Speaker 1: Welcome to Special Teams, a production of My Heart Radio
Speaker 1: Greetings and Welcome inside Special Teams Jason Smith and Mike
Speaker 1: Harmon from Fox Sports Radio. Every week we take a
Speaker 1: look at a team and I put that in quotes
Speaker 1: because we get to play with the format quite a
Speaker 1: bit here on the show. One individual year in sports
Speaker 1: and what made them so memorable. With no sports having
Speaker 1: been going on this way for a while now due
Speaker 1: to the coronavirus pandemic, we thought this might be a
Speaker 1: good time to look back at some of the Special
Speaker 1: Teams in the years in which we had work stoppages
Speaker 1: and we didn't have any games. This will be the
Speaker 1: Major League Baseball Strikes and Lockouts edition as we look
Speaker 1: back at two specific years in which the Major League
Speaker 1: Baseball season got interrupted. At one point, it got interrupted
Speaker 1: for the rest of the year, and we look back
Speaker 1: and see what teams were robbed, what teams were set
Speaker 1: to have great seasons, maybe win the World Series, big
Speaker 1: time records that could have been broken. So this is
Speaker 1: the Baseball Strikes and Lockout Podcasts with Special Teams. I'm Jason,
Speaker 1: and the man you're gonna hear right now is Mike Arming.
Speaker 1: Absolute madness. We've seen it. We talked about labor piece
Speaker 1: and take it for granted, right because we talked about
Speaker 1: the giant piles of money and players and sometimes they
Speaker 1: stick their feet in their mouths Hi Patrick ewing Uh
Speaker 1: from your NBA sessions. Yes, we make a lot of money,
Speaker 1: but we spend a lot of much on infamous quote
Speaker 1: from the NBA world. But all the mechanics of trying
Speaker 1: to put this thing back together and as we've talked
Speaker 1: about a lot with the pandemic, trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how to get it back together again, what makes sense,
Speaker 1: what's the next iteration? How do you make it function?
Speaker 1: What's fair, what's right? And how do you bring two
Speaker 1: sides together to say, all right, here's how we're gonna
Speaker 1: Frankenstein together a season. And as we're about to talk
Speaker 1: about it gets a little bit uh odd. So what
Speaker 1: was the first strike slash lockout? We're gonna look back
Speaker 1: at the night one Major League Baseball strike which began,
Speaker 1: as many other seasons we're going to we had Fernando Mania.
Speaker 1: This is when Fernando Valenzuela made his debut. And you know,
Speaker 1: for people who were born later, what was Fernando Valenzuela.
Speaker 1: What was Fernando Mania like? It was kind of like
Speaker 1: what Lynsanity was with the Nix and Jeremy lit a
Speaker 1: few years ago. And every time Fernando Valenzuelo would pitch,
Speaker 1: look at this who is this guy? He closes his eyes,
Speaker 1: he looks up to the sky. I mean, everywhere you
Speaker 1: went it was about Fernando Mania. So you know, being
Speaker 1: a lusty I used to uh pull out the Fernando
Speaker 1: to the mound that big wind up. Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: and here's still kind of ocasionally one would get away
Speaker 1: and a guy to have to wear it, but blust
Speaker 1: that one. I'm doing my Fernando impression. But I got
Speaker 1: hit in the face. Yeah. Sorry. I love throwing the
Speaker 1: ball like Fernando valence Whille. It's what I do. Never
Speaker 1: hit anybody in the face. Uh to four eight e
Speaker 1: r A. All the complete games. I mean, just fantastic
Speaker 1: stuff from from this kid or so we were totally
Speaker 1: he was a kid, yeah as a kid, never matter.
Speaker 1: It was so Fernando valence Whala debuting for the Dodgers
Speaker 1: on the West Coast. People didn't get a chance to
Speaker 1: see him. The mystery was there for him. It was awesome.
Speaker 1: Another big highlight before the MLB striking eighty one Paul
Speaker 1: Tucking in Rochester Triple A teams played a thirty three
Speaker 1: inning game, a game that had to be settled a
Speaker 1: different day because they decided finally after thirty two winnings
Speaker 1: were done playing. It was Easter Sunday and these two
Speaker 1: teams had to finish a game a few months later.
Speaker 1: And I'm telling you, I read the book Bottom of
Speaker 1: the Thirty Three, which came out a few years ago.
Speaker 1: It is one of the top three sports books of
Speaker 1: all time. It is so incredibly interesting because the the
Speaker 1: author goes into um life on Pawtucket and what life
Speaker 1: was like, and there's stuff on Cal Ripken and Wade
Speaker 1: Boggs and Rich Gedman and what happened to all the
Speaker 1: players playing in this game that went thirty three innings
Speaker 1: and fans who were at the game, And it's like
Speaker 1: you're reading a great fictional book about a thirty three
Speaker 1: ning baseball game, except it was real. And I'm telling
Speaker 1: you I I read sports books all the time. Bottom
Speaker 1: of the Thirty three one of the best sports books
Speaker 1: you could possibly buy and read. It was it was
Speaker 1: just fantastic. And the thing is, I read it knowing
Speaker 1: full well I forgot who won the game, so I
Speaker 1: didn't go look up or anything I want to go.
Speaker 1: I kind of want to be surprised. And then as
Speaker 1: I read the beginning that I go, oh, okay, I
Speaker 1: think this guy is big for a big reason. All right,
Speaker 1: we'll get to that. But it is. It is like
Speaker 1: one of those books that John You'd figured John Feinstein
Speaker 1: would write and he would take all this time to
Speaker 1: do research on these teams. It is just that good.
Speaker 1: And this was Pawtucket in Rochester, so the major I
Speaker 1: used to go to the live school library and I
Speaker 1: take out whatever sports book I couldn't to do book reports.
Speaker 1: And eventually they banned me from taking any sports books out.
Speaker 1: Wow you got because you never returned them. It was
Speaker 1: like on the nineteen nineteen White Sox, I still have it. Sorry, no, no,
Speaker 1: But it'd be like, you just get a book report
Speaker 1: on the the Yankees two weeks ago. I don't care
Speaker 1: about the history of the insert teen here. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: you will, and I'm gonna tell you why it's compelling. Next.
