Speaker 1: Welcome to another edition of Is This a Great Gamer?
Speaker 1: What with my Hall of Fame Dad, Tim Kirkshon, I
Speaker 1: am Jeff Kirkshon, and we're going to three episodes a week.
Speaker 1: That means the middle episode will be our interview in Today.
Speaker 1: With the NFL Draft kicking off on Thursday, April twenty fourth, tomorrow,
Speaker 1: we have Mel Kiper ESPN NFL Draft Guru beyond gurus, Dad,
Speaker 1: How were we able to get him right before the draft?
Speaker 2: Well, look, I know Mel pretty well after all these years,
Speaker 2: and I've done a bunch of radio shows with Mel.
Speaker 2: He and dary Noka do a baseball Well, they do
Speaker 2: a radio show, they bring me on to do baseball. Look,
Speaker 2: Mel's from the Baltimore area. I've known him for a
Speaker 2: long time and he's he's a very very generous guy
Speaker 2: with his time and his information, so he was more
Speaker 2: than happy to do this. I'm just glad we got
Speaker 2: him because once the draft starts, Jeff, I'm sure there
Speaker 2: is no talking to Mel Kuiper because his head is
Speaker 2: filled with heights and weights of tackles from Boise State.
Speaker 2: I don't know how he does it, but it is
Speaker 2: truly remarkable.
Speaker 1: And it is remarkable how much recall he was able
Speaker 1: to have of all of his love of the game
Speaker 1: of baseball, whether it was today's game or growing up
Speaker 1: as you mentioned dad in Maryland, his favorite players, a
Speaker 1: crazy famous Hall of famer he ran into in a
Speaker 1: place nobody expected. Mel kiper joins, is this a great
Speaker 1: game or what let's do it?
Speaker 2: It is draft week in the NFL, and our guest
Speaker 2: this week is my friend mel kiper ESPN Draft expert
Speaker 2: mel This is my son, Jeff.
Speaker 3: Honored to be with you guys. That Jeff, your father
Speaker 3: always took time during the busy baseball season when I
Speaker 3: know he was swamped, and he would have got a
Speaker 3: call to come on, Darian mel and sim never said no,
Speaker 3: never let us down. He came, He had a wealth
Speaker 3: of information, never rushed off. It was amazing. So Tim,
Speaker 3: I can't thank you enough. We both land the pleasant
Speaker 3: living crab cakes.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: We love baseball, we grew up with it, and here
Speaker 3: I am with tucking football, which is you know, nobody
Speaker 3: would have thought back a long time ago, that's what
Speaker 3: I would be doing all right now.
Speaker 2: We might not ask you a football question today, and
Speaker 2: we will buy We will get to baseball in a minute.
Speaker 2: But please just clear up a few things.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: Do you eat a piece of pumpkin pie for breakfast
Speaker 2: every morning?
Speaker 3: Explain? Please? All right? Almost every morning? Sometimes like this
Speaker 3: time of year, you can't get pumpkin pie. You know
Speaker 3: there's a Safeway delivery coming right now, But the bottom line,
Speaker 3: you can't always get them, and the pumpkin pies are
Speaker 3: kind of seasonal. So when Kim will make a pumpkin
Speaker 3: pie homemade, I don't like it as much. So she
Speaker 3: makes great food, but pumpkin pies have to be a
Speaker 3: certain way for me and where I don't eat them.
Speaker 3: So no, I can't say it's every morning. It's probably
Speaker 3: eight to nine months out of the year. That's what
Speaker 3: I do then, is I make my own brownies with
Speaker 3: my fat free whipped cream. So I have a little
Speaker 3: alternative plan brownies I just made because I don't have
Speaker 3: any pumpkin pie in the house right now, so I
Speaker 3: have to live without it for three or four months
Speaker 3: and survive. But I'd say nine months out of the
Speaker 3: or eight months out of the your pumpkin pie, not
Speaker 3: just in the warning. I'll go through a pumpkin pie
Speaker 3: and every day day and a half. Now, what is
Speaker 3: wrong with you? Do you just love pumpkin pie? Worse?
Speaker 3: It is just who you are. Worse food, Tim, It's
Speaker 3: even worse, Jeff and Tim. I don't eat the crust.
Speaker 3: I just eat the pumpkin. I have fat free whip cream. Say, well,
Speaker 3: what's the method to the madness. All the hydrogenated oils
Speaker 3: are in the crust. Okay, So I stay away from
Speaker 3: the crust, don't touch the crust, just eat the filling.
Speaker 3: And then I have my fat free with ready whip
Speaker 3: whipped cream. And that's a fat free milk. And that's
Speaker 3: what I do. That's how I good bye.
