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? Hear me?
This is on leash Are you listening?
Can you hear me? Hear me?
This is on leash. Are you listening?
What's going on everybody? BT unleashed back on this
Wednesday. Got a got a big Nick day for
you. Nick's just took the life out of
the Hawks immediately. Very, very impressive
performance. Ready to roll.
Got a little Cam little Yankee debut today for for Rodriguez.
Little something on Soto from last night that was interesting.
We got a lot to do. Obviously J Rod is in the house.
Hopefully everybody's doing well.
Obviously your calls as well. Today's show was always brought
to you by our friends at Sullivan Propane.
Of course. Find
sullivanonline@triallaw1.com. That's trial law1.com.
Remember the name Sullivan Propane and by Premium Sausage,
the way sausage should be. Find them at premiumfoods.com or
in your local grocery store. All right, by the way, a little
heads up tomorrow. Michael Cable joined the show.
Looking forward to that. So we get a chance to really
talk some some thorough Yankee baseball from Michael's point of
view, you know, whether it's Dominguez, whether it's Volpe's
imminent return. We'll get to Lombard today as
well. You know, he, he, he's playing
in the Bronx this year, man. So we'll, we'll get into that.
As I said, Rodriguez Yankees look really, really, really
good, really buttoned up. So I mean, last night was the
example. Last night was the definition of
coming out and just taking somebody's soul.
The aggression that the Knicks had was was awesome.
I mean, their focus, their continuity, their connectivity.
Not trying to sound like Clyde here, but they were just, they
weren't messing around like the Knicks gave the Hawks no oxygen
and and like there was just so many good things about this
game, Like if you could bottle this, and I know that you can't
play like this every single night, although I did tell you
the Knicks would whack them last night.
J Rod, if you put down a couple of the Bucks, I told you Knicks
might a 6 1/2 layup man lay them lay.
Them wood, lay them wood. I should have taken that.
I was too busy looking at some Celts pics and clearly none of
those worked out. So now we'll get.
Some Celtics and and this thing is this thing stretches out now
could be a big advantage for the Knicks.
Obviously both teams will play on Thursday.
If the Knicks could could wrap it up now.
Now the next game for Philly is in Philly and that's an
advantage for the Sixers. Next game for the Knicks is in
Atlanta. You know, advantage Hawks
obviously desperate. We'll see what kind of whistle
they get. But there is a chance and I
think it's I would say it's a good chance, but I think there's
at least a puncher's chance, a decent chance that the that the
Knicks, I believe the Knicks will wrap it up.
I told you the Hawks won't win the game the rest of the series.
I think it's over. And, and I did wind up settling
on, on my prediction, Nixon 6. But there's a chance now that
the Celtics have to play an extra game next, next, get the
chill. Knicks get to jump into the
advanced scouting a little bit earlier than the Celtic, even
though they they know what each team does.
But you can refine things a little bit here.
Last night, I mean it, there really wasn't a negative story
last night at all. First of all, they came out with
great purpose. They won every quarter.
You know, I didn't like they, the way they were finishing the
second quarter where the Hawks went on, I think it was like an
11 to two run. Gave him a little bit of life.
Like they're up by 1718. I think 18 was the highway.
I don't know if they did. They hit 20 in the first half.
I thought it was 18. And then Atlanta made a little
run, hit a couple of threes, whatever.
Knicks got a little cold, little a little sloppy.
But then they came right out and they let him know that the third
quarter was not going to be a third quarter like so many teams
in the NBA where you make a run and then the entire complexion
of the game changes. You just had to love it.
And last night it was it was Jalen Brunson's time to to
shine. I mean, I'm looking at Emma.
I'm not going to get that. I'm not going to just sit here
and RIP through stats, but or I'm not going to do that with
great frequency. But I think last night, I think
today's not a bad day to do it because top to bottom, it really
was absolutely an incredible team win.
I mean, even Mikhail Bridges drove the lane and threw down a
dunk. So you know, Brunson it's and
we've seen Brunson score a ton, especially in the post season.
He's at 40 point games. I saw last night he's got as
many 35 point plus games as Shay Gilge's Alexander now in the
playoffs. So we know what Brunson is that
the the issue with Brunson maybe at least a little bit this year.
And and we still love him, but he's still terrific.
But the efficiencies dipped a little bit.
Some of these games where he's been shot hunting at the I think
he's been a little bit too too ball dominant.
And I really think if you look at this series so far, the two
best Knick players have been without a doubt, it's been Cat
and it's been OG. But Brunson lastly, you scored
39 points and you shoot 15 for 33 and you only have one
turnover and eight assists. I mean, that's that's basically
all time stuff. Brunson was great.
Cat was to a Cat only took seven shots and he had what, 16
points, 14 rebounds, 6 assists. So you saw the like early on of
the game. You can tell that what the the
adjustments the Hawks made defensively, it took a couple of
possessions for the Knicks to figure out, but then they
figured things out very fast and and everybody was on .0.
Gee was great. Double, double plus 19 in terms
of a plus minus ratio, 10 rebounds, no turnovers for OG.
And I think, and it kind of gets lost in the wash a bit, but I
thought the minutes that Alvarado gave the Knicks in the
second quarter was that late 1st or at least either way,
certainly in the first half where he had a couple of drives,
couple of runners, couple of floaters high off the backboard,
like everything was clicking and the Knicks were very assertive
on the backboard. I thought Mitch played better,
one of his better games in the series.
Knicks plus 21 out rebounding. Atlanta only 11 turnovers for
the entire game. They shot 57%, which is
outstanding. And the aggression and again,
the connection and, and, and, and the purpose with, with
whether it's their, their cuts or their screens or their
passing. The Knicks, I don't want to go
nuts here. Like I don't want to not that
I've never been this guy, but I don't I don't want to be that
guy. Certainly I don't want to be a
flip flopper. And my point on the Knicks all
year has been I don't I don't I don't think they're going to win
the championship. You know, last night's, even
though it's the first round, even though it's the Hawks who
have been scrappy the first couple of games, But like,
you're supposed to dust the Hawks.
So I'm not going to go nuts and suddenly get on the air, start a
show and say Knicks are going to win the championship.
Knicks could win it, you know, But the more evidence that you
get, whether it was Game 4 where they really ran the offense
entirely through Cat. He basically looked like a like
Magic Johnson from the center spot or last night where where
Brunson figured some things out and he knew when to go and he
knew when to pull back and get the guys involved and the the
continue outstanding sustained play by OG and the bench play.
They just you know, last night, as much as this can happen in
the first round game for somebody in the first round
series and a first round game for somebody who not once this
entire season has said that I thought the Knicks we're going
to get to the finals. You know, I mean, I'm I'm I'm in
the early stages, not fully there yet, but I'm in the early
stages of beginning to, you know, reassess what this team,
what this team could do. Me guys understand this.
It's not like, you know, we had these middling expectations for
the Knicks coming in to the season.
We all thought, including Vegas, that the Knicks would be
certainly, you know, it's not the top team in the Eastern
Conference, one of the top two teams.
Now, part of that was based on the Knicks roster and and where
they've been the last couple of years.
They played a lot of big games together.
But and we know this, a lot of that was also derived from the
fact that the complexion like just the general state of the
Eastern Conference was very different based on the injuries.
Tatum, he's back and we'll get to the Celtics in the middle.
Give J Rod a chance to RIP. I know he's pissed and obviously
Halliburton and the Cavaliers, the more you watch the Cavs
play, the more you know that they're soft.
I mean, their bigs are soft. So I would expect, you know, the
the Cavaliers to really scuffle the rest of the way.
They'll they'll advance, I would think, but Cavaliers are good.
This is a two team race is A2 team race between the Knicks and
the Celtics to get to the NBA Finals represent the east.
I'm I'm not pushing the magic aside entirely because I've told
you and the Knicks don't match up great against the Orlando
Magic. They are they're a good team.
They're an ascending team. They're a tough team like they
they're tough like they're not They're not going to be a
pushover here for either one of these two teams.
The Celtics to the Knicks, but I'm feeling good.
I'm probably feeling about as good about the Knicks.
You know, I, I felt good about the Knicks when they won the
cup, even though I'm not a big cup guy.
You know, I've learned to embrace it.
I've learned to understand, you know what it means.
It's a little uptick in intensity.
It's a little uptick in theater. You know, it's a little uptick
in in, you know, I, I playing for something during the regular
season. I thought the Knicks responded
very well to that. And then they were starting to
bottom out after that. I'm like, well, did they, did
they exert themselves too much? Are they just not what we
thought that they would be? You know, the the one thing,
whether it's the Knicks or whether it's the Yankees or and
that this seems like a stretch, even though the Mets look good
last night. I'm not going to say this about
the Mets, but we have seen this in previous Mets seasons like
the ones even the Giants and dabbles first year.
I think we should know by now. And not to mention many other
teams across the, you know, the national landscape, it's not
always linear. I mean, I know we want the 1998
Yankees to show up and just beat the Torah out of everybody and
just whack everybody into oblivion and force teams to tap
out. I give up.
You know, Uncle Daddy, I quit. That's not the way it always
goes. There are adjustments.
There are evolutions and roles. There are mid season
acquisitions that change dynamics and you know, whether
it's an Alvarado, whether it's a Clarkson coming off the bench,
whether it's a different role for Kat, whether it's Brunson
beginning to internally reassess how he plays and then obviously
see that play out on the court. Like it it just doesn't have to
be all right. Opening night, Knicks going to
win 65 games. Knicks obliterate everybody.
Knicks get to the finals. Knicks win their first
championship since 73. You know, like it.
It would be nice if it was that way.
That would be fun. Kick back, put your feet up.
Now we're going to beat everybody by 15 points.
We're on cruise control. You know, two of the two or
three the best players in the entire NBA, which by the way,
they might have in in Brunson and Cat as a duo.
But the problem with that is that the duo hasn't always been
on the same page. So I know many of you have been
more optimistic and more bullish on the Knicks chances this year.
Good for you. Like, we're not there yet and
I'm not there yet. But there's more every like the
last couple of games and and not even the last couple of games
going back to the last month or so, there were some evidence.
Even though the Knicks were beating bad teams at the end of
the regular season and losing to the good ones, for the most
part, there was evidence that they were learning how to play
together and adapting to the different styles.
And I think the Knicks style has changed, and now that this style
is evolving and now that the efficiency is improving, really
from Brunson. Not that he was incredibly
inefficient this year, but you know what I mean?
Now he's starting to see a team with laser focus.
And that's why last night was really impressive.
Like how many times it is even with Tom Thibodeau.
It was a theme with this team where they come out, you know,
lackluster in the 1st. And I'm talking about average
teams, not just in the playoffs where first quarter Knicks are
losing by 13 or 14 points. And what's going on.
But we've learned by now that the modern NBA is not the old
NBA. And you can be down double
digits at the half, come out and outscore team 37 to 19 in the
third quarter because you go bonkers from downtown.
Like it's a different game. And because it's a different
game, it's got to be a different evaluation.
And I'm open minded to that. I'm all about new evaluations,
but I need some evidence to give me like to serve.
At least that for me is an impetus to evaluate things
differently. And I like what I see.
I really, really like what I see with these Knicks.
So you got to be fired up. Listen, if you can't enjoy
playoff wins, I don't care what round it is.
I don't care what you thought A-Team would be going into a
season or during various spurts of the season.
If you can't enjoy a playoff win, what in the world are we
doing? Like, what are we doing?
There's going to be enough time, you know, whether it's the next
game against the Hawks, which I don't think it will be.
But if it is, well, you know, now you got, I got a Game 7 and
there's a different energy and an urgency and a fear and all
those emotions are different. Like right now, I don't know
anybody. Even when they dropped behind in
the series, I don't know anybody that really thought the Knicks
were going to lose the series. I mean, I eviscerated them after
that performance in Game 2 and in Atlanta subsequently in game
three. But I never once wavered on my
thought that the Knicks would be would be able to to recalibrate
and re establish their dominance in the series.
So listen, there's a lot of emote this, this is the beauty
of a playoffs in any sport, right?
You know, whether it's the Yankees, whether it's the
football's different because if you have a bad game, get done, I
mean, even hockey for sure, you know, you could have one game
where you just can't put the puck in the net and you're
asking a goalie to make 38 saves and flip it on his back all
night. And then the next night you get
a short handed goalie, get power, play goal, you win 41.
Like there's just a lot of a lot of everything.
So I, I do think that at this point, most Knick fans are on
the same page. You, you enjoyed last night, you
enjoyed the prior game. You recognize that some of you
have never wavered in your support for Karl Anthony Towns,
right? That's not me.
You. We all know that.
OK, now I've adjusted based on how he's playing lately.
You know my criticisms of, of him as a Knick so far, right?
But now it's like, all right, let's get Game 6.
And now you don't, you start to do that delicate dance of handle
business in Game 6. Hope to hell that the
Philadelphia fans are out of their minds and they win Game 6
and they got to fight it out in Game 7 and get through.
You never know, Like if the Knicks and the Hawks get to a
game seven, CJ McCollum, who was invisible last night, you know,
could drop 27 points and not miss a shot and we could have
problems. I don't anticipate that.
But it could happen just like it could happen to the Celtics.
So it's it's good. This is a good day.
Last night was fun. The Garden was on fire and the
Garden was on fire #1 Knicks were making shots.
But really, even more than that, the Knicks played with an
unrelenting tenacity. I mean, it was 1 and done.
Hawks miss a shot, bang, rebound.
Let's go get it up the court. Love what I saw last night, J
Rod Unlike who's got some critiques and some gripes of his
own about a Celtic there. No, I mean, just an absolutely
First off, great win by the Knicks.