Speaker 1: For three years, I did a book report on the
Speaker 1: baseball Life of Sandy Kofax, Like, I know so much
Speaker 1: about Sandy Kolfax's life because for three years I did it,
Speaker 1: and then one for the fourth year. I think it
Speaker 1: was like fifth or sixth grade. I went to do
Speaker 1: it and I couldn't find the book, and I said, Mom,
Speaker 1: where's my Sandy Colfax book? She said, I threw it
Speaker 1: out because I wasn't gonna have you do another book
Speaker 1: report on that book. Read something else. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: you meanwhile, like I never read. I read all the time.
Speaker 1: I just want to do a you know, book report
Speaker 1: on Sandy co Fax again. But she threw the book away.
Speaker 1: I just like, Sandy co Fast, what do you want
Speaker 1: from me? So the season begins and the players strike
Speaker 1: on June twelfth. This was over free agency compensation. The
Speaker 1: owners wanted compensation for free agents to sign in other places.
Speaker 1: In other words, kind kind of like the NFL. You
Speaker 1: trade a guy, you lose a guy, you get you
Speaker 1: get a compensatory draft pick. Well, the owners wanted compensation
Speaker 1: if a free agent one of their players went and
Speaker 1: signed someplace else. The players said, wait a minute, that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean we really have free agency. It's you know,
Speaker 1: it's almost like a trade. So this is what they
Speaker 1: struck on. There were fifty plus games missed, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell you exactly what happened to finish the season here,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna say, no way, major League Baseball is
Speaker 1: not gonna do that. No, this is exactly what they did. No.
Speaker 1: But Jason, I mean, remember, people are well well aware
Speaker 1: of what a guy like Rob Man for a dozen't
Speaker 1: do in the job now, the Astros and Red Sox
Speaker 1: decisions here in so anything else you say that a
Speaker 1: commissioner did, I gotta think people kind of shrug at
Speaker 1: this point, going yeah, I'll buy that. Yeah, but this
Speaker 1: was easy stuff. It wasn't well Rob Man for his
Speaker 1: easy stuff too, so he had easy stuff. They did
Speaker 1: what the players strike on June twelve, and they missed
Speaker 1: fifty games before they recommenced the season. What Baseball decided
Speaker 1: was all those teams that were in first place on
Speaker 1: June twelve of the four divisions, because this is back
Speaker 1: when Major League Baseball was just n least n L West,
Speaker 1: A least n L a L West, they were the
Speaker 1: first half winners. So these four teams that won the
Speaker 1: first half clinch playoff berths. So that means Oakland, the Yankees, Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: and the Dodgers all clinch playoff spots. So no matter
Speaker 1: what they did in the second half of the season,
Speaker 1: they were in the playoffs. I mean, how insane's going
Speaker 1: on three on vacation. We just decided to stop on
Speaker 1: the twelve. Oh yeah, you're in the playoffs. Oh that's awesome,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much so management, it was come. It
Speaker 1: was insane, right. So now the first question is, okay,
Speaker 1: what if the same team wins the division in the
Speaker 1: second half of the season. That was a problem. So
Speaker 1: Major League Baseball decided, well, if a team wins both has,
Speaker 1: they would have to play the team who finished second
Speaker 1: in their division in the second half. Okay, So that
Speaker 1: that's how it went. So you could win your division
Speaker 1: at the second half of the year, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter because you would still have to play the team
Speaker 1: that finished second in the second half. That's how baseball
Speaker 1: said that, instead of just picking up the season where
Speaker 1: they were and finishing it, no, no, no, we're gonna
Speaker 1: do this crazy ask first half second half thing, which
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense. So that's what Major League Baseball
Speaker 1: decides to do. First half winners, I want to play
Speaker 1: the second half. I mean, how do how do you?
Speaker 1: That's like something an eight year old kid would come
Speaker 1: up with. But the meeting to where this gets agreed to,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many, so many problems with it
Speaker 1: without even researching anything else, just all right, you win
Speaker 1: both both halves. Why don't you get a buy instead
Speaker 1: of another team? Hey, you know what, you get the
Speaker 1: bonus round because this team dominated both halves. How does
Speaker 1: that make any sense? You still have to play even
Speaker 1: though you're the best team. But wait a minute, it
Speaker 1: wasn't that said a couple of a couple like two
Speaker 1: minutes ago. You're not gonna believe a major league Baseball
Speaker 1: didn't And who was the one who said, well you
Speaker 1: see what Rob Manford's done. I think people believe it. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: it's absolutely insane. You came full circle in two minutes.
Speaker 1: To my point. No, it's Look, I can still see
Speaker 1: how it gets under the table. I just don't see
Speaker 1: how it's not swept away. That's that's the point I'm
Speaker 1: trying to make it. Who's like a lot of decisions,
Speaker 1: Like you know, when I worked at yah who years ago,
Speaker 1: we'd be sitting in these meetings that would become two
Speaker 1: to three hours long and somewhat everybody got to have
Speaker 1: their say, and they'd start an idea, and after about
Speaker 1: three sentences, you knew why it wouldn't work for twelve reasons,
Speaker 1: so I'd cut it off at the past. In my
Speaker 1: next annual review, you know what it said. Stop being
Speaker 1: from Chicago, California. People don't work like this. You have
Speaker 1: to let everybody have their say. I'm like, I was
Speaker 1: had three hours and fifteen minutes for this meeting, and
Speaker 1: I actually still have to get my work done, as
Speaker 1: opposed to a lot of these folks that just said, look,
Speaker 1: I give you eight hours. I'll see n hell. I
Speaker 1: actually cared that we were getting a job done, so
Speaker 1: I would live there if I needed to to make
Speaker 1: sure we got it done. Sitting here in this meeting
Speaker 1: listening to bad ideas doesn't work. This is a bad
Speaker 1: idea that should have never stayed on the table. And
Speaker 1: and here's how bad of an idea was. Let me
Speaker 1: just take you through a couple of things that happened
Speaker 1: because of this. So now baseball is back in their
Speaker 1: play instead of just saying we're gonna pick up the
Speaker 1: seats and play another you know, they decide to take
Speaker 1: the schedule from where it sits. Right, so at the
Speaker 1: end of the year, teams play an odd number of games.
Speaker 1: It's not like everybody played a hundred and twenty get no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: Some teams played one or two more games than everybody else,
Speaker 1: and everybody played around a hundred and ten games, but
Speaker 1: some played a hundred and twelves, some played a hundred nine.
