All right.
So that yeah, that's where I just kind of tilted things up
and that's where I had my OK during both of those.
I think that looks great, honestly.
You liked it not to get too real on.
Air here, but you liked it. I think that usually looks
really good. Yeah, No, I I hear you.
I hear you. I I can, I can show you
something real quick. Hold on.
Again. I don't think I ever showed you
guys this, did I? I might have showed you, Jay.
Did I ever show you this? Let's see it.
Did I show you that? Whoa, whoa, no.
I didn't show you that, did I? That is from the St.
John's Big East tournament. This was from last year.
Wow. Yeah.
So nice, right one come this year as well.
I would imagine so. They better not start cheaping,
man. When you start winning, you got
to start getting more rings, yeah.
Dang, that's right. I got some cool stuff up there.
I've got a couple of Louis, I've got some signed balls.
I've got a This is actually pretty cool too.
My wife got me this when she was working at the Garden.
Clyde Frazier signing this. A little Nick Ball here.
I got. I have a.
Lot of stuff, man. I've got to find a way to
streamline it. I am going to mess around the
back, but with the background at some point.
A favorite Nintendo sports game. Oh, Tecmo Bowl was a beast, man.
Tecmo Bowl was the kind of game you just talk so much shit to
your team because if you had the right team, like if you were the
Raiders and you had Bo Jackson, like you could actually I I go
so good at what were the bill of the Bills?
Oh yeah, I've definitely seen Kelly's of this game before.
But you can. I would run backwards and I
would just taunt my buddy. Like instead of like with Bo
Jackson, you literally couldn't stop him.
So instead of just going forward and going through a hole and
cutting to the outside and beating everybody based on
speed, I would say if I'm at midfield, I would run backwards
to the to the other goal line and then try to get 100 yard run
and talk smack the entire time I've listened.
That was a great game. Tyson's Punch Out was awesome.
I liked Contra as a non sports game.
You. Know that?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Contra was really, really good
and I like Pitfall. Remember Pitfall?
Let me look some dude, he was in the jungle and he he had to like
jump over quicksand and. I don't think I've ever played
this one. It was good.
It was, it was one, yeah, it was one from back in the day.
And then listen, obviously like the the like Pac-Man, Donkey
Kong, everybody like that stuff. But I loved Contra.
The good thing about Contra too, was that me and my, you know,
my, my boy, oh God, I love him. I haven't seen him in so long.
My buddy Brian, right? We would play at with, you know,
we were teams. So like one of the dudes would
start up here, One of the dudes would start here.
You just go through and you'd battle.
You get the machine guns, you get the different weapons.
My Contra was a good one. I was mostly sports, but there
were someones that that weren't sports that I enjoyed.
All right, what else do we have here?
Jay? This is a no rules Friday.
Oh. Wait, hold up real quick.
Yes, Sir, Saint Marie is correct.
All right. There you go, Christopher.
All right, Chris was. Right there you.
Go BT. What kind of back surgery did
you have? I had a fusion and a Laminectomy
in November, also with Gov. Have you taken lessons?
I've taken lessons. Nothing works, dude.
I'm beyond help. I really am.
I'm taking the lessons as a lefty, taking lessons as a
righty. I'm a disaster.
I've got a guy in Clifton. Yeah, I'm sure he's legit.
I know. I'm sure.
He's at BRAC 227. I had a had a microdiscectomy,
so one of my buddies had the full.
What is that? Not the fusion.
Yeah. The fusion, like Tiger, I think
Tiger Woods had. No, yes, Tiger did have fusion.
The microdiscectomy on the scale of back surgeries is the most
benign. It's the least invasive.
So look at it this way. For those of you who don't know,
like, imagine you've got this is.
Let's see the like in between, like you take your spine, right,
you've got obviously skeletal, you've got vertebrae, bone right
in between as it stacks its way up.
There's this gel cushion that's circular, that's got fluids in
there. OK, now I had AI had a, it was
a, there was a deviation. And you know, you hear grandma
say, oh, my sciatica, my sciatica.
Like people think it's like a grandma thing.