I mean, you saw it coming you after they kind of figured
figured the Hawks out a little bit in that game.
What was it? Game five, game four-game
four-game 4. You had to expect they'd come
out Game 5, figure out a little. I mean, I guess you could say
maybe they went to cat a little less than maybe you were pushing
yesterday, yes, but. Jay by the way, Jay by the by
the way, there's a reason for that.
It's all about adjustments in the NBA.
You can see the way they were pressing up on that.
They they tried to initiate the offense.
There were a couple times he was just like behind the three-point
strike and he was popping the ball and he was looking for guys
cutting. But give the no listen, Babe,
Quinn Snyder's good coach. They made the necessary
adjustments and then all for that the Knicks made their
adjustments, but they tried to funnel it through Cat.
They just had to go to the next subset, which work now.
Keep going. I didn't mean to interrupt you.
Keep going. You're good, you're good.
But I guess my thought now is yeah, I don't know.
Celtics are looking brutal, dude.
Fear granted, listen, I'm I'm a real I'm a Celtics fan, but I'm
a realistic fan. I I had the Knicks over them
before these playoffs start. Then once Knicks fell down to
one I was like, all right, Celtics are looking good.
We're up three, one last night just kind of took the soul out
of me because here's here's where I'm really concerned.
All right, First two games we played in the series, no Joel
Embiid. We're looking good.
We're beating him. He comes back that first game or
sorry, first three games. Do they play with that one?
He comes back that first game. Last game, he has an OK game,
but we still smack them. Last night, it's really Joel
Embiid, his first game in his full form, 33 points, 11
rebounds, destroys the Celtics. And here's what has me
concerned. I think we'll still win in six,
but take us to the next round versus a center who right now is
obviously more healthier than MBD.
You know, obviously can put more minutes into a game than MBD,
give you buckets down low, give you buckets up high.
It's got me worried. It's.
Got me. OK, OK, that's a good assessment
of where the Celtics are and and what it might mean for the
Knicks Celtics next round. Let me ask you this.
So the emotions that the Knicks fans are unpacking right now,
they're all positive right now. Are you more angry or are you
more worried or or are you more disappointed?
Disappoint, I think it's I think it's a, a, a word.
It's not angry. It's more of a worry and a
disappointment because it's a lot of disappointment into the
Celtics role players. I mean, Prichard was the only
player other than Tatum or Jaylen Brown to score over 10
last night. When that happens, that's crazy.
You're not you're not going to win a game.
And the sadder thing about that is I think that is something
that can happen on multiple nights.
Like that's not, it's not an absolute anomaly for some
Celtics players to score for most of the Celtics roster to
score under 10. I mean, Vucevic, he could not
hit his shots. He could get absolutely clamped
in the paint. Hauser They're just too reliant
on the three-point shot and I have too many players who are
inconsistent with that 3 point. Shot where it's.
Like you're, you're banking on too much so.
I'm worried. I'm a little worried, a little
fear for the Celtic fan. I don't mind that.
Paul the Paul Bigelow 4468 Nixon 6.
All right, appreciate that you listen.
I mean, you gotta love that. How about this gangrene?
David Dash PD7 OI appreciate both of those super chats.
Thank you. Boys went to the game last
night. Place was electric.
Yeah, place was popping. Man might, might, might bite the
bullet and go to the next round as well.
I, I saw something on and I'm not trying to take a shot at the
Mets because you could get, you know, last second Yankee tickets
cheap as well on the secondary market.
There was some, some somebody tweeted last night or yesterday
that you can buy 80 met tickets for the same price of one Nick
tick. Now that's not really fair
because Nick playoff tickets are always up the ass.
I mean, it's, it's ridiculous to to be able to afford going to,
let alone one. But multiple games here, as many
people do I, I get that. But that that was pretty wild
when I saw that. I don't understand this Phook
your couch BT alright. Should have kept your original
prediction of a dominant win by the Knicks.
I didn't see it, but props to you.
What did you see that made you think like that?
So I'm confused. You should have kept your
original prediction of a dominant win by the Knicks.
I did. I never once wavered from.
I had a couple of tweets during the game where I'm like, you
know, suck the soul out of them. Keep your foot on the gas.
I never deviated from that. Now I don't know if you're
talking about my my opinion of my my take going into the series
where I initially said on that Monday before the Saturday game
one, I said Nixon 5. And then I Tuesday or Wednesday,
I amended that before the series started and I said Nixon 6,
which is what's going to happen. So I'm a little confused that by
that. What it so it's it's a little
bit of a conflicting message there.
What did I see that made me think like that?
If you're talking about why did I think the Knicks would whack
them last night #1 the Knicks are just better #2 you know,
the, the point spread, which I don't, I mean, listen, I always
follow that stuff for sure. I don't, I don't base opinions
based on the point spread, but I will certainly, you know, when I
throw down a couple of the Bucks, I'm going to, I'm going
to look at trends and I'm going to look at that for sure.
I, I, I love that stuff and I've, I've been in, in that
stuff, you know, I, I've looked at the numbers in the, the
gambling aspect forever. That's a big part of what I do.
I don't talk about it a lot during the show, but we will a
lot more during football season. We do a lot of futures and props
and stuff like that for sure. I just, I know the Knicks are
better and I just like stylistically the, the
adjustments that they've made. They, you know, and they said it
last night too. I think it was Reggie, right,
right before they were tipping up the ball.
They were like, you know, hey, this is the regular seasons for
them is exactly what he said. The regular seasons for the
players and the and the playoffs really for the coaches where
they distinguish themselves game to game night tonight, whatever.
And, and within the game, not just like from Game 2 to game
three or Game 5 to Game 6, but you know, the first quarter in
midway through the second quarter, you see different
things. They get you on your heels a
little bit. All right, Hey, we, we thought
that they might do this now based on that expectation, we're
about to do this. And then the onus is on, say,
Quinn Snyder or, you know, whomever you're playing to make
an adjustment to the adjustment that you just made to their
adjustment, if that made sense, which I think it did.
All right. Yeah.
By the way, Michael K tomorrow, if you guys just tuned in, a lot
of Yankees. I'll get to Schlittler here.
I'm going to get some other stuff.
But just just just fun. Just fun, energizing, fun.
Builds confidence. You know, Mike, it's funny to
Mike Tirico. So Mike Tirico's from Queens,
right? But I, I don't look at Mike
Tirico as a Queens guy. I, I don't know what maybe
because he's done so much national stuff and, and it's not
a shot of Mike. I think Mike's great.
You know, I think he's very likable.
I think he's very good mechanically on the air.
I bumped in, I remember bumping into a few times over the years
when I was with ESPN. Good guy, personable, affable,
good dude and and very talented, highest level broadcaster you
could be. But he is from Queens and he was
talking about it last night. Like when I think about like I
think Mike Breen, I think, you know, playing I think Mike was
at Stefanak, right? Mike played in the in the
Catholic League. Like I don't know, Mike and then
he started up at Maris calling games before, you know, and then
he was on I miss like to me, Mike Breen.
I just think Mike. I think the local guy, you know,
I think they're I think Gary Cohen.
You know, Gary Cohen grew up a Mets fan, obviously Michael K
for the Bronx Yankee fan. That's different because though,
even though Gary does some other stuff and Michael does some
national games in the playoffs there, you know, when the
Yankees games are are subbed out to the other to the other
outlets. But Mike did say something last
night and and I really never thought about it in these terms,
even though I'm very well aware of it, painfully aware of it.
So when the Rangers won the Stanley Cup in in 1994, you
know, it was always about exorcising, exorcising the
demons of, you know, 1940 like forever, You know, almost 55
years without a championship. And when you think about it in
the context of where the Knicks have been, when you look up at
the batters in the last championship batter, you see a
73. That's when Pearlman Pearl was
not there for the first championship.
That's when he joined Clyde in the back court in the Knicks
one. And, you know, we know that the
pain of the of the Knicks drought, but and and this
century, outside of the last, you know, half a decade or so
and and one or two good years, interesting years with Carmelo.
I mean, this century has been as deflating and as depressing as
you could possibly have as a fan.
I mean, it really was like The Jets have been for 15 years, no
playoffs or like the Detroit Lions before this recent
renaissance. I know they had a bad year this
year, but you know, the last couple before that Campbell,
obviously better quarterback play.
Lions fans really, really feeling good even off last year
about the prospects of being able to get back to being a
player this year in the NFC with the Commanders before they crack
through to the and and the and the former the former Redskins
before they crack through and beat the Lions right a couple of
years ago in the playoffs. You know, the, the association
of the length that has gone on, the amount of time that is
passed from the last Knicks championship.
It just doesn't seem like it's similar to what the Rangers went
through. I don't know why.
Maybe because I'm not as big a hockey fan and like the Rangers
pay. I, I, I don't even, I don't even
have a theory for it. I don't know.
It just seemed like the Rangers hadn't won for 100 years.
And, and maybe because I don't know, maybe if I could theorize
out loud, maybe it's because Clyde is still part of, of, of
the broadcast and he's still there.
Maybe it's because, you know, they were so good with Patrick
and they were knocking on the door for so many years that it
didn't seem as painful. And as as time goes on, if
you're a player and you know, Eastern Conference semis,
Eastern Conference finals, you get to the finals in 94, you get
back there in 99 with Spree and a bit of a different team,
obviously Larry Johnson and and Patrick was a very secondary
player on that team. Alan Houston, of course, off the
front rim at it. I I just never look at it
through that prism. But it's real.
And I'm not saying that that drought is about to end now.
I mean, that would be that would be a ridiculous flip flop.
But what I am saying is that like the convincing process as
it is, at least in the early stages of.
OK. And I've always said, I hope I'm
wrong. Listen, come on, New Yorker,
nowhere I want to be wrong. Come on.
Maybe, maybe this is the year that we will be surprised.
Like does anybody think, I don't know when you have certain
teams, right? And, and at least in New York,
right, those and those certain teams would, no disrespect, but
it is what it is, would be The Jets and the Mets, right?
And and to a lesser extent the Knicks, right?
Like I don't, even though I love what The Jets did in the draft
and they've got 3 next year and The Jets should have like I, I
keep seeing these mocks for next year.
I know that they could trade up, but anybody who thinks that The
Jets are going to finish top three just based on the record
without trading up, I think you're out of your mind.
Like I think The Jets are going to actually be very watchable
and offensively very interesting with, you know, four or five
guys with sub 440 speed. I've talked about this, right?
The point is not to get into The Jets right now necessarily.
But like any when The Jets do punch through, if they punch
through and like when the Mets punch through, if they punch
through and when the Knicks punch through, if they punch
through, don't you think it's going to be a little bit element
of surprise? Like, I don't know, like I think
when the Yankees win their next, and it could be this year,
Yankees look phenomenal. I'll get to them in a minute.
But like when the Yankees win for the first time since 2009,
nobody's going to be surprised. I I I don't think part of it is
because it's the Yankees, but also because I think, you know,
even though they haven't won for so long, the Yankees have been
one of the best teams in baseball and the stats bear that
out for a long time, even with all the frustrations with the
roster construction. Brian Cash.
But it's not earned the right. All that stuff that I've gone
through chapter and verse. But like, I don't know, the
thought was maybe this will put in better context, like the Mets
coming off a really good year couple of years ago, Vientos
hammers the ball in October, Pete's big home run against
Devin Williams. You know, and then, all right,
you lose to a better team. And a lot of those games were
fairly lopsided. Mets gave up a lot of runs.
You know, the Dodgers punk them most, most games and the the
aggregate score was was ridiculously lopsided in favor
of the Dodgers. But then you get Juan Soto and
the the obvious thought, which I understood was all right, man,
you got to take Juan Soto and now add him to the Mets.
Let's take the logical step. But it's for some of these
teams. It just doesn't seem to happen
that way, right. It just doesn't even when The
Jets and there's a million years ago.
I forget about the wreck stuff with the back-to-back AFC, but
that was even very unexpected. I mean, he had a rookie
quarterback and then he was a young a second year quarterback
and the defense led the way. But like when The Jets got to
the AFC Championship in 1998, you know, the previous year they
were a nine win team, Bill Parcells his first year.
The year before that they had one win and the year before that
they had three. And that, of course, was the
rich go tight comedy show of errors, right.
So maybe the Knicks are going to follow the same script that I
just presented to you for whenever the Mets crack through
and whatever The Jets crack through, right?
Like, it's not going to be all right.
You know, we've got, you know, and we've got the MVP like Shay
Gilgeous Alexander, or we've got like, Patrick Ewing 2 point O
and we've got Pat Riley 2 point O as a coach.
Maybe the Knicks road to whenever that championship
comes, it's going to be, you know, early on rooted in
frustration and a lack of conviction and all sorts of
emotions. And then they figure things out
and then they punch their ticket in a very unexpected way.
I don't I don't know. I mean, listen to converse.
Could be, you know, the Knicks win by 13 against the Hawks.
The Sixers and the Celtics beat the shit out of each other for
seven games. And then the Knicks beat the
Celt. And it's like on cruise mode.
Like, I don't expect that because it's really never easy
for the Knicks, but we shall see.
All right, J Rod, let me get the calls here.
Guys, fire up the chat. Let's get the Subs going.
Let's go. Who is first up today?
What do you got there, Jay? We've got our man Benji from the
Upper East Side. Benji.
Oh, I know. He's been at these games.
He's invited me. Benji, what's going on, brother?
How you feel today? Besides, Awesome.
What's up man, it's my birthday and salute we 45 halfway there.
Happy birthday man. At least.