Speaker 1: I mean, how do you not even just have here's
Speaker 1: the schedule for the rest of the year to make
Speaker 1: it fair for everybody. Nope, Wh're just gonna have everybody
Speaker 1: play whatever games you finished with you finished with. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what Major League Baseball decides to do. The Yankees.
Speaker 1: They win the first half, right, this is the first
Speaker 1: time the Yankees have been good in a couple of years.
Speaker 1: The Yankees win. Gene Michael is the manager of the Yankees.
Speaker 1: Yankees win the first half. What happens over the strike
Speaker 1: he has fired and replaced by Bob Lemon for the
Speaker 1: second half of the season. So he wins the first
Speaker 1: half as Yankee manager and gets fired during the strike.
Speaker 1: Apparently the Yankees didn't like how he struck uh and
Speaker 1: so I mean, oh, that's this was peak Steinbrenner. I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a guy that took over the Yankees,
Speaker 1: and and first thing he did was say, the following
Speaker 1: players need to get a haircut. And they read out
Speaker 1: the numbers of the players, you know, and they were
Speaker 1: all cheering, going, I gotta get a haircut. But this
Speaker 1: is the beginning of peak Steinbrenner. You're you're firing your manager.
Speaker 1: He just won the first half, and your fireman replacing
Speaker 1: him for the second half of the year. Look at
Speaker 1: look at that lineup they were fielding in nine one though,
Speaker 1: Just to go back down memory lane, Rick Serones, your catcher,
Speaker 1: Bob Watson. Respect Bob Watson. He did a lot of
Speaker 1: things from Major League Baseball after he retired. Long long
Speaker 1: time exact right Willie Randolph, Bucky Blank and Dent, Greg Nettles.
Speaker 1: Just one of my strata matic teams. Jerry Mumfrey and
Speaker 1: center field with Windfield and Reggie Jackson on either side
Speaker 1: of him, and then Bobby Mercers, your d h coming
Speaker 1: off the bench, the legendary hair of Oscar Gamble and
Speaker 1: Bob Watson. I think he scored the one millions run
Speaker 1: in baseball history. If I'm not mistake, I believe that
Speaker 1: he was as he on a home run. And I
Speaker 1: think it came down to the fact that, like they
Speaker 1: knew the millions run was going to be scored the
Speaker 1: next day, if I'm not mistake, in my baseball history,
Speaker 1: they knew the millions run was gonna be scored, and
Speaker 1: everybody was tearing asked around the basis to try to score.
Speaker 1: And I think Watson hit a home run in the
Speaker 1: first inning of a game, and he crossed the plate
Speaker 1: like ten seconds before somebody else did, like scoring from
Speaker 1: first on a single, you know, because they wanted to
Speaker 1: be the guy to scored the million run. If I'm
Speaker 1: not mistaken, I think that's how it went for Bob Watson.
Speaker 1: So he scored from second on the three run homer
Speaker 1: by Milt May Milt May Mit Candlestick Park. But I mean,
Speaker 1: is that like, did he win a Lanka Vision kind
Speaker 1: of experiencer. Yeah, I don't know about I don't know
Speaker 1: what he did. What do you get for that? Here's
Speaker 1: your Laurel and Hardy handshake Bob Watson to congratulations. So
Speaker 1: the Yankees fire Gene Michael. They fired their manager. The
Speaker 1: red Heads wind up with the best record in baseball
Speaker 1: sixties six and forty two. They don't make the playoffs
Speaker 1: because they finished second in the n L West the
Speaker 1: first half and they finished second in the n L
Speaker 1: West the second half. This is because their last game
Speaker 1: of the season, they get knocked out because the Braves
Speaker 1: beat them. Bob Horner hits to how how good was
Speaker 1: Bob Horner? Bob Horner hits two horror runs and he
Speaker 1: scores the game winning run and the Braves beat the Reds,
Speaker 1: knocking the Reds out. They finished second in the first
Speaker 1: half they finished in the second half. They actually had
Speaker 1: a the Reds actually had a like a uh something
Speaker 1: on the field of like a ceremony in which they
Speaker 1: had a bantner that said Baseball's best record. But you know,
Speaker 1: they didn't make the playoffs. They were trying to. It's
Speaker 1: like the Cults when they celebrated a FC South champions
Speaker 1: and they put the banner up a few years ago.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, when they when they made the a f
Speaker 1: C title game and they lost the right right right
Speaker 1: Colts you and now they have that stupid seas for
Speaker 1: Cookie logo. So the Reds don't get to make it.
Speaker 1: Neither do the Cardinals who had a great record, and
Speaker 1: we get to the playoffs, and the playoffs are a
Speaker 1: completely separate story entirely way. Do you year how that
Speaker 1: turned out? Coming up next right here on Special Teams.
Speaker 1: Time to continue on here on Special Teams. As we
Speaker 1: look back at the last time we saw some sports
Speaker 1: that either didn't have a season or parts of a season,
Speaker 1: or we're broken up by a strike or a lockout.
Speaker 1: We're looking back at the Major League Baseball season, and
Speaker 1: when we last spoke, we were set up for the
Speaker 1: playoffs finally, the first half division winners playing the second
Speaker 1: half division winners. The Expos made the playoffs in one
Speaker 1: for the only time in franchise history until the Nationals
Speaker 1: in two thousand and twelve. Now, the Expos back in
Speaker 1: the early eighties were so talented. I remember playing Strata
Speaker 1: Matic and another homemade baseball games. I always wanted to
Speaker 1: be the Exposed because they always hit the ball. I mean,
Speaker 1: this was Gary Carter and Tim Raynes and Andre Dawson,
Speaker 1: Larry Parrish, Warren Crow, Marty Ellis Valentine who had the
Speaker 1: half football helmet because he got hit with cheek and
Speaker 1: he would have the half football helmet to protect him.
Speaker 1: I mean, the all they did was matched the ball
Speaker 1: in Montreal was fantastic and the only time they made
Speaker 1: the playoffs, so they moved to Washington two thousand twelve.
Speaker 1: That was a scary lineup, up and down. I mean,
Speaker 1: just consistent hitters throughout that, throughout that that roster, and
Speaker 1: Jerry Manuel was on there. I gotta give a shout
Speaker 1: out to the old one. Uh. And let's face it,
Speaker 1: there were a couple of years that the Expos had
Speaker 1: had in Major League Baseball history that you know, you
Speaker 1: can celebrate a cast of all stars. So yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's always and it's always strike here the X that
Speaker 1: is right, that is when they had they were at
Speaker 1: their best. Yeah, whenever there's a season that's gonna be
Speaker 1: cut shorter, we haven't straight. Yeah, we're gonna be great.