But when you, when you rupture, which I did a, one of those
gels, one of those little capsules #1 now the vertebrae,
instead of being separated fully, they start to stack on
each other and you get some pain.
But what was most problematic for me was that the gel was
coming out and it was falling on my sciatic nerve, which was
which was basically responsible for, I would say at one point in
my life 100% of the time, constant searing pain.
That shot from basically like think about the labrum, like
kind of like the hip ish area all the way down to my ankle
joint. And it never, ever went away.
I remember was, yeah, I'm just when I was doing the show with
Tiki. So we were living in, it's
basically by weehawking. We had a condo out there before
we moved out to where we are now within our home as where the
kids were born, right? So I would drive.
Sometimes I would take the ferry, but I basically drove.
I would just go through the Lincoln Tunnel and go down the
West Side Highway. Boom, same studio as as WF and
the national stuff at that point, right?
And I remember multiple times, first I would take a bottle of
water and I would actually place it underneath like where my
hamstring was and elevate while I was driving.
No, no joke, dude. And there were times I would get
out of the West Side Highway on the West Side Highway during a
light, like I couldn't wait. You know how you hate red
lights? Everybody hates them.
I love them because I would actually get out and like just
shake my leg out and get back in the car.
Dude, it was the worst. It was absolutely the worst.
And I remember at the height of the the pain and again, it was
searing. It was like this electrical
charge. You guys, if you've had it, you
guys know, it just never went away.
And you know, I'm not a pill guy.
I'm not going to start popping heavy pills.
You know, that's not that's not going to solve anything.
So I didn't do that. I'm not saying I mean, I would
take Motrin, but I'm not going to start doing, you know, heavy
stuff just to get through that become addicted.
Like I'm not looking to be that kind of I had that lifestyle.
So I just sucked it up, which is really kind of my natural
mentality anyway. And and I remember we were going
on our guys trip to Myrtle, which we always do, basically 20
years. We've done it.
Same crew, awesome. And I just I like I wanted, I
think my son was already born young and I was, you know,
obviously in the throes of of early parenting.
You're not really doing that much.
You're helping your wife out. I'm like, I got to get a good
way, man. I got to get on this trip and I
really wanted to play golf, but I, I was in so much pain.
I went to HSS in Manhattan, which is my Tommy John surgery
and which is where I actually also had my ruptured Achilles.
I've had a lot of injuries, as you know, surgically repaired by
like Struan Coleman did it for my Achilles.
And David Olczyk, who used to be the Mets and the Giants team
doctor, did my elbow when I was in college, right?
Unfortunately, I've got a long history there.
Anyway, so I go to HSS and I see my doctor.
Great. And I said, hey, can you do
anything? Can you give me an injection?
Could you do anything? Because I've had, I had 10
injections basically just to get through life and then that would
dissipate after three or four days.
And I said I just want to go play this golf trip.
Is there anything that you can, if I'll deal with what I've got
to deal with? And I know I'm going to have to
deal with something when I get back.
I just want to play 4-5 rounds, have fun with my buddies and
then we'll come back. And I'm sure I'm going to have
to have surgery because he showed me the imaging.
He's like, all right. He's like, listen, he's I'll
give you one more injection. He goes, I don't even think he's
going to be able to get through the trip.
He goes, I think he goes, matter of fact, I'm almost positive by
the time you're around or two in, you're going to call me and
you're going to say, let's schedule surgery.
And I remember I played the first day and I actually played
pretty well. And I remember the next morning,
you know, we rent the big house for the pool and all that stuff.
And we're teeing off at like 12. And I remember I'm in the pool
having a beer. Like, you know, chill out before
we start the day. This is our vacation, right?
And and I'm like, I, I can't play.
And I remember I was in tears. I actually called my wife like,
you know, I'm not crying like a wuss.
And I even called my mom too. And I'm like, I got to, I got to
have the surgery. I absolutely have to have the
surgery. And I remember when they and I
came back and I had it very shortly thereafter.
And I remember that my doctor saying, Hey, listen, right
before they wheeled me in, he goes, I promise you, the moment
that you open your eyes, you are going to feel 0 pain.