Thanks BT Hopefully the next one could have been you last night,
but it's all good. Who'd?
You say did you go with the wife or did you take a buddy?
No, I just took a good friend. Oh, there you.
Go do you have let's let's let now.
Is your nick, Is your wife a big Knicks fan or she go because of
you? She is.
She is through osmosis, but when it comes down to it, she doesn't
really care that much. OK, so let's be honest that as
long as she's not listening to the show, you can say whatever
you want to say. Who do you have more fun going
to the game with? Your wife or your What are your
best buddies? Come on.
No comment man on that come. On I'll answer for you.
I think I already did. No worries man, she'll probably
go with me to game one, game three of the the next series or
game one if Philly Philly takes it.
I. Like it Hey, by the way, real
quick. So you're turning 45 again.
Happy birthday everybody wish him a happy birthday in the
chat. That's awesome.
What at what when you because think about when you were a kid.
I remember when I was like 891012 you'd meet somebody in
their 30s My God, they're 33. They're so old.
At what point did you what do you regret's not the right word?
Because birthdays are a beautiful gift from God.
But like, when do you lament getting older?
Do you feel like 45 is old? Where were you that internally?
Because I always find that interesting with people.
I you know what, the last few years I'd say like once I was
like late 30s, it didn't. It hasn't really.
I haven't really thought too much about it.
I think you hit a point when you're beyond your mid 20s post
post college where you sort of accept, you know, the direction
that your life is going and how your body feels, you know, after
playing basketball, that type of stuff.
But. Yeah, yeah.
Good. That's a good answer.
I got you. All right.
Well, love the show, man. Like, like you said, we're,
we're really asserting as my friend, my good friend John
Edelman likes to say, we're asserting our dominance, which
is really what is getting you so excited, getting me so excited.
And you know me as somebody that's been on the front lines
defending Cat all season, to see him play impeccably to be on and
to quote quote Clyde omnipotent omnipresence.
He's just he's playing so smart. It's it's it's an efficiency
level, which is he's always been efficient.
But now, I mean, last night, seven shots, he's averaging
under 11 shots per game in the series.
He's shooting about 60% from the field, about 50 from the 50 from
390 from the line. I don't think enough that that
doesn't get talked about as much.
And then I, I think this doesn't matter now, but I think I just
want to pose this to, you know, to your show and to your callers
and to your listeners. I think he deserves serious
consideration for the Hall of Fame because I'm looking down
the line another three or four years.
And then I think again, I think another big story here which
doesn't get talked about enough is Clarkson's transformation to
being this seemingly low IQ. Like chucker, chucker, right
chucker. Yeah, yeah.
Now I'm seeing a very smart, unselfish, calculated, high IQ
basketball player that's working on defense.
So that has been a major story that's happened over the last
couple of months 'cause he was out of the rotation basically
until, I know, early March. And then once he played in that
Lakers game and then ultimately that Utah game where he returned
and and dominated and helped us win.
He's been a huge story, enough so that we got to see how
everything goes. I want him back next year.
I love what he's brought to the table.
It's an interesting observation man.
Enjoy your birthday. I'm I'm happy you started with
with calling into the show and have a great day man.
And anything special up or would you maybe go to dinner?
What do you got? Yeah, I got a nice Chinese spot
dinner tonight, but honestly, for I don't need to tell you BT
we got to wrap these series up and finish off these damn birds
and that tomorrow night for let's go for numerous reasons.
Let's go let let's clip the wings and send them home.
Good job right there. Hey, by the way, Speaking of
birds, thank you, Benji. I don't know if I said this on
the air, if I was telling one of my buddies, did I show you the
picture of the eggs? Did I show you this, Jay?
I don't know what is it, I don't think.
I got this is amazing. I mean, you know, I like I love.
I don't know if I've really said this on the show too much, but I
I love. I love nature, like I'll watch
Discovery. I love.
You on a big kick too. Yeah.
Oh you, you are. A big nature video kick.
Yeah, OK. I love it.
Like I love watching how they hunt and, you know, how they
protect their offspring, you know, whether it's in Africa,
the safari or in like in Alaska with, you know, bears and all
that and just how they hunt trout, not hunt, but you know,
grab trout at it. Like I love that stuff, right.
So the other day I was going out to the back.
I got to pull this picture up. It's one of the most beautiful
pictures I think I've ever taken and that I've certainly that
I've ever seen, at least from my phone.
I don't mean like a professional photographer that's in the
wilderness or in a safari. So I go out in the backyard to,
to let my daughter pitch. Like she's trying to learn how
to pitch. And you know, it's, it's, it's,
it's underhanded. So it's different.
Like when, when a young boy's trying to learn how to pitch, at
least it's following, you know, the normal overhand throw and
you know, we have a couple of girls on the rec team that then
that are older, but also travel pitchers.
So like, I can't just throw her out there because she's my
daughter. We got to work on it, right?
I, I got to still coach the right way.
And it's, she's showing this great initiative to, to really
learn how to do. We're going to get a lessons and
all that stuff. So we've been going out in the
yard a lot like before practice before games and she'll pitch to
me anyway when you go out. So right outside my office would
be my stairs that go down to the man cave that has a door that
leads to the outside with the with the tile underneath the
deck and the basketball hoop and all that stuff right now right
to the left of the door. And I'm walking out the other
day and like 2 like it was, I thought it was 2, but it may
have just been 10. Out of nowhere this bird goes
scared the shit out of me. Like I walk.
It was like boom. I was like what the what I what
was that? Now what had happened was the,
the top of our light that kind of illuminates part of the patio
fell off. I think in the wind.
We get this very windy because we're up on a little bit of a
hill. And what the birds do is they
take their little twigs and they take their little degrass and
then they pack it and they make their little mess, right.
So I'm like, and and and and they did that last year and I
had to clean it out and I forgot to get a new I didn't, I never
fixed the light because I'm whatever.
So anyway, we walk out, the bird flies and I'm like, hold on to
my to my daughter. Let me go get my phone.
I want to see what's in there, so I reach up and I take a
picture. Look at this dude.
Let's see. No way.
How amazing is that? How amazing is that?
Yeah, I mean, they're like perfect blue too.
It's like Easter eggs, like the kids paid for the for the for
their Easter Bunny. And I before I even got my phone
because I just thought it was like the compressed dirt and the
mud like it was when I cleaned it out at the end of the fall,
right? And of course they're back for
the spring. So I initially before I got my
folks, I left my phone in my office to go pitch, right?
And I reach in like, and I felt an egg.
I'm like, whoa, I'm like, I didn't want to make sure I
didn't crack anything. Like I, I was very gentle, but
again, it scares the shit out of me.
It just all, it was like, what, what's that?
So then I'm like, I, I took a video.
I'm like, that's and how? And then we went back.
This was like a week and a half ago.
Then we went back out yesterday. She's like, oh dad, you know,
you think the the eggs hatchet. I'm like, let me see.
This time I had my phone click. Nope, little bit bigger still
there. Cool.
So I mean, you'll probably be able to see it happen, at least
see the baby birds at some point.
Yeah, if you're lucky. Yeah, I remember when we,
because we, we built our home right up up on this big, this
big hilltop. And I remember the kids were
really young. We moved in here like December
of 2018 and I was still working with Teek.
You know, it was years ago and years ago now.
God, time's really flying. It was.
We moved in a week before Christmas.
Talk about a tough move in like a week before Santa got to get
the trip. Like literally just moved in.
So we didn't even have like fences up.
I had to have a guy come put up a big white fence in the
backyard because, you know, there's animals and stuff.
So I just hold on. What is that?
OK, so I, I remember like looking out at the yard and I, I
was like, I have to do something to spark some sort of love of
nature within my children, right.
And we had like the butterfly where you buy the butterfly net
and and like the little Caterpillar turns into the
butterfly. So we told them about that.
That was great. And then like I always told my
children, I'm like, hey, if you see an animal like a little
tight, like a don't, don't step on an Ant.
Don't just kill an Ant. Don't just like don't just kill
a bug. I mean, it's bugs, got a family,
what are we doing? And you know, in my mind as as a
young dad at that point, you try to instill that so that they
just respect life. Like that was something that was
important to me. So anyway, I put, I wanted birds
to come, so I got this. I was so proud as a dad and as a
first time homeowner. Now the fence is up and I get
this beautiful bird feeder and I stick all the seeds in there and
I got Bluebirds, Blue Jays, you know, Cardinals coming in.
I'm like, come on guys, you know, come on, look, we're going
on the deck. Come on, look, the birds are
here. They're eating.
And then all the squirrels came, and my.
Wife got pissed like. You got to get rid of this damn
thing. The squirrels everywhere.
They're I'm like, all right. Because what would happen?
The squirrels would find their way in and they would just, you
know, they would just climb the thing, you know, jump through
trees to get to the bird feeder. And they were the ones who were,
you know, you'd see the birds once in a while anyway.
Whatever. A tale as old as time, really.
Yeah, it really is. It really is.
Now, are you into Shark Week? Are you a big Shark Week guy?
No, not really that, but I mean, I just, I think when I like did
just something with the intersection of like, I remember
hearing a lot about it when I was like elementary school age,
but at that time I still wasn't like I wasn't the one always
with the TV remote in my hand or something like that.
So I wasn't really controlling it.
What I, what I've really got into are like people building
small terrariums out of like sea water or like lake water and
then looking at like the microscopic creatures in it.
OK, I don't know. Look at you.
I like it. Have you ever gotten like
snorkeling or anything? Like that one time in in Puerto
Rico, me and my brother went. So it's like they're like
naturally there are, there isn't a ton of like wildlife, but
there are like some turtles, some fish.
Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. Little Ocean.
I actually took a course. Oceanography.
I love it. I remembered this before kids, I
think we were in Turks and Caicos and just my wife and I
and my buddies like, dude, when you jump in the work and I told
him I was going to go snorkeling, right?
When you get in there, you've got to.
And of course, the guy on the boats, like, you know, no food.
Yeah, but I knew what I wanted to do.
I did some research on it. I'm like, oh, my buddies, right,
this will happen. So I was eating a bagel, right?
I took half of it. No butter.
I was going to put butter in the water, but I, I, I remember
sticking the bread, you know, crumpling up 1/2 of the bagel,
sticking into my bathing suit. And then when you jump in the
water, obviously it's going to get soft.
And then what you do is you disperse it, right?
And all, the, all the bread, you know, it's now soft and pliable
and it goes in older. And as soon as that happens,
fish come out of no. And I remember, like, I thought
I was getting attacked. I'm like, is there a shark here?
Like, am I going to get stung? Like, I was surrounded, But they
were, like, yellow and bright. Anyway, I love that stuff.
So I wanted to show you guys that picture.
All right, let's get back to the calls.
That was a long deviation from an awesome night by the Knicks.
So hopefully I didn't bore you to tears.
What do we got next here, Jay? Go ahead.
We've got St. from London, UK. SSTST in the house.
What up man, What's up? BT listen, can you hear me?
I got you brother. Excellent man First off, just a
couple of things props to the Knicks.
It was a long night, but I worked from home today, so I was
able to follow that given the time difference, very, very
happy. I, I wanted to just say like,
even though Brunson had the big box score, right, I think we
need to give, you know, not an honorable mention, but a big
shout out to the rest of the team, especially Cat, because he
looks to me in the past few games that he's being great like
Shaq told him to do. I love the fact that coach has
got this, you know, soft 8 hard 9 rotation.
That's very interesting for me. I guess my so I got 2 questions
before you cut me off. The first one is why do you
think that rotation is now coming to the forefront of what
his adjustments are? Do you think it's because of
Bridges lack of production or do you think he understands that
not taking both Cat and Brunson off at the same time to leaving
one of them on is more suitable to the style of play?
And does this resonate only with this team, our opponent that's
in front of us, or is this going to be applicable to the team's
going forward in the? Playoffs, it's going to be it's
going to be a very different matchup.
You know, we just talked about that's a good question too.
No, you know, sometimes you'll get a team that's a little
similar like the just just from a matchup, especially back in
the day, like the Pacers were very obviously red.
You could shoot, but we're very physical with the Davis brothers
upfront. The heat were very physical.
I mean, Jordan was a completely different problem, but even
Horace Grant was physical upfront.
So every matchup is different. Every matchup is unique.
I do think that part of it is born out of the the
inconsistencies and sometimes the invisibility of Mikhail
Bridges. I think that that opened up a
part of his brain where he's like, I can't just keep running
this guy out there when he's really not doing a damn thing.
But I also think that, you know, that you learn to trust guys the
more that the more that they're around you.
You know, whether it's a Clarkson, whether it's an
Alvarado. Alvarado right away played when
he first was, was dealt here and then he was pinned to the bench
for a little bit. Remember, he learned to trust
Kolik early in the year and then and then he and then he lost
faith for because Kolik just didn't play as well.
So I think it's part of adapting to, to what's new and and also
being amenable to change. And I think that that comes from
the rest of the coaches. Like Mike Brown to me seems to
be 1 of like in the ultimate delegator.
That's a good thing when it when it works, it's it's a bad thing
when it doesn't like you, you want to empower your coaching
staff, right? But at the same time, you know,
you've got to make sure that your vision is not compromised.
I'll give you an example like a lot of times, and there's been
this way with The Jets too, right?
And take Robert Solemn when he was coach of The Jets, Jets
defense was really good with Robert Solemn.
The Jets offense was asked, well, you know, and I didn't
like like the pass to run ratio. I'm not trying to get in the
weeds of The Jets, but I I think this will illuminate my point.
And what I would always say, I would say this on the radio, on
the fan. I'm like, Hey, I understand that
you were defensive coach. I get that right.