Speaker 1: That's the Expos are there. So this is the series.
Speaker 1: They lose to the Dodgers in five games. Rick Monday
Speaker 1: hits the big home run of the ninth inning. The
Speaker 1: Expos actually put the tying run at second base in
Speaker 1: the bottom of the ninth, but the Dodgers get out
Speaker 1: of it. The Dodgers beat the exposed the Expos go home.
Speaker 1: And I remember listening to this game in the car
Speaker 1: with my grandfather. I think we were picking up my
Speaker 1: grandmother from the airport and my my grandfather. We were
Speaker 1: big Mets fans, both of us. But the playoffs are on,
Speaker 1: and I was rooting for the Expos because you know,
Speaker 1: the Expos were a new team, right. He's like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, the Expos are right. They play in Canada.
Speaker 1: How cool is that? But my grandfather grew up a
Speaker 1: Dodgers fan because obviously, you know, the Mets didn't come
Speaker 1: around until you know, the nineteen sixties. And so we're
Speaker 1: listening to this aim in the car and we'll listen
Speaker 1: to Game five and the Expos rob. I'm like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, the Expos and I'm excited, and he gets
Speaker 1: mad and he keep quiet in the back. You're only
Speaker 1: rooting for the Expos because I'm rooting for the Dodgers.
Speaker 1: I see what you're doing, and I go, no, I'm
Speaker 1: not just the Exposer fun and he was, no, you're
Speaker 1: only rooting for them because you don't you want you
Speaker 1: want me to lose. And I'm going, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this is a conversation. I can't believe I'm having here
Speaker 1: as a ten year old kid. But yet that was
Speaker 1: the conversation. I was apparently rooting for the expos just
Speaker 1: despite my grandfather. Well, I mean some folks take things
Speaker 1: personally and they need they needed needed to combatant. Maybe
Speaker 1: that was the thing. There was something else you did
Speaker 1: and he was mad about, but he decided to make
Speaker 1: it up out the next Yeah, I'm sure I just
Speaker 1: forgot to take the garbage out, and he got you know,
Speaker 1: I meant mad at me for that. I mean so
Speaker 1: many things come around too. He would just work himself
Speaker 1: up all the time. He's one of those of those
Speaker 1: people that when he got mad at you for a
Speaker 1: little thing, it didn't matter because the little thing would
Speaker 1: then mushroom. Like he could say, hey, can you bring
Speaker 1: my glass upstairs and put in the sink when you
Speaker 1: go upstairs? Sure? Pop, And then like you know, I
Speaker 1: woke upstairs for forty five minutes and I'll forget. In
Speaker 1: forty five minutes, I go upstairs, I forget to bring
Speaker 1: the glass. You've got to bring my glass up And
Speaker 1: I knew, oh, this is just the beginning. And then
Speaker 1: it went from I forgot to bring the glass up
Speaker 1: to then like I forgot to bring the garbage out.
Speaker 1: Then it was I didn't do good on the test,
Speaker 1: and then it was something I did a year ago,
Speaker 1: and I'm going, when does it stop? Like how high
Speaker 1: do we go to stop? I mean where? Where? Where?
Speaker 1: Where is the endpoint of this? It could come anytime,
Speaker 1: so I knew just the tiniest thing was it. And
Speaker 1: he was mad at me. But then thankfully the Dodgers
Speaker 1: won and he was okay, and then they were gonna
Speaker 1: go to the World Series, and I was obviously rooting
Speaker 1: for the Dodgers then, so then we got along pretty well.
Speaker 1: So the Dodgers go to the World Series in the
Speaker 1: National League, and this was the American League, the first
Speaker 1: playoff appearance for the Milwaukee Brewers. This was kind of
Speaker 1: the launch of what would later on be Harvey's Wallbangers,
Speaker 1: but not quite yet because he he wasn't a manager.
Speaker 1: But this was such a fun team. And growing up
Speaker 1: as I did hating the Yankees, I spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time. Look, the Mets were terrible, so it wasn't like,
Speaker 1: you know, all the men, but I was always like, really,
Speaker 1: you were really rooting against the Yankees. So I had
Speaker 1: deep deep knowledge of the A L East, and all
Speaker 1: the teams were really good, and Milwaukee was so much
Speaker 1: fun because they were a lot like the Expos. All
Speaker 1: they did was hit. I mean this was Ted Simmons
Speaker 1: and Paul Mallet or Cecil Cooper, Ben Ogilvie Gorman, Thomas
Speaker 1: Robin Young who was still a short stop at this point,
Speaker 1: Jim Gantler, I mean, this was this was a team
Speaker 1: that all they did was hit. And they made a
Speaker 1: big trade with the Cardinals that year to get Raleigh
Speaker 1: Fingers and Pete Vukovic who would go on to be
Speaker 1: a star of Major League as first baseman. But this team,
Speaker 1: I mean, this was going anywhere and meet about nine.
Speaker 1: So this team was incredibly talented. This was the beginning
Speaker 1: of their run. They would get to the World Series,
Speaker 1: but not this year. But all they did was hit.
Speaker 1: I mean this was top to bottom. I think Jim
Speaker 1: Gantler was the worst hitter in the lineup, and this
Speaker 1: is a guy like he would have bat third for
Speaker 1: the Mets. I mean that's that's how That's how good
Speaker 1: of a team this was. You've got m v ps
Speaker 1: and Hall of famers on this team. It was insane.
Speaker 1: How good they were in the trade. They get to
Speaker 1: throw Pete Vukovic. You're throwing a number one picture and
Speaker 1: one of the best closures in baseball. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know how the Brewers didn't go and win the
Speaker 1: World Series this year. I'll tell you what that was.
Speaker 1: You want to talk strata matic teams, that was the
Speaker 1: strata matic team to go to war with those couple
Speaker 1: of years they're in Milwaukee. But yeah, I mean talent
Speaker 1: top to bottom and guys that maybe don't get remembered
Speaker 1: outside of Milwaukee as much as they should. But yeah,
Speaker 1: ultimately it comes down to one of those classic matchups
Speaker 1: and the the perennial powerhouses making it through what was
Speaker 1: a very odd season. It's almost like you just said,
Speaker 1: you know what, this has been crazy. But if we
Speaker 1: get to that series on the coast, everybody will free
Speaker 1: give us and it'll be okay. And that's that. Look,
Speaker 1: that's what happened. Bob Lemon manages the Yankees to the
Speaker 1: World Series. Gene Michael couldn't do it. So the second
Speaker 1: half pick up. So I got big news. We we
Speaker 1: we got somebody new coming in to help us. Oh great, great?