Speaker 1: Listen. Now, I have never felt so connected to a
Speaker 1: guest before because every Thanksgiving season I always get the standard.
Speaker 3: Are you gonna have any pie with your whipped cream?
Speaker 2: Because I like to fill it up to a point.
Speaker 3: Where you can't even see it. Jeff, if I have
Speaker 3: a piece or two of a pumpkin pie, I'll go
Speaker 3: through one can of whip cream. With just a piece
Speaker 3: of two a pumpkin pie, I go through two or
Speaker 3: three cans a day. That's not a lot, two or
Speaker 3: three cans a day for the rate I do radio
Speaker 3: in New York with the you know, with Roethliberg and
Speaker 3: d Pietro. They send me so coming on twenty five
Speaker 3: to thirty cans of fat free ready whip whipped cream
Speaker 3: because they know how I need that that whipped cream
Speaker 3: for my pump I can't eat pumpkin pie without whip
Speaker 3: cre If there's no whipped cream in the house, I'm
Speaker 3: not eating pumpkin pie. Pumpkin Pie without whipped cream is
Speaker 3: like Kirchin without baseball, without the draft. Ainy doing it.
Speaker 3: So at the end of the day, it's gotta be
Speaker 3: them melded together with a glass of fat free milk
Speaker 3: because you need that as well. So it takes three
Speaker 3: to get it done, and without that, I got nothing.
Speaker 2: I had to mail you brought up Kim, your wife.
Speaker 2: When I emailed you this afternoon to make sure you
Speaker 2: are okay for three o'clock, I got an email back
Speaker 2: from your wife. Is this clear that she runs your
Speaker 2: entire life?
Speaker 3: Without Kim, it wouldn't be a life anything. I don't
Speaker 3: know what would be happening. I certainly wouldn't be doing
Speaker 3: a podcast with you right now, wouldn't be having anything
Speaker 3: going on that we do because technically I have no
Speaker 3: clue about any of this stuff. My father Eve said
Speaker 3: when we started. You just worry about answering the phones.
Speaker 3: You talk to your customers, you talk to people getting
Speaker 3: your reports, and you do the work. I'm gonna handle
Speaker 3: all the things business wise. Kim does all that. I
Speaker 3: don't have a clue about anything. If something happened now,
Speaker 3: I'd be going back to Kim to come fix it,
Speaker 3: because I wouldn't know where to start. I'll probably hit
Speaker 3: a button and screw everything up. So No, without Kim,
Speaker 3: there wouldn't be any operation here, and certainly my life
Speaker 3: would have been a lot different. Mel.
Speaker 2: Is it true you've never written a check?
Speaker 3: Did I hear that properly? Never written a check, Never
Speaker 3: use an ATM card, Never use an ATM card, written
Speaker 3: a check? No, no fans I ever have. No, that's
Speaker 3: not a lot. That's the truth, and Kim can attest
Speaker 3: to that. No, never have.
Speaker 1: Well, I have to say I married my wife Emily
Speaker 1: back in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3: She is incredible.
Speaker 1: She handles her taxes, our finances. I'm starting to become
Speaker 1: like Mel, a little bit inept in anything.
Speaker 3: If I had.
Speaker 1: To see how much money was in my flooral one,
Speaker 1: k I wouldn't be able to figure it out. She
Speaker 1: just says, Hey, text me that code that just got
Speaker 1: sent to your phone.
Speaker 3: I'm getting that way. Hey, I don't know where a
Speaker 3: dollar of it is. I couldn't tell you, Kim, that
Speaker 3: was where it all is. If I need it, I
Speaker 3: got it. I don't know where a dollar of it is.
Speaker 3: I can tell you that right now. If you said, hey,
Speaker 3: if you needed something, you need a load, I love to,
Speaker 3: but I don't know where to have to get the
Speaker 3: money anyways, So fuck him.
Speaker 2: So Mel, is it true you don't know your cell
Speaker 2: phone number or you didn't know your cell phone number?
Speaker 3: Well, the cell this is the crazy part. I use
Speaker 3: Kim cell. It's my cell, and Kim's like text to
Speaker 3: Kim cell. Because I don't care about cell phones. She'll
Speaker 3: get the message. I'll respond, I have a cell phone
Speaker 3: right in here that I only take to the draft.
Speaker 3: Now I'll give that number out to my friends. I
Speaker 3: say call it, they call it all year. Once the
Speaker 3: dress over and I come back from from Green Bay,
Speaker 3: it goes in here and I never check it again.
Speaker 3: So any any messages come to that cell phone never
Speaker 3: get checked. After I get back from Green Bay. It's
Speaker 3: only for five days, that's what. Or when I go out.