And I understand you've got coordinators and offensive
people that are on the staff for a reason.
But it is your responsibility, whether it's during the week to
knock on the door and say, hey, listen, guys, I know you doing
your thing. We got to run the ball more like
we got to get more of an even split here.
We're getting 2 pass happy or whatever it might be or within a
game to walk down to the coordinator or if he's up in the
up in the booth to get him out on the headsets and say, yo, I
know that this is the way that we thought we had to have to
play. It's not working.
You better change this up. And, and I think that ultimately
those are the best types of coaches.
They've got their conviction and they are married to it, but not
to a fault where they've got the adaptability and they've got the
ability to to change and to reward guys who earn more reps
in more minutes and or in football, more carries, whatever
it might be. And I think Mike Brown's pretty
good at that. But it it to me, it just took
him too long to figure out the Cat Brunson thing like that.
I could have figured that out if I you know what I'm saying.
Yeah, man, that's yeah. What a great juxtaposition to
bring in my beloved Jets to kind of in Robert Salas tenure there
to illuminate your point. That was great.
That makes complete sense to me. Thank you.
And I and my next point is this. And no, it's not doom and gloom,
but it's I'm going to ask the question because that's how we
roll. OK?
Like we all know defence wins championships.
The the Knicks are getting a lot of turnovers against this team,
lower American team. However, we know about windows.
We understand that in that city with this fan base, you have to
go to the finals, nay, win the finals this year, right?
If this doesn't happen and we fall short, do we?
And Giannis is waiting. Do we blow this shit up and,
and, and what happens we do is everybody expendable?
Bob Brunson, Like, how do you see this working?
Because yeah, I can't. I can't see us running it back
and coming so close to the Holy Grail or, or for or simply short
of that. Yep.
And running it back again irrespective.
Of I agree I I. Do you got to get rid of
everybody? I agree.
All right, I'm going to answer that St. good luck today, man.
Have a good day out there in the UK.
Thanks for calling buddy. Yep, I appreciate you always.
All right, Really good question. So I've attached and one aspect
has changed a bit, and that's Cat.
I've attached. Well, now there's really a
fourth and he was never part of this.
So really 4 levels of culpability or evaluation for
the Knicks if they fall short. So it's Leon Rose, it's Mike
Brown, it's Cat. And then before this year,
Brunson was never on the radar. But again, a little bit, you
know, monopolizing the ball a little bit less efficient
certain time shooting the ball. He's great.
But I mean, we're talking about a championship.
So it's it's got to be that that micro analysis, right?
Leon Rose will not get fired, even though with the and I'm not
even saying that he should he comes back.
All right, so I'm going to directly answer your question.
Nick's fall short. What happens?
Rose is back. Mike Brown is gone, I think in
terms of and Brunson stays, I think in term clearly, I think
in terms of Cat, I'm as open to this as I've ever been.
Like I, I, I mean, there was one point I'm like, no matter what,
ship him out, ship him out. But say, if they lose to the
Celtics in a deep series and he plays really well, you know,
maybe he has one bad game, couple of early fouls, like, you
know, he would always on the off to the push off.
See if that resurfaces and there's like one really
frustrating cat game. But he's efficient and he's
aggressive and they're enough of the offense is running through
him. I'm not.
So I can't believe I'm saying this.
Wow. I'm not so sure that I'm hell
bent on getting rid of him. I mean, I think at that point
you'd have to creatively find a way to get rid of Bridges and,
and maybe you use somebody like Deuce to entice somebody to take
bridges to get something cuz nobody's going to want bridges
for the contract and just bridges cuz he's got to cut.
It's like it's a salary dump cuz he signed the extension and,
and, and Deuce is a young, although his contract's about to
expire too. Is this year two or three?
Either way, that would be a short term thing.
But he's very appealing cuz he's young and he's good and he could
shoot any place DA little injury prone.
But I think Deuce has real value around the around the league.
So I'd have to look at the aesthetics of if and how they
lose. If Cat is a central theme as to
why they lose. Like if there's Stark
regression, then he's got to go. If he continues to play it like
even if it's 85 to 90% of this version, however long the Knicks
play moving forward, then I'm not looking to get rid of them.
You know, and I don't even know if the bucks would want Giannis.
You know, there there's there's other things that we can get
into the weeds on when we have to if we have to, you know,
recruiting a third team because the Knicks don't have the draft
equity. Like there's just too much stuff
that Manoush I don't want to get into now, but I but I think that
that's the answer for me. The GM stays the head coach
would be the first to go, no doubt, because that's easy.
Fire Brown, bring somebody else in the cat move would be more
complex and more complicated makes big money.
You know, he's not A1A kind of player necessarily, and then
Brunson would be a a much lower priority in terms of about you,
like he's not going anywhere and they would have to be bridges
and you probably have to sacrifice deuce there as well.
You know, do you re evaluate Mitchell Robinson situation?
I mean, I'm I'm not really looking to do that.
That could come to play on some level, but hopefully that's a
that's a good enough answer for you and I I dotted the IS in
terms of what you were looking for.
All right, Rich Squire 986, appreciate that.
Wow, the Super chats are hot today.
There you go 2 quick Yankee questions.
Would you mind both be staying in the minors until cabbie cools
off and the Yankees gain another year of control?
And two, do we need a first bait?
Do we need a first base at closer?
Do we need a oh, oh, do we need a 1B at closer not to burn
Bednar out and keep that up there, Jay, I'm not worried
about burning Bednar out. I'm worried about Bednar.
And I keep telling you, yeah, he's going to make you sweat.
Yeah, but he's going to be fine. You know, I mean, I'm starting
to at least think on some level here that you're going to have
to upgrade that closer spot. I'm not fully there yet, but
every night it's a song of the dance.
There's a bass hit. There's a walk now, usually
wiggles out of it. But yeah, I'd like to be a
little bit more comfortable when my closer comes in to nail down
a save. I mean, every night it's a
little bit of an adventure. Now the Volpe thing, that's why
I'm really looking forward to having Michael Kay on tomorrow
right around 11 thirtyish. We'll have him for a good, you
know, 20 minutes. Just so the first time we had
Michael on, it was more, you know, free form.
Like when we had Stephen A on two hours, Michael was on for
about an hour and 45 minutes and, you know, talking about his
life and growing up and his career.
Tomorrow she's Yankees like tomorrow I'm going to get my
buddy on voice of the Yankees and just talk shop with him,
which is going to be great. The Volpe thing is complex, I
believe. I believe I'd have to double
check. I think that once somebody with
X amount of service in Major League Baseball is on an injury
rehab, I, I, I know that there's a time limit.
Like I think it's 30 days. I got to button that up.
I don't, I want to make sure I'm right on that, but I think it's
30. So like, say, to your point,
let's say Caballero, who finally stole the pace last night
without getting pinched, he had been thrown out four times in a
row. I think if Caballero, even if he
stays right, it's not a bad thought.
I know what you're getting at. Like you want a reward
performance. And what would it do for
Caballero's morale? What would it do for the morale?
The Yankees, I'm not really worried about them because I
think they've got very good leadership, Judge, great leader.
Belli's a very, you know, he's autopilot, very steady
emotionally. And I just I know the pitchers
are, I think the Yankees have very good leadership.
So I'm not worried about that becoming an issue in the
clubhouse. But you know, it's it's a
delicate dance. You got to thread the needle of
of rewarding performance, but also understanding that there's
an element of overachievement here from Caballero.
And you know, Volpe was the first round pick who did win a
Gold Glove and has hit twenty home runs of the season and has
stolen 20 plus bags. Now those are the good things we
know about the deficiencies. What version of Volpe do we get?
Don't know. I would think that when Volpe
and I could be dead wrong on this, when Volpe comes up, I
think he's playing right away like Dominguez.
They didn't bring Dominguez up to sit him.
They brought Dominguez up to play back-to-back to back games
and he'll play again today against against right-handed
pitching, which he has. So and even last night he got in
that bad late in that game and he lined the bullet right up the
middle of the the the Rangers were just played perfectly from
the right side and he hit pretty well small sample in the minors
this year from the right side, which is obviously been an issue
for him. It's a great question.
I don't really absolutely know the answer, but that's my
opinion. I think you run Volpe out there
and I think Caballero still gets rewarded.
Now McMahon's hit a little bit better, but you can plug him at
plug him at a third. I don't know if they put him at
second. Jazz is swinging the bat better
as well. He lined out too.
He's been on a little bit of a much better streak hitting and
it's it's an interesting juggle for Aaron Boone.
The one thing that I'm very sure about like this.
I know I'm not 100% sure exactly how they use them right away, I
told you what I think happens. But one thing you could take to
the bank if Volpe is one for 19 and with 11 whiffs and, you
know, two or three short hops across the diamond, Volpe ain't
playing every night. He's just not.
They will. They will sit him.
You know, the tarmac is shorter and the patience is lower.
That's. But that's my opinion on that.
Who's up? Let me read that.
We get back to the calls here. I want to get some other Yankee
stuff. Clarkson's been the epitome of a
pro. True.
Adaptable to changing roles, ready when called upon.
No complaints. Yeah, I I agree.
Respect to him for that attitude.
That's generally what what vet, what good veterans do when
they're thrust into winning situations, you know, so that's
absolutely something you you should recognize.
And we have, and I must. I also think it speaks to the
culture of the Knicks. You know, I was told the other
day about like, what, what, what the hell is the Mets culture?
Like, what is the Mets culture? I don't, I don't know, I don't
see any leadership from the I'm not saying it's all Mendoza's
fault, but I don't see any real leadership from Mendoza.
I don't see any real leadership being what he's helped, excuse
me, help me from the door. I don't see any real leadership
outside of being locked in and trying to be a great hitter in
Juan Soto. Now he's got the forearm strain.
My God, hopefully that's not a precursor.
And we judge went through this, so we should be fine.
And I'm pretty sure Soto had this, the series against the
Dodgers a couple of years ago where he sat out due to forearm
strain or or tension, whatever the word is.
Hopefully he's going to be all right.
That was a bit of a curveball in this curveball of a season from
the Mets. But like you talk about the Mets
culture, you know, Vientos doing whatever he wants, no
repercussions like the Knicks culture, even though and and
that was from Tom Thibodeau and it was then carried out and made
better by Brunson and Hart and you know, Divincenzo before
that. By the way, that sucks that he
ruptured his Achilles. That I was genuinely sad when I
saw that the other I didn't mention on the show.
Yes, that stinks, man, I love Dante Divincenzo.
How could you not? All right, who's up next there?
What do we got, Jay Culars? We've got Matt G.
Mattie G What up Matt? Where you at, Matt?
I don't know if you remember I called you last week talking
about Joe B playing golf with him and travel baseball.
I do. I do remember that, man.
What's going? On so I don't know why I lost
you, but I can't hear you, but I'm just going to give you a
very quick Little League question for you and then I'll
hang up because I lost you and I don't want to hold up your show.
So so bear with me. I can't hear you back.
So I'll give you the quick story.
So there's basically every Little League travel team.
Most games there's a hard stop at 2 hour rule that's in effect
this way, the games move along. You don't hold people up, but
it's almost like an unwritten rule with coaches.
When you're at that hour 30 hour 40, you kind of go to the hump
and he'll kind of let you know, Hey guys, this is the last
inning. So Long story short, I have a
game last week. My team's down by 4 and it's
about an hour and a half. We start the innings.
So, you know, not thinking about it.
My team, I give my team a rallying speech.
I got bottom of the order up heroic.
We score five runs, come back, take the lead.
I mean, the kids are going nuts. I'm going nuts.
I'm starting to set up my, you know, field who's going to pitch
this and that. I see the other manager talking
to the umpire and they, they point to the clock and they and
I see the kids on the other team lining up because it was a hard
stop at two hours. Now the rule in all little
leagues again, nobody follows it is that if you go over 2 hours
in the middle of an inning, it's a hard stop.
Score reverts back to the previous completed inning.
So I'm going to hang up because I know you can't go back and
forth with me. I flew out of the dugout like
George Brett with the pine tar. I mean, I went berserk.
I'm I'm going nuts. I didn't curse at the guy, but
I'm saying, dude, what are you teaching your kids here?
I mean, the alms willing to stay.
What are we doing here? So Long story short, I protested
the game the next day. I was hot.
I mean, I was mad. I behaved like a lunatic.
I had to apologize on Game Changer.
To the parents again, didn't. Curse.
Didn't. Didn't, you know, threaten to
beat the guy up? Just very animated.
So I want to I'm going to hang up.
Listen, I want to know what you would have done in that
situation. Meaning I basically stood up for
my players and wanted to show them, hey man, you, you came
back five runs like we got to finish the game.
So I'm going to hang up. Got you.
All right. There's a lot there and you're
talking to the right guy. And we all remember the story
last year when I got thrown out of the the district playoff
game. Not proud of it.
I mean, it was in the New York Post.
I mean, they were talking about it.
I think it was discovered because a caller called WFAN.
It was at the game. So I don't run from it.
I own it. One time, Little League ejectie
appeal denied, you know, because we couldn't go back and forth.
There were a couple of questions.
So I'm going to have to kind of insert the answers on my own.
Is it is it rec? I mean, I don't know if it was
rec ball. You know, you generally know
everybody. Like last time my daughter had a
game and so and I coach her rec team.
I don't coach her travel team. I coach her rec team and I coach
third base, right, and there were a couple of things that
happened. Nothing bad that happened within
the game where like because one, because I don't one thing that I
don't hide, I'm there to coach, I'm there to hit fungos, I'm
there to give signs, I'm there to teach inspire.
