leash Are you listening? Can you hear me?
Hear me? This is on leash.
Are you listening? Can you hear me?
Hear me? This is on leash Are you
listening? Can you hear me?
Hear me? This is on leash Are you
listening? Can you hear me?
All right, everybody another week here on unleashed.
Hopefully you guys had an outstanding weekend and and and
obviously a sad, a very sad day, a sad day, but but a celebration
as well as John Sterling as as as pretty much all of you know
by now, John Sterling, the amazing all time voice of the
New York Yankees passed away earlier this morning at the age
of 87. You know, and it's it's these
shows are really, I've always found these shows particularly
challenging for me because it's like the one thing that you
can't you can't practice. You know what I mean?
I don't care how many shows you've done.
I don't care what you studied in school.
I don't care, you know, how good you think you are or, or how
many times you've done this. You know, you can prepare to
talk about a series, which we definitely will mix Sixers.
Obviously, you know, I've got a reaction on what the Yankees
decided to do with Anthony Volpe, you know, but it's, it's
times like this where you know, you're, you're really, it's,
it's just, it's always hard for me.
I, I'm just going to be very honest with you.
It's, I always find this very challenging.
And what I just try to do is you don't just talk from the heart.
Now it, it's not tragic because John lived to be 87 years old
and you know that that's a, that's a pretty amazing run.
That is a pretty amazing run. 5 World Series titles, 7 pennants,
you know, and I, I had this with Phil Rizzuto when I was growing
up and my, the Met fans had this with Ralph Kiner.
Obviously, Mike Bream. You, you just grow, you grow so
attached to, to being in the presence audibly speaking, of,
of some of these men and women. And it's just, it's almost like
you feel that you know them better than than you know, some,
some friends. I mean, because they're just
always there. And, and I have always been even
in, even in college when I was going out, you know, out east to
play Summer Games or in high school when I was driving up to
the Bronx to play for my club team.
Like I couldn't wait to just get in the car and pop on John and,
and hear what John had to say And, and, and what, you know,
what, what adventure was John going to take us on today?
And, you know, John was the best in the sense that he didn't
really care what people thought of him.
You know, he was absolutely goofy.
And I mean that in the in the highest compliment, in the
highest order, You know, he was incredibly unpredictable.
He was zany. He had his critics.
But you know, to me, and there were even some Yankee fans
alone. You know, I don't I don't know
what percentage I don't know, but there was there was a
percentage of Yankee fans that, you know, that that took I don't
took issues a bit strong, but you know, we're growing maybe a
little a little tired of some of the missed calls.
You know, it is hot kind of launching into that.
It is high. It is far and the bulls caught
at the track or if it or if it's at the wall.
And my my thought process on that was always very simple.
You know, to me, it is the theater of the mind.
And then when you're doing a radio game, you know, you you've
you've got to have the nuts in the bolts.
And but John was so far behind that and so far beyond that.
Like to me, to me, it didn't matter if he called the home run
and it was caught or he called the shallow pop up and it was
off the wall. Like I just, I never got wrapped
up in that because quite frankly, I just enjoyed hearing
his voice so much. I mean, I love, I I just love
listening to the guy. And, and I've got the, this is,
this is amazing, Jay, we'll play this for you in a minute.
First, let me tell you today's show, obviously today's show,
every show is brought to you by Sullivan Papain.
You can find sullivanonlinetrilo1.com.
That's trilo1.com. Remember the name Sullivan
Papain and by our friends at Premio Sausage.
I had some Premio over the weekend.
It was phenomenal, the way sausage should be.
Find them at premiofoods.com or in your local grocery stores.
I got a little everybody's got a John Sterling story.
I mean, everybody, I remember seeing John and he was having a
good night. I'll leave it at that.
At at Michael Kay's wedding, I went outside.
I don't know if I went outside for to make a call.
I went outside for a minute and John was out there.
John was having John was having himself a good night, as I said.
But the most recent, maybe I saw him once after this, but I think
the most recent encounter that I had with John was probably
about, I don't know, I'd say probably about maybe three,
maybe 3 or 4 years ago. And John was covers during the
winter. I was working with Tiki at WFAN,
obviously WFAN, the home of the Yankees.
And John was coming in, you know, to cut a bunch of promos,
whether it was commercials for certain companies or hi, this is
John Sterling. And you're listening to, you
know, like that kind of stuff, all the stuff that you hear on
the radio in between games or, you know, during a show alerting
you of a Yankee game that night, the time, the location, the
opponent. And John was in there and he
came in, I think it was a commercial break, and he came in
and he said hi to me and Tiki and I get up, shake his hand.
John, how you doing, buddy? What's going on, man?
Haven't seen you in a while. Just the guy.
I mean, he, he just cracked me up every time I saw him, right.
And so anyway, after the show, it was kind of toward the end of
our show, after our show, I don't know if Tiki came in with
me. I honestly don't recollect that.
I don't know. I know that I went in there and
I wanted to kind of talk a little bit more to John and I I
was wrestling with this. And I'm like, yeah, do I ask him
to do this? I don't know.
I don't. I mean, the guy's got so much
work to do. He's not a young guy.
Does he really want to do this? And I said, John, I said, and of
course I asked him. I said, hey, John, I said, do me
a favor. I said there's just something I
would always love to have as as a devout Yankee fan, as a big
fan of yours, a big supporter of yours, you know, is there any
way? And if you don't want to do it,
by no means no pressure, not a big deal.
But is there any way that you can cut a little like a little
on the spot Yankee call with with me.
And he's like, and I'm sure that a lot of people have asked him
to do that because he wasn't like taken back by the request.
And and I was searching through my phone earlier this morning
when I got the new one. We got the news about John and I
said Jay, we got to play this. It's short.
He didn't have anything written down.
It was on the spot and it sounded like a game.
Go ahead, Jared. As Tierney stands in and the
count is 2 and one, the wind and the pitch is 1, swung on and hit
in the air to deep left. It is high.
That is far that is gone. Brandon Tierney.
The Brandon fandom erupts. Yeah.
And I'm going to have that one forever.
And I remember I gave him a little hug after that.
I'm like, that's so awesome. And you know, the thing about
John, and there are a lot of people like this, but there's
also a lot of people that are business who just aren't like
this. John was one of those people.
And I, and I really mean this, like when you met John, whether
he really. And I don't profess to know John
incredibly well. I don't, but John was one of
those people that had the unique gift.
I mean, just really the innate ability to to make you feel
special and to make you feel good.
So it's obviously a sad day because John is no longer with
us, but it's really a day of celebration.
This guy was the absolute best. I mean, going back to burn baby
burn. You know, that a bomb for a rod
all the Jeter calls the five World Series.
It was just, you know, it was it really was a gift.
And I know that that probably sounds a little contrived or a
little corny, but really John Sterling was a gift.
And that really the first person that I thought of when I saw the
news was Susan and and I sent her a text before the show.
I mean, she's got to be absolutely heartbroken because
there are there are certain relationships in in radio,
whether you're doing a show together, like, you know,
day-to-day Daily Show, like on the fan, whatever might be or
another station or you're calling games together.
And there are certain people who just don't get along.
You know, they kind of fake it till you make it.
And you wouldn't necessarily be able to tell even if you're an
avid listener because they're professionals and they're doing
their job. But like Susan and John, really
they like they loved each other. That was genuine.
There was death there. That was real.
So to me, every time the John made a mistake or was goofing
around or, you know, being a little bit of a goof, I loved
it. Like I couldn't get enough for
that. So you're talking about a man
and see, this is one of the keys in our business here.
To me, and, and I've said this about myself, I mean, I am a
speck in the universe in terms of compared to John.
I mean, that's not what I'm going for.
But one thing that we share, right?
And you know, I've always said this about myself, like I take
my job seriously. I take my content seriously.
I don't take myself very seriously.
I, I try not to now. I think maybe when I was younger
I would take myself a little bit more seriously than I've learned
to as I've gotten older. Let things slide.
Learn how to laugh at yourself, have a little more fun, you
know, put your hair down, stuff like that.
John was, I mean, he was Exhibit A in terms of taking your job
seriously. Number 1, he never missed a day.
So when he started his first year was in 89 and the Yankees
were awful. I mean, they were horrendous.
This is you getting into like right after Bucky Dent, Dallas
Green, you get into Stump Merrill territory.
They were basically unwatchable. Not for me because I mean, I had
to watch Donnie's 4 bats literally every single night.
And that was on the TV. And then of course, when I
jumped in the car and, and yeah, that was with my dad.
At that point, I don't even think I had my driver's.
No, I was still 15 or 16 out of my license yet.
So my dad would put the games on and I'm like, man, this guy's,
this guy's kind of, this guy's kind of different.
This guy's kind of unique. And that is the wind started
stacking and the moment started building.
It was just this grand theatrical presentation that
that I don't think John ever took for granted.
And it goes back to what I said before.
Like he took his job so seriously, always wore a suit
and tie, always pocket square, always Natalie attired.
And and I know he missed a couple of games in 89, I believe
his sister passed away and he missed two or three games.
And then he had a run of 30 years where he did not miss a
game. And you could say, well, you're
the voice of the Yankees. Why would you want to miss game?
I I get that it's an incredibly fun job and of course he's
getting paid well for it, but it's still the grind, you know,
especially all the travel and getting in late and then getting
up early day game. And the older you get, you know,
the more challenging that becomes.
And I'll give you a good example like I've done now almost a
decade with mink and mink is is not old, but you know, Mink's
not a spring chicken. You know what I and I noticed
that, you know, John, John Minko will go to maybe a shoot around
So St. St.
Saint John's playing at the Garden at night, right at 7:00.
I'll get there five, you know, get ready for the pregame show
and then obviously do the pregame show and then do the
game and go home after a brief postgame show.
John will be there. John Minko will be there at like
11 in the morning to do the coaches interview with Pitino.
And you know that that's a long day for a gentleman who's not,
you know, 20-30, forty years old.
And and I've always marvelled that at makes energy with that
and his passion for that. And you know, John Sterling,
when you play 162 just had that in spades, you know, So, you
know, like the the IT it's funny because John is, is, you know,
was basically 30 something years older than me.
I mean, that's a lot of years. So Rizzuto was really my guy
when I was young. But I can honestly say, and Phil
Rizzuto always reminded me of my Italian grandfather.
I vote. I'm sorry about that.
I've always said that always reminds me of my Italian
grandfather. Always, right.
The cannoli reference is just everything that he said.
But I I had I had more of a connection to John Sterling.
You know that that's crazy when I say that out loud because when
I fell in love with baseball, it was Phil and it was Phil for
almost all of those Mattyly moments outside of the playoffs.
Of course, wild card a few wild card a few others.
But you know, John Sterling, think about the the, the, the,
the, the breath of of air and the scope of of length that this
man had. I would fall asleep, I would
fall asleep to Yankee games, even up at Marist and this is
going into the 90s and I would I would, I would mid 90s.
I would piss off my one of my roommates.
I'm like, I got to fall asleep to the come on lowered.
I'm like, no, Yankees are playing the Angels out West.
He was a Yankee fan too. He's like B, can you lower the
radio? No, all right, I'll lower the
tick, but it's staying on. And then you know, my my college
girlfriend, I would make her fall asleep to it too.
She's like, do we really have to listen to this?
Yes, we do. They're playing Seattle and the
first pitch is 1005 S. So you know, I saw this.
I I wasn't stunned because you know you you've heard reports.
I know he had a heart attack. He's had some other health
issues and he's pretty much been off the public radar for a while
and it but this is really just today is celebration man, and
I'm really happy the Yankees are playing tonight.
One of those rare wrap around 4 game series and I can't wait to
see what they do from, you know, that you'll just hear call after
call after call in that stadium. And they just they don't make
him like they just don't make him like John and they don't
make him like John for a lot of reasons.
Number one, just the length of his career is, I don't want to
say it's without precedent because, you know, Ben Scully
did Dodger Games longer, but I mean, you're talking 36 years,
it's almost 4 decades worth of work.
So that in itself is a rarity #1 you've got to be good, you've
got to be consistent, you've got to be healthy, you've got to be
aligned with the organization, you know, so those are variables
that are tough enough to get. Then the other thing is, you
know, I, I think the other reason why you really won't see
somebody like John again. And this is the sad reality of
the Business Today. Like if you had a young kid
coming up today and and he was doing calls.
I don't mean by copying John, but in his own wacky way, you
know, go launching into song mid mid call, excuse me, mid call or
referencing Broadway shows or singing tunes from Broadway
shows like that young Brett broadcast would get absolutely
destroyed. Oh, who is this guy?
What is this? This isn't the way it's supposed
to be. And in the, in the age of social
media, which impacted a massive chunk of John Sterling's career,
or like film and, and kinder and those other ones, right, The,
the ability to never really care or maybe the well, it is an
ability, it's a talent. When you don't really care what
people think, that's a talent. And I, I think it's sometimes
I'm envious of that. I don't really care that much
what people think, but I probably care more than John
does because John just kept taking the hits.