Speaker 3: When I go out, I take that phone with me
Speaker 3: in case of an emergency. Right outside of that, I'm
Speaker 3: not checking out that kim Sell only or emails. That's it.
Speaker 2: And you have a landline in your house, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: we have landline there.
Speaker 3: Everywhere's landlines. And why there's method of the madness there too,
Speaker 3: because I know very few people have landlines. They come
Speaker 3: crazy when you do radio shows, Tim, if the com
Speaker 3: rex is an issue, then I have a landline to
Speaker 3: do a interview one rather than the cell phone. So
Speaker 3: I always had it for that. Right now, we do
Speaker 3: it on the com Rex, but the comraxes down for
Speaker 3: some reason. The landline rather than a cell phone because
Speaker 3: cell phones are frustrating because sometimes they just don't work right,
Speaker 3: you know, sometimes you'll lose this connection. So I kept
Speaker 3: the landline for that reason. I'm old school with that too,
Speaker 3: and probably don't have many percent contents of the country
Speaker 3: ten percent of the country. I don't even know what
Speaker 3: percentage of the country has a landline now, but we do.
Speaker 1: You know. Our guest last week was Syracuse former head
Speaker 1: coach Jim Beheim, right, I'm a Syracuse graduate, and in
Speaker 1: order to get him on the show, I was told
Speaker 1: to text his wife, Julie Beheim. And the funniest part is, Mel,
Speaker 1: I have Julie Beheim's number, not because I was reporting,
Speaker 1: not because I was doing that. It's because I was
Speaker 1: the mascot at Syracuse and while a student, I had
Speaker 1: to do an event for the Jim and Julie Beheim Foundation.
Speaker 3: And she said, I don't want a mascot.
Speaker 1: Driving all the way out there and spending money on gas.
Speaker 1: I'll pick up the mascot. So I said, a shotgun
Speaker 1: with Julie Beheim for an hour there and an hour back. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: I wasn't dressed as the orange in the car.
Speaker 3: I went as Jeff. But that is why I had
Speaker 3: her number, so we were able to set it up
Speaker 3: through Julie. That's a great story. Oh my gosh, that's
Speaker 3: exactly the way it is here. Everything goes through Kim.
Speaker 3: It's amazing. I always say, if you're going to overachieve,
Speaker 3: overachieve in marriage. And I majorly overachieved.
Speaker 2: Absolutely all right, So Mel, where did your love of
Speaker 2: baseball come from? And at what age and where did
Speaker 2: you get it from?
Speaker 3: Father was baseball along to him. He played, you know,
Speaker 3: coming up through the ranks, thought he could maybe even
Speaker 3: move on, but then he got hurt his shoulder and
Speaker 3: give up baseball, but ended up coaching and playing. I
Speaker 3: just was brought in that environment of baseball, and you
Speaker 3: loved the sport obviously with the Baltimore Orioles and grew
Speaker 3: up with you know, an Earl Weaver, and then watched
Speaker 3: the Orioles all the way through, with the great Brooks,
Speaker 3: Robinson and Frank Robinson and Belanger and Boog pal At
Speaker 3: Sha Baron, Paul Blair playing that shallow center field, tracking
Speaker 3: the ball better than anybody. So when you have all
Speaker 3: those so then in the four twenty game winners and
Speaker 3: growing up with Jim Palmer when he was coming along,
Speaker 3: and Palmer, McNally, Quaar and Dobson the last four twenty
Speaker 3: game winners, so you know, just all the great base
Speaker 3: and a huge fan of earl Weavers obviously, and then
Speaker 3: we had the Cal Ripken era. So it's just been
Speaker 3: you know, when you grow up in that environment of
Speaker 3: winning and all those personalities and all those Hall of
Speaker 3: Fame players, it was easy to be a great baseball
Speaker 3: fan ironically, I was a big Dodger fan too, Tim
Speaker 3: and Jeff. I love the Dodger. I loved everything in La.
Speaker 3: Grew up a big Rams fan, not a Colts fan,
Speaker 3: early on, a big rant love Roman, Gabriel, Myron, Patios,
Speaker 3: Lest Joseph and Jack Snow, the fearsome, forsome love the Rams.