And not just because you're hopped up on meds, this pain is
going to be gone. Because what they did, they
basically took God, I mean, I could, I could teach a medical
course with all the stuff, but it's, it's ridiculous.
They basically take think of a medical instrument that is like
a vacuum, basically incision. Go on the spot where all that
juice and all that gels hanging on the nerve, suck it right out.
Now it's no longer hanging on the sciatica nerve.
It's no longer inflamed. Pain goes away.
Boom. And then you got to manage it,
management and manage it. And thank God, and this is about
10 years ago. Thank God, man, it has held up.
And, and as soon as I, he wheeled me out, he's like, stand
up. Be, you know, be careful.
We cut you open, but stand up anything.
I'm like. No.
I don't feel any pain. He's like, yeah, I told you,
yeah, that's the worst man. Well good, good thing.
I mean good thing it got handled with dude.
That's awful bro. Man, I went through a lot of,
you know, whatever. I think The thing is the the
thing that really hurt me and I didn't know it at the time, is
it's got into a really bad car accident.
I told you it's over well over 100 miles an hour.
Like an absolute idiot. I wasn't driving.
But you know, we flipped so many times.
You know, you don't know. I was, I was 18.
I was going to college the next day.
That's why I read you. I did not play.
I didn't play at all my freshman year in college.
But the amount of times that we flipped and banged around, you
know, who knows what it does to to your body?
So, you know, people like, ah, dude, you look good.
You have you 52. You look like you're in good
shape. I'm not trying.
But you know, I wake up. I'm stiff as a board, bro.
I'm stiff as a board man. Let me get a couple more of
these and then I got one more thing for you about the NFL
draft. Then we'll start rolling out of
here out of no rules Friday. Give me a good one here.
Anything good? Right?
Well, while you're looking for it, I'll set up the topic.
It's not. Going to take it.
OK, so we did. By the way, if you can get the
the thing up about The Jets Collective, that's a good time
to pop it in. So we launched The Jets
Collective 3 weeks ago. It's myself, it's Jake as but
it's Rich Simini. Episode number 3 was last night.
Go check it out. It was, it was a blast.
I mean, the views are, are pretty good.
It is going to be for me. I, I believe it's going to be
the number one spot for Jet fans.
I really do. The growth is good.
It's palpable. So last night was the episode #3
and we talked a lot. Thank you, Jay.
We talked a lot about obviously The Jets and you know, now
Bailey, there's a shifting in sentiment.
They're going to go Bailey rather than Reese.
I want to see The Jets trade out.
Not that I'm going to kick and scream if they draft Bailey or
if they draft Reese. But I think there's too many
guys that are too close where if you can, if you have somebody
who loves Bailey or who loves Reese, jump out a few spots, Get
us, get some more picks, you know, and get Sonny Styles or
get Caleb Downs. All these things I've talked
about. But aside from The Jets, there
is now a growing thought here that we are going to have a wild
first half of the draft in terms of trades, right?
And specifically for defensive players because nobody really
distinguishes himself. Think about that.
If The Jets aren't sure what they want to do, a 2 and you
know, The Jets are going defense without question with their
first pick, sixteen I'm not sure about, but certainly if if they
stay at 2 or if they drop down a couple of spots, 100% they're
going defense, right? So if they don't even know who
they're going to, who they want, there's going to be, you know, a
lot of mixed scouting reports on these players, whether it's at
the edge, whether it's at linebacker, whether it's at
corner. Those are three positions for
teams that are going defense. There's a lot of different
interpretations of these players.
Now, you look at the wide receiver market and it's
generally thought to be the deepest, and I would agree with
that. Let's face it, there's one
quarterback, maybe 1 1/2 in Ty Simpson.
There's at least five wide receivers.
To me, there's 2. Mccoy's one of them.
There's two corners who are worthy of, you know, top 18, top
20th selection. There's two offensive lineman,
one from Utah. Where's the other one from?
I'm forgetting where he's from. 2 old lineman.
Jets won't do that. Giants good there is one tight
end obviously from Oregon who's going to go top 15 ish top 16
for sure, and I would love The Jets to take him at 16.
So but the defense is where it's a little bit convoluted because
you got a couple of edge guys who are a little raw.