Speaker 1: What is is? It? Is? It? A player we got. No,
Speaker 1: you're fired, and somebody else is gonna manage the team.
Speaker 1: Get out. So the Yankees make the World Series and
Speaker 1: and look, the entire world was expecting it to be
Speaker 1: just like it was in seventy seven and seventy eight,
Speaker 1: three years earlier, when the Yankees beat the Dodgers four
Speaker 1: games to two. They beat him again four games to two.
Speaker 1: A lot of the same players for the Dodgers, a
Speaker 1: few different ones. This begins the Dodgers big rookie of
Speaker 1: the year run Fernando Valence, Walla, Steve Sacks. All these
Speaker 1: players they had were great. The Yankees were expecting Dave
Speaker 1: Winfield to carry them in the World Series, and he
Speaker 1: had a horrendous World Series. It was awful. He didn't
Speaker 1: get his first hit, I think, until Game four, and
Speaker 1: I remember him asking for the ball at first base.
Speaker 1: Like the Yankees are losing the World Series. He doesn't
Speaker 1: get his first hit until the series is almost over
Speaker 1: and he's asking for the ball at Frank, you have
Speaker 1: the ball. That's my first world here, can have the ball,
Speaker 1: can have the ball. Yankee fans went crazy on him
Speaker 1: when that happened. Dave Winfield went from he is the
Speaker 1: toast of the town. He looked San Diego Padres superstar.
Speaker 1: Who the Yankees getting. George Steinbrenner is is is talking
Speaker 1: about World Series with Winfield. He was the big get
Speaker 1: for them, and then he turned into Mr May That
Speaker 1: was Steinbrenner's big nickname for Dave Winfield was Mr. May
Speaker 1: was he was good during the regular season when it
Speaker 1: wasn't as important, but he wasn't Mr October, which was
Speaker 1: Reggie Jackson's nickname, because Reggie Jackson would come through in
Speaker 1: the clutch. So again, this is Pete. George Steinbrenner and
Speaker 1: Dave Winfield bore a lot of the brunt of the
Speaker 1: criticism for the Yankees losing the World Series of the Dodgers, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's funny because you know, you get off
Speaker 1: to a two game to nothing lead, so it's like,
Speaker 1: all right, your cursin unless you're not. Uh. And for
Speaker 1: Dave Winfield, famously, I mean a guy with talent to
Speaker 1: play pretty much anything he wanted to in professional sports
Speaker 1: and was supposed to be the guy. And then eventually
Speaker 1: it us lead from him into Don mattig Lely and
Speaker 1: they were supposed to tag team and be beasts and
Speaker 1: had a couple of big years statistically but didn't result
Speaker 1: in anything. Uh and you saw it on full display here.
Speaker 1: I wonder if he still has that ball. I'm sure
Speaker 1: he does. This is the ball. It's better one. You
Speaker 1: see this ball right here, through it through Steinbretterer's window.
Speaker 1: Now I was happy the Dodgers when I was stunned
Speaker 1: because I really thought the Yankees are gonna find a
Speaker 1: way to win. And putting a cap on this incredibly
Speaker 1: crazy season. The m v P of the World Series
Speaker 1: was Ron Say and Pedro Guerrero and Steve Yeager. Three
Speaker 1: players shared the m v P in the World Series. Now,
Speaker 1: Ron Say, they all had good World Series. Ron Say
Speaker 1: hit three fifty knocked in six runs. Pedro Guerrero hit
Speaker 1: three thirty knocked in seven runs. Steve Yeager had a
Speaker 1: couple of home runs. He knocked in four runs. You
Speaker 1: couldn't pick one of those guys. You couldn't pick Indrow,
Speaker 1: You couldn't pick Ron Say. I mean you gotta pick
Speaker 1: all three. It's it's all three of the head four
Speaker 1: hits in the series. He wins m v P. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't get an I don't don't get four four
Speaker 1: hits and fourteen at bats two him runs four rb
Speaker 1: I and he gets to hold the hardware. He's probably
Speaker 1: made a lot of money through the years with that inscription. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm sure are you kidding? People say, oh, Steve Yeager,
Speaker 1: are you that test pilot that broke the speed of
Speaker 1: so out? No, that's Chuck Yeager. I'm Steve Yeager, catcher
Speaker 1: for the Dodgers, And he was the one. Steve Yeager
Speaker 1: was the one who came up with the throat protector
Speaker 1: on the on the helmet because he got hit in
Speaker 1: the throat once. He goes I don't like that feeling.
Speaker 1: And he's got he came up with the throat protector.
Speaker 1: I bet he's a billionaire because hopefully kept the rights
Speaker 1: to it. But he should be a billionaire for that.
Speaker 1: I hope he got the patent on that. Oh, that
Speaker 1: would guess the patents always he didn't get the patent.
Speaker 1: Patent pending, patent pending. I mean, you've got problems. I
Speaker 1: I can't imagine a year like that again happening in
Speaker 1: Major League Baseball. That's how baseball decides to get through
Speaker 1: the strike and have this happened, and you have the
Speaker 1: best team's sidelined because you know, they just had the
Speaker 1: misfortune to not be in first place the day of
Speaker 1: the strike and falling just short at the end of
Speaker 1: the season. Yeah. No, between social media and what is
Speaker 1: now sports talk radio and sports television, there's no chance
Speaker 1: that because that's gonna get leaked to someone for the
Speaker 1: as a test balloon, that that's what they're thinking of,
Speaker 1: just like during the pandemic. You know, hey, we'll play
Speaker 1: baseball here. No, you don't like that, we'll play baseball there,
Speaker 1: and then we'll do this. You know, there were a
Speaker 1: couple of fun things in that season surrounding UH that
Speaker 1: are great historical notes not necessarily tied to the strike.
Speaker 1: Go ahead and can I lay it? Absolutely? Go ahead?
Speaker 1: All right? So uh, I'm gonna say the best for less.