Speaker 3: But then the Dodgers, going back to Walter Austin, then
Speaker 3: Tommy Lasorda so Albuquerque. As you know, Tim Kevin providing
Speaker 3: all those players to the LA Dodgers through the minor
Speaker 3: league system, and then going through when say and Russell
Speaker 3: and Lopes and Garvey and you had Jaeger and had
Speaker 3: had Toy Cannon, Jim Winn and all those great players,
Speaker 3: and Rick Monday and then the pitchers. All the guys
Speaker 3: are Andy Meshersmith during those Andy Meshersmith days, going back
Speaker 3: to Tommy John before Sandy and I was and Sandy
Speaker 3: Kofax I always did. But then those great pitchers and
Speaker 3: then Mike Marshall and all the things hether wentber, the
Speaker 3: kinisiology major Mike Marshall was and all. So it was
Speaker 3: just the Dodgers name at the Dodgers and the Orioles
Speaker 3: two great organizations, the love. So that's the how I
Speaker 3: grew up with with those entities kind of. I remember
Speaker 3: keeping the score of the Dodger games when I was
Speaker 3: a kid up every game, final score, winning pitch, and
Speaker 3: I kept that all the way through and any notes
Speaker 3: about the game. Back in those days, you couldn't watch anything,
Speaker 3: so the radio, I'd be listening to the Dodgers against
Speaker 3: the Phillies. I listened to Philly broadcast. So you had
Speaker 3: to try to. Radio was a big avenue in a
Speaker 3: big vehicle to be able to listen to these games.
Speaker 3: I did it with football to lay in LSU games.
Speaker 3: It would be fading in and out. You'd be listening
Speaker 3: on Saturday night to those games. And I did it
Speaker 3: with baseball. A father always had a radio with him.
Speaker 3: He'd go to bed, he take the radio, listening to games,
Speaker 3: listening to baseball, listening to whatever was going on, and
Speaker 3: he was listening to sports talks, sports talk even back
Speaker 3: in the day. So radio is a big part of
Speaker 3: my life in the early years as well. Well.
Speaker 2: Did you ever meet Brooks Robinson?
Speaker 3: Frank Robinson? Yeah, what was that play? And it was unbelievable, Brooks.
Speaker 3: I ran into Brooks at Joseph Banks shopping for turtlenecks
Speaker 3: and sweaters, and I'd begin there would be Brooks Wacani
Speaker 3: there and with our talking and he loved and he'd
Speaker 3: be We had our seats at the at the Ravens
Speaker 3: Stadium at M and T Bank, you know Steve as
Speaker 3: he was right above us, okay, and you know all
Speaker 3: the people there, and look up, Brooks was right there
Speaker 3: up talking to Brooks during a football game, right up
Speaker 3: in Steve's Steve box. And I'd go up even at halftime.
Speaker 3: Steve was say, come on up, and Brooks would be there,
Speaker 3: and Gary Williams would be there, as you know Tim,
Speaker 3: So you know it was great you. Brooks was, I say,
Speaker 3: the nicest man of any sports personality figure player of ever.
Speaker 3: I've met a lot of different sports figures players, and
Speaker 3: Brooks was, as you know Tim and Jeff, I mean,
Speaker 3: he was one of a kind and the nicest, most
Speaker 3: humble man I've ever been around in my life. For
Speaker 3: the greatness of Brooks Robinson were number five at lockraven
Speaker 3: Optimists because of Brooks Robinson, Okay, I mean that's you
Speaker 3: know Brooks round Jim Palmer Ward twenty two early on,
Speaker 3: Jim So you were numbers of your Jim Palm or
Speaker 3: Brooks Robinson, you know those. Later on, I was a
Speaker 3: big Burt Jones fan. Loved that number seven. You know
Speaker 3: Burt Jones growing up, you were up. But think about that,
Speaker 3: John Yanitas. Burt Jones with the Baltimore Colts should have
Speaker 3: had John Elway. One of the reasons why the Colts
Speaker 3: left town. John Elway didn't become a Baltimore Colt. He
Speaker 3: was traded to the Broncos without earning your course's knowledge.
Speaker 3: I was gonna go work for earning your course in
Speaker 3: the cults that fell through because of that, And then
Speaker 3: five months later I'm working at the ESPN. I had
Speaker 3: never been to the ESPN if it wasn't for that.
Speaker 3: So it's crazy how history would have been rewritten for me.
Speaker 3: You know, mel, you're just.
Speaker 1: Talking about baseball. You sound like so many other people
Speaker 1: where you're almost transported back to being a child, right
Speaker 1: Like there's a and nothing against football and basketball and
Speaker 1: all of these sports. But isn't there something beautiful about baseball?
Speaker 1: Recall a memory you were talking about your dad keeping score.
Speaker 1: Take us back to young mel Kiper when you were
Speaker 1: at a game and something just really stuck out to
Speaker 1: you that made you think, Wow, is this a great game?
Speaker 3: Or what I think? I think? Well, first game I
Speaker 3: went to was the sixty six World Series. Wow, that
Speaker 3: was the first game I start as five six years old?