I'm not there to fill out lineups and, you know, get birth
certificates and deal with that game changer nonsense.
I can't I don't have the bandwidth to do it.
I want to coach all right, and everybody knows that I have the
other stuff. Not interested.
Now, if it's wreck and you're friends with everybody in town,
that should be easy. All right, Just figure it out As
gentlemen, I'm going to assume that it wasn't wrecked just
based on the energy that you emitted there.
You know, maybe it was a little bit of a rivalry.
You still want to. You didn't curse.
That's a good thing we had. It's different, even travel in
clubs a little bit different. Like so my my son had a played
PG event this past weekend and they lost in the championship
game. Now every other game, the pool
play and the semis, there's an hour 40 minute limit.
And if you start like as long as you get the like if you look, if
you get the top of the sixth, if you start the top of the sixth
and it could go to like 2 hours and 11 minutes.
So you going to finish the inning to me to have a score
revert, like once you start to have a score revert back and
then the championship game, there's no time limit.
The only way it ends is if you get mercy, right, which they did
play. The team we played is amazing.
So that's one aspect of club, you know, travel.
The team that I do coach my son, it's an hour 40 for USABL, which
is a Northeast umbrella. Good baseball.
It's a little different from PG, but good quality ball and it's
140 now. There's some guys out there that
like, you know, you come out, you, you stall, you change
pitchers, you try to manipulate the clock.
The gentleman, the two gentlemen that I coach with for the travel
team in town, we would never do that.
Like that's just we're looking to play.
You know, we have a good team. I guarantee almost everybody
will play high school. I guarantee several of our kids
will play college, possibly Division One.
We got some players. So we're not there like, oh,
let's get the win and let's, you know, let's have two pitching
changes and wait. That's to me, that is Bush that
that's no. So if somebody was doing that
and I was coaching, it would bother me.
I would probably have one of the other coaches say something so I
don't get in trouble again. Try to navigate that emotional
thing. But standing up for your team is
a good thing. You know, even though I'm
embarrassed that I got thrown out of A at that point, A10U
district playoff. I have sectional playoff game,
like I'm not proud of it, but I was standing up for my team
because I thought we were hosed. And I'll take that one to the
grave. And I've got the video on game
changer to prove it, but I never put it out there.
Long, long answer. It seems like there was some
manipulation by the other team that that I wouldn't like that
we would resist as a as a team, as an organization.
But the best advice I could give you is, and I don't know how old
the kids are, that that kind of matters as well.
Just just understand, man, it's it's supposed to still be fun.
And it seems like you're having fun, but you want to win.
And I'm all about that. Like, you know what, nobody
wants to go out there and get their faces kicked.
What, what fun is that? What do you learn?
Like the only way you learn is if you get destroyed and you
come back into it and you have a very animated practice and the
kids locked back in and you do take the lesson of getting
pounded and like, hey, guys, listen.
And we talked to the team, even though they're still fairly
young, not even, you know, still a couple of years away from high
school, My group like, and we talked to them like young men,
like, hey, guys, listen, you know, unacceptable.
Like you missed a sign or you didn't run the bases with
purpose or you know what, whatever it might be like,
that's all good. But like the I'm just the other
stuff like manipulative stop. I just, I can't get involved in
that. I that's, that's a little
bothersome. I don't know.
I wouldn't want to have to deal with that.
Wait, let me just try real quick.
Matt, can you hear us? Are you able to, I guess not.
I, I, I thought, I thought we were going to be able to get him
back in. OK, clarifying questions, but.
I got you. I don't know if we need to even
go on more. I probably went a little bit
longer than I needed to. But you know, he's got a passion
for what I have a passion for and and obviously you guys know
I love that stuff. Do we have anybody else up Next
up? What we got, Jay?
Yes, Sir, we've got Johnny Boy from Virginia.
Johnny boy, I now I could see barely Johnny's wearing a tie.
Don't put him up on camera. Johnny looks like he's very well
at but Natalie attired, some might say, so I guess he's at
work. What's up, Johnny?
Hey, what's going on BT Huge fan, great work.
Love the the new pod that you got with Rich and Jake on the
collective. It's it is it is amazing.
I appreciate that. That's called, for those who
don't know, Jet fans, The Jets Collective, that's myself.
It's rich to me. It's Jake Asmin, it's once a
week now. We just did the episode #6
yesterday. Go go find it on on YouTube,
Jets Collective, sub it, like it, comment, get all that stuff
going like you've done for my show here.
And we'll do it twice a week during the season and we'll do
it all offseason. So I'm having a blast.
It's a great cast and I'm happy that you're enjoying it.
Thank you very much, Johnny. Now, what's going on, man?
So BTI just want to ask you a few questions.
I'm still riding the high from the draft.
I thought the draft was really well for The Jets.
I was one of the guys that was in the pit.
I had the Giants sombrero that was there.
So we. Were.
Oh, you went? Yeah.
Yeah, that's dude. So it was insane, everything
that happened. Yeah, yeah, I agree.
So I'm still riding that. But today or last night this
whole Brendan Sarsby stuff is coming out where he's going to
be not eligible to play for college anymore, etcetera,
etcetera. So he might be answering the
supplemental. Supplemental.
What is your take on us taking a swing on him where he is
supposed to be a first round pick?
That if he was to come out next year with one of those three,
one of those ones, three of those ones that we have, we
might potentially would have picked this kid and it might
take us a two this year to give up to potentially get a guy
that's 27 passing touchdowns and 9 rushing touchdowns.
I know. Dual threat, you take a swing on
him or what's your take on that? Oh, man, the level of vetting
there is just so different from somebody like, all right, we
hear he's a little lazy or he got arrested because he had a
fight at a bar or he got pinched with, you know, some weed, you
know, things that you can navigate.
This, this is a little different for me.
I I I don't think they'll do it. And I'm not so sure I like your
plan. You know, I'm not so sure that I
would do it. I, I would, I would do my due
diligence. Yeah, I think you have to and I
think that they will, but that is that's that's tough to
reconcile, man. I mean, you know, there it's not
like gambling just became legal yesterday.
Like you, there's been enough pro athletes couple in the NFL,
Damon Jones, NBA former player coach like this stuff is not new
you so to so to be that cavalier to me shows a bit of a a real
character flaw and a disregard for authority.
But you know, if you're getting a potential star at $0.60 on the
dollar, you know, that's, that's something you got to be
comfortable with. I wish this is not just about
The Jets. I know you questions about The
Jets. To me, it's better if it's a
really healthy organization. You know what I mean?
Like The Jets are are just beginning.
They were sent, I, I think fumigating the joint and, you
know, some good energy bringing it.
All these winners from Indiana and Oregon and all the players
they drafted, they won a lot, you know, like what they did in
free agency. Muji looks really good.
No see about Glenn, although I do believe he's a leader of men.
So it's getting healthier, but they're not there yet.
To me, it's a, it's a big risk. I'd probably say no, but I would
go through the process. That's how I would answer that.
And in my last question, Yep, it's in regards to the draft,
Who from all the picks that The Jets had with the draft, who
would you say is the biggest steal?
And who would you say is the player that's going to have the
biggest upside day one to truly impact the New York Jets?
And I appreciate all the work you do man.
I appreciate it. Thank you, Johnny.
No, thanks for the call, man. Yeah, we, we did a lot of this
on the show yesterday. A couple.
I'll give you the answer. So you talk about Bailey Siddiq
Cooper Ponds, Jackson Klubnick, Cooper, the old lineman from
Miami and then BJ Payne, the safety from Kansas State who
thought, I mean, that it's funny that that was one of the things
that was thought to be like a real steal where, you know, a
lot of people had him pegged as much higher.
Like I I know Rich was saying he got some text like, wow, how did
why did BJ Payne go so late? If you don't know about him?
He was 7th rounder, 220 eighth selection.
He's a safety 632 O 5 and he runs like the wind.
So I, I, I don't, I mean that that could very well could be
the answer. The biggest UPS, the biggest
steal. I'm going to go with D'Angelo
Ponz. I I, I really just think that
he's ready to play. I know he's a little small.
I love what they did. I mean in terms I know he's I
got a little small, but to me he's, you know, top 35, Top 40,
top 45, Max value. And you got him at at 50, right
second round 50 or 5050. So I think The Jets let me shut
my phone off I'm sorry. I think The Jets did a lot of
good things. You know, the Bailey pick to me
is probably about AB Plus. I didn't really, I didn't want
them to draft Bailey. I didn't want them to draft
Reese. I wanted to trade out, but
Bailey's going to get to the quarterback now.
He might be a 1 trick pony and yeah, he might not ever be that
131415 sack game changing monster.
Like I'm not expecting that, certainly not as a rookie.
He might not ever be that, but his skill is one that they need.
And you know, he went to Stanford before he went to Texas
Tech Smart young man. His brother played football at
Harvard. So, you know, he's coming from a
great family. You know, I love Sadiq, I love
the pick, the tight end from Oregon.
I mean, getting back into the first round of getting Omar
Cooper, phenomenal. I already touched on ponds.
Love it. I was surprised.
It's funny, I was talking about Little League before.
I was in Staten Island this weekend at that tournament that
I just mentioned and somehow we got the games in on.
We had like an 8:00 game, just got the luck of the draw and a
10:00 game out in Staten Island and till we finished up pretty
early before the rain came. And so my son and I went to the
diner and as soon as we walked in the diner, literally like
before the Pickles in the coleslaw in the water even came.
We sat down TV jets getting ready to make their their 103rd
pick in the fourth round. And when they took Darryl
Jackson, like I didn't, I didn't think they were going defensive
tackle to start that day. That surprised me, right, I'm
not going to crush the pick. I mean he's probably more
developmental and they've got a lot of lot of guys that are that
are finally could stop the run. So Rich said yes, you know, The
Jets collective. He thinks he's more of like a
red shirt. I don't really want a red shirt
guy in round 4 when you had some other needs, But OK, I'm going
to be a Moody the benefit of the doubt.
I mean, obviously the club Nick to pick is going to get a lot of
lot of heat, but I will at least trust the instincts.
It's a bold move. It's not like they just took
them because they needed a court, which we all wanted them
to get a developmental quarterback.
So I can't criticize the direction.
And at least The Jets were remaining married to their
convictions. When you move up 18 slots, not 2
or 4, almost 20, to get a quarterback who did not have a
good year last year but was great the year before, and even
as a rookie, pardon me, as a freshman, he was the MVP in the
ACC championship game. He's had over 40 starts.
So as a freshman, he dominated the championship game in second
year, he made all 12 or 13 starts.
His third year was phenomenal. And then his fourth year was was
not very good. And there's some people think
like the scheme of Clemson wasn't very good and they've got
some gummy dabo and what are we doing?
Not even good anymore. I talk about a fall from grace
Clemson, right? But the the Cooper pick from
Miami, I the only well, let me take a step back.
The reason why I was surprised with Darryl Jackson as their
first pick on day three going in and I'm I tweeted this.
You guys can check my ex account.
I tweeted all right, here's what The Jets need to do in no real
order Interior offensive line. They got it developmental
quarterback, whether you love it or not whatever they got it a
safety. They got it in pain and then,
you know, they drafted somebody pretty early and at one O 3
overall for a position I didn't think that they need.
But some of the guys on the line are are on one year deals.
So I get it. So as those big boys play as
veterans and Jackson maybe gets in a little bit rotation, but is
kind of more just being introduced to the league and
he's a monster and the guy Cooper is just nasty.
I mean you see him coming out of the tunnel.
I mean I'll be I'm not sitting there scouring Miami games,
watching the interior line. I'm watching the quarterback.
I watch the skill guys, right, I'm watching bane on the edge
and some other defenders, but this dude is nasty. 65350 he had
no Jackson is 65315 Cooper, who's who's going to play guard
and as a backup 65338 So that's maybe a little bit too in the
weeds on some of the jet stuff there.
But I wanted to pay it off and give you the answer.
All right, let me get to some Yankee stuff here.
All right, if you guys want to pop in with some more calls, we
could do that, whether it's about the Knicks a little
baseball was fun to sit down, you know, and last night was a
bit of a pain. It's not a big deal.
I've kind of got, I always used to complain about having to go
from Apple to regular TV or prime to regular.
You know, I guess I finally figured it out.
I remember telling Sal one of my biggest issues was I couldn't
figure out the damn remote. So like they were just games
like if the Yankees were on yes and the Mets were on Apple or,
or really or vice, whatever. Like, all right, I'm going to
watch one game and then, you know, I'm doing my homework and
doing my job. I, I watch both every night.
Pain in the ass. That's why I don't watch a lot
of the Thursday night games because I'm locked into the
Yanks and the Mets or if it's Knicks season, whatever it might
be, but it's become a lot easier.
I don't know, really. In hindsight, I probably sounded
like an idiot complaining about that.
Dude, you click a button. What the hell was so hard about
that? Come on, come on, stop.
So I was clicking away, timing it out and follow it on my phone
with the Yankees locked into the Knicks and Schlittler.
Degrom was fun. Now Cam Schlitzler.
All right, let me get where did I put that?
Hang on, what did I just did I lose that?
Oh, here we go. Tam Schlitter 7 starts this
year. All right, 41 to 2/3 innings, 49
whips, first in the American League, 1.15, the RA 0.74 WHIP.
And this, Listen, if you follow the show, you know that My
favorite stat, my favorite stat for a pitcher, it's not WHIP,
it's not WAR. It's not even WAR.
You know, strikeouts I do like it's opponents batting average
that tells me how uncomfortable or how comfortable an opposing
hitter is in the box, right? And Cam Schlidler's opponents
batting average so far this year through 7 starts is 168.