Speaker 1: July eleven, Williams, Well, that's it and I'll sing it
Speaker 1: later to uh. July eleventh, the Pirates signed an undrafted
Speaker 1: amateur free agent, Bobby Nia And who knew seventy five
Speaker 1: years later the Mets would still be paying one of
Speaker 1: the famous contracts. Uh. The Wrigley family sold the Cups
Speaker 1: to the Tribune for twenty million dollars dollars Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: pretty good, all right. And I have one last one
Speaker 1: that you're gonna love. In the amateur draft in June,
Speaker 1: right before the strike, the New York Mets decided with
Speaker 1: the twelve pick to select a young fireballer named Roger Clements.
Speaker 1: Instead of deciding to sign with the Mets, he decides
Speaker 1: to attend the University of Texas and Austin become a Longhorn,
Speaker 1: and then later goes to the Red Sox and the
Speaker 1: as the nineteenth overall pick in the Major League Baseball
Speaker 1: Draft and the rest is history. Yeah, that that's that's
Speaker 1: how works out for the Mets. He goes seven spots
Speaker 1: lower in the night. I'm gonna go back. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go to school and improve, And you want up getting
Speaker 1: taken later and you turn into a Hall of Famer. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: alleged alleged Hall of Famer, Hall of Fame, Hall of
Speaker 1: Fame qualities, but not quite a Hall of Famer. Don't
Speaker 1: even get me started on that. Nonse. Yeah, you know
Speaker 1: how I feel about all that mess. So that's the
Speaker 1: one Major League Baseball strike coming up next? What about
Speaker 1: the nineteen MLB lockouts? Some things you probably weren't aware
Speaker 1: of that went on the year, there was no World Series.
Speaker 1: That's coming up next right here on the Special Team's podcast.
Speaker 1: So he said goodbye to one MLB strike and jump
Speaker 1: ahead of the MLB lockout, which the regular season ended
Speaker 1: on August eleven. This was a story that has been
Speaker 1: chronicled many different times in many different ways over the
Speaker 1: past few years. We're gonna try to bring you some
Speaker 1: things that maybe it didn't remember of what surrounded this season.
Speaker 1: It ended, as I said, August eleventh, and it was
Speaker 1: a day that we knew was coming, all right. This
Speaker 1: is when I was a production assistant at ESPN. On
Speaker 1: Sports Center, we covered the upcoming MLB lockout where the
Speaker 1: owners locked the players out every single day. The last
Speaker 1: game was an Oakland A's game. In the very famous
Speaker 1: shot of the fan at the A's game wearing a
Speaker 1: jail suit uh with the date on there, like the
Speaker 1: players and the fans are being held hostage and being
Speaker 1: put in jail by the owners. Why there's no baseball?
Speaker 1: I remember we showed minor league baseball highlights on ESPN
Speaker 1: and ESPN two while the strike was going on. It
Speaker 1: was it was it was just what do we do
Speaker 1: for programming? Now we're in the middle of August, a
Speaker 1: football is not really starting. We don't have a lot
Speaker 1: of football highlights to show well, and let's show minor
Speaker 1: league baseball highlights. So we did well. And back then
Speaker 1: we didn't show training camp footage ad nauseam like we
Speaker 1: do now, right. I mean, you didn't know you would
Speaker 1: be every you would get like a three minute whip
Speaker 1: around of oh here is here is Fred Edelstein, and
Speaker 1: here's forty five seconds from Raiders camp, and then here's
Speaker 1: Mark Schwartz who was at Rams camp for another forty
Speaker 1: five seconds, and and oh it's it's it's gonna be
Speaker 1: in at training camp. Whip around. It's gonna be you know,
Speaker 1: two and a half minutes of sports and I meanwhile,
Speaker 1: that's like an entire show now on ESPN NFL, I
Speaker 1: will focus on these three teams. But back then that's
Speaker 1: what you had. No that that's it's just come such
Speaker 1: a long way. I mean you think about thank four,
Speaker 1: I mean, pre Internet, pre any of our social media
Speaker 1: fun and they there wasn't not to say we didn't
Speaker 1: have the first for it, but it was one you
Speaker 1: didn't you didn't know what you wanted yet because you
Speaker 1: hadn't been exposed to it. It was where we go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, baseball was the daily. Hey you needed something
Speaker 1: for beat writers, and here's the latest quote out of
Speaker 1: the clubhouse or whatever else with football until it got
Speaker 1: in season whatever. Uh, And then most of that was
Speaker 1: carried the torch was carried in each market by the
Speaker 1: local beat reporters for the newspapers. Right, there's no sports
Speaker 1: in sports talk radio is in its infancy at this point,
Speaker 1: so you don't have the quote machines that you would
Speaker 1: and the arguments that you have now would be, Hey,
Speaker 1: here's a little something and a little bit of a snippet,
Speaker 1: and it would be a stock photo that would be
Speaker 1: up on the screen. I mean, that's just the way
Speaker 1: it worked. Or here's video from last year. You might
Speaker 1: remember this player. When they canceled the World Series. There
Speaker 1: was a big press conference when new was coming and
Speaker 1: Bud Ceiling put out a an announcement on a piece
Speaker 1: of paper and everybody, all the media who was attending,
Speaker 1: and he wouldn't say the World Series was canceled. He
Speaker 1: put out a piece of paper, a press release saying
Speaker 1: the World Series is canceled. And he started off by saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: so you've all seen the release. Uh, let's talk about
Speaker 1: it now. He wasn't gonna be the guy to say
Speaker 1: the World Series is canceled because he knew that's what
Speaker 1: they would replay ad nauseam for him for the rest
Speaker 1: of his life, so he wouldn't. He couldn't own it, right,
Speaker 1: He couldn't own the fact, couldn't be the guy to
Speaker 1: say the World Series is canceled because I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: have that be something that I am known for for
Speaker 1: the rest of my career. And now at this point,
Speaker 1: it was a lost season for all of us, right,
Speaker 1: Even you've heard many times Ken Griffey and Matt Williams
Speaker 1: were on pace to potentially break the home run hitting record.
Speaker 1: Matt Williams had forty three. He actually was better than Griffy.
Speaker 1: Tony Gwynn was hitting three. Potentially he was gonna hit
Speaker 1: four hundred. But there's three other stories that from the
Speaker 1: season that are worth getting into for a few minutes,
Speaker 1: because this is stuff that people forget about. The first
Speaker 1: thing is that the best team in Major League Baseball,
Speaker 1: just like it probably was in one the Montreal Expos,
Speaker 1: they were in first place, they were rolling. They were loaded,
Speaker 1: They had the best record. They had five All Stars
Speaker 1: on this team. They had Boyses the lou Marquis Grissom,
Speaker 1: Mike Lansing who was really good early in his career,
Speaker 1: Larry Walker, Cliff Floyd, he got Pedro Martinez, Ken Hill,
Speaker 1: Jeff Facero on the mound. This was a loaded team.