Speaker 3: Say six, I didn't even turned six, or yeah I
Speaker 3: just turned six. And then you go to think tim
Speaker 3: and you can correct me if I'm wrong, Jeff, you
Speaker 3: and Paul Malader's first game. I think one of the
Speaker 3: first games Paul Malolder played was a stadium and I
Speaker 3: was out there watching that game and Paul millarder and
Speaker 3: I said, boy, he looks like he could be really good.
Speaker 3: And look what Paul Malod developed into. So yeah, I'm going.
Speaker 3: And I remember I used to love double Nothing was
Speaker 3: better for a kid than a double header. And back
Speaker 3: remember we had the true double header, and I loved
Speaker 3: one the double headers. A Memorial Stadium and my aunt
Speaker 3: lived right off of the rhetor Aorunda stadium. So go there,
Speaker 3: park there and walk over, go there after school at
Speaker 3: Calvert Hall, whether it's weekends or whatever. So now I
Speaker 3: went to probably as a kid, roughly twenty five to
Speaker 3: thirty oriel games a year as many as I could
Speaker 3: go to at that particular time. So yeah, always Opening Day.
Speaker 3: Would all make sure we went to Opening Day if
Speaker 3: we always could. But playoff games. I remember being out
Speaker 3: there when it was snow flirring at some games. Yeah,
Speaker 3: at Memorial Stadium. I love Memorial Stadium and also what
Speaker 3: I loved as a kid, and Jeffy, I don't think
Speaker 3: you ever and most kids will ever see this. I
Speaker 3: love to be able in September to be in an
Speaker 3: oral game on a Tuesday Wednesday and see the outline
Speaker 3: of the football field, knowing it on Sunday I'm gonna
Speaker 3: be watching the Baltimore Colts play. It was just a
Speaker 3: great feeling to be in that stay and knowing, Okay,
Speaker 3: I love what I'm seeing here with baseball, and then
Speaker 3: on Sunday, I'm gonna be watching a Baltimore culture. I
Speaker 3: just saw the Colts. Now I'm watching the Orioles. And
Speaker 3: those stadiums where they were dual purpose multi purpose was
Speaker 3: great for a kid. It was just a great feeling
Speaker 3: and you don't get it now because it's great. Hey,
Speaker 3: I love these stadiums. I love what they do. But
Speaker 3: it was also great for a kid to be able
Speaker 3: to sit there saying, boy, it's like you're home away
Speaker 3: from home, and I'm going to be back on Sunday
Speaker 3: here watching the Baltimore Colts play in this Saint on
Speaker 3: the same field, same stadium. That's what I loved. And
Speaker 3: a lot of kids, I think, don't have that a
Speaker 3: level of enjoyment anymore because of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, your memory transported me back and help me remember this.
Speaker 1: The nineteen ninety nine World Series. I was six years
Speaker 1: old when Tino Martinez hit a Grand Slam at Yankee
Speaker 1: Stadium ninety eight. Okay, so I was five years old,
Speaker 1: and isn't it amazing? I remember the roar of the crowd,
Speaker 1: the excitement around that home run five.
Speaker 3: But that's what baseball does, is it captivates you. It does,
Speaker 3: And the memories, early memories I have. I remember being
Speaker 3: even playing when I was a kid down at Mount Pleasant, Okay,
Speaker 3: Mount Pleasants Field, up at York Wood We used to
Speaker 3: play up at Yorkwood Field up there, and then down
Speaker 3: at Mount Pleasant. So even as a player, you remember
Speaker 3: when you first, you know, had that bat in your hand,
Speaker 3: had that glove on your and it's the first thing
Speaker 3: I ever knew was baseball. And going to games when
Speaker 3: I was probably even earlier than that. What I remember
Speaker 3: is that one, but I may probably was dragged out
Speaker 3: to a game earlier even even that, and then after
Speaker 3: that it's once it's in your blood and you love
Speaker 3: it and it's just something about to be able to
Speaker 3: sit there like on a Saturday and that Tim knows
Speaker 3: this would help in terms of getting that love and
Speaker 3: that passion and that looking forward to we didn't have
Speaker 3: games on every night, I could go in there and
Speaker 3: I have it. I love watching the late night games
Speaker 3: because that's when it frees up time for me, is
Speaker 3: at ten thirty eleven o'clock at night, and I love
Speaker 3: watching the West Coast games. I love that because everything
Speaker 3: calms down, the phone's not ringing. I'm not don't need
Speaker 3: anything else to be done from the ESPN standpoint, and
Speaker 3: not going to relax and enjoy that. But as a kid,
Speaker 3: the only games we had were Oriol games, and then
Speaker 3: we had Saturday. As you know, it's him two fifteen, right,
Speaker 3: Joe Garagiola, Tony Kubeck, you know doing that two fifteen game.