And you know, if you remember back for a long time, Bob
Raisman, Mushnick, I think Phil's still writing for the
post Bob. I haven't seen Bob write a, a
column for the news in probably well over a year.
So hopefully Bob Raisman is healthy.
I, I, I don't know, but I mean, those guys would destroy John
Sterling. This isn't the way it's supposed
to be. Why?
Because he's having fun and
because he's a little goofy and a little zany.
Everybody needed to get her. I really thought not just, you
know, not just Bob, but I thought everybody needed to get
off their high horse, relax, unloosen the belt a little bit,
get the stick out of your ass and just understand that this
guy John Sterling was a gift. He was a gift from the baseball
New York sporting God. So rest in peace.
Jay, do you have the, the tweet that I put up there this morning
at the OK, there you go. You know, it's easier for me to
write this stuff than it is to, to express, you know, sadness
and, and, and also you don't coronate against somebody, you
know, the, the amazing accomplishment.
So John Sterling kept baseball fun.
It's the first thing that hit me.
John Sterling kept baseball fun and an incredibly mundane game
where you play every night and the pace isn't like the NBA or
like hockey. And it's not once a week like
the NFL. John Sterling kept baseball fun.
He was zany, he was goofy and absolutely amazing.
And he loved being the summer in the October soundtrack for so
many of us for so many years. one-of-a-kind.
Rest in peace to a true New York sporting legend.
So we celebrate, we remember. And he's going to be incredibly
missed, man. But I'm so happy that I had that
little snippet, you know, 9 or 10 seconds video that my that my
kids will have forever and then I will have forever when when
John just, you know, riffed it and off the top of his head, he
did that home run call. So, yeah.
And you know, it's it's it's definitely sad, Jay.
Now you're younger, OK Were you of the mindset, you know, you
went to Syracuse, you've got these broadcast jobs and you
studied what you studied? Were you of the mindset that
somebody like John Sterling was too much?
Or did you appreciate what he brought to the as a young?
No, I think it's fun. I think anytime a broadcaster
can put their own flair on something, you know, make it a
little zany, make it a little eclectic, make it fun.
I think that's what fans are begging for.
I think that's what fans are looking for, Somebody to, you
know, to bring their own personality to a game.
I don't need someone who's just calling a game straight as it
is. I want it to be fun.
I want you to, you know, bring your own flair to it.
So no, I always love that stuff. The best thing too.
I I figured that you would say that good.
The best thing about John, aside from, you know, the, the calls,
I mean, think about think about the think about what he carved
out. You know, Marv, Marv Albert,
yes, you know, Mike Breen, you know, bang, sometimes you get
the double bang. Now the Celtics won't be getting
any bang. Well, they they got banged out.
We'll be getting some Knicks and some Sixers bangs and some other
bangs and we'll get to that coming up a little bit.
We'll give J Rod a chance to jump on the couch.
I know he's, I know he's terribly upset with what
happened with his Boston Celtics.
And I'll give you a Nick Sixers preview.
We get to a bunch of stuff, obviously starting with John,
but think about all of the catch phrases that this man has.
I mean, such a yeah, such a simple thing.
The Yankees win and you're driving around.
I don't care if you're on the Belt Parkway, the Coombs Dam.
I don't care if you're out East. I don't care if you're up in
Connecticut. You're driving around.
You know, Mariano with the here's the pitch struck him out.
And then just, you know what's next?
The Yank. It's so simple, but boy, did it
resonate. The Yankees win, the Yankees
win. You bet your ass the Yankees
won. That's right.
Put it in the books, punctuate it, stack it and sealed it away
is yet another win and this man was just in the middle of
absolutely everything like the only thing that I not regrets
the wrong word. So, as I've told you, I was
there in in 96 when the Yankees won the World Series.
Charlie Hayes the pop up and this came up the other day.
I couldn't see because I was behind home plate top top deck
and not even the front row way behind.
So I'm just relying on the ambiance and the reaction
because when it when it goes up and I was a tough at bat to a
lot of foul balls as that thing goes towards the third base
dugout. I'm you know, I'm leaning and
I'm jumping over. I can't see and I wish like and
I went to a lot of games back then.
I went to all the Mattingly's both.
The two of them Mattingly's home playoff games against Seattle in
95. I went to other games, other
World Series wins, 9892 thousand.
I was actually working in Las Vegas so I couldn't go, but I
went back a lot and the only thing that I didn't have now I
had 55 at that point, 55,000 maniacal Yankee fans around me,
which was great, but I wish I wish that I could have heard
John with those calls. Now, of course I got them in
hindsight, you get the highlights.
You hear them. You know when they when they
play them on the morning, on the morning shows, but being in the
car, it's like to me creating it's and it's, it's not easy to
do all right. There's a lot of people, there's
a lot of people. I mean, hell, there's people
right now who just graduating college who don't have big
network jobs yet and and might not ever, but they can get in
front of a mic And you know, here's the pitch, brown ball,
the short up the middle. Wow, what a stab over the first
got him by 1/2 a step. Anybody can do that.
You know, rebounded by Mitch over to Brunson.
Brunson two on one left side, Josh Hart up and it's going to
foul. Anybody could.
And I I don't even really do play by play.
And I just did it without even thinking about what I was going
to say. It's easy to do that.
That's not really that hard to do.
What's almost impossible to do is to connect to the heart and
the sporting soul of somebody, especially the Yankee fans and
all of that, and what that encompasses and the depth and
the expectations and all the history to be able to do that
and to be able to be so theatrical in the process, but
yet in the same vein, be able to laugh at yourself.
Like I heard so many times, John say, oh, Susan, I really messed
that one up, huh? Like, the guy had no problem,
you know, embracing a mistake. So I, I thought that John always
came across as #1 always prepared, always excited, and
that's what I look for. You guys know my style and
that's why I like, you know, I love Mike and Chris's dynamic
like so many people my age. Because you just didn't know the
show would start at one O 3. Good afternoon, everybody.
Like you just get this loose lunatic launching into into this
crazy mode and then he got Mike parachuting in with the
knowledge and then you get them arguing, then you get them
having a coach on and then they tag team on the coach and they
destroy him or whatever they might be destroying together or
going against each other. Like I love that stuff.
I love the energy and I'm all about presentation and to meet
John Sterling just in terms of packaging everything that I look
for. And I know that he was
technically flawed. I know that and I don't care.
That's not the point, but what I'm looking for.
All right, I'm driving, I'm stuck in traffic.
I've had a rough day, whatever it might be.
Boom, Yankee game on that guy. Always.
He always gave us his best always and it's deeply
appreciated. He's going to be deeply missed
and and a man I'd love to see the Yankees win the World Series
for him this year. How awesome would that be?
I'll tell you what the way they look, it's not that far fetched
like it's been in some other seasons.
All right, let let me get to some other stuff.
Obviously John Sterling tributes, whether it's the chat,
whether it's the calls, get him up.
We've got 3 burning questions. Nick Sixers preview, give AJ Rod
a chance to, you know, you know, little cathartic moment for Oh
my God, Jay as the Celtics are done.
Rest in peace, John Sterling, my favorite sports announcer ever.
He made radio baseball listenable.
Yeah, for a kid growing up with ADHD.
Interesting. That's very interesting at
beater car. Yeah.
I mean, to me, that's the thing too.
Like John's like the fluctuate. That's the other thing too.
So again, that what I did what I did before, you know, left side
layup, it's good foul, whatever, 3 pointer.
No good like that. That that's the easy stuff of
calling a game, but connecting the dots and, and being, being
unpredictable, laced with zaniness.
You know, I, I, I don't know about ADHD and I don't, I don't,
I've got a lot of things. I don't have that.
But I know it's, it's an affliction and I know that it's,
it's, it's an issue, especially for a lot of kids.
So I mean, I talk about a great compliment, you know, where you
know your brain and it there's a lot of noise and a lot of lot of
things got a lot of clutter. And John was able to unclutter
it, so to speak. And then just I mean, it's like
he would just hit a blender, you know, put put a bunch of
baseball stuff in the blender, hit a button and then 30 seconds
later or 25 seconds later, I mean, it would be this beautiful
mixture of everything, everything that's good in the
game. And you knew that he was a good
hearted person. I'm not going to name babes, I
would never do that. But I can promise you there are
some broadcasters that you listen to that really just
aren't that friendly off the air.
They might present themselves as friendly.
They might present themselves a certain way when the cameras are
on. When those cameras are off or
when the game is over, they really don't have much interest
talking to you. I feel like John always was able
to thread the needle of of catering to the demands.
You know, Takis, Aaron Judge or I get it, or a Rod or Jeter, but
in his own way. You know, it in, in a weird way,
on some level, he he exceeds those players because he was
here so much longer. You know what I mean?
You're not going to RIP down, you're not going to say, all
right, Babe Ruth, you know, Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig, Mickey
Mantle, John Sterling, Derek. I don't, I don't mean that, but
I just mean the connection. Think about this.
We watched Derek Jeter for 30 years.
Pardon me, 20 years. We watched a Rod for what, 1314
years here we watched Donnie for 1314 years here we watched MO
for about 20. We've listened to John for 36
years. And that is just, that's a
connection and that's a, there's a depth to that connection that
you cannot replicate and you cannot recreate.
And I think Dave Sims is great. You know, when others have
filled in, whether it's Emmanuel, Barb, I filled in
twice. I mean, I was just doing the
color. But like the fill in, play by
play guys immensely get Ricky Ricardo.
I think Ricky's actually got a lot of John Sterling in them,
which one of the reasons I love listening to Ricky.
I think he's great. And I know that they were
really, really good friends. So you know, there's going to
eventually be, hopefully Dave does this for a long, long time,
hopefully gets a couple of championships.
Whomever is up next after Dave, they will be great in their own
way, hopefully, and they will carve out their own legacy in
their own path. But there's one John Sterling,
let's not get it twisted. There's one and there's never
going to be another one. So rest in peace to John.
All right. Now, I talked about this with
Michael Kay last week. I've talked about this for a
while. We finally got the answer with
Anthony Volpe. And it's exactly what I thought
they were going to do. And it's exactly what I thought
that they should do. All right, this was very easy to
read. Now, the only reason it wasn't
easy to read is because there were some of you, which of which
I get that weren't fully sure that the Yankees were more
ruthless. And that's the word that Michael
used when he when he joined me last.
And by the way, Joe Benigo will join me on Wednesday.
I meant to say that at the top of the show.
So we got Joe B coming up on Wednesday and Michael's
interview was phenomenal. The numbers were great, the
content was awesome. You guys really enjoyed it.
And Michael used the word ruthless.
Now, I didn't use the word ruthless prior to having him on,
but I thought I certainly acknowledge that things seem a
little different this year, whether is less tolerant or more
cutthroat or whatever other spin off of the word ruthless that
you were sending them, whatever that you want to use, that's
what the Yankees have exhibited so far.
OK, Louis Hill, you've been inconsistent.
Your V Low's been up and down. Your secondary stuff is hit or
miss. You have one big game, then you
get shellacked. We can't have it get to the
minors. OK, Ryan McMahon, you're hitting
and now he's starting to hit a little bit, but hit No 92.
And even though you're a lefty hitter and this team's got a
righty pitcher going, guess what?
We're going against the data. We're going against the the
numbers. You're sitting and Rosario, who
is a righty who hits lefty is going to play third even though
everything else says that. You know what we would have done
last year? Keep running you out there.
All right, Grisham, he does not bat lead off every single game.
Thankfully, now he does against righties.
But you've seen him. I think he hit 91 point over the
weekend, right? So you're seeing some, I think
you're seeing a bit of an evolution in terms of how the
Yankees are approaching this year.
And it's about damn time because Aaron Judge is not 25.
We're 27. He's 34.
He's having a really good year. Again, he's got a running and
I'll get to this coming up in in 3 burning questions, a little
Rice Judge and a little Soto Judge kind of comparison.
We'll get to that coming up in a bit.
But he's got his running mate right now.
Ben Rice is top three, top 4IN MVP.
He's a lot to be an All Star and he's a middle of the order
thumper and it's real. All right.
Yankees pitching is off the charts amazing, and it's only
going to get better when some of the guys in the rotation go to
the bullpen and the guys who are hurt get back and they, you
know, they resume their starting duty like Garrett Cole and
Carlos Rodon. Rodon's closer than Garrett
Cole. So there's a lot of things to
like about this team. What would have changed for me
and for many of you, it wouldn't have changed the record, but it
would have changed the belief, the conviction in the Yankees
willingness to do whatever it takes to win this year.
Hey, we drafted Anthony Volpe a couple of years ago at Adele
Barton, which is about 15 miles from where I am right now.