Some guy got like Bailey who's thought to be able to impact
right away but not have, you know, maybe the burst for some
or the the multiple, you know, tricks in the bag in terms of a
second and third move to get to the quarterback kind of A1 trick
pony. You know, the linebackers like
Reese, if you know and he's going to bounce around, but you
know, you you love him, but it's more projected on upside.
He's a freak athlete. Same with styles, you know, so
so it's going to be interesting and it looks like the first half
of the of round one you're going to.
I think we get a lot of draft action, a lot of trades and I
love it. It's fun.
I think it's good for business. And then the other thing too is
you got to understand this. I said this last night to Rich
and to Jake on Jets Collective. Obviously go like and subscribe
it, you know, help us out a little bit if you want to follow
that stuff where I really think that because the the there's
such an unknown here that I think that you've got to be
overly proactive to send out some smoke screens to entice
somebody to wow. Yeah, The Jets do.
Maybe they really do like Bailey.
Damn, we like Bailey. We didn't think The Jets were
taking him at 2. Let's engage The Jets.
Like, you know, that that's one aspect of it, you know, and and
the other aspect too, just on an on an NFL macro level, is that
so many of these general managers are getting younger and
listen, the older guys are getting phased out.
It's a young man's game. Like, like most of the things
are right in sports, baseball, analytically driven.
Stearns is young, Cashman's, it's been around forever to the
chagrin of a lot of Yankee fans. But most of these GM's are
younger, more numbers oriented, a lot of Ivy Leaguers.
The point is, is that most of these personnel people, decision
makers, like the guys with Jews, hey, I want to make a trade.
I've got the authority to do it. A lot of them grew up on Madden
and video games and Wheeling and dealing and fantasy football.
So their their brains are already pre programmed to kind
of operate that way. And now you get a little bit of
a mixed bag at certain positions where nobody really knows who
the favorite is. I think I agree.
I saw this report last night. I agree.
I agree kids are still home from school.
I agree that you are going to get some of this.
So should be fun. All right, What does that say at
Giants? Giants.
Four rings, 88. Four more than me, buddy, four
more than me. After the draft, BT predicts The
Jets can do no damage and make a wild card.
The Jets can do. Oh, I'm sorry, Jets can do
damage. Yeah, he pretty.
That's a pretty accurate scout report there.
Pretty much hypes himself into the same prediction every year
as the season gets closer. Isn't that an annual rite of
passage? And The funny thing is, I'm not
a Homer. Like, there are certain people
who do this for a living who really are homers.
I mean, listen, I mean, I'll put my hit pieces up against anybody
in the business. I don't care if you're on the
radio. I don't care if you're on
YouTube. I don't care if you're in the
Northeast, if you're out West. I don't care where you are, what
you do or what you talk about. When I let loose, I let loose.
So I'm never a Homer throughout. But yes, I do choose to
gravitate to the more optimistic side.
Like, why not? Like if you can't at least start
the season optimistically, then what are we doing?
That just seems like a life of misery.
Trust me, it's going to get miserable enough soon enough,
you know, for for The Jets. So why not embrace it?
You know, I don't do it every single year, but I did do it
last year and I do, I do do it a lot of years.
And listen, it's been what, 15 years since they since they made
the play offs here. And I would say of the 15 years,
you know, maybe outside of year 2 with gays, you know, at the
end of the Todd Bowles era, maybe one year with Sal.
I don't know. I even think I was encouraged
with Salah because of the defense.
I'd say probably 12 of the 15 years I presented a more
positive than not possible road map for The Jets, and that was
wrong every time. What do you want?
All right, if we take Reese and then trade up 10 for downs, then
move back from 33 for a third round pick, wouldn't that
combination of players be more impactful than stick and pick?
That's part of the deal, too, Yes.
Like, I mean, that's a lot there.
Just keep that up, Jay. So if you take Reese at 2:00 and
then you trade up from 16 to 10 and you get downs and then move
back. Yeah.
But now the only thing is moving back from, what, 16 to 30?
Wait. Oh, move back from 33.