Speaker 3: That's the first time on Saturday afternoon at two fifteen
Speaker 3: Eastern we had a chance to watch the National League
Speaker 3: or other teams. Then Monday Night Baseball started where we
Speaker 3: were just watching the Orioles. So you really look forward
Speaker 3: to that Saturday afternoon. They gave us a doubleheader was great.
Speaker 3: But that Saturday afternoon at two fifteen Eastern with Garagiol
Speaker 3: and Kuebec, it was one for the books. And then
Speaker 3: we remember all the great broadcasters, and that's what I
Speaker 3: always remember as well. Those were the ones, those individuals
Speaker 3: I think contributed to the love of our of the game,
Speaker 3: the love of the sport. Were the great broadcasters as well.
Speaker 3: That I always say, the voices of the sport, the
Speaker 3: voices of football, the voices of baseball. And that's something
Speaker 3: that in your memory bank forever. And luckily you can
Speaker 3: unfortunately you can go to the internet now and pull
Speaker 3: those games. Not do it a lot. I'll go back
Speaker 3: and watch a game, a Coke game from back at
Speaker 3: the Memorial Stadium. Remember the Christmas Eve game against the
Speaker 3: Raiders in the late seventies, an overtime game ruined my
Speaker 3: Christmas when we lost that game. You remember the Ghost
Speaker 3: to the Post and all that, So you know, those
Speaker 3: those are the things you could go back and watch.
Speaker 3: The Orioles from days to watch Weaver arguing out with
Speaker 3: the Tiger game, you know, Earl flipping the hat, wrote
Speaker 3: kicking the kicking the third I mean Weaver. Earl Weaver
Speaker 3: was unbelievable and just and all those personalities of the Orioles.
Speaker 3: And I even I referenced Paul Blair to him the
Speaker 3: other day in terms of tracking the ball. They go
Speaker 3: about receiver. I said, no, why tracked the ball better
Speaker 3: than Paul Blair did, played that shallow center field and
Speaker 3: nothing got by him, nothing went over his head. He
Speaker 3: got through the warning track. Then he was great, a
Speaker 3: great player to watch. So luckily, Tim, we had great players,
Speaker 3: great teams to grow up with. And when I watched
Speaker 3: the Dodgers or listening to Dodgers, I had great players
Speaker 3: there to watch as well.
Speaker 1: Now we do a segment on the show where we
Speaker 1: had people send us voice notes for I am a
Speaker 1: seam head, right. It's them admitting something that maybe you know,
Speaker 1: you don't talk about on a first date with a woman,
Speaker 1: but between us fans of the game, you would go, wow,
Speaker 1: that's impressive. Like knowing one guy send us a note
Speaker 1: that he knows who made the final out of every
Speaker 1: World Series in the last like sixty five years, right,
Speaker 1: So not asking you to be that nerdy or that impressive,
Speaker 1: whatever way we want to look at it. But is
Speaker 1: there something in baseball that you love, something about the numbers,
Speaker 1: something about a stat something about those teams growing up
Speaker 1: that makes you a bit of a seam head.
Speaker 3: Well, I remember stir ups and sanitaries back in the day, Timmy.
Speaker 3: It's the one thing. I wish they had a dress
Speaker 3: code in baseball. I wish we could get back to
Speaker 3: that instead of the sweatpant. Look you know where the
Speaker 3: sweat Yeah, I wish we could get back to that.
Speaker 3: But baseball changed over the years. But in terms of
Speaker 3: I just I always gravitated to the uniform and the
Speaker 3: numbers and trying to remembering the numbers. That's what we
Speaker 3: do in football. You remember more the number than the
Speaker 3: player's name immediately. And then you would always keep scores.
Speaker 3: I always try to keep score as many orio games
Speaker 3: when they were playing on the road, they'd be playing
Speaker 3: in Cleveland where they were playing, keep scoring of the game.
Speaker 3: I still have that back there. I can show you
Speaker 3: some of those keys I kept score of back in
Speaker 3: the seventies, early seventies, So it's it lend itself to
Speaker 3: baseball because of the pace of the game. You know,
Speaker 3: now they have all these different things going on. I
Speaker 3: don't understand, Tim, you have to explain to see some
Speaker 3: of the things going on. I used to be just you know,
Speaker 3: RBIs in the aver batting average and that he got
Speaker 3: a million ways with analytics to evaluate a baseball player.
Speaker 3: But it was a little simpler back then. But you know,
Speaker 3: I think the numbers and the stats and everything that
Speaker 3: went involved with baseball and now it led to analytics.
Speaker 3: And I always say for football, I was kind of
Speaker 3: doing analytics before it became in vogue. I was always
Speaker 3: keeping track of how many of this position did well.