New Jersey star, star. They played with a lighter, as
many of you know, lighter went to Vanderbilt.
Anthony got drafted by the Yankees.
That's all he wanted to do was be a Yankee.
And then will you get trapped by the Yankees And there's and it's
first round status, you go to the Yankees.
So he went to the minors. Obviously COVID was was an
issue, like many young players, you know, his his his
development was maybe stagnated a little bit.
But I also think that philosophically, what the
Yankees were maybe not forcing him to do, but certainly
teaching and and leading him to do in terms of, you know,
traject, you know, just up. I'm not going to get into the
the nuts and bolts of the swing. We just know he has not been
good enough. All right, And we also know that
the Yankees have ridden them out there too many times where he
hasn't deserved it, where they're running them out there.
You know, one for 1913 strikeouts, booting some balls,
a complete non entity at the plate.
You know, you look up it's O2, non productive, unproductive at
bats, not on base a lot, average is low, OPS is horrendous.
Nothing really reflective of a first round talent.
And even if you were a tenth round talent, if you're playing
shortstop for the Yankees and you're in the mix to win a World
Series, you can't have that. And if they do allow that to
happen, well then, as they have, as they did last year and even
prior years to a lesser extent, they were telling you without
telling you that we are, we are going to be stubborn.
And even if it's to the detriment of the team.
So we needed to see this. We needed to see this.
And it was a layup. Like if the Yankees did anything
other than what they did yesterday, the Yankees would be
crushed and I would be crushing them.
Not the way they're playing, but it it would, it would kind of
usurp some of the enthusiasm, at least for me, and some of the
belief that this version of the of the Yankees is different than
previous versions, not just in terms of talent, but in terms of
mindset, in terms of mantra, in terms of organizational
philosophy. It is about time.
Now, here's what's going to happen.
All right, Caballero, All right. He's been by these.
Remember 3/16, 3:20 or so, the last 15 games, 1314 steals,
couple of home runs, great defense that that has surprised
me. I mean, first of all, it
surprised me that he's hitting 316 over this stretch of games.
I, I, I really never perceived him to be that guy.
But his defense, you know, if you believe about, if you
believe in outs above replacement, all that stuff.
And I also like to just kind of look, I'm like, it looks pretty
good. And then I'll use the numbers to
either reinforce or maybe, you know, reposition a thought that
I have about a player, which is why last year, just a quick Side
Story or side reference. Last year when Ben Rice was
hitting the ball on the screws early with not a, with not a lot
of luck, and Aaron Boone was telling all you guys this, I'm
like, and let me just let let me let me see for myself if what
Aaron Boone is saying is lining up with the deeper analytics.
And that's, you know, that's when I would really dive deeply
into Savant and fan graphs and some other stuff.
I'm like, yeah, he's right. And if you believe in that
stuff, like if you hit the ball hard and you hit the ball
consistently and all the other numbers line up, it really
shouldn't matter too much what the numbers are currently
because generally hitting the ball hard is a foreshadow of
better things to come. It called bad luck.
It's called the, it's called Major League Baseball.
It's called an incredibly high rate of failure.
It is what it is. So the numbers on Rice were what
they were and look at rice now and the numbers on Volpe have
always been what they were and we'll see what they are once he
gets back. The numbers on Caballero, like
when they got him. I'm like spark plug, you know, a
little bit of a dirtbag in terms of just like a nasty in a good
way, the kind of guy that you want to play with, talk a little
smack. Uniforms always dirty.
Obviously an elite base dealer, great positional versatility.
Like there were a lot of things that I liked about the pickup.
Now, I would be less than truthful.
I said to you that I envisioned this.
I still think he's playing over his head, I think.
And eventually I think there's going to be a bit of a, you
know, a regression to his statistical mean.
But until that happens, you had to reward him.
It's about messaging not just for Caballero, but also for
Volpe. Further, further incentive to,
hey, this is a little different, buddy.
We love you, we believe in you, but now you've got to earn it.
We're not just writing your name out there because we drafted you
in the first round a couple of years ago.
We've got a guy night to night who's playing better than you've
played maybe, you know, outside of a couple of spurts here and
there, most of your Yankee career.
And I'm going to ride him out there.
And listen, Volpe's a terrific person, raised the right way, a
grinder, a worker. So he gets this.
I'm sure he handled this well. And it buys you a little bit of
time. It buys you time.
First of all, it's not like Volpe's been ripping up AA
pitching. He's sitting, he's hitting 250
on the button. You know, he's 11 for 44.
He's played twelve games. And I've seen, I've seen a lot
of his defensive highlights and it would be contrasted like with
with Lombard when he was a AA before he got the call to AAA.
And I'm like, it's just it's night and day.
I mean, Lombard off 1 foot throwing peas across the
diamond. And Volpe's throws, even when he
can kind of set his feet a little bit, are still losing
some steam and kind of going almost down toward the first
baseman. Like everybody sees that.
All right, So now the only thing, and this is going to be
trickier to navigate. All right, so the 30 day rehab
assignment is obviously over now.
That's why they had to designate him.
Either you're coming back to the big league team or we're going
to send you to the minors. We know what they did right now
it's made easier because he's not exactly crushing at a AA and
Caballero's playing very well. Well, what happens if what
happens if Caballero? And he's going to eventually go
a little cold, but Volpe doesn't assert himself.
But yet Caballero's still playing really good defense.
But the numbers start to dwindle offensively and there's no real
evidence that Volpe has earned in elevation to the big league
team. Like, that's once, like there's
only a few scenarios that can happen, and I'm going to lay it
out for you #1 Caballero plays incredibly well for a while and
Volpe crushes it. And then you call up Volpe and
you still run Caballero out there maybe, maybe.
And then you mix and match like Caballero, little second or
little third, a little outfield, and they can both play if Volpe
earns him, if Caballero is awful over the next 78910 games,
whatever it might be, and Volpe rips it up, well, that's an easy
Ave. All right.
Hey, things starting to kind of get to where we thought they
might. We've squeezed a lot of juice
out of this, you know, this, this orange, if you will, with
with Caballero. Now we're going to go back to
the young man that we thought will be our starting shortstop
for X amount of years. But it's got to be earned.
And only if Caballero sinks and and and Volpe elevates can he
come here and play every day. Now, say if he hits, you know,
255 pretty much like he's hitting now.
Or he wasn't AA and he's doing the same production in AAA and
Caballero, meaning not great but not awful and Caballero cools
off a little bit. I think that's another win
though, where I can see him. OK, let's get him up and we'll
figure this thing out. Little Mix and match, maybe
lefty righty match up specific, whatever it might be.
But this is it would have been such a bad sign if the Yankees
did what I knew they wouldn't do and I really knew.
More importantly, they just couldn't justify doing, meaning
they shouldn't do it. Like this is a meritocracy, you
know, and, and I get it when you're making 25303540 million
dollars, you know, you're going to get more chances, more
opportunities, absolutely no doubt about it.
And let's say Rodon, when when Rodon comes back, he'll be in
the rotation and let's say Rodon has three or four starts where
he's just not very good. Well, they're not going to
banish him to the bullpen. They will say there's enough
evidence. Even though he hasn't been an
amazing Yankee, it's been pretty good, especially after that
first rocky year one. It's gotten better and better.
There's easy there. There's there's data to justify.
We're going to roll with you rather than like Louise Hill,
who are like, OK, we could ship it to the miners.
First of all, the the resume is one thing, but also what you're
paying somebody. Volpe's not making a lot of
money. Like it's not like Volpe signed
like a, you know, 70% of a wit contract.
Like they they bought out years of arbitration.
And now the Yankees are sitting there saying, we just gave, you
know, Volpe sixteen, $17 million a year.
We're going to have them on a bus in double or AAA for the
next month and 1/2. What are we doing?
No, that's not the case at all. So I think the Yankees nailed
it. Right decision, right choice,
right time. Now the onus is on Volpe to
perform and the and the onus is is on Caballero to continue to
further perform and competitions.
Good. Like, I think that this is a
great thing. You've got somebody in the
minors right now and Anthony Volpe, who is who is, I'll
answer that one SEC Jay, who is scraping to get back to the big
league team and reassert himself and and establish himself as an
everyday shortstop, which at this point, I honestly don't
know if he is. I think, I think there's more
good than not, but it's year 4, so it's it's go time, obviously.
And then there's another guy who is finally getting a look after
basically being a sub forever, you know, play 2 three times a
week. Ready, scrappy, whatever.
Now he's getting a little piece of the of the champagne, little
taste of the champagne. He's like, whoa, this is good
stuff. I'm gonna line up with Ben Rice,
I'm going to line up with Aaron Judge, I'm going to line up with
with Bellinger. All right, I'm just going to get
on base. I'm going to run.
I'm going to catch the baseball and I'm going to remain an
asset. So you got Caballero try.
I'd love this. Caballero's trying to hold on to
what he has and both he's trying to get it back.
And ultimately I think the Yankees will benefit and win
from this competition, from this situation.
It might be a little rocky, though, because this was not an
easy call by then, even though it it it.
But I say that like the the the evidence made it easy, but
organizationally you have to swallow hard when you keep a
first round pick in the minors, especially when he's hit twenty
home runs, won a Gold Glove, hit a Grand Slam in the World
Series. Like he hasn't been great, but
he's done some good things. So it was tough on that level.
Baseball, not tough. The other stuff tough.
All right, What is my favorite play call?
Play by play call from John Man old man.
I like the back-to-back, belly to belly.
I love that. You know, I I might even just go
as simple as when he really like it with the Red Sox or playoff
game or Subway Series, something a little more magnitude of the
regular season when he would really, really laying deep and
give you the I just go on and on and on and on.
And then Yankees win like it's perfect.
You watch the game and you listen to the game to see the
Yankees win. And then you've got the great
John Sterling hammering that out, letting you know that the
Yankees won, that the Yankees just did what you were hoping
that they would do. Mattingly calls anything with
Mattingly, just because Mattingly is my all time
favorite. I like I like the an A bomb for
a rod a lot. I'll be I mean, I could just I
could do another hour on the things that I liked because
that's how good he was. He was that good.
He was that original. What's the future of broadcast
of games broadcast on the radio? Johnny Boy 17.
I'm not sure. I don't know the answer to that.
I really don't know. I do think it varies for markets
like I think that well, I know we've already seen some smaller
markets not send their and this is just this is criminal, man.
I can't get behind this at all. Where their broadcast teams,
when their team travels, they lay back and they call the game
off ATV. You know what you're missing
there. Now, maybe the average fan can't
really tell, you know, and maybe for the money that you saved,
you can justify it, but it should never be that way ever.
I remember Mink and I had to do that once during COVID and I was
in my Home Office here he was. He may have actually been at the
arena. St.
John's was playing maybe like a Sacred Heart, like a non
conference early game during COVID, no fans.
And I don't think, if I remember correctly, it was a while ago.
I don't think that that they wanted us together.
So John was nowhere near the St. John's bench.
He was like in the stands, literally in the stands.
I don't even know where Madge was at that point.
And I was here, You know, we figured things out and you know,
we, I know his cadence. He knows mine, but I just know
that's the only time that I've, I've called the game off TV.
And I mean, walking into the garden to do a game with, with
19,000 people, which they've been getting since Rick Pitino
came is incredible. Like it's just, it's an ambiance
that it's a fuel. You know, it's just a surge of
energy and excitement because you feed off the crowd and not
being able to do that is just it's, it's the last frontier.
If and when we get to that on a high level, that's incredibly
problematic. But you know, it's not cost
effective. You got to pay for hotels.
These major leaguers. I mean, they they stayed the
best for Four Seasons. You know, they stay at great
hotel per diem. You know, it's not just the play
by player and also the color analyst.
It's also the engineer, the statistician.
Like there's other things. It's it's, it's, it's a nut.
It's it's not cheap. It's a big number and over the
course of, you know, 81 games for baseball or 41 games for the
NBA or hockey. I, I can see why monetarily it's
justifiable, but it's, it's, it's a horrendous trend that I
hope none of the bigger teams here ever embrace.
I, I, I mean, I just can't imagine the Yankees, the Mets, I
can't, I can't imagine the Knicks doing that.
I think the Islanders have had a bit of a a trans, a bit of a
nomadic and the Devils as well. I think they use the TV call on
the radio. I'm not if I'm not mistaken.
So some of the teams have even leaned into it a little bit.
Not good. Let me get Jack under score Ben
Stead, all right there. Hey, what do you think they
named the do you think they named the booth after John?
I mean, they have to. It's been a couple of rough
weeks for Boston sports. Sabres winning six Sixers and
seven Red Sox. Bottom of division.
Rest in peace, John. Go Sabers, go mix.
Go Yanks. Yeah.
I mean, they absolutely. They have to.
I mean, I don't know how they don't.