All right, and here, how about this for you too.
Again, you talk about Yankee history, you're talking about
some good stuff. His ERA for his career so far is
2.43. That's the lowest by any Yankee
with at least through his first 21 games since 1968.
When they lowered the mound, like after that 1968 World
Series, because it was just too easy.
There's no offense, they wound up lowering the mound to kind of
take away the advantage from the for the pitcher.
You're higher, obviously, you've got more leverage, more, more
advantage. So anyway, 68, you're the
pitcher. If you remember that World
Series, Cardinals, Tigers, low Lich, Bob Gibson, all that
stuff. Camp Slither is exactly that's
what I told you he was going to be like.
This was not a guy last year and we got fooled by Louis Hill
winning the rookie of the year. Louis Hill didn't quite look
like this. I mean, Cam Schlittler is built
to be the ace if he's healthy for the Yankee staff for a
decade, decade plus, if he stays really healthy and make 5, he's
going to be on the All Star team this year.
He's going to be top whatever in the in the Cy Young.
Yeah, he's going to have a starter too, where he just
doesn't quite have the stuff. But what I love about Cam
Schlittner, and this is what separates the guys who are
legitimate front of the rotation.
Dudes like Derek Cole when he's right, you know, going back.
Johann Santana, CC Sabathia, pitchers like that.
I think Mcclain's got that for the Mets when they don't have
their A stuff. And I don't care how good you
are, you know, you could, you could think you have your A
stuff in the bullpen. You get on the mound and there's
a pitch that you really expected to rely on based on the scouting
reports. It's just the fields not there
and you can't throw for a striker.
You can't locate your fastball. Even though you throw a 9899,
you can't spot it in the right spot.
So instead of jumping out O1, you know which which opens up
the entire bag of pitches, It's one O and you're consistently
falling behind, which means you've got to abandon certain
pitches and you try to figure things out.
To me, the separator for those who are going to be great versus
those who are going to be sporadically good is when you
don't have your A or a plus stuff.
Don't give ADD effort. I'm and I'm not even talk about
Schlittler last time talking about Schlittler in general and
some of the other great young pitchers and and the great older
pitchers in the game. That's Cam schlittler #1 the
balls on you immediately just based on how tall he is.
All right. And he's got a wind up that is
so repeatable and and is really stress free.
I remember watching Dontrelle Willis, who I loved right with
the Marlins back of the day, the D train, you know, good on TV,
good energy, could hit to make it hit.
But he was just filthy, dude. But it was like that wacky herky
jerky. I'm like, I don't think this is
going to last too long. And it didn't.
Yeah. His stuff went away fast.
And he had a very quiet middle to the end of his career,
unfortunately, because he was so awesome for the game early on.
Cam Schlittler is stress free. Cam Schlittler's got 5 or 6
pitches. And Cam Schlittler is now
officially one of the best pitchers in baseball, period.
You know, I I I don't know, you know, I don't know exactly where
he is right now. He's not even really the best
pitcher on his team, which speaks to great things about the
Yankees moving forward. That's Max Freed.
But if you look at obviously school ball and I know skiing,
think about how about this for irony, you know, skiing.
Think about the way his season started and the Pirates are
actually a little bit better than I think people thought
there there were a couple of games over 500, right?
And his numbers are right back to where they always have been
mid 2 ERA, something like that. But think about the what the
Mets did to him on Opening Day and think about where the
Pirates have gone and where Skeens has gone back to which we
knew what happened. And think about what happened to
the Mets after that. My goodness.
I mean, that was unexpected. But you're talking about you
guys like Skeens and School Bowl and Freed.
Soriano has been phenomenal for the Angels so far.
Oh, Todd, he's great. You know, I love McClain.
You guys know that Parker Messick has been very good for
the Guardians. And and this is going to play
out over time, so I don't need to make some bold declaration.
That seems like a hot take, but when I say that Camp Schlitter
is going to be great, that's just consistent with what I've
said, really since the first time I saw him pitch, you know?
And I remember being in the car and I remember texting Susan
Waltman about this when he made his debut.
Was it against the White Sox? Whomever he pitched against the
first game, I remember really watching with intrigue because I
was in the car coming back from a Little League game.
And she was doing the pregame, you know, before Booney or maybe
after Booney, she was interviewing the scout who found
Ben Rice and Schlittler, you know, up in the, you know, New
England Northeast area cross checker.
And, and I heard the story about Schlittler's makeup.
His dad's on the job. His dad's a police detective or
Lieutenant very high up in the, in the police force up there.
So, you know, he's got some blue collar in him and he's, you
know, he's, he's going to be a, you would be a grinder.
And his look at his emotions, man.
Like the fire is so obvious. Like he's not taking shit from
anybody. The Red Sox fans, you know, said
what they said, tweeted what they tweeted.
He's like, all right, he going to shove it down your throat.
And so, you know, he's got a very slow heartbeat.
He's not going to overreact to the moment.
He almost gets better and steadier as the stakes rise.
And that's another great sign for a young ball player.
Like think about Juan Soto at the age of 19 in the World
Series, hitting lefties like Don Mattingly in 85 or Rod Carew or
Braid Boggs. They didn't even flinch against
some of these lefties. Tony Gwinn, like, you're like
this, this young man's, he's cut from a different hitting cloth,
right? Because when you show that at
that age, there's an aptitude, but also back to the heartbeat
and the process and everything about Schlittler is dynamic and
consistent and awesome. And the Yankees right now have
the best 1, two pitch, 1-2 duo in baseball.
They really do. So that's awesome from a Yankee
perspective, from a pitching perspective, Yankees definitely
need to upgrade a little bit of closer.
Bednar. Yeah, I touched on this before.
He does make things uncomfortable.
Thank you for that, Ryan. So now we get, I don't know what
he's going to do, But I mean, now we get to sit back.
You get ready to take care of the Rangers here.
And Yanks are looking really good.
You know, they lost that one game in Houston.
Otherwise they'd have, what, an 11 game win, win, win streak,
something like that. Now we get to see Elmo
Rodriguez, who makes his debut today.
All right, He's 22 and I was looking back at some of his
minor league numbers from the start of 2025 to now.
All right, this is based on all the minor leaguers.
He leads all minor leaguers with 196 whiffs in in all the innings
from, you know, the start of 25 to now, and he's got an ERA at
2.42. I know it's the Miners.
I get it. But now I had to do a deeper
dive. All right, what is he bringing
to the table? Not just velocity.
What's in his bag? Well, the reason why they could
get rocked today, you know, he could be nervous, he could be
overwhelmed. He maybe doesn't throw strikes.
Whatever, You never know, but I'm talking big picture.
Why Rodriguez is appealing here is that you got a four seamer
that sits at 9495 but gets up to 99, but he's got a six pitch
Mitch, a six pitch mix, six pitch Mitch, a six pitch mix.
He's got wait real quick. That sounds like an old like
40s. He was six pitch, pitch Mitch.
He took him out. Yeah, yeah, it sounds like
something like Casey Kasem. Ladies and gentlemen #13 Song at
six, Pitch mix. Bring this beautiful oldie to
you. Go ahead, crank it up.
No, I like that 6 or like 6 like a like a 70s like Creedence
Clearwater type of band. Like no, that is a cool.
Band name. Actually.
Wait, I'm writing that down. Oh, look at you.
Come on. Don't you have your own ideas?
Come on, Ed J Ron, what's going on?
No bite. That's what we used to say.
Stop biting. You know, stop copying.
You guys didn't use that, that word.
Did you? Like stop biting.
Biting is big. Oh, it is.
I think because my dad says it a lot.
So I I think I by proxy say it a lot as.
Well, I like it. That's why I like your pops.
So he's got the sinker, he's got a four seamer, he's got a
cutter, he's got a slider, he's got a curve.
He's got a change up. Now, I, some of those pictures
are more show me pictures like you might use it 3, four, 5% of
the time. But what I, the other thing that
I love and, and This is why the Yankees infield defense is going
to be really important. What he pitches is that he
induces a lot of ground balls. He's like 5556% ground ball
rate, which is very, very high. Like Max Free does that.
That's why McMahon, even when he's not hitting, when Max
Freed's on the hill, for the most part, you want him over at
third base because he's a vacuum.
So I mean, now like just think about where we are in this
Yankee universe #1 They're winning every night #2 Judge
banked on the home run #3 Ben Rice is his Robin.
He's officially got a stud in front of him, you know, maybe
against lefties behind him, but you got at least two stars now
to like judge is the best and then Ben Rice's I believe is a
certifiable star. He's going to be an All Star.
His OPS will be in the you know, middish 9 fifties.
He's going to be top ten in the MVP.
He's going to bank 35 to 40 home runs, like he's going to have 40
plus double S. He's going to knock in 115
brought like he's just, he's that guy, you know, So he's he's
the real deal. And now just even with all the
great Yankee pitching, now you throw Elmo Rodriguez and LeBron,
hey, by the way, is not too far behind.
You got Rodriguez going today. And oh, yeah, by the way, now
you got George Lombard going from 2A, which he absolutely
crushed with A312 average and a 950 OPS and loud power.
Like it was loud. It was with authority, like he
was barreling and oh, yeah, he's 20.
He's going to be what's he 2021 and his defense is already Major
League ready. Like he's a great defender and
he had to earn it like he had a hit just because people say, oh,
it's the Yankees top prospect. If you have a 640 in the OPS of
the minors, I don't give a shit what people think you are
prospect wise. You got to show that you can
bang. You got to prove that you can
hit. And I love and Judge was talking
about this. I was reading some stuff from
Judge where Judge talked about how we kind of tweaked some, you
know, some approach things, some mechanical things.
Didn't really go into the weeds as to what it was, but I love
that because you see early Aaron Judge footage and he was very
susceptible. Remember when Max Scherzer was
toying with him in in Queens a couple of years ago during the
Subway Series? That outside slider like Judge
had it up and end. Judge had a couple of holes that
he had to clean up, which he did.
And the great ones go to school. And I'm not saying Lombard's
going to be great, but I'm saying I can't wait to see what
he does at AAA. And what I am saying in no
uncertain terms, he is absolutely in play for the Bronx
in 2026. The Yankees aren't doing what
they just did yesterday by elevating him up the AAA after
20 games. If they didn't think that they
wanted to at least force him, not force.
That's the wrong word. Reward him and now factor him in
as an option for this season. So that's where we are.
Things are interesting. You know, they get now the Volpe
thing's going to be different type of interesting.
But the Yankees pitching, and I'm with you, I don't like what
I'm seeing from Bednar. It's a bit of a problem there.
But the Yankees pitching is on lock and you got a tandem and
Judge and Rice, you got young arms coming up.
You got a a young bat who can field and can run and who's got
an amazing IQ. That's what everybody says.
Like one thing that Boone told me he's like, he's like, yeah,
he's the real deal man. I remember him telling me that
during the spring. He's like, he just fits.
And you know, one thing that you know, people who do this for a
living, they can certainly tell better than me.
Like when a young, highly touted prospect comes in and and
obviously has the work ethic, but fits in and it's not
overwhelmed by the stage or the magnitude of the Yankees and
being around Judge and all that stuff.
He was just like clockwork. He just said, yeah, he looks
like he need. He absolutely knows what he's
and his dad played. His dad has a lot of background
too. So not so like with Bichette.
His dad plays guys like that wit those guys, even those dad was a
pitcher those guys. Not that it's short because
there's a lot of guys who didn't make it.
But like Prince, you know, Prince Fielder was really good
before he got hurt And Cecil, you know when when you grow up,
you know, booting his his pops, his grandfather was around the
clubhouse. When you grow up and you're
around that, it's common. You just not going to be
overwhelmed. So there's a lot of reasons to
be excited about the Yankees, man, I'm pumped up.
I'm absolutely pumped up. I want to give you something
else here. I'm not going to spend a lot of
time on this here today, but I want to at least pay it off a
little bit. Let me see if we got here.
BT coming with the old school slang bite.
Well, is it that? Well, yeah, things come back in
style, right? Like retro shirts J Rod uses.
I don't know, I feel like bite is like a very I, I, I think a
lot of like even in pop culture, I think it's still pretty
popular, like. Yeah, it might be right what we
used to say. I remember when I was young, the
big word was fresh. Yeah, I mean, I, I love that
one. That's like one of my
favourites. I think that's still it's, it's
not OK. I think with the generation
below me starting three years, five years younger than me, they
probably don't say fresh as much, but I think my like my era
of Gen. Z definitely still does.
Well, think about when it started.
I mean, I don't know if this is the absolute origin of of it,
but you know, it doesn't hurt when you got Dougie fresh, you
know, hitting up that. Beatbox you though. 6 minutes,
Dougie, fresh your own, bring her home.
Like that's how. Yeah, a little bad drop, a
little beat box. Yeah, it's getting stale.
I used to be able to do it pretty well, but I remember a
good family friend of mine out east, this was a Long Island
word. He used the word like I would
say fresh or not even dope, like bad dope.
Now for a lot of people, I don't really say that.
I don't say dope. I say fresh, tight, sick.
He would say mint, mint. And I liked it, but I just
never, I never incorporated into the vernacular.
But you know, those kinds of things.
That's because it, it reminds me of like European people, like
they go like our boy St. he'd probably go, yo, that's class.
That's class, bro. Like that's class.
And I, I, I studied in London for like a month or so my junior
year and like, I really, it's similar.
Like I really enjoyed like the use of that's class like as like
a descriptor. But I was like, I can't, I'm
not, I can't ever incorporate this.