Speaker 1: This is ken Hill. When you know he was ken Hill.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, look at this guy. If he could
Speaker 1: just extend his arm all the way out instead of
Speaker 1: short arming the ball, maybe you could throw even harder.
Speaker 1: But this team was loaded. They were in first place
Speaker 1: and there was no World Series. So for the second
Speaker 1: time we have a stoppage. The Expos are really good
Speaker 1: and they don't get to play in the World Series
Speaker 1: seventy four and forty. At that time, I forget what
Speaker 1: year it was. I want to say it was maybe
Speaker 1: two or three years hence maybe a little deeper into
Speaker 1: the decade. But at one point there was just the
Speaker 1: huge graphic of you know, between the two starting teams
Speaker 1: in this All Star Game tonight, Uh, we could put
Speaker 1: together a full roster of Montreal Expos alumni. Right. We
Speaker 1: was just one of those things where you just had
Speaker 1: star after star that moved on to other occupations. I mean,
Speaker 1: for me, it was a huge summer because Frank Thomas
Speaker 1: was just absolutely mashing. The White Sox had sixty seven wins,
Speaker 1: and this looked like a team that could compete with
Speaker 1: the Yankees maybe and and battle for the a L pen.
Speaker 1: It instead, it goes into the wayside. Right, great, Frank
Speaker 1: Thomas gets an m v P Award, but beyond that,
Speaker 1: it doesn't. It doesn't resonate to anything else other than
Speaker 1: what might be. So the expos again gets screwed. But
Speaker 1: now let's look at the American League West, because you
Speaker 1: examine this and you say, there's no way this is
Speaker 1: mathematically possible. In first place in the a L West.
Speaker 1: On August eleven, now, so this is a This is
Speaker 1: a month and a half before the end of the season,
Speaker 1: the Texas Rangers were in first place. Their record was
Speaker 1: fifty two and sixty two. They were ten games under
Speaker 1: five hundred, and they were in first place. The Angels
Speaker 1: were forty seven and sixty eight. Alright, so they're twenty
Speaker 1: one games under five hundred. They're five and a half
Speaker 1: games out right, They're still in striking distance with a
Speaker 1: month and a half to go, and the team, Oh
Speaker 1: my goodness, this is this is probably the worst division
Speaker 1: in modern baseball history. Your team in the in the
Speaker 1: middle of August, not even a five. I get where
Speaker 1: sometimes maybe the team is at five hundred middle of
Speaker 1: August and all right, you know, you make a big
Speaker 1: run at the end of the year to win the division.
Speaker 1: Win nine games, you in ninety games. You're a bad
Speaker 1: division winner. Ten games under five hundred, ten games under.
Speaker 1: In the Rangers were division leaders in the A L West,
Speaker 1: and now everybody would cry saying they shouldn't be about
Speaker 1: to be anyway. You have playoffs aera. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't have him in. He can't be can't be
Speaker 1: under five hundred win the division. I mean, well, it's
Speaker 1: it's like the first and half, first and second half
Speaker 1: winners we were talking about before. You don't qualify, so
Speaker 1: there's no random random team gets selected. I'd like to
Speaker 1: think at some point somebody would have gotten over five
Speaker 1: d and in that to it. But I don't know. Man,
Speaker 1: your ten games under in the middle of August, I
Speaker 1: don't know that. You get up there maybe when eighty
Speaker 1: some odd game, maybe win eight eight five games, and
Speaker 1: you win the division. But you gotta go on a
Speaker 1: huge run to win eighty five games. You gotta win
Speaker 1: thirty of your last games to get there, saying there's
Speaker 1: a chance. Oh, I mean, that's just then there needs
Speaker 1: to be a documentary just on that. That's really it is.
Speaker 1: That's the worst division in modern baseball history. Uh. And
Speaker 1: this it's like everybody in the a f C East
Speaker 1: got the Patriots, but at least they had the Patriot
Speaker 1: It had it there. The third story surrounds the Yankees,
Speaker 1: who are the best team in the American League. Now
Speaker 1: this was big because this was the first time the
Speaker 1: Yankees were really good in a long time. Right. We
Speaker 1: go back to eighty one, they had won the World
Speaker 1: Series and in seventies seven and seventy eight, Orioles go
Speaker 1: to the World Series. In seventy nine and the Royals
Speaker 1: go to the World Series and eighty when George Brett
Speaker 1: hits up three run Titanic home runoff Goose Gossage to
Speaker 1: help win the al Pennant. The Yankees get to the
Speaker 1: World Series and eighty one and they lose to the
Speaker 1: Dodgers and then that's it. And they hadn't been there
Speaker 1: in a long time, like they hadn't been to the
Speaker 1: playoffs since the strike. Here they would have been in
Speaker 1: the playoffs. They likely would have had a good postseason
Speaker 1: run because this was the beginning of the new Yankee
Speaker 1: dynasty that dominated from for the next ten or fifteen years.
Speaker 1: I mean, this was the birth that didn't have everybody
Speaker 1: on the team. Obviously Derek Jeter was a couple of
Speaker 1: years away, but you still had Paul on you. You
Speaker 1: had some guys who who formed the crux of the
Speaker 1: Yankee dynasty that began with the World Series in Now,
Speaker 1: the weird part about this is that Don Mattingly retired
Speaker 1: after the season, right, so we started with the Yankees
Speaker 1: after they went to the World Series. This was his
Speaker 1: year right to go to the playoffs. And looked, Don
Speaker 1: Mattingly was the best first baseman in Major League Baseball
Speaker 1: for a few years. He could hit the ball to
Speaker 1: every field. Early in his career, he was a guy
Speaker 1: that could pull that that when he pulled the ball
Speaker 1: was great, but he would hit lazy fly ball to
Speaker 1: left field. Then he figured out how to go the
Speaker 1: other way and he would hit three thirty and as
Speaker 1: good as Keith her Nandez was and you know how
Speaker 1: much I love Keith R. Nandez. Matting Lee could hit better.