All right. I know that when I started doing
and I I don't haven't seen the sign, but I would imagine that
it's still there. I remember when I started doing
the St. John's games and then eventually
some Nick pre and post game stuff and a few Nick play by
play games. It was in the Marty Glickman
Memorial booth and there was a sign.
I don't know if it's still there as I said, but that's I mean,
that's the logical next step here.
They may have even I don't even did they name the press box yet
after they may have already done something for John or or maybe
not. One thing about the Yankees,
they always nail this stuff. The tribute will be phenomenal.
Whatever they put on their uniforms will be phenomenal.
Whatever they elect to do with the broadcast booth will be
phenomenal. I, I, I'm really, I'm, I'm
really curious and I know it's going to be really hard for her.
I texted her this morning. I, I can't wait.
Maybe that's the wrong way to frame it, but I am, I am very
intrigued to hear Susan's open tonight as she pays, pays homage
to her, you know, her, her friend.
I mean, they were buddies, man. They were tight like they were
partners in crime. They really were.
So I think that that's going to be awesome.
Sad, but awesome. You know, I, I was, I was young,
but I do remember seeing this in 1979.
It's funny, I never remember watching Thurman Munson play a
single inning, not once. But I do remember 1979.
I was, I just turned 6. I'm a summer birthday and August
2nd when they when they honored him, Thurman Munson after the
plane crash and they played the Orioles and Bobby Mercer got I
think Bobby had five hits. I know we had the game-winning
hit. And I remember sitting in my
parents room on the edge of their bed.
They were I think my mom was there.
My dad was definitely watching. Pretty sure my mom was there
too. And I remember the imagery just
seared in my mind of an empty home plate and then all the
tears blew. Pinella, you know, all the his
great friends. And the Yankees did that
incredibly well. Old Timer's day.
The Yankees will absolutely crush this in a in a very, very
amazing Yankee only kind of way. All right.
What else do we have here? Yeah.
I mean, that was really Jay. You go back to the interview
that we did with with Michael Kay, right, Which was phenomenal
and the numbers reflect that. The numbers are really good and
the word ruthless. Just to get back to this for a
second that he used there. Think about how how he nailed
that, but think about how hollow that would have felt if the
Yankees did the opposite of what they did with Volpe because
that. Would.
Have been, you know, that would have been acquiescing to an
inner narrative that that they need to divorce themselves from
that they've been connected to for too long.
It's got to be meritocracy. And I thought he laid it out
perfectly. And I think the timing was great
because they were ruthless. They had to do this.
I thought it was muddy. I thought he.
Nailed it. No big time.
Great quote. And also, I got to say, great
game from the boys in blue yesterday.
Yeah, fought. Over at this at the stadium.
Yeah, no, so I mean, I was sitting, as I was saying, I was
sitting behind Bellinger, man, once that first Ben Rice bomb
went off, I was just like, let's go.
And, you know, it was a pretty good game for the most part.
I mean, the Orioles stink like. It's it's amazing how they yeah,
I know it's amazing. At least three errors.
Like 2 years ago, they were tremendous.
Yankees did get a little bit lucky where Ben Rice on that
pick off from Max Freed, it hit him, got a little contusion.
You could tell you were at the game.
You couldn't tell as I could tell he I don't even think he
actually caught it. Like he he didn't catch it
clean. Maybe he kind of scooped it
before he hit the dirt, but he could tell it hit his hand like
in the wrong spot and you could tell that he was kind of
writhing in pain. He stayed on, he stayed in the
game, but then he eventually came out.
They got they got lucky. I mean that that is very, you
know, I don't know how hard Mark Max Freed threw that bowl over
there. I'm going to guess it was
probably 80 something, not 95, but 8586, you know, had some had
some zip on it and that could bust a bone that could do that
could do some damage. So part of being great and part
of being, you know, a true player for the World Series is
you you get you get lucky with the health stuff.
And Yankees pitching has been great.
And they catch a break yesterday with Rice.
So I'm feeling it, man. You listen, we've been together.
What now? When did you jump in?
February, February, January 19th.
Look at I love that he knows the day, Alright.
January 19th, right? So, yeah, about four months,
whatever it is. And I would have to, I want you
to answer this, I think, I think I'm a pretty balanced Yankee
fan, right? Would you take that away?
I feel different about this team and I also felt different about
the 2014. Obviously the whole Soto and
Judge dynamic, but you know, there's still a lot of
checkpoints here. And it's also very easy for me
to say, I I get this guys. It's easy for me to say, well,
when Garrett Cole comes back and when, and I have said this,
well, Carlos Rodon comes back now the Yankees have the best
rotation of baseball and they might have the best rotation now
anyway. But the assumption that these
guys will just automatically slide in and Garrett Cole will
be healthy and dealing and Rodon will be good and D and healthy,
like that's an assumption on my part.
And if that doesn't happen, if you get something counter to
that, well, you're going to have to adjust things a little bit,
even though they do have depth. You know, I do think of the back
of the bullpen with Bednar. I know he generally wiggles out
of it, but I, I don't love that, you know, and, and I was OK with
it last year and I was even OK with it the first couple of
weeks of the season. I just feel like, you know, when
you have a, when you have A and it's like he throws 90.
He does throw mid 90s, but even a tick higher when he has to, he
does pitch to contact and he's got AI think every time he's out
there, he's got to navigate a base, hit a walk and he usually
does. That still scares me.
Jazz still was still worries me in terms of being locked in.
You know, is Wells ever going to hit like I'm not saying it's
perfect situation, but this Yankee team looks ready.
They look really good and the best part for them is that the
American League absolutely stinks.
It's terrible. The American League is awful,
man. Oh my God, compared to the NL
it's not even close, Jay. Really not.
I mean, who's what? Orioles socks.
Stink, the Rays are good, but I, I don't want to say I don't take
them seriously because but they, they're playing well.
The Jays are, I think they'll eventually get it together, but
they're not playing well. Red Sox are a disaster.
You know, the Central is what it is.
I mean, anybody in the West really, Astros are awful.
So all these years of the Astros being really good, that's not
the case. Texas is OK.
You know, it's just a clean path, at least on paper right
now in early May to you know, 100 ish wins and the top record
in the American League. So things are good for the
Yankees, but obviously I want to start with with John Sterling.
All right, it's a Monday. How about a little free Bernie
question action? You ready to roll here buddy?
Wait, would you be We can do that first.
We've got a call waiting for John Sterling if you're down to
RIP that first. Absolutely, 100%, yeah.
Who do we have there? Jay?
Thank you for that. Who's up?
What do we got? We've got Matt from Los Angeles,
CA. Maddie, what's happening, buddy?
Appreciate the first call going. Hey, what's going on?
Such a sad day. You know, guys like Sterling, I
grew up in New York. I absolutely adore him.
The guys mean so much to their city out here.
Vince Scully is that guy, I think.
But you know, the thing that was so great about him was the
whimsy he brought to such a buttoned up team.
You know, they always call the Yankees US Steel and and not
just the home run calls. I remember BTA few years ago.
I'm listening to a game and, and this is John's call before the
game starts. He says, you know, I'm a little
chilly here at the stadium, about 59°.
I'm wearing a sweater. I mean, I'm wearing other things
too, is what he said. Such a great, great guy.
And, and I think you already answered one of my questions.
I, I mean, I really hope they wear a patch or an armband for
them. He meant that much to the team.
100%, there's no, I mean, I I just can't imagine that that
they don't. Now, if I were the Yankees, I
don't know if they'll go quite this far.
They will definitely have a patch.
I would like myself, I would have like a microphone, maybe
John's like a John's face and maybe even a couple of words
like the Yankees when I that's where I don't, I don't think
they'll do the words, but you will get and you will see it
tonight. You will see something on the
Yankees uniforms. I'd, I'd be unless logistically
they can't turn it around quick enough, then maybe it would have
to be the next game. But no of the Yankees.
I, I would be really surprised if it's not there.
And the pregame honoring of John, of, of John Sterling
tonight is going to be about as touching a thing as we've seen
at the stadium in a long time. It's be a lot of a lot of a lot
of moist eyes, man. A lot of sadness there tonight.
Yeah, I think they'll really pack the place.
I think people will. People will show up just because
of that tonight. You know, I was standing outside
of Gate 4, you know, in the front of the stadium a couple
years ago. And then the crowd, we're all
standing waiting to get again. The crowd went nuts.
It's John getting dropped off by his driver.
And it was as if Aaron Judge was walking into the stadium that
that's how much he meant to this team.
It's not just another guy who calls the game in a in a nice
deep voice. John really was the the
personality of of our city. It was great.
You nailed it, man. Really good call.
I'm happy I took that call. Thank you.
Thank you for that, Matt. Out out West there.
Yeah. You, you want to sound, you want
to sound like one of us. You want to listen.
There's a couple things that we look for when we when you listen
to somebody, whether it's somebody doing a game or
somebody hosting the show, it's got to, you've got to know that
they care about the topic as much as you do.
That's, that's number one, all right.
Whether it's a show or whether it's a game, you got to you got
to feel that it matters to them, all right.
And if it doesn't, then that connection can only get so, so
deep. When it, when it does feel that
way, now there's, there's a limitless connection, there's,
there's just no boundaries #1 and then obviously length.
And then obviously the more big moments you have, which are just
indelibly seared into our minds and our ears.
In terms of John, I also think, you know, if you're a, if you're
a fan of a horrendous team, like, you know, think about like
those Mets, Mets teams old all those years where they just were
terrible. But like Bob Murphy got you
through that Ralph Kiner on TV, you know, Connor's corner and
let's win 67 games. But big Ralph, he's up there,
you know, shooting the shit with Seaver or Steve Carlton, if they
played the Phillies or or Mike Schmidt, it's it's comforting,
you know, it's comforting too. And you know, I've always said
this when when somebody passes away and and it is dependent
upon their age, right? But I think I felt this a little
bit like when Hulk Hogan passed away and Hulk was a lot younger
than than John. But when somebody, when you have
access to somebody regularly that has been a part of your
life in the sporting sense for as long as somebody like John
has, it's, it's almost, it's re, it's going to sound odd.
It's just my own. I don't know.
I don't know why I, I've always looked at it this way, but it's
hard to express. But I'll, I'll, I'll try.
So it's, it's just hard to explain when somebody is around
that long. To me, I've always felt like,
all right, if they're still here, am I really getting older?
You know, like, hey, Rizzuto still calling games, I'm still
young. And I've really always made that
association. If you're lucky enough to still
have a grandparent alive, you know, if you still have a
grandparent with you, And I mean like, you know, if you're in
your, I don't mean if you're 15/18/20, I mean, it would be
probably tragic if you don't. But I mean, as you get to like
north of 3540 and certainly beyond that.
If you're blessed to have a grandparent, even if you're 43
or 44, but grandma's still there or grandpa's still there or John
is still there on some level. Even if you never say it,
because it is hard to express, as I've said, it's almost
reassuring because you don't feel as if you're aging that
much, if that makes sense. Even though we are like, hey,
John's still calling games. I mean, I've been been here,
John calling games since 1989 when I was when I was starting
high school, basically, you know, how old can I be?
You know, Hey, Breen's still doing the Knicks.
He's been doing them forever. I don't feel that old, you know,
I'm sure that made sense for some of you.
I don't. I don't know if it made complete
sense, but. No, totally.
I mean, it does, Yeah. Because I mean, for my mom, her
grandma's still alive. My great grandmother's still
alive. She's like 104, a hundred and
three. Yeah.
It's insane, dude. Wow, dude, It's insane.
So it's like, I think I told like, my mom totally feels that
where it's like, yeah, dude, like her grandma's still alive.
So it's like you kind of you don't, you don't get hit with
that like OK. Heaviness.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
All right, Wow. Is she Does she live by herself?
I'd. Be sure.
I mean, she's, yeah, she's got like a nurse and stuff.
She's down there in Boca doing her thing in a Boca.
Yes, Sir. Nice.
Yeah. I mean, you know, she's
definitely 103, you know, You know what I mean?
I get it, I get it. Does she, does she have a phone?
Like, can you call her? Yeah, she has a cell phone.
Yeah, Yeah, she's probably got a better cell phone than my dad.
Who's got the flip phone. No, probably.
She's got the iPhone. She does, I think.
So I don't know if she could use it.
I don't know if she knows how to operate it necessarily.
But yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Do you get to see her every
year? We we try to go down there a
decent amount. I think last time was probably a
couple years ago. I think was the last time I went
down there but got to do it soon.
That's awesome, man. That that's, I love hearing
that. Good job, Jay.
All right, man, very good. Got to get to some mixed Sixers.
How about this though? It's a Monday 3 burning Question
Time. We always enjoy this.
Try to mix a couple of things up there.
Brought you by my friends at Sullivan Propane.
Of course. Remember the name Sullivan
Propane, One of New York's best personal injury law firms,
according to U.S. News and World's report.
As general counsel to the New York City Firefighters Union for
more than 4 decades in the proud law firm partner of St.