Gotcha. OK, yeah, that's a plausible
scenario. We were talking about that last
night. Jake brought that up.
It's a little convoluted because you just don't know who's
interested in trading, but I don't think The Jets are
touching any of their picks for 2027.
They'd be idiots to do that. Nobody's worth it this draft
here. But if The Jets trade out of
two, wouldn't surprise me. If they trade up from 16,
wouldn't surprise me. If they trade up back from 16,
wouldn't surprise me. If they trade up from 33.
If they think somebody might snag Simpson or something else,
wouldn't surprise me. Yes, lot of different
machinations here. And that's what listen.
And The Jets aren't the only team that now they happen to
have a lot of draft capital and next year they'll absolutely own
the draft with three first round picks, do whatever they want.
But yeah, I mean, this is about building a base of elite talent.
And like, one thing I don't get. And the quarterback position
aside, it's obviously a completely different
measurement. But I, I just, and, and Rich and
I seem to fundamentally disagree on this.
It seems to come up during the first 3 episodes a little bit
right where I am of the mindset. I don't want to hear about draft
value reaching. You know, I understand maybe
it's a little different with a running back and it's certainly
in New York. We went through this with
Saquon. Jeremiah Love might might happen
again, maybe not with them, but he's going to get drafted
probably at 4 by Tennessee. And if not shortly thereafter by
somebody, then maybe the Giants at five.
Who knows? Point is, is that if I think
Caleb Downs, they got to be right in this assertion and
these assessments. But if I think Caleb Downs is
going to be a superstar, right, gives a shit where you pick
them, what is the difference? Well, you know, now he's going
to make a few bucks more and now, you know, obviously if he
really is the guy. And of course, then you pick up
his fifth year option and then he's a free agent and then
you're going to be paying him an exorbitant amount of money as a
safety. OK.
But if he's a superstar transcendent player, I don't
care what I pay him. So that that fundamentally I
disagree on that. And it's kind of split.
I think some people are with me and I think some people aren't,
you know, I, I, I, I just, I'm not looking for positional
value. Even with Ty Simpson now,
they're not I, they're not, they're not taking him at 16.
I'd, I'd be stunned if they did right, because you hear a lot of
that a little bit too early for Ty Simpson at 16.
But if The Jets could trade into the back end of the first round
or even go backwards from 16 to, I don't know, 2425 or the 1st
overall pick, first pick in in round 233, take them there.
It's better. All right, yeah, I understand
monetarily, I get the impact. That's basic stuff.
But I think if you subscribe to that thought, I think you're
missing it because at the end of the day, whether it's 16222733
or 35, you're drafting Ty Simpson to eventually be your
starter, you know, and if he's good enough and he's the real
deal, he's eventually going to get $100 million from The Jets.
So I just, you know, I don't really, I don't lean into that.
I just have a different mindset. All right, J Rob, what do you
have on the calendar this weekend, buddy?
Any performances? Let's see.
No, nothing much, honestly, just going out.
I mean, we'll see. Let's have a good time this
weekend, see what's up tonight. I don't know.
I'm going to going to a concert at the Bitter End in the West
Village. I think I've been there.
The bitter end you definitely have.
It's it's, it's a nicer spot. It's like a.
Is it on the corner? Yeah, it's probably and it's
probably close to like 345 Hudson or whatever.
I've I've been there. I know what you're talking
about. Yep.
It's on the corner, right? Yeah.
So and it's go if you're going north, say if you're going down
Hudson and I passed 345 Hudson on my left.
It's a couple of downs. It's a couple of blocks going
away from the Hamilton. No, correct.
Yep, yes, I've definitely been there.
Yep. Cool.
I know it's been a while ago. I I was never there when I was
at FAN or nationally. I was there years ago.
Wow. They've been around a long time,
man. Yeah, small venue, cool spot.
Yeah, one of my friend, I guess like just a couple of degrees of
separation down the line. My roommate's got some buddies
playing there so. All right.
Miss you? What's up this weekend?
I love it. I'll have a good time.
Hopefully you get a little lucky, if you know what I'm
saying there, man. A little Daft Punk, you know,
Lucky up all night to get someone great reference you like
that get. Lucky.