Speaker 1: I mean, Carnandez is a better fielding first Cornanda is
Speaker 1: one of the best fielding first basements in the history
Speaker 1: of the game. Down hitting the ball, matting Lee was
Speaker 1: a better hitter. I mean at that point, Mattie, he
Speaker 1: was more consistent. He could hit the ball to all
Speaker 1: kinds of fields. He plays one more year and retires.
Speaker 1: Mattingly come in after they go to the World Series
Speaker 1: and retires the year before their run, never getting to
Speaker 1: the postseason. Fan about never winning a World Series. Mattingly,
Speaker 1: he's one of the best first basement of that decade.
Speaker 1: Plus never even got to play in the playoff game.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, that's that's the U one of the more
Speaker 1: amazing careers. I just remember following him, and I mean
Speaker 1: I was doing all the training cards stuff and shows,
Speaker 1: And what got me hooked was at one point all
Speaker 1: the short printage Mattingly rookie and second year stuff that
Speaker 1: found its way off the back of rail cards into
Speaker 1: this UH shop we used to go into UH. So
Speaker 1: we watched him keenly because we were invested in him
Speaker 1: and that deep crouch that he had and you know,
Speaker 1: whether he got hurt because of a horseplay in the clubhouse,
Speaker 1: as some rumors they've denied, or just that that crouch
Speaker 1: came out. Remember Kevin Moss hit the same way, and
Speaker 1: once they changed his stands, he was never the same
Speaker 1: player either, bloat out and you say, wonder if the
Speaker 1: work on his back, because he would explode out and
Speaker 1: would actually increase his strike zone. And it was to
Speaker 1: see him hit the ball that way to be able
Speaker 1: to to time it the way he was. Every ball
Speaker 1: was hit so hard, you know, and not many watching him, no,
Speaker 1: And it's one of the gifts that we had. Right,
Speaker 1: We're always talking about Boggs and I mean abow to
Speaker 1: the the altar of Tony Gwynn. Who I mean, it
Speaker 1: was just a master at the plate. I mean Tom
Speaker 1: Mattingly was that good. I don't think he gets remembered,
Speaker 1: perhaps as fondly as he should, because he didn't get
Speaker 1: any of that postseason glory, right, I mean, he want
Speaker 1: a ton of gold gloves, just like you're you're guy
Speaker 1: Keith and Anders in New York pretty much owned that
Speaker 1: that award part of the banquet. Hey, can we just
Speaker 1: give him the guys in New York. Head cool, that
Speaker 1: saved us ten minutes. Move on, obviously you had that,
Speaker 1: but I mean Matting Maddingley was a hell of a player,
Speaker 1: and it's it's always sad that his timing was so
Speaker 1: bad on the front and back ends of his career. Well,
Speaker 1: you mentioned timing, and this brings us to Buck show Walter,
Speaker 1: Yankee manager who never really enjoyed the success like he
Speaker 1: did early on in his managerial career. Now show Walter
Speaker 1: left the team after the season. Right, the Yankees make
Speaker 1: the playoffs, they lose that incredible series to the Seattle Mariners,
Speaker 1: the series that everyone says, say baseball in Seattle, this
Speaker 1: was Griffey and a Right was a phenomenal uh campaign
Speaker 1: and the famous video you see of Griffey scoring the
Speaker 1: game winning run and jumping up after he crosses home plate.
Speaker 1: So after that year was over, this is still peak
Speaker 1: Steinbrenner going on, Buck Showalter has offered a two year
Speaker 1: contract extension, but he's got to fire his hitting coach
Speaker 1: Rick down a Right. So here's a contract extension. You
Speaker 1: just we nearly made the World Series. We got great
Speaker 1: players on the way. We've got this Jeter guy coming up,
Speaker 1: who's gonna be really, really good, But you gotta fire
Speaker 1: your hitting coach. Buck show Walter said no, I'm not
Speaker 1: doing it, and he resigned. Who doesn't do that now?
Speaker 1: Oh you want me to fire my hitting coach to
Speaker 1: stay manager? Yeah? Okay, Rick, Sorry you're fired, dude. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm the same manager of the y the Yankees. With
Speaker 1: the Yankees, the Yankees win the World Series the next year, Right,
Speaker 1: so show Walter could have been there because he's a
Speaker 1: good manager. Right, Buck Shalter is a good manager. I'm
Speaker 1: sure they would have won with show Walter. Right, So
Speaker 1: he Seinfeld too, he he was not as good as
Speaker 1: Keith Hernandez. But then so show Walter goes and manages
Speaker 1: the Diamondbacks, and the diamond Backs have good teams. I
Speaker 1: remember the Mets beat the diamond Backs to move on
Speaker 1: in the playoffs, and diamond Backs were good. But eventually
Speaker 1: he got fired by Arizona. Got fired after the two
Speaker 1: thousand year where the Mets beat them and went to
Speaker 1: the World Series. What happened in two thousand one, the
Speaker 1: Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Yankees to win the World Series.
Speaker 1: So Bucks show Walter was a year away for winning
Speaker 1: the World series on two teams and he wound up
Speaker 1: quitting or getting fired right before that team would win
Speaker 1: it all. I mean, that's that's just bad timing. That's
Speaker 1: bad luck, bad time. Uh you know, it's there's histories. Literally,
Speaker 1: I think we've probably got a book or two out
Speaker 1: of just that topic. Uh as as we talk about
Speaker 1: it right now. But I mean, come back, Luis Gonzalez
Speaker 1: in the Man of All home runs and then I
Speaker 1: don't think he had a cheaper hit, Yeah, because the
Speaker 1: Yankees had the infield in you know they were Otherwise
Speaker 1: it would have been an easy out and the run
Speaker 1: doesn't score from third. You got it works. So there
Speaker 1: is our look back at the years where strikes and
Speaker 1: not playing affected Major League Baseball. Jason Smith and Mike
Speaker 1: Carbon We are your host. You can hear our show
Speaker 1: on Fox Sports Radio every single night coast to coast,
Speaker 1: ten pm to two am on the East coast, seven
Speaker 1: to eleven on the West coast. You have an idea
Speaker 1: for a future episode the special teams, let us know
Speaker 1: at how about a fresco Mike is at Swollen Dome.
Speaker 1: We'll talk to you next week where we look back
Speaker 1: when there was no NFL games and if you thought
Speaker 1: the eight one season was crazy, why do we tell
Speaker 1: you what happened to national football? Leave talk to you then,
Speaker 1: before you go, rate and review the show. Whether you're
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