John's Athletics, Sullivan Papain is New York's team
fighting for New Yorkers for more than 100 years.
Find them online at triallaw1.com.
That's trial law1.com. Remember the name Sullivan
Papain. All right, question number one,
what do we cook up? This is a good one.
Will Rice and Judge outperform Soto and Judge from 2024?
I mean, statistically this would have and and just not just
hearing it out loud would have sound blasphemously pathetic if
I would have asked this question in March, right?
Or even after the first week of the season.
OK, will they prove more effective?
OK, this is a tough one. Now let's let me just take you
back to Judge and Soto. Now first of all, Judge had a
war of almost 11, had 58 home runs, 144 RB is he hit 322, won
the batting title and had an 1159 OPS.
Now Soto that this is really what's going to determine it.
Do I think that Rice will be better than Soto this year?
Like the the fact that I'm even asking that question out loud is
amazing. So Soto hit 288.
Do I think that Ben Rice will hit more than 288?
I do. Now he's 2nd and average at
3:43. I don't think he's going to be
anywhere near that when it's all said and done.
Can I see Ben Rice sitting three O 7, three O 8?
I could. I absolutely could.
So I do think advantage just in terms of batting average, all I
know it's antiquated, but advantage Rice.
So we got to check in the Rice column number.
Two, do I think that Ben Rice will have more than the 41 home
runs that Juan Soto had back in 2024?
I absolutely do. I mean, I think he's going to
have mid 40s and if he stays healthy, he might go high 40s,
maybe higher. So yes, I think it is going to
be another check in the Ben Rice column there.
RB is, by the way, he's first in OPS.
Ben Rice, he's second in batting average.
He's tied for third home runs and he's 8th in RB.
Is do I think, do I stutter? Do I think that he's going to
have more than 109 RBI's? Yes, I do.
I absolutely do. Do I think you'll have more than
a 989 OPS? That's where I've got to really
think, and I don't want to go nuts here.
I know he's first at OPS. Now I'm going to say slightly
higher, not not that I think he'll finish just short of 1000.
So I'm talking percentage points.
So anyway, I think that Rice will have a higher average, more
homers, more ribbies and a slightly higher OPS.
Excuse me this damn cough, man. I don't know if it's allergies.
I don't know what's going on, man.
The the difference here to really answer the question.
Do I think that Aaron Judge will replicate what he did?
And the answer is no, I don't think he's going to have a WAR
of 11. I don't think he's going to hit
well, he might hit 58 home runs. He's not going to have 144 RBIs,
that's for sure. Like he's not going to hit 322.
And the OPSI think this year will be less than the 11:59 he
had a couple of years ago. God, this is close, man.
I mean, right now Judge is on pace for 60, two home runs, but
only 110 ribbies. I will say yes, slightly.
I think there's enough checks in Rice's column.
I think that they will outperform this duo.
And that is even crazy to think that we're even having this
discussion. Yes #1 #2 what do we got here?
Number two, number two, number two, besides the Mets and they
looked a little bit better over the weekend, although I don't
know how the hell Bientos they're I'm, I'm watching the
game Saturday night. There's a line drive Bientos.
I mean, they wind up losing the game how I don't.
And I know we had a good game yesterday, a couple of bombs,
but how the hell does Vientos not make that play at first
base? You know the one I'm talking
about late Saturday night. What?
Anyway, besides the Mets, which MLB team has been the most
disappointing? Oh, boy, there's a lot of
options here. The Jays have been very
disappointing. Seattle's been very
disappointing. Member.
Seattle had great pitching a year ago.
They made some moves for some sticks.
I mean, they're catchers been awful, but they brought some
other guys in. They have been a colossal
floundering so far. The Royals have been a little
disappointing. The Phillies obviously fired
their manager. I'm going to go Boston, though.
I really am. Who also fired their manager.
Now the Red Sox have 23 team home runs.
Judge and Soto have more. I mean, so they've gotten
together. They've got no power.
Trevor Story is absolutely washed.
And they're they're pissed that he opted into the deal.
They didn't want him. Jaron Duran, Caleb Durbin, you
know, they just, they're not doing much here.
Roman Anthony is going to be a player, but he's certainly not
crushing it yet. So you have a new manager.
They played a little bit better since the firing for sure.
I want to be fair. But they're 13 and 21.
They've got a -19 run differential.
There's 711, seven and 11 in Boston.
They don't win Fenway this year. Sonny Gray's on the IL Garrett
Crochet had a little bit of a shoulder issue, which is not
terrible. I know the imaging came back
clean, but, you know, he's got to get himself back.
And I know the Gray with the hamstring is going to miss a
little bit more time. But I think it's the Red Sox.
I do. I think it's the Boston Red Sox.
And you know, I could have easily said Seattle because they
were supposed to be a playoff team.
Red Sox were, you know, certainly the Mets are up there,
the Jays, the Phillies. I'm going to go with the Red
Sox. All right #3 burning questions
brought to you by my friends and Sullivan Papayne.
Of the four remaining NBA series, how many, if any, will
go seven games? Not as many as you think.
Now, I'll get to the next Sixers much more extensively in a
moment. All right, we'll actually talk
about that series. But that will not go 7.
I'll just give you a little, little foreshadow there.
So, oh, for one, T, Wolves and Spurs, no chance to go 7.
That's going to be a quick 10 for two Cavaliers and Pistons.
I think that one does go 7. I actually think that that's got
that one has the best chance of the four remaining series to go
7 and Lakers Thunder. I think that's more in the five
six range. So I don't think Nixon Spurs
get, pardon me, Nixon Sixers give you 7.
Maybe Nixon Spurs in the finals. That would be nice, although
hopefully it's different than 99.
The Knicks and the Sixers. No T Wolves, Spurs, no
Cavaliers, Pistons I'm going to say yes.
And the Lakers, Thunder, I am going to say no.
So 25%, one of the four will go inside the will go the distance
here. There you go. 3 burning
questions brought to you by my friends and Sullivan Pain
fighting for New Yorkers for more than 100 years.
Find sullivanonline@triallaw1.com.
Of course, great partnership with the firefighters union in
more than 4 decades and a proud law firm partner of St.
John's Athletics. Find
sullivanpapainonline@triallaw1.com. That's trial law1.com.
Remember the name Sullivan papain.
All right, J Rod, do you think of the you're a big NBA guy, All
right, try to pick up the pieces as your Celtic season got
shattered. You're not surprised, though.
You said they were going to lose games, No.
I know, I know, I know. I'm not.
I'm not surprised at all. I feel, I almost feel a little
vindicated, but in the fact that I was right because my brother
and I, listen, I got a whole fucking thing but him and I like
him and I were going at it before the game and he was like,
you're a fair weather fan. You're a bandwagon fan.
When I pulled AU, I'm going, dude, I'm not a bandwagon fan.
I'm a realistic fan. This team just got smacked up
three times in a row. How do you expect them to win?
And now here's I got hopeful. That third quarter when we were
down 13, I was certain we were going to win.
Even down 13, I'm certain we were going to come back and win.
And just awful. I don't think it's going to get
talked enough that this team blew A31 lead because of the
return of Embid. I think people are going to go
towards Celtics excuses. Tatum didn't play.
Tatum wasn't hurt, this team wasn't.
But that is just awful. Blowing A31 lead should never be
acceptable. It should never be something
that you can just brush off and be like, I know it was still a
successful season. Oh no, the the expectations
before the season were low. No, the expectations before the
season were lower. And then you brought Jason Tatum
in. You brought the dramatics out,
you brought the theatrics out. And by doing that, you raise the
expectation a whole hell of a lot higher.
You brought it to Finals expectations.
They were Vegas odds winners to make the NBA Finals before the
playoffs started. Yeah, the odds were there.
Listen, I think your brothers got to got to take a page from
you. You're the only real one in the
family. You and your pops.
That's why it sounds like your brother's a little a little bit
of a little bit of a fanboy out. There he he is definitely a
Celtics Homer, like he rides for the Celtics, win or lose, which
is a good thing. I appreciate, I appreciate that
kind of fan. That's not me, dude.
That's not me. I'm tearing these boys apart.
Like when I when it when it needs to be said, it needs to be
said. The one thing that I was
ecstatic about with this game, I left with a big smile on my
face. Husevic did not even sniff the.
Court you have you bring him up every.
You can't stand him. It was the word.
Do you know what Anthony Simons was averaging?
I don't. 14.5 and four before the Celtics traded him.
Nicole, I didn't realize was a bitch.
Average as a center 6 and four for the Celtics.
I mean, that's like 6 and 4 is like one of those, you know,
enforcers from the 90s who were just really there for six fouls.
Like, like Chris Dudley, you know, probably didn't average 6
points. But like Chris Dudley when he
was on the Knicks or one of those backup centers that gets,
you know, to spell like a Lajwan or Ewing or Robinson or Shaq,
whatever it might be. And they, you know, you, you
want them to use the six fouls and you know, they're going to
give you 3 1/2 rebounds, maybe a dunk or two.
And and they're going to foul out like that's that's pretty
much what Rusevic gave you. And, you know, listen, I mean
that forget, it's not about Rusevic.
The only thing that I would say, even though I understand why it
bothers you, like I do think two things can be true.
The way the series finished, the Celtics deserves deserved to get
hit, right? But if I would have told you
once when Tatum ruptured his Achilles last year, and if I
told you you're going to get to a Game 7 and he didn't know that
they flushed the 3-1 lead down the chute and you didn't know
about the boost. If it's trade and all the other
stuff, I, I think, I think at least I think that you should
because I probably would as well.
I think you would probably process it a little bit more
favorably. But when you win three of the
first four, I don't care what the circumstances are, you lose
the series. It's unacceptable.
And and I would be with you. I just think, man, and and this,
this is part of being I think a spoiled Celtics fan in this
respect. Even the seasons we've had in
recent years where the roster have you know, and this isn't an
unnecessarily a super recent year.
But I think back to the 2018 team.
No Kyrie, no Gordon Hayward, players injured across the
board, still made the Eastern Conference finals Game 7 versus
LeBron freaking James rookie year Tatum, second year Jaylen
Brown. And then I look at a season like
this where yes, you know, the expectations lacking Tatum
aren't as high, but you still had a damn good regular season.
And tell me, you know, even without Tatum, we and granted,
the Sixers might not have had a bead for these games, which is a
big factor. We definitely beat them in the
season series. There's no doubt about that in
my mind. And so yes, listen, listen,
listen. If you're coming through before
the season expectations, maybe you could say, OK, I feel a
little bit better about this, but I feel awful about this.
I don't feel great about this team going forward.
Other than Kata Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Prichard.
OK everyone else, let's go. I I think anytime I think,
especially in the NBAI think anytime that you anytime a year
expires without a championship and you have, you know, a an an
an all time player, which Tatum has become already.
You know, it's you're going to process that with some lament.
I I I also think that every situation is a little bit
different, Like I framed it all right, Tatum's out and but they
still gave you a good and I get it.
Nobody knows. No Celtic fan wants to hear
that. Now I'm just giving you my
outside looking. I I get it, it is relative,
understood emotionally. Like I'm not emotional.
I'm more pragmatic with the Celtics here because it's not my
team. But I also understand like
couple of years ago, if you would have told the Mets fan
when things were awful, Hey, by the way, not only will you make
in Mendoza's first year, not only will you make the playoffs
here, but you'll beat the Phillies and you'll get to the
NLCS. You'd be like, fuck, sign me up,
let's go. I am down.
But then when that final out is made against the Dodgers,
you're, you're in a different emotional state.
You allow yourself to get worked up.
And now you, even though you can appreciate the run, you can't
help but think, man, we even though the Dodgers smoked them,
man, we were one series away from the World Series.
So there's always that more bigger picture of the regret and
lament. Of like, we could have done
something, but here's here's where the good take away and
this is where my brother was kind of right.
Like this is where what I'd give him Tatum.
Tatum now doesn't have to play any more NBA games for the rest
of the season. He gets to fully rest.
He gets to go from 95% to truly 100% and we don't have to risk
any leg things for the rest of the season.
So that's something I'm very happy about.
And yeah, I mean, if you looked at that game seven or the rest
of the series, we weren't beating the Knicks.
We just weren't. It would have been another, and
not that last season was necessarily an embarrassment at
the hands of the Knicks, but this year would have been an
absolute. Dog walk.
I wanted to play you guys there. I just thought it was a much
more favorable matchup. All right, real quick though,
before I get into the Knicks and the Sixers here, so one of the
questions and I want you to answer yes, You know, give me a
yes or no. Knicks Sixers does it go 7 yes
or no? No analysis.
No OK T Wolves Spurs, yes or no? No, no, I'm Cavs or Pistons.
Yes, that's the one that I said. Lakers Thunder.
No, we're on the same exact. Page.
Yeah, same page. I think Cavs, Pistons, I mean,
both of them just had great series.