Yeah, Listen, you can't just take everything you got to see,
you know, what fits your persona.
Yeah. All right, So you and I, I'm
going to do this kind of quick here, by the way, tomorrow
again, Mike. Real quick, I think we may have
a caller on the line, but I'm not sure.
It's like I don't know if you can see it at the bottom.
Let me just. Let me good job producing.
I mean, hey yo, by the way, we might have a caller where you
might. No like it says his name but.
The camera is is. I've never, I've never, I've
never seen this kind of visual we're seeing.
Let me. Just you want to roll the dice,
Hey, I'm going to give you the authority.
I'm going to give you executive power.
Your call, man. I'm good with it.
Roll the dice. All right, Jay.
Jay, can you hear us? Yeah, I can hear you.
Can you hear me? Hey.
Yeah, we got you, Jared J Rod, One for One.
Where you at, Jay? Hey, I'm in Fort Collins, Co.
Brother Colorado. Wow.
OK, nice. Yeah, I, I've been listening to
you for years. I listened to the fan, and when
you moved over here, I came with you.
I listened to you every day. And it's funny that you just
threw out the reference of mint. I grew up on Long Island.
Everything was mint, everything when I was a teenager, that that
was like the biggest word. That's so funny that you brought
that up man. Listen.
Yeah, he would. He would.
Listen. Good family friend.
He was absolutely out of his mind.
I mean, this dude was wild, man. I mean, you want to talk about
trouble? I remember one time we're out of
East, right? And he had just gotten his
license. He had some shit box that was
like souped up, like, you know, paint job and tinted windows.
And he drove the car on a pond. Now it was the dead of the
winter. He's driving on a pond and like,
and I'm in the I'm in the front seat.
I'm like, this guy's out of his mind, dude out of absolutely
nuts, but a great guy and he would always say men.
So what's up That's? Awesome.
Hey, so so I'm a big MET fan and before I get to and before I get
to my MET point, the guy that calls you from like North
Carolina or something, you you were trying to figure out like
whose voice he sounds like? Yeah, he.
He calls you about the Mets. Are you a Howard Stern fan?
I used to be. OK, the guy that calls you
sounds like Eric the Midget. I mean, if we start getting some
of Howard's people that that's not a bad thing for the channel,
right? We'll, we'll take whatever we
can get. You know, maybe Robin could call
in someday. Maybe How?
We yeah, yeah, that. Well, hey man, we're on a win
one game-winning streak with the Mets.
He's a big, big, big shut out. Ain't nothing.
Yeah. You know, I mean, you got to
take, you got to take it however you can get it, brother, I mean.
I'm not going to dump on a win. You got to win.
You know, I mean, we're going to go for two today.
I don't, you know, I don't know what our odds are of doing that,
but you know, one game, all right, 8 something.
I mean, shit, we, we haven't, we haven't scored eight runs in
five games. And no, that's true.
I mean, before yesterday, the Mets had scored two runs or less
in 14 of the 28 games they played.
I mean, everything basically last in everything.
When the Mets come to Colorado, you go to the games against the
Rockies or no? Well, it's funny that you say
that because they'll be out here the first May 8th, I believe.
And I'm glad I didn't buy tickets yet because, you know,
they're pretty crappy. I'm.
Almost at the tickets be to go watch the Colorado Rockies, man.
Yeah, but when, when the Mets, when the Mets come to town,
like, like I want to, you know, I I get good seats.
Like I don't want to sit up in the boondocks.
But I mean, out here, here are good seats for the Rockies.
You could sit 10 rows from the field for 100 bucks.
That's great. No, it's, it's one of the
stadiums I want to go to that I've never, I've been outside of
it, but I've never been, I've never seen a game at at the
field. And it looks gorgeous on TV,
especially when the weather's nice.
It really does look like a nice stadium.
Everybody who's been there raves about it.
Yeah, I mean it, it's great. But the problem is.
Like, you know, that's the problem.
The team, the team sucks. So it's it's so it's it's all
the other fans. Like when the Mets are in town,
it's 80% Met fans there and same for every team.
Like when the Dodgers come to town to get it.
I mean like the whole stadium is just all Dodgers.
I know. What about the Giants?
I would think the Giants would get a lot of fans too, right?
Oh yeah. I mean, all all the because
there's so many transplants out here that unless it's a really
crappy team, you know, it's like those fans show up.
It's sort of like the Vegas Raiders, you know, it's.
Like these people? Just, you know, they, they just
show up to the game and plus it's cheap.
Well, but but Jay, think about this too.
You think about when when baseball expanded right in the
90s and you got the Marlins and you got the Rockies.
Like, you know, when be before like westward expansion, when
the Dodgers and the Giants went from New York out West in, in
the late 50's. The there's an entire generation
that all right, I'm a Giants fan because the Rockies were nowhere
near being born. I'm a Giants fan and you know,
you hold on to those roots. I get it, you know.
Man, you guys are doing a great job.
I listen every day, brother, out here in Fort Collins and.
Thanks man. Keep up the good work.
You got it. I'll talk to you soon.
Bro, thank you, Jay. Now good luck to you Mets man.
Let's get on a little streak here for those guys.
I'm I'm happy that the Jay good job punching that through It
worked out. You know, I almost took a job in
in in Denver. I've only been to Denver, I
think twice. This was really early in my
career and I think I made the right well, I made the right
decision, but and it's nothing against Denver.
So there's a massive sports station out there K fan, right?
It's like it's like they're WFAN massive great ratings, great
revenue, great history. It was it was born after WFAN,
obviously, But what are the great sports stations in in the
country like? You know, I would say obviously
FAN in terms of local stuff, I would say KNBR out in San
Francisco, certainly WIP down in Philly.
K fans up there in my point, right, the ticket out in Detroit
anyway. So this was like, I don't know.
Is is it time for the the short story made long by beat?
I'll try to make it short. OK, Thank God I didn't take this
job because I would have been awful at it.
And that's like the only thing that I, I, I've never said about
any job, but I, I think I turned it down rightfully.
So I'm in Vegas and I'm at that old big national network, the
sports fan radio network in the early 2000s, right.
And it's like Pharrell. I've, I've mentioned this
Pharrell, the sports babe, gym Rome, bunch of industry beasts
and I'm, I'm doing weekend shows and I'm doing updates, right?
And one of our, and that's how I wound up getting the job in
Detroit because one of our affiliates, which was my next
stop was, was Detroit. I mean, it was really a big
network and had a great time living in Vegas.
How could you not in your mid 20s?
That's where it was based out of.
So one of our affiliates, J Rod was in Colorado.
And then what happened was the, the, the, the money engine
behind the network. I, oh, I do remember the name,
but I'm not going to say it. They pulled the plug.
You know what, they went a different direction and the, the
network went from incredibly viable and incredibly profitable
with this, with well over 200 affiliates across the country to
non existent. It was gone.
So everybody had everybody had to find a job, right.
So, you know, imagine being in, in Vegas.
I was there for about AI got a job quickly, thank God.
But imagine being in Vegas with no job for a month, being 25
years old. No, what do you even do?
I mean, I guess like I have a thought of what you do.
We add it in times 10, whatever that boat is.
So anyway, little story short, so a couple of the stations
reached out to our bosses like, hey, I I like this kid Tyranny.
He's young, he's got great energy, a little raw, whatever.
But so a couple of the affiliates flew me out and I
would go when I would meet the station and they flew me at Tim
Spence, good guy who used to run K fan.
That's the name. I, I don't know what Tim's doing
now, but if he's out there, Tim was always good to me.
So shout out to Tim. They, they fly me out of he
picks me up at the airport. We go to dinner.
One of my buddies who was working, who I had worked with
in Vegas prior, one of my best friends, he was at my wedding.
Chad, great dude was already in Denver.
So I go out there and the plan was, I think cuz I was still
young, I think to do like morning up, morning updates.
Kind of like Jerry. Kind of like Jerry.
Got it. Got.
It great at that. Jerry is so good at that.
He's awesome at that. Jerry's great guy.
I love Jerry. I don't I wouldn't have been
nearly as good because I just wanted to host.
I wouldn't have given the the updates any attention, which one
of the reasons why I didn't take the job.
But also host Saturday and Sunday and like do some stuff
around like the post game, like the Denver Nuggets and the
Avalanche and I think maybe even some Bronco stuff.
It was a it was a a lot of different hats.
Anyway, when I fly out there, they put me on the air and I
wound up doing a trial show on a Saturday and a Sunday, like 2-4
hour stints. And I'm, I'm doing a great job.
I'm feeling good. Yeah, I'm, again, I'm wrong.
I'm young, but I got great energy.
Whatever. Then I start getting calls about
the Colorado Avalanche, about hockey, about the third line for
the Avalanche. I'm like, you better not fucking
take this shot, dude. You're going to be out of here
in a week. I don't know anything about.
All I know was like, I don't know who.
I'm trying to think of some of the great players from the
Avalanche back then. I I can't even come up with one
that I know. I know it was some of the old
timers, but they're escaping me now.
I'm like, maybe Ray Borg, I don't know.
Before he went to the Bruin. I don't even know, but like, or
maybe you went from the Bruins day.
Either way, I'm like, Get Me Out of here, man Like what?
It started out great. Oh, what should Denver?
What did the Nuggets doing the draft?
What about the Rockies pit dad? This is simple.
This is a beautiful state. I mean, it's absolutely it's one
of the prettiest states of our fifty.
It's gorgeous, right? I would rank a top five,
actually. But as those hockey calls
started coming in, I started getting nervous.
I'm like, dude, I don't know if this side turned it down.
And then and then it worked out. And by the way, I had to talk
hockey in Detroit too, but at least I figured that out with
the Red Wings. At the time, like how did you
pivot like when you were asked that?
Question I have no generalities buddy.
Number one, I faked it, fake it till you make it.
And and I just I was I was trying to pivot like really.
Like I could be totally honest if I'm listening to that, I may
have said like, Oh, this guy's out of his mind.
Oh, this guy's interesting. This guy's different.
This guy's nuts. Like, you know, certain
characteristics that were always appealing to me as a sports
radio consumer. So on some level, maybe some of
the listeners were liking it. But like, I would just like, you
know, if you would have dumped somebody in New York like back
in the day and you ask about the Yankee bullpen and he doesn't
know anything, I'm like, get this clown out of here.
Can't work here. He can't talk about the Yankees
bullpen getting lost, dude. So I'm sure a lot of people were
saying were saying that, you know, but the truth of the
matter is, it's funny that you ask that, like what did I do?
I faked it really is what I did. But that's like one of the
things that you'll and it's so different now because like now
you could do specialized content, YouTube world, all that
stuff, right? But you know, back then I
thought that I had to know everything.
Like I, I thought that I had that you had to know everything
and nobody knows everything. Nobody.
So you know, what you do is you learn to play what's hot and you
play the hits and you got to have strong opinions and you got
to be entertaining and all that stuff.
But you got to have good guests. You know, you don't bring in the
D listers when you get a guest, make sure it's a big name.
Know how to do a real interview, get some juice out of it, have a
presence. But you, you just the art of of
of it. Maybe maybe not as much YouTube,
but again, old, older conventional radio.
And I love radio. You know, it's never this when I
bring this up, but it's about the presentation of knowing
everything, even though nobody does, even though it's less
about knowing stuff now, maybe then it is a lot more
entertainment. It's it's definitely more.
I see what you're. Saying so, like under radio,
there's a greater pretense that, like, the host is like this
super knowledgeable figure who knows everything about sports in
the world, where is like YouTube, you know exactly what
you're getting. You're getting BT There's not
some weird like farce around. Like, yeah.
I see, I'll put it this way. Yep #1 You lay it out well #2
put it out this way. Like if somebody called in and
they're like, hey, I want to talk to BT about what he was
saying about the Knicks, right? And they pivot and they're like,
yo BT what do you think? You know, I don't know the, the
Rangers third line or you know, what are the Iowas going to do
this offseason? I'd be like, I have no idea.
And right now I really don't care cuz I'm talking about the
Knicks and I'm worried about the gangs and the Mets.
Then I just wrapped up The Jets giant strap where if I would
have gotten that call when I was really young.
I I, you know, not that I'd stumble and stammer all over the
place. I would just make something up,
I'm sure. But you know what I mean.
Like you? Yeah.
Yeah, I, I. But there's no false pretense.
I know what I know, you know, I love what I love and what I
don't. I just I don't really pay much
intent. Now, you know, a couple like,
you know, with Tiki and and the first year with Sal, like the
Rangers were really good. So I would watch the Ranger
playoff games and at least be able to talk about it in general
terms and even maybe slightly more, but not as well as, you
know, some of the other people on the station that really like,
you know, love and watch hockey is what it is.
That basically makes shit up. There you go.
No, I mean, listen, listen, that's this.
That's this whole content creation.
Thing Oh, oh, here we go. The blind bit.
Finally we won a game Playoffs next.
Let's oh, that's the old Pete. They'll throw the F in the air.
Let's bleep and go Mets. Now you go Mets, do you?
I don't understand. What was Juan Soto doing last
night? I mean, what would I know?
We had a bomb the other way. And hopefully his his arm's
going to be not going to be an issue.
Like to see the Mets get their act together a little bit here.
Although it is always fun. Like you don't want to be
average. Like even the Yankees like to
me, it's no fun when the Yankees are are average or like
interesting, but nowhere near a World Series, nowhere near
bottoming out. Like that's kind of mundane
boring stuff like if you're going to suck, go up in flames.
So, you know, if the if the Mets RIP off 5 in a row, I will I
will I will give them respect and I'll talk about it.