Yeah, that's a great reference. Not at all, man.
Yet, bro. Trust me, the mind is still
firing. Brother.
I've got What do I this is my schedule when I love it.
No, I I got all things that I want to do.
So what time is it here? It's about about 11:50 or
something like that. My son's got a hitting lesson at
1 so I'll take him over for that like a private like a one-on-one
thing. And then my daughter's got her
first travel softball game tonight at 5:30 and then my
son's got APG tournament this weekend.
The only thing about so you, you play 2 games on Saturday, pool
play and then you come back Sunday, depending upon how you
doing, they, they generally do well.
So, but you never know, like you guaranteed to play at least
three games. So, but you could also play 5 or
6, you know, so we'll see about that.
Only problem is that it is, it's two hours from our home.
And I mean, listen, it is what it is.
But generally PG is there like Staten Island or you know, some
other spots in Jersey. It's really never quite this
far. It's actually 2 hours and 9
minutes, bro. So it's going to be a hike mid 2
hour. Now the good thing is and, and
you get the remember I told you the other day, you don't get the
schedule before the season. You kind of get it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK.
And then on Game Changer is like the week of they got a pretty
good draw. Like they're sometimes there's
some teams playing 8:00 in the morning tomorrow that are in
this tournament. And if we're playing at 8, they
got to be there at six in the hitting cage.
I'm getting up at 3:34 to get his ass out there.
Thank God. That's not, no, no, that's not
the game. He's playing at 2:00 and and
then he's playing at six. So they'll play a game, then
they'll rest a little bit, then they'll play another game, but 6
to 8. Then back home, you know, 10/15,
10:30. Now if they don't do well, then
they're back on Sunday in an elimination game at like 8 or 9.
So it, it could be what I am avoiding tomorrow, but all
baseball, all softball, That's it, man.
Maybe get a little workout today, kind of get back in the
groove, that's it. Looking forward to weather's
nice. Played a little golf the other
day. I am surprised that even though
my my cut, which is starting to heal, which I had to do surgery
on myself with a little little push pin because the tweezers
weren't working from the piece of the splinter I got from the
wood and it was affecting that. That's my excuse J Rod.
It was impacting how I was holding the club.
That's why I didn't play well the other day.
And obviously I'm going to watch a lot of Masters this week as
well, But I did get to play golf and I'm surprised that my body
outside of my finger does not hurt because those are muscles
like you can lift and you can do some.
That's a workout freak here. But you know, twice three times
a week, I get after a little bit as much as I could.
I got stuff in the basement, right.
But swinging a Golf Club, especially swinging a Golf Club
wrong, like I do where your body like I'm I'm I'm engaging
things. I haven't engage, like whether
it's the ribs or certain muscles that I haven't stretched since
last golf season, I actually feel pretty good.
I'm not. I thought I would really be in
pain. I thought it's a good sign.
There we go. Love it.
We're in for a great season. Yeah, man, well, season, I mean
great. A great season would be gravy.
All right, man, have a good time.
Do what you think tonight. Appreciate you guys like it,
subscribe it, get it out there. Good job on an O rules Friday.
Good questions. Good, good support.
Obviously like it and share it. Let everybody know give The Jets
collective a sub give that a share, give that a like jump
into the content. Obviously we got 13 days from
the draft. Now we'll move forward more and
more couple of the guests next week.
I'll tell you more about that. Maybe I'll maybe I'll text that
or tweet that. Well, I'm not going to text it
to you. I'll tweet that over the
weekend. I'm working on a couple of
guests for next week, some NFL draft.
Obviously I want to get boonie on and he said he's going to
come on. He just wanted to get some games
under his belt. I was going to reach out
yesterday, but you know, I didn't think that was the time
to to reach out when they got one hit and and they lost and,
you know, Bednar coughed it up a little bit.
So I was going to reach out yesterday, but we'll get him on
soon. And and that's it.
Want to wish everybody a great weekend.
Enjoy it. All right, Weather is good in
the Northeast. Have a great time.
Appreciate the support. And I will catch you guys on
Monday unless something breaks obviously before then.
I'll see you. Bye bye.