I think they're in for another tough one.
I think they just kind of match up in that similar way.
And then I think the Thunder are going to rock the Lakers.
Me too, I think. I think the Spurs and
Timberwolves will be a good series with good games where the
Spurs come out on top in six in 5 or 6.
But maybe. But they're not.
But they're not winning by 15 every night, no like meaning the
T Wolves might not win many games, but the the games are
competitive. For.
Sure, for sure. I think I agree with that.
And then I think, well, that was it, right?
Oh, Nick Sixers. Nick Sixers.
Yeah, Nick's got him in 5 or 6. Well, listen, This is why I feel
really good about the Knicks. Now.
First of all, as much as I wanted to play the the Celtics
here, J Rod will start getting those Nick calls up there.
I'm sure some people want to jump in.
If you want to chime in with John Sterling, you guys can come
in with that. So J Rod will get that back up
in the chat about how to call the show and, and all that other
stuff. All right, let me get up on the
one screen there, Jay. Let me get some Nick stuff for
you. Thank you, buddy.
So Nicks are what, 7 1/2 point favorites tonight?
Celtics would have been an easier series for sure.
You know, I mean, a couple of things here.
The fact and I don't I'm not getting on Joel and bead for
doing this right, but the fact that he had to do this is
absolutely pathetic, right? And the big bad Philadelphia
sports fans, all the soul they're tough.
They're they're crazy boost Santa Claus.
You know, they're going to fight in the stands.
They're going to boom. Michael Irvin when he may have
been, God forbid, paralyzed on the old concrete turf at Veteran
Stadium. Those Philly fans are brutal.
They're tough. Didn't you know that?
Until it's time for the Knicks to take over the building, which
they will again. So, Joel, and be preemptively
and again, I respect and be doing this.
The problem is he shouldn't have to do this.
Can somebody explain to me how a vibrant sports fan like a town
like Philly, a vibrant sports town like Philadelphia is their
star player feels compelled to basically beg them to show up
and not let the Knicks fans take over again?
I mean, Gee, that that would never happen with a New York
Knick. I know I'm not going to sit here
and guarantee that the Knicks win the series.
I think I feel good about it. And my prediction is that they
will win. I do think the Knicks will win
in six. I don't think it gets 7.
And I'll give you some of the reasons as to why in a moment.
But like, I can't imagine in in in what alternate universe would
we be in if Josh Hart and Jalen Brunson were sitting up there?
You know, Jay Jalen's got the beanie on.
He's got the little Roman Reigns sweatshirt on.
Josh Hart eating his eating his candy, sitting there saying,
hey, listen, Knicks fans, we can't let this happen.
We can't let we can't let the Sixer fans take over the Garden
again. Never going to happen.
No matter what the, the ticket prices are insane.
No matter how exorbitant the, the prices are, it will be 95%
Knicks, maybe you know, 5% wealthy Sixer fans, resourceful
Sixer fans. Let's say there won't be a
single Sixer fan there. I mean it.
That's just the reality of of the world here.
But the, what the Knicks did to that building a couple of years
ago was such an embarrassment. Like, it's not you.
It's like you're rolled into, I don't know, I, I'm trying to
think of a small town, a smaller market.
You know, I was thinking Charlotte, I swear to God, but
Charlotte actually had a really good end to the season.
So I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm not trying to clown them, but let's say
like, it's not like when the Yankees go to play Tropicana at
the Dome, the Rays are obviously back there.
Last year they had to play Steinbrenner Field because of
the, the weather. But where the Dome was ripped
off, it's not like that. Or even Red Sox fans, many of
whom leave New England and go down to Florida to retire.
You know, spring training is a big deal for the Red Sox, big
deal for the Yankees. So when the Red Sox or the
Yankees play Tampa in Tampa, you know you're going to have 65%
Yankees or Red Sox fans and in some situations even more.
That's not that. Because the Rays, even though
they've been around for a while and even though they, you know,
they got to the World Series in O 8 and they're a very well run
franchise and they've had some really good players and they
build the team very well with limited resources.
Like they are a smart group of baseball minds.
The way they draft and develop and what they look for, knowing
when to get rid of a player based on the finances a year a
year early rather than a year late like so many of their stars
over the years. That's how they they have to
operate that way. Philly's been around forever.
I mean, this is the same franchise that in 83 was rolling
out Doctor J and Moses Malone and Andrew, Tony and Cunningham
and Old and then eventually Barkley.
You know, I mean, come on. Alvin Iverson And you allowed,
you didn't. Not only did you allow the Knick
fan to just come in and gain entry into the arena, and it's a
big arena. It's one of the bigger NBA
arenas in in the entire league. I think it's over 20,000, maybe
2021. It's definitely up there.
But not only did Knick fans come in, they made themselves at
home. They put their feet up on your
couch. The Knick fan slept in your bed.
They did whatever they wanted. They walked in their underwear
to the fridge in the middle of the night and they ate what you
were supposed to eat for lunch the next day.
They did whatever they wanted. And now and beads got to beg you
guys to show up. I mean, like, it's one thing,
honestly, it's one thing if Philadelphia fans didn't take
themselves so seriously, like, you know, God's gift to sport,
to sports fandom, you know, but the way they like the arrogance
and the, and not all of them, but, you know, I know it's a
stereotype, but whatever. Damn.
Sure, a lot of them. Yeah, I know, I know.
The arrogance and the energy and all the the way you guys carry
yourself and all the other stuff and the way you Boo home
players, the way you just get all over opposing players
throwing batteries at JD Drew years ago, right?
Remember that like, and you need Joel and Bead, who's pieced
together with glue and tape and nails and staples to go out
there and beg you guys to show up and you think that you're the
team that's going to send the Knicks home.
You're not going to be the team that sends the Knicks home.
Let's just be very upfront about that now.
Some of the circumstances really favor the Knicks.
All right, The fact that and and I I will grant you like and be
playing at a high level that that that's different.
Tyrese Maxi Josh Hart even said they're like, Hey, how would you
compare? I was I was I heard this
yesterday. How would you compare guarding
McCollum, which Josh Hart said I'm guarding him.
And then basically McCollum did nothing the rest of that series,
unlike the first couple of games where he was going off and Josh
Hart said that's mine and he slowed him down.
What's McCollum, you know, versus Maxi?
Like what what, what is what is that like?
He's like, well, you know, he's basically, I think he called him
Unk. He's like, yeah, you know, Unk.
He's you know, he's good, but he's not that quick.
He's like Maxi's like, you know, maybe they maybe he can slow
down a little bit for me. Like obviously Maxi's speed is
going to be a very. Very big issue for the Knicks
here, big issue. And it's going to be a team
effort. Like I'm under no illusions that
Josh Hart is shutting down Tyrese Maxi.
I mean, Maxi's going to average north of 25 points.
He might he's going to sniff 30 a couple of times.
He's just going to. But the because he's that good
and he's entering now the phase of being one of the absolute
best players in the NBA, Tyrese Maxi is the real deal.
All right. But unlike the previous series
where there was more time in between each game, it's not like
that in the Eastern Conference semis or any of them really.
So play tonight, then they play Wednesday, then they play
Friday, then they play Sunday, then they go Monday.
Obviously, if necessary, you play Thursday.
The only day where there's more than one day of rest will be
going into Game 7, which of course will be back at the
Garden. Game one and two at the Garden,
Game three and four in Philly Garden.
Philly Garden. So you know, again, as much as
I'm and I'm serious about like the the fans, how they're just
and your stars begging you to show up and and not let the
Knicks fans do with them, which they will.
Knicks fans will be there. And especially, especially if
the Knicks look really good in these first couple of games.
Like if the Knicks go up and I don't even know if they're going
to go up two O I'm not even going to say that I said Nixon 6
not saying it's going to be easy.
Philly will get a game or two, but if the Knicks jump out 2O,
you will have 12 to 13,000 Knick fans down the Turnpike for game
three. You will.
And then if they win game 3, and I, I know we're really pushing
this now, probably in the direction that's not even
realistic. But if the Knicks win the first
3, then there's going to be 85% Knick fans in the building and
Embiid's not going to get his wish.
Now, if Philly comes out and they flex early and they take
game one, which they could, I mean, I Knicks are favored
almost eight points for a reason.
I don't know if I'd lay that many points from a betting
perspective, but I think the Knicks win game one.
But if they don't, if they don't, I would fully expect a
revitalized Sixers team to come back and probably take Game 2.
Like I think Philly's going back to Philly with one win and if
that happens, well, maybe Joel gets his wish here and beads
going to get his wish, but see the ability for him to
regenerate from night to night that extra day of rest.
Now there's no travel. All right, They'll I would
imagine they'll I don't know if they'll bust out or take the
Acela. I don't know how they'll get
from Philly to the Garden, but it's not like they're hopping on
a flight, you know, 2-3 hours in the air on the tarmac, getting
in late. It's it's a much for both teams.
So it benefits both teams here. But the Knicks outside of
Mitchell Robinson, who who is somebody who always needs a
little bit more time and you always have to worry about Jalen
Brunson's ankle. Now that's, you know,
periodically been an issue all these years here.
And if, you know, he got hurt a little bit in this series and
then he was fine. But like, if he were, if he were
to tweak it, then he's got one less day, obviously.
But the Knicks are a much deeper team.
Like you look at the bench production, It's not even close.
You take the best player in this series to me when fully healthy.
Ironic, you know, when fully healthy, I'd probably say indeed
is is the best player in this series.
And then I would say Brunson. The way Cats been playing, I
want to say cat, but I still probably have to say maxi.
I would say of the four best players, 2 or Sixers 2 are
Knicks. But then the advantage really
swings in the direction of the Knicks, especially if OG is
going to bring the noise like OG brought the noise this past
series. So it's not arrogance.
I'm not overly confident. I do think the Knicks are
better. I think this is the best version
of the Knicks we've seen, even with the Cup when they beat the
Spurs, this is the best version of the Knicks that we've seen
all year. They are connected.
They are playing the right way. They they have a different
identity than they did early in the evening.
They didn't really know what they who they were or how they
wanted to play. They have smoothed that out.
They have made adjustments. They are healthy, they are deep
and they are confident. And the Sixers don't have as
many checks in that column. Nixon 6 All right there, J Rod,
Let's get to the phones here, buddy.
What do we got? We got our boy Benji, Upper East
Side for some. Names Upper Upper East Side.
Benji's up in the crib. What up, Benji?
How you doing today, buddy? You excited?
Yeah, what's up BT? Obviously really sad news about
Sterling when I when I was out, when I'm out in the Hamptons,
That's a really an indelible memory is is driving around the
city of Sterling like that's something that has been through
basically through my from my childhood on to now.
So rest in peace, icon legend, but I'm going.
To and by the way, Ben, Ben, I used to do the thing you
mentioned, the Hamptons, I used to do the same thing.
I played a lot of baseball during the summers in college,
so I couldn't go to the Hamptons for for months at a time.
But a lot of my buddies, they had a couple years like in the
Hampton Bays and like I would play my games.
Then I would just shoot out and I would, I would do the same
thing. I would listen to John Sterling
as you hit that traffic getting ready and it would take, you
know, you'd be flying on the highway if you write, if you
left at the right time and then going through the towns, you'd
be crawling. And I'd have John on just the
ultimate companion. Incredibly entertaining, always
reliable, always happy, always wacky, The best.
Going to really miss him. Very cool, you know, totally
cool. And then always in the Hamptons
with the, with the, with the the static, with the, the the call
going in and out of focus. So we.
Didn't have apps back then, so you had to live with the static.
You're right. Right, exactly.
So obviously I'm in the seats again tonight, Game 121 on the
last 143. You know who I'm taking?
You don't even need. To take a wifey.
That's correct, and let's see how there's no Wednesday without
Without tonight. But as far as the series, series
goes, as Clyde says, all the time, fatigue should be a
factor. So that's what's going to be the
key here on our end. In addition to being incredibly
much deeper than the Sixers, who's had, by the way, three
bench points in game seven against the Celtics, even though
it's it's tremendous, tremendous work by them winning on the road
in Game 7, but they just don't have enough.
I've talked about it before with Grimes.
I think he's garbage. They don't have anything to
offer. We have a lot deeper bench, a
lot more optionality. And one thing about him beat
here you touched on a little bit.
He's obviously a phenomenal player, especially when he's
fully healthy. He's not the same.
He shot 3 for 20 from three in the Celtic series.
He's got no legs, that's why he can't elevate.
Yeah, I mean, the thing with Embiid that gets me beyond,
beyond the basketball and why I'm going to be an absolute
raving lunatic tonight in my seats, as I would be anyway.
Brad will be just so lit up is is because.
Embiid. Is honestly you can get into
this. I'm curious your thoughts he's
he might be one of the top five most unlikable athletes in all
sports. One of the top five most
unlikable athletes. Yes, that's correct.