Speaker 3: Running backs I started that trend of not taking your
Speaker 3: running back in the first round. Everybody's kind of jumping
Speaker 3: on that bandwagon. So you try to do a little
Speaker 3: analytics with everything you do. And certainly for baseball it's huge,
Speaker 3: and in football now it's taken over. As you know,
Speaker 3: Tim and Jeff. Now football is all about analytics as well,
Speaker 3: so and the draft is kind of about analytics. So
Speaker 3: it's all ties together these two sports in a lot
Speaker 3: of ways. And then watching some guys like Kirk Gibson.
Speaker 3: Kirk Gibson I rode up from Michigan State is a
Speaker 3: heck of a wide receiver. He could have been great
Speaker 3: in the NFL, but baseball stole Tim. You stole Kirk.
Speaker 3: You guys playing baseball, And then with the Dodgers ruined
Speaker 3: in the A's and Dennis Eckersley when he was hurt,
Speaker 3: you didn't even know if he was gonna play, and
Speaker 3: he hits that home dramatic home run. And here's Kirk Gibson,
Speaker 3: who I rode up as a football player, could have
Speaker 3: been a great wide receiver with his size, his physicality,
Speaker 3: his his ball skills, his hand eye coordination and all that.
Speaker 3: But he ended up playing baseball. And so you always
Speaker 3: had that type of thing too, where you had, you know,
Speaker 3: great athletes. It's just winning of John Elway even threatened
Speaker 3: to play baseball when he was drafted member by the Colts.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna play baseball, and they traded him to Denver.
Speaker 3: So the the memories I have too, some of those
Speaker 3: guys that could do everything. We talked about how great
Speaker 3: Travis Hunter is. Kirk Gibson was an unbelievable athlete back
Speaker 3: in the day, and a lot of those baseball players
Speaker 3: could have played Dave Winfield. What do you get drafted
Speaker 3: in three sports? Tim? Yes, he did so.
Speaker 2: Now you know a lot about baseball. You have an
Speaker 2: encyclopedic memory about football. I know baseball, basketball, and scoms
Speaker 2: from the sixties, and that's all I know. Does your
Speaker 2: memory bank work for things other than baseball and football?
Speaker 2: Can you remember phone numbers? Can you remember things when
Speaker 2: you and your wife would go out?
Speaker 3: How does that work? I don't remember much of anything
Speaker 3: beyond this stuff, Tim, I really don't. I mean, and
Speaker 3: even people always asking me about a lot of things
Speaker 3: from the draft going back, and I do remember a
Speaker 3: lot of what went on back in the nineteen seventies
Speaker 3: when I started. But going forward, we're always looking for
Speaker 3: the next prospect him, you know that, girls looking for
Speaker 3: the next great player coming out of high school into college.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: I'm a big college football fan as well. You gotta
Speaker 3: be yes, I grew up loving college football, loving the
Speaker 3: great voices of college football. I was a huge Chrishenkle
Speaker 3: fan back in the day. Got a chance to talk
Speaker 3: to Bill Fleming back in the day, who was a
Speaker 3: unbelievable voice of college football as well with the college
Speaker 3: football today. The only time we had got highlights was
Speaker 3: that Sunday with college foot all today league into NFL Today.
Speaker 3: That was all Bill Fleming hit me up all night
Speaker 3: tim Saturday night, driving all over to get to a
Speaker 3: studio to put all that together so we could see
Speaker 3: highlights of six games. See the band at halftime stadiums
Speaker 3: we didn't see because we didn't watch those, weren't able
Speaker 3: to watch those games on TV. And Bill Fleming provided
Speaker 3: a lot of that as well. So I grew up
Speaker 3: Howard coch Sells and all the great broad Gay, Keith Jackson,
Speaker 3: I mean a great broadcame Lindsey Nelson. I mean that's
Speaker 3: why I say the voices of sports for me tow
Speaker 3: I'll go gradual and coupback. That's what I think grabbed
Speaker 3: you as a kid, and just you maintained that love
Speaker 3: and that passion you couldn't miss and you knew that
Speaker 3: voice and you really watched it as much for the
Speaker 3: game as the voice and the broadcaster that's covering that game. Okay,
Speaker 3: just it just had you had a certain feeling about
Speaker 3: it when you watched it. When that broadcaster and that
Speaker 3: voice was calling that game. So for me, I don't
Speaker 3: look back as often as I look forward now, Tim,
Speaker 3: So my memory, no, I don't remember much at all.
Speaker 3: Chemist remind me a lot of things that were going
Speaker 3: on or with scheduling or this that, and phone numbers
Speaker 3: some not a lot of have you'll if I took
Speaker 3: you back to the office, Tim, you're all your viewers.