But you know, I mean, if it doesn't lead to sustained play
the rest of the way, it could be just a little blip.
I have no idea what the Mets are going to do.
I'm not even make a prediction. Like I don't think the Mets
roster is very good, but it's not a bad sign when you see him
Bichette go the other way going yard.
You see Soto cranking one the other way.
You know, who knows, though. I I don't really know where this
is going to go. All right, Jay, real fast on
this man. So we were talking about a
little little bit about the the change here to the NCAA, right,
the expansion of the tournament. The first of all, just as a
general concept, does this interest you?
Do you have like? What's your initial?
Any resistance? I mean here, break it down for
me real quick and then and then I'll I'll give you my thoughts.
So that's J Rod basically saying I have no idea what's happening,
let BT tell everybody, then I'll give you a reaction.
Exactly. Or just give me some time to
look it up. You don't have to look it up.
I'll lay it out. It's it's pretty simple.
I've got it all written out. I got all the stuff you need to
know here, number one. All right, let's see here,
number one. OK, so it's coming this season
and it's been talking. It's not like it's all down the
it's coming up this season. It's going to happen, right?
And and I think now I'm always skeptical because I think the
NCAA is a bunch of clowns. I think they're greedy, I think
they're lost, I think they're idiots.
I think the NCAA stinks. I can't stand what it's become.
I love Saint John's, I love the Big East, I love the big Dance,
I love conference tournaments, but and I'm not even resistant
to NIL, but because they should get paid.
But the transfer portal, it's just no familiarity with
rosters. College basketball, I was lucky,
I know back on the back of the day, but I really was lucky.
These guys were there 234 years. Rivalries, got every guy that
got drafted. I'd watched him play for years
in the NBA draft. So it's different, all right?
Different doesn't mean bad always.
But in this case, for me, it does.
Just to get that out of the way. So I'm always cynical with the
NC double AI. Got to tell you though, based on
everything that I read and not just comments from the NCAA,
from people who have no real skin in the game in terms of
representing the NCAA, just to be fair, it's not really to move
money. It's that the primary focus
isn't money. And I know that that sounds
counterintuitive or counterproductive.
You're going to make a little bit more money.
But it really it's just about rewarding the at large power
conferences because there's schism now between, you know,
the powers and then obviously the Big East, which is terrific.
And this year it was down, but obviously Nova's won a couple of
championship. Uconn's a great team, obviously.
So I just say that you have to throw the Big East in with the
Big 10 and the ACC and all that stuff.
So here's the way it's going to look when you hear NCAA
Tournament expansion. Why are we messing with this?
It's one of the best things out there.
Like the Masters, you know, like those other sporting staples,
the Derby, which is coming up this week, it's not going to
really look that different. It's only going to impact the
start of it. So now we had the 1st 4, which
is in Dayton and St. John's played that a couple of
years ago. So it was cool to see that.
It's a good older gym. Some a lot of history there.
You got the eight teams and you have the four games in Dayton.
That's the way the new model field, the 68.
The only difference here, Jay, and I'm going to give you
thumbnails so you can really react to this, all right?
Instead of eight teams, instead of eight teams, it's not going
to be 24 in Dayton. Well, also what other side?
I'll tell you where that's going to be in a minute.
And instead of four games, there's going to be 12.
So the only thing that's going to be impacted is the early
part. Thursday and Friday is going to
remain the same schedule with the same amount of team.
So first game it's a 12/12 on Thursday with 1216, whatever it
is. And then the last game, you
know, Gonzaga, San Diego State, UCLA, you know some of those
teams out West or eastern teams that get sent out West, you know
you're going to be watching basketball up until midnight on
Thursday and Friday the 1st. So that is not going to change
at all. The only thing that's going to
change is more games early, higher profile teams in the
tournament early. There will be one site in Dayton
and then the other site and it's not settled yet on where it's
going to be, but it's going to be out West for a logistical
aspect. So all the games won't be in
Dayton. Dayton will get half and then
you'll have a pot out West for the 1st 4.
But really now the first 12 I guess, Yeah, yeah, first 12 with
a western sight West of the Mississippi at least.
So that's the long and short of it.
You basically get 8 more games featuring more teams and and
that's the only difference. You got a problem with it.
No, I mean, to me it doesn't sound too egregious just yet.
The only thing I think is, yeah, like someone down here puts it,
well, like 76 teams is a showcase for pro scouts.
I think it kind of it definitely, you know, and I
think we've talked about this with Saint John's bringing in
the European players. It.
Sort of adds to this transition that the NCAA is making into
this like quasi pro basketball league.
Like it's not quasi, not yet it pro basketball league.
Full transition to a pro basketball league that it's made
where now it's like you'll have these NCAA teams, hey, you know,
here's March Madness, a place to showcase players for G League,
NBA, European talent, the whole deal.
So I think in that sort of, you know, I'm not mad at it.
I just think it's it's only going to go further into that
direction. I agree.
I do agree with that. Unfortunately, I I don't know
where the tipping stopping point is.
I don't know. There's going to have to be a
massive, at some point there's going to be a massive
recalibration. I'm not a lawyer.
This thing starts hitting courts.
So that's where you're going to probably hit some checkpoints to
where it's going to be pushed back.
We all know it's got to be tweaked on some level and and
eventually it will. But you know, to me, the other
advantage here, like I look at stuff like this when something's
going to change and it's pretty radical to something that we're
very used to. I look at all right, what's the
bad aspect of it and does it outweigh the good?
All right. Do the fans get penalized more
than they get rewarded? And I just by the way, I laid it
out like, I mean, yeah, you can use scroll.
No, I like tradition. I got to have 6 to 18 because,
you know, even though it used to be 64 and before that used to be
less. But I guess you could complain
if you want. It's not going to impact the
viewing because Tuesday, Monday, Tuesday, who cares, man?
Like that's that's not a so anybody that enjoys the model
now will have that model uninterrupted Thursday and
Friday and then eventually 32 and then Sweet 16, Elite 85 and
all that stuff. So no change there.
The good aspect, which is why I do think this is more good than
bad, is that you will have more big teams.
All right, I think willing to play big, high profile, non
conference games early because the more teams and the more
slots there are that you get to get an invite to go dancing.
You're, you know, you're you're less concerned about, you know,
taking a loss early. You're going to challenge
yourself more and you're going to get that net ranking up and
you're going to do those. The strength, the schedule and
all the metrics, the analytics that, that the Dolby committee,
which still gets it wrong at the time, even when they lean on
meth, like they're lost in that room, they're just, they're,
they're horrendous. They're so dumb.
And it's so, it's so jilted and it's so, I don't want to say
crooked, but almost crooked because you got ADS from schools
and you know, the committee is comprised of people that
represent certain people, have stronger voices and more Jews
because they've been there forever, which means their
conference gets the benefit of the day.
It is what it is. We're not stupid here.
That happens all the time. But I do think that residually
there will be a benefit here. You will see more tournament,
higher profile tournaments and a more more of a willingness like
Pitino's already done this more of a willingness to to roll the
dice and you know, maybe go and play Tom Iswood, Michigan State
in a non conference game when maybe you would have avoided
that. Try to pad early on, get some
dubs and just make the resume at least look presentable before
you get into conference play. So I think that that will
actually be good. But you know, that's where I'm
at with that. I don't think it's that big of a
deal. No, like I don't not that this
is always the case, but you know, more basketball the
better. And I think you know, the more
this is obviously good for them. Like the more schools that you
can kind of get invested into a single tournament, you know,
more, more eyes on the game. Never, never a terrible thing.
Yeah, this is an I agree. This is an interesting text to
or chat at BB at BBART six O 9. The more schools that you add,
the more diluted the product comes that that's that's true.
But then again, even Rick said this like the blue bloods, blue
bloods are over. Like there are no more blue
bloods because the money's changed all that.
You know, like you think blue bloods, you think Carolina Huber
Davis fired, you think Kentucky Mark Pope didn't really have a
good year. If this keeps up, you'll be
gone. You know, Duke obviously is
tremendous. That's a blue blood that's
maintained it. You know, I mean UCLA, given
their lineages, a couple of teams at Yukon is it has become
one Michigan State, you know, Michigan, but you know, you just
don't know. I mean, you could have a team
out of nowhere like Grand Valley who has some crazy NIL fund.
No, they could be a Sweet 16 team.
And the reason why I think that this text here is interesting.
Not saying the extra games won't be entertaining, but you'll get
to the point where a sub 500 teams are in the tournament.
Well, yes, and generally I would push back on that as a singular
entity, but because of NIL, it's already diluted to the point
where the mid major prowess is gone.
You know, like before Butler joined the Big East and they and
they got to the championship game with Gordon Hayward, right
play that UConn. I was at that final four.
I think that one was in Houston, I think.
And you know, George Mason back in the day making the final four
and VCU, you know, Chaca, you know, like those stories are
just evaporating because what's happening is you get it.
One of the players I'm I'll take George Mason.
I don't even know if they, I think they were pretty good this
year, but I'm not positive. But not what they were.
But take their best player, you know, 21 points a game,
conference player of the year. You know, maybe he was a
sophomore, maybe he popped the summer between his first and
second year and he went from 8 1/2 points and nobody was
knocking down his door for NIL and then boom, he explodes.
One of the best players in the country.
Here's $5 billion come to us. So what happens?
He takes the five mil. I'm not mad at you.
He goes wherever he goes. I'm not mad at you.
But what I do resent is that somebody like George Mason, who
found that player was at least partly responsible for his
development. Now you got, you know, like
parasites, you know, picking at that dead body, the carcass, you
know, all these teams with. And St.
John's is one of them. So I got to keep it real.
You know, St. John's had no NIL money when
there was no, they stunk. St.
John's got NIL money. They're good.
So I can't be, I can't contradict things like I hate
the system, but I love that St. John's has benefited from it.
That's it. And because those stories are,
you know, even Indiana State back in the day, or Evansville
or even little tiny Princeton really back in the day, you
know, with Pete Carrill back dooring you to death and trying
to win 5349 and just frustrating these athletic teams, stays are
over. It's gone.
So if those days are over and you have to know and you have to
admit that they are, then I don't know why you would resist
this because you'll at least get bigger brands there, you know,
And I think that it will certainly, and this will help
St. John's and I think the Big East
will benefit. You know, it's tough for Seton
Hall to really keep their players because they don't have
the NIL money that St. John's and Yukon does.
And, and I love Cheyenne Holloway, but they just don't
have that money. But, you know, I mean, Seton
Hall was a fringe tournament, a very fringe tournament team last
year. But you add, you know, some more
teams. You had 12 more teams and you
know, maybe one more win for the Pirates.
Guess what? They're they're dancing, which
means more money for the conference dispersed throughout
the entire conference. So there's a lot of things.
They're not a big deal. People will complain.
But when you look at it the way that I just laid it out for you,
there's really not a lot to complain about.
If you've been following the changes in college basketball,
in college sport in general and college football did it.
No, we can't. Why not expand?
It's great. That was one of the best college
like Indiana winning was awesome.
It was phenomenal. Man, I love the last year's
college football season. All right, Jay, I am going to
bounce two hours on the button. Great stuff.
Let's. Go good show today, buddy.
We've got Michael K tomorrow. Looking forward to OK, we're
going to be good. Looking forward to talking shop
with with my buddy Mike on the Yankees.
I can't wait to watch Rodriguez pits today.
Who knows, maybe the start of a little Mets win streak.
That would be nice. It would be different.
We'll see if we get that. Nothing with the Knicks, nothing
with the Celtics tonight. Those series resume tomorrow
nothing else with the draft there that's obviously over we
kind of resolved that for a for the NFL and that's it have a
great rest of your Wednesday would appreciate the let you
guys know. I appreciate you checking this
out every single day BT at least of course like it sub it jumping
on The Jets collective as well. If you're a big jets fan, no
matter where you are in the world, Jets collective on
YouTube once a week, myself, Jake Asmin Ritsumini sub it,
comment on this stuff, share it like it more and more and more.
And I think that you guys hopefully have noticed what what
we started doing this week here. And this is a big credit to J
Rod. He's been awesome with this.
It's a little extra work here, but it's going to really be good
for the channel and our growth right.
He now cuts down. We've always had like Chapel not
at the start we did, but we've had chapters.
So it's easier for you guys to kind of peel through the live
show. But listen, the way YouTube
works and you know, still figuring things out and tweaking
things here. You know, if you see on the the
home page of YouTube, like you're not going to see BT
unleashed a 2 hour show. You're going to watch the show
because you're a fan of what I do and you're a believer in what
we do. But now what he does is he chops
up two or three segments a day and it's only about 8-9 minutes
like the other day, you know, crushing the Mets where Ben
Rice, I'm sure we'll do something on, you know, whether
it's Cam Schlittler, obviously the Knicks.
So you will now see that stuff like you see the shorts and some
of the interviews, you'll see that stuff more and more and
more visible 6789 minute pop specific to what you guys are
looking for. So, and it is funny like I, I
swear to God, I was thinking about that over the weekend.
It was a central thought of mine for the show.
And J Rod text me Sunday night. He's like, dude, he's like, what
do you think about? And he laid it out and I'm like
#1 I love that you're so proactive.
That's why you're my guy #2 I was thinking the same exact
thing. So the alignments there, and
it's really good for the channel.
So make sure you guys check that out, make sure you like that,
and make sure you jump in on that, get the comments going as
well. All right, I got to roll.
Have a great rest of your Wednesday and can't wait to
watch Elmo Rodriguez pitch in a little bit.
And I will see you tomorrow with Michael Kay, our number 2 right
here on the show. Peace.
you listening?