He's never you're never hearing anybody say oh and beads a great
guy. You've never once heard that,
but from anybody or anything, you know.
And on the flip side? Give it hold on bench.
Hold on, hold on, hold on. Maybe we're also, you know, on
the national level. I guess you don't hear that too
much, but you also don't hear to the contrary like and beads a
Dick or and beads a bad guy. So you know, I don't I would not
agree with that assertion. I don't Now he's villainous in
this rivalry when he pulled down bitch and bitch his foot.
I guarantee at some point this series, whether it's Alvarado
trying to get through a screen is going to be up and M beads
grill like there's going to be a couple of moments where things
flare a little bit. Hopefully no punches.
We don't want to see any suspensions and then bead.
I would imagine we'll be right in the middle of it.
Hell, it might be Mitch Robinson, by the way, but I, I,
I think that he is one of these really good guys who kind of
likes the villainous backdrop to how he's talked about.
I don't, I don't know. I think that's unfair, but
that's your opinion. I respect it.
I just don't agree with what you said about top five villains,
no. That's that's totally fair
because just maybe, maybe I'm being hyperbolic there.
And as far as the series goes as well, one thing obviously, I'm
most, I would say my biggest worry is the cat potential foul
trouble. So when we start this game, I'm
focused on that because we know Embiid's going to be flopping
around his arms and Cat can't control his body.
We've talked about it before. So if we get one of these ticky
tack fouls early on and then there's a second play where they
go right back to him, that's when my heart's going to start
to palpitate. So I think OG we got let's get
OG on, on Embiid. He does.
He always does. Let's shut him down.
We're a lot better team and let's go 2O back to Philly.
Like you said, take over the building and and end this thing.
Love it. So appreciate, love the show
man. Awesome.
Thank you, Ben. You have a great time tonight
going to the garden. That is absolutely awesome.
Yeah. I mean, I again, he's got some
villainous characteristics. I don't look at him as one of
those like. Yeah.
Trust me, I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more.
I mean, I think Embiid, I think
his play style and also just his his kind of like that's what I
mean, his goofy, not nonchalant, but it's almost like this don't
care attitude when like your dude who's injured all the
freaking time and all this. I despise this man.
But listen, I've got other. All right.
I mean, unfortunately, you know, you're given the body that
you're given. You know, Tiki would always say
the guys that got hurt a lot, they were bad cell guys, bad
cell. You just have bad cells.
You can look like Zeus, not nothing and B does, but you've
got a lot of athletes who like look at Mike Trout.
I mean, Mike Trout looks like a halfback man or or a linebacker.
And he's had a throwback renaissance season, which is
great to see. But I mean, Mike Trout has been
just his his career has been destroyed even though he's
already a Hall of Famer, but, you know, destroyed by injuries
or at least very sidetracked and curtailed his production.
Otherwise he might he literally might be one of the top three
players of all time. And I don't think that that's
hyperbolic when you look at what he did with all the MVPS and a
bunch of number twos. And he used to run early on
playing center field like he was early on.
I think this generation is Willie Mays.
You hear stories about Willie Mays, you know, I'm sorry, Mike
Trout in his absolute prime. I, I, I don't know how anybody
can say that Willie Mays was absolutely better.
You can say that you think he was better or it was close, but
to say that like, it's almost like, oh, Trout couldn't shine
Willie Mays's shoes. I, I, I would push back on that
early Mike Trout. The point is, is that Trout got
hurt a lot and it's not because he wasn't jacked or keeping
himself in shape. Same with Stanton.
You know, sometimes you just get these bodies now, sometimes you
get hit by a pitch, you break a bone.
But we're in Stanton's case, it's more soft, soft tissue, you
know, literally pulling calves and quads and and groins and
stuff like that. I think in the case in beat and
just think about the way he started his career by missing
the first couple of the seasons. You're that big, the especially
when you look at the hands and the and the feet with the amount
of bones in, in each hand and each foot, there's more bones
there than any part of the body. And there's a lot of things that
go wrong. And when they grow at that rate,
I mean, and when you like, yeah, he's 72, whatever he is, and he
weighs 300 lbs. And the times he's weighed more,
you know, that that's that's a lot of taxing on the body there
and the joints and things go. So I don't I don't look at his
injuries as a I'm not even saying that you did this, Jay.
You just hate him. And I get it.
You hate him. But just because you hurt a lot
doesn't mean you're a villain. And just because you're getting,
you know, a little bit of a shoving match here and there or
people don't think that you take the game as seriously as maybe
some others do, that doesn't make you villainous.
Now, when he pulled down Mitch that that was a villainous move
there. So in the sense of this rivalry,
he is the number one villain. But I just didn't think that
that was fair by Benji. You say that he's top five
villains in sports. No, you think about like, think
about how you felt about Dennis Rodman all those years, right?
Think about that. Like, that's that's a villain.
And some people love Rodman too. But this is from Neil White.
I don't like homers. Nick's homers are some of the
worst. I remember a random guy on the
train back in the 2000 saying we're going to get Weber.
I was like, what? What are you smoking?
Well, now you don't have to ask what somebody smoke and just go
outside and you can just tell what everybody's smoking in New
York City. Back then, you had to conceal
it. Yeah.
I mean, listen, I I I will say, and I'm allowed to say this
because I'm one of them. If I wasn't such a devout Nick
fan, I'd probably hate the Knick fans.
I really, I really would. I mean, they win a plan.
I get it, have fun, and these viewing parties are cool.
But like, I remember a couple of years ago was it when RJ Barrett
hit that crazy three off the window against Boston?
Maybe that was. It I was there for that shot.
Were you there? It was that.
That's one of the best sports moments I've ever seen live.
That was crazy. Yeah, no, that I was watching on
TVI wasn't there live. But you know, and then after
like they had the the videos and the cameras on the Knick fan and
the Knick fans were going nuts. You know, Knicks for clicks.
Like, you know, you put something out there on social
media about the Knicks and it's going to get a lot more traction
than Philly or the Celtics or pretty much everybody maybe
outside of the Lakers. I mean, it's just got crazy run
and crazy reach because Knicks fans are awesome, but they're
but they're crazy and they're they're and and it's and I love
crazy, but sometimes crazy becomes unrealistic.
But you also have to understand, you know, when that person was
saying C Webb is going to come to the Knicks, think about the
run that those Knicks fans were on.
Don Cheney, Lenny Wilkins, you know, Marbury, Eddie Curry,
Jerome James. Yeah.
I mean, year after year 20, three wins, 28 wins, sub thirty
wins, never been bad enough to get the 1st overall pick.
And they never got lucky with the lottery.
Like they would always draft like 8th or 9th and just take
some scrub. That just what I mean.
So give us a little freedom here, man.
We we we've had a long run Now. I don't know if I was younger,
if I'm in my 20s, would I be at that watch party?
I don't know. I mean, if I wasn't doing what
I'm doing for a living, maybe, I mean, maybe because I've done
stuff like that when I was younger, you couldn't pay me to
be a part of that. Now.
Not, not at this age, not with the responsibility that I have
in terms of getting up and doing a show.
And I'd rather go and, you know, coach my my kids and, and then
come home and watch the game. But that's what happens as you
get a little bit older. I'm sure if I was 20 something,
I'd be, I'd be all looped up and all juiced up and I'd be in the
middle of all the craziness. So I'm not taking shots at the I
am, but I have to keep it real. Like, you know, a non Knick fan
probably looks at the Knick fans like these.
I can't stand these people. You know, it is what tough is
what it is. Who do we have now there, Jay?
What's? Up we got the boy, Steph.
Let's get it. Hey man, I just want to say Rep
John Sterling. Having grown up in New York as a
kid I with occasionally listening on the Yankee radio.
When I was around 7-8 years old I became a Met fan at 9:00.
Why Why'd you call a Mets? Fan that was a school thing.
A school I went to in the Hillcrest District in Queens
would go to a Met game every one Met game every spring.
Gotcha. Gotcha.
All right, Keep going. Yeah.
There were times when I listen in and every time I hear the
whole ball game over the Yankees win, the Yankees win thing, I'd
always crack up. And then when I started doing
game calls here on YouTube back in 22, on the occasions I get to
call Yankee games, I'm very shoestring with how I approach
game calls. Pick up whatever I can get,
heavily improv. So when I do Yankee games and
they win, I basically do the same as kind of like shout out
to John. It's kind of sad that he's gone
now. It's very sad.
Can can we hear a shout out? Good.
Let's hear what you got. Ball game over.
The Yankees win. The Yankees win.
Yeah, a little high, a little high pitch there.
John is a little bit more. Is it baritone?
You would know that Jay is as a musician, not bad.
And boy, you launched into that immediately, like you were just
you. You couldn't wait for me to ask.
I don't have to convince you at all, but my last syllable you
were already singing. Not a boy, Seth.
You're an entertainer, just like John.
As for the Knicks series, one thing we need to do is
neutralize and beat. I mean, Maxi, I can live with
going on. It's with The Dirty play that
frustrates me. We I want blood for what he did
to Mitch a couple of years ago. Yeah, I know, but you got to.
It's a delicate dance, man. You can't get wrapped up in
that. Number one did just it's not the
90s like Oakley could go hunting on somebody with a hard screen
and just throw an elbow at somebody's face.
Not getting, not getting thrown out.
Yeah, but yanking someone in their ankles?
I know. I mean, that should be, that
should have been flagrant in that game and and beat should
have been suspended for the rest of.
The season, Seth, I'm not saying that.
I'm not saying I disagree, but the the ability to get payback,
it's just really not there. You want to even if you do it
late and like a lot of people say, well wait till you win the
game and then you can maybe do something right.
You hear this a lot in baseball. And thanks for the call there
Seth. I appreciate it.
Enjoy the series. Thank you.
Like you hear this a lot in baseball. 1 of you guys gets hit
and you know, my mentality is like just if you think it's
intentional, just hit somebody. Like just going go take somebody
out. Not in the head below the neck,
hit him in the back, hit him in the ribs, hit him in the ass.
But drill them like I've always said that and a lot of people,
I'm guessing they're a lot younger.
I'll get this. Oh, I'd rather win the game.
My mentality is do both, dude, do both.
You know? Like, I get it.
If it's 43 and it's the 8th inning of the American League
Championship Series, then you play in Toronto and Judge gets
hit the prior inning. I don't know that you have to
whack Vladdy with two on, of course, but this notion that you
can't juggle both, to me is ridiculous.
The difference, though, in the NBA is that, you know, even if
the Knicks are up a game, you don't want to mess around and
bite. You definitely want to throw a
punch because then you're out the next game.
And even if you're up in the series and that's in check, you
know, if something happens, Sixers, I'm saying if the Knicks
are up in the series and it's pretty much over, well, no
impact on the Sixers. This season's going to end
anyway. And then, you know, if
somebody's involved with that, then you got a problem.
I listen, I could you, you know, you just know who could
potentially be involved. And it's a very short list.
Jalen Brunson will not be involved in any of this.
OG on an Obi will not be involved in any of this.
Like he'll he'll insert himself to break up and he'll step up
and have somebody's back, but not like in an aggressive all
right, we got massive problems kind of way.
So Jalen's not doing it. OG is not doing it.
There's no way bridges doing it. I don't think cat will do it.
I think the real the two people that you got to really worry
about and put quotes around the worry because some of you want
to see this would be Alvarado and obviously Mitch Robinson.
Those are the two to me. You know, if Shaman gets some
run, maybe he's tied up with somebody, maybe even Josh Hart,
like Josh Will. I think Josh is just too smart.
He, he seems to have this acute awareness of what the limit is
like. He really he straddles that line
of emotion and you know what, what's a step too much about as
well as anybody that plays with that level of emotion.
So I don't even worry about that with Josh Hart.
All right, BTI appreciate everything.
Who's this from Ryan Courtright 1828.
They're very nice. Thank you, Ryan.
I appreciate that, bud. BT appreciate everything you do,
brother. Go Knicks, go Yanks.
I want to hear your X factors for the Knicks Sixers series and
how can the Knicks exploit the sixer deficiencies?
All right now #1 I think the, and I said this a little bit, I
don't know when you tuned in here, but if I think of like
when I look at X factors here, I think if the Knicks and they,
they were having a real rough time doing this for most of the
season. Like how many first quarters did
we watch and the Knicks were down?
3718 I'm like, what this, how am I going to take this team
seriously? So what about during the regular
season? 31193920 Like if you watch the
Knicks on a nightly basis, you remember that being a consistent
theme, especially when. When they were at their lowest
point, they didn't start well. Now, if the Knicks could have
greats, not even great starts, good starts, solid starts, and
even if they're down one or two, I just mean not not getting
choked out early, you know, Well, now what happens is you
get to that 3-4 minute mark in the first quarter, here comes
some Subs. Phillies going to have to do the
same thing. And that's a stark advantage,
Knicks. Now, if you're down big, the
ability to carve into the lead is is is sure is there because
the Knicks would still have a personal advantage at that point
with their Subs versus Philly Subs.
But if it's too big, it's going to be mitigated.
Ideally, you have a couple of point lead, you hand it to the
Subs and then they stretch it. You know, maybe it's 3 or 4,
five points at, you know, at the four minute mark, here come a
couple of Subs. Now it balloons to 9/10/11 and
now you're playing downhill the rest of the night.
To me, that's the biggest advantage.
It really is number one, I think that the four best players on
this team, clearly 2 on each team, like that's one thing.
I would do this with tiki a lot, right?
We'd get into maybe the NBA Finals or conference finals.
We really didn't have to do it with the Knicks back then.
We were doing it on the national scene, right?
And I came up and I've had this for a long time, this, this
foolproof. Generally, if I'm not, maybe
it's not perfect, but generally foolproof method.
I would, you know, really take the 10 sometimes.
I wouldn't do all 10, seven or eight players right in a given
series. And I would write down in order
who I perceive to be the best players in order within the
series, encompassing both teams. And obviously from there, if
I've got like 5 to 2. And I would only do this on a
matchup that I wasn't really sure about.
And I feel pretty good about the Knicks winning the series and
six. So I'll do it as an exercise in
a moment, but it would generally be a bit of a compass for me.
Like if it was like a team X best player, team Y best player,
then it's team X, then it's team Y, meaning both teams have the
two and two or three and one. That's different now, unless the
bench is incredibly better for the team that has won, I just
couldn't. I couldn't get my mind around
the inferior team winning. I just couldn't right, and I
would do that for betting. I would do that in terms of
giving you perspective on who I thought would win the series.
Now it's a little different here because assume health the best
player in this series. I mean, I said I said in B
before, but I'm you know, I'm still going to go Brunson.
It's close, man. I could go and B and I could I'm
going to go Brunson one. I'm going to go and B2 I'm going
to go maxi 3. I'm going to go cat 4.
Now, obviously cats elevated play the way they run the
offense through him, his assertiveness like aggressive
cat. We like aggressive cat.
We we love aggressive cat. So hopefully aggressive cat does
not disappear. I don't think he will.
I think this is who he's becoming, right?
He's figured things out, figured things out with this team,
figure things out in the city. So and you could shake this
order up any way you want, But the point is 2 and two Brunson
and B maxi cat. Well, now you start getting to
all right. Who do I think is the next best
player? I would say OG, certainly based
on the way he's played last game.
And I would probably go, I would probably go Josh Hart.
I just want to see one thing. I want to make sure I'm not
missing anybody. Hold on, Josh Hart.
Let me go back to that. Hang on a second.
Boom. Let's see here.
All right, you know, obviously Paul George is I got to I'm
going to just put his name on the side here, Ubre whatever and
bead Edgecomb is talented, but he's not there yet.
I think the Knicks will be able to get up in him.
He's he's young and he's he's going to be a monster, but he's
not ready yet. I don't think to deliver the
kind of consistent night to night performance to win, to
have that kind of influence again, the the bench is awful.
It's about Drummond, Edwards, Barlow.
I mean, talk about Grimes. We brought him up before.
So even if I was to say Paul George after cat, which I I I'm
not going to say, I'm going to say OG.
But even if I said Paul George, then I would go OG, then I would
go heart and then, you know, bridges, I still can't go
bridges, but you know, maybe Mitch and then maybe bridges
like that. It's just Nick, Nick, Nick,
Nick. And that's one of the big
inherent advantages. So I mean, from a term, from a
strategy, from an execution, from a, you know, a pressure
points or or just, you know, things that will determine
whether or not the Knicks win or a matchup driven thing.
It's going to come down to this. I mean, Jalen Brunson is going
to have to play really, really well.
It's going to be a star, and so is Embiid, obviously, and so is
Maxi cats going to he can't afford any real dip.
And I don't think that you may be one game because then B it's
big and strong and good, but I think cats going to play well.
And then after that, like I fully expect OG out and Obi to
bang threes from the corner to get a lot of dunks, to be a
nuisance on defense. And then you even throw in, I
didn't even mention Alvarado, Josh Hart's going to do his
thing, finish in rebounding. Like I just think the Knicks are
better. I do now, to be fair to Philly,
the this version of the Knicks is their best version, as as I
said before, but this version of Philly is also their best
version that we've seen. So Jay, you, you heard my very
inexact, although it's worked a lot, you know, mathematical
computation. You know who I want you to list
in order. Hold on 12345.
We'll go up to 106789 in order. We'll do it quick.
The best players in the series #1 for you, Brunson.
I've got a hot take that I want to expand on a little bit in a
bit all. Right.
Go back to Brunson one. Brunson 1, Maxi 2.
Interesting. That's my big I got you.
Thing I'm going to go and bead 3 Yep, cat 4 Yep OG 5.
OK, Paul, George. It's tough.
It's tough because both of them are like the same guy to me at
this point. I'm I'm taking bridges over Paul
George. You're taking bridges over
George. Woof.
OK, I don't know. I just.
Believe, I believe I got you. And Paul George, he's played OK,
that last game seven, he didn't play.
Great, I got you. He had a great shot on.
Sam, I got you OG Bridges, George, and now we're up to
seven. Now you got to go into the
Knicks Subs, right? You got to go, Mitch.
Probably Mitch. Yeah, I'd go Mitch and wait,
who's another one of Nick's Subs?
No, Deuce. I'd go Deuce.
I'll do that, dude. Yeah, yeah, Deuce.
Absolutely. Good call.
Deuce over Alvarado. And then who's like the six or
six man? Oh, Kelly Ubre.
I put Kelly. Ubre.
I put Ubre over Deuce too, so I'd go Mitch.
Mitch Ubre Deuce. OK.
So either way, you've got one Nick, you've got 2 Nicks, you've
got 3456, you've got 6. I forgot Josh Hart too.
Yeah, you did. Yeah, I had hard.
I was just, I was like, OK. I'm going to throw Josh Obery.
Yeah. Well, yeah.
And Mitch Robinson. All right, this is.
So now it gets complicated. So let me just run through the
whole. Top All right, Bronson maxi.
Hold on. I'm I'm writing it down.
Hold on, Bronson, Maxi. Indeed, Towns.
OG Bridges. Oh wait, OG bridges George.
OK, hard Robinson. What about Deuce?
I'm going to put it, wasn't that 10 though?
That was 10 though, right? No, Mitch would be 9 and then
deuce 10 ubre or deuce ubre. 10 Ubre 10.
OK, so OK, good enough. So you got you got Brunson, you
got Cat, you got OG, you got Bridges.
That's 4 if you got hard as five, you got six.
You got 6 Nicks and four Sixers. OK, but the difference is, and I
think that's fair. I don't think it should
necessarily be 7 Nicks, although I mean, Deuce does have the
ability to impact games more than Ubrey.
Like Ubrey's not dropping 20 something.
I wouldn't surprise me if Deuce has a game where he's, you know,
4 for five from downtown, 19 points plus minus, you know, 17
good defender. And I respect Ubrey, but there's
no way you can rationalize putting 7 Sixers with three
Nicks. No chance.
Hell no you. Could possibly do 7 Nicks and
three Sixers. Probably the best way would be 6
and 4 favoring the Knicks so I agree with you, but then the
difference would be once you get past the top 4.
Oh my gosh VJ Edgecomb 2 this is sorry I like my list is terrible
my. List is.
Terrible. Yeah.
I forgot about Edgecomb. Too.
No, I know. That's what I mean.
Like like you have to throw him. It's honestly it might be 5 and
five. It really might.
Like you got to throw you got to throw Edgecomb at least over OG
and Bridges. You know what, hold on a SEC.
I'm, I'm, I'm going to do this right.
All right, you do it. Yeah.
And then we, I, I got to, we have to at least do this right.
Hey Jesus, we gave you 4 versions already.
Everyone all right? Yeah, Then my roommate commented
Dominic Barlow. All right, calm down.
The hell out of here. Calm down, buddy.
All right? Yeah.
Your roommate go take out the trash roomie.
Let's go with. All right, Brunson.
Let's go. I like Maxia, too.
Brunson, Maxi. And.
Bead cat. Hang on those 4IN whatever order
are irrefutable done. Now we get to me.
OG is absolutely #5. OK to me.
I'm with you there. OK, I'm going to go Edgecomb 6th
over. You had bridges much higher than
I thought. Yeah, I'm no.
And then I forgot about. Edgecomb, then I'm going to go
George. Now I'm going to go Bridges,
Mitch and deuce. So 8-9 and ten are Nicks and
then we've got so that's three, 4566 and four.
We get back to six and four. We just forgot about it there.
You go. I'm with you there.
I'm with you on that list. Jeez, complicating stuff.
Yeah, that was tough. Here's here's one of my
questions. Yes, Do you?
Think Tyrese Maxi will be remembered?
This is a tough question. Good.
Do you think when we look at the NBA 20 years down the line we
will go yo? I mean, this is how I look at
the league now. Who is the dude I feared the
most on the court when I played them?
Yep. Tyrese Maxey after Steph Curry.
Now Tyrese Maxey. Like will he be remembered in
that upper echelon of dude? These.
This was one of the guys of the 20 twenties.
I think really he must be. I I agree.
I mean, you got Shay, Gilgeous, Alexander, obviously you got to
put him up there a healthy Luca. You know, Lebron's getting old.
All respect to LeBron and all respect to Curry.
I'm kind of moving on from them, even though they're still still
both very viable. I'm going to go with Tatum when
healthy for sure. Jason Tatum's up there.
I I believe Kate Cunningham will be one of those players.
I'm just. Anthony Edwards, absolutely
great call. I love the soda.
Yeah, I'm with you. This is crazy.
I might put Tyrese Maxi not an overall player.
No. Anthony Edwards is better, Tatum
is better. All these guys are better.
Iris Maxi in terms of a clutch player who instills fear in you.
I I take nobody over him in the NBA right now.
Every game going into every game, I will, I'll be like, all
right, I hope he doesn't drop 40 tonight.
Like as good as him beat is, I'm not worried about that.
Yeah, it's different. Not that he can't do it, but I'm
just, I'm not thinking that, you know, Maxi, No, Maxi is
different. I'm with he's a modern, you
know. AI he's a, He's an AI
approximation like only. Bigger.
Yeah, only bigger. Only bigger and a better
three-point shooter and a better three-point shooter, better
passer. But.
It's different, so it's I agree. I agree.
All right, ma'am, just about wrap it up.
Wow, what a busy show about wrap it up here.
Did we miss anything, Jay? 3 burning 3 burning questions.
Great tribute to John Sterling. Rest in peace, John Nixon,
Sixers, the Volpi stuff, I think we're good.
I think we got it all, man. So appreciate you guys today.
Obviously like and subscribe and get it out there.
If you missed the Michael Kay interview from last week, it's
up there. Go find it.
Some other old content if you new to the channel, I had
Stephen A on. Stephen A was on with me for
about two hours. Really just talked about
everything, really not even that much about sports.
So if you guys haven't had that yet, go check that out.
All the shorts are up there. Everyday we started breaking
down. We do the live show Monday
through Friday, 10:00 AM till about noon, usually an hour, 45
minutes or two hours. And then what we do is we take
components of this and then we repackage it.
J Rod's going to get to work. He's doing a great job with
this. You know, 8-9 minute spots.
So later on it just go. If you missed the Sterling's or
you wanted to send it to a friend or you wanted to hear my
take on Volpe rather than going through the whole show, you'll
be able to see, hey, 6-7 minutes BT on Volpe, 8 minutes BT on
John Sterling, Nick Sixers and we do that every show moving
forward. So it's been good for the
channel. I know that you guys have
appreciated it. You've responded to it, and I
appreciate you guys for that. Thanks to Sullivan propane,
thanks to Premio sausage, another great start to the week
here. Like it, subscribe it, get it
out there. Follow me on X follow me on
Instagram. Really curious to see how the
Yankees honor John tonight. I'm going to make it a point to,
to listen to Susan's open Susan Walnut.
Of course, she's got to be crushed by this.
I, I texted her, I, I don't know if she got back and she doesn't
need to, but I, I did reach out to her, reach out to Michael Kay
as well. That's who we started with.
So just a sad day for the Yankees, a really sad day.
But I mean, when you're 87 and you have this, this lasting
legacy, it's, it should be celebrated.
It's a beautiful thing and we'll always love John.
So rest in peace, John. You will be eternally missed,
man. Salute.
So I'm out. Have a great rest of your
Monday. Catch you tomorrow at 10, Joe
Beningo. Well, Joe B, why did the Mets
have to win a couple this weekend?
Come on, get back on the skid there, Mets.
That's the Joe B that we want. Joe B will join me on Wednesday
and I will see you tomorrow morning at 10.
Peace.