Speaker 3: You're millions of viewers that would be looking at somebody
Speaker 3: say is he nuts in a drawer next to me?
Speaker 3: I have ripped off papers of phone numbers that I've
Speaker 3: never I tried to put them together the best I can,
Speaker 3: but it's totally disorganized. When I have to find a number,
Speaker 3: I have to go through like ten twelve sheets of
Speaker 3: paper that I'll have all these numbers to find the
Speaker 3: number of the person I'm looking for. So it's just
Speaker 3: and I kind of like doing that. I don't mind
Speaker 3: if I it just gives me something to I'll go
Speaker 3: through it. But I have that back in the office
Speaker 3: as well. I got all kinds of books back there
Speaker 3: on baseball. If he'll get back there. It's kind of
Speaker 3: a memorabiliy Pete Rose signing different things, this, different autographs
Speaker 3: from all different people the helmet phone from the nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety four draft to Freddie get All, he gave me
Speaker 3: the ESPN helmet phones. Back there was the Bill Tobin year.
Speaker 3: So if you go back there, there's tons of memorabilia
Speaker 3: back there in my office from baseball. I got Saint
Speaker 3: Louis Cardinal cap back there. I got the Michigan Ohio
Speaker 3: State going back there, I got tons of stuff back down'
Speaker 3: big into that memorabilia. I used to have the baseball
Speaker 3: cards back and they got tons of them, Tim millions
Speaker 3: boxes of baseball cards from back in the day. So yeah,
Speaker 3: that's the office back there, if you ever want to
Speaker 3: take a look. And I got letters I kept from
Speaker 3: George Jung and all Bill Walsh and Don Shula when
Speaker 3: I would send them the report. So I've kept all
Speaker 3: those letters and a book back there, so I have
Speaker 3: all that. So I go back there and check it
Speaker 3: out every once in a while. It's great the relive
Speaker 3: some of those things. As you were getting back they
Speaker 3: say in the seventies and eighties, from those those legends
Speaker 3: in the National Football League, Well.
Speaker 2: The baseball cards, did you play with them, did you
Speaker 2: flip them, did you trade them, or did you just
Speaker 2: save them in a box.
Speaker 3: I saved them in a box, and I could I
Speaker 3: have box after box there with the rubber band around them,
Speaker 3: you know, the piles of stacks that I'm kind of
Speaker 3: organized by team or whatever, and they're back there, and
Speaker 3: you know, I'll just I just I guess you could
Speaker 3: trade it. I just kept them and saved them. I
Speaker 3: like looking back at them. They little gum in there
Speaker 3: with them, a piece of gum, you know, And I
Speaker 3: just it was something about base My uncle had a
Speaker 3: grocery store, so he had baseball cards. It was on
Speaker 3: the grocery store. So not always going over to the
Speaker 3: grocery store with my uncle and I grabbed back of
Speaker 3: cards and always just kept going and going, from the
Speaker 3: time I was five six years old all the way
Speaker 3: up to my teen years a card after card after card,
Speaker 3: and box after box of baseball card. And I didn't
Speaker 3: do it much for I have some football cards, but
Speaker 3: it was baseball cards that you kind of gravitated to.
Speaker 3: I have some for football, a decent amount, but baseball
Speaker 3: is probably ten to one in terms of the ratio
Speaker 3: of baseball cards the football cards.
Speaker 1: Now now really fast. This is a first in podcast history,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned before we hit record my twenty month old.
Speaker 3: It's my dad and I in.
Speaker 1: The basement recording with mel Kiper and she woke up
Speaker 1: and I didn't think this would happen. So McKinley is
Speaker 1: just appearing now. Can you say hi?
Speaker 3: Say hi, good job love.
Speaker 1: So you had mentioned before we got on the air.
Speaker 3: You have you have an eight month old grandchild, right, granddaughter,
Speaker 3: Blakeley Blakelee Grace. Yeah, adorable.
Speaker 1: This is McKinley, Hope. Can you tell us a little bit.
Speaker 1: First of all, this is pop Pop is what he's called?
Speaker 1: What is your grandfather name? Have you been gifted one yet?
Speaker 3: We've tried. Kim's been throwing a different one. Blakelee's she's
Speaker 3: just starting with my mom and dad, dad and what.
Speaker 3: But I said, I'll let Blakely decide whatever she wants
Speaker 3: is fine with me. You know, Kim's deciding which she
Speaker 3: wants to be. Then Stephen, Sharon, Alex's parents, they have
Speaker 3: to they're deciding what they're gonna be. I think Steve's
Speaker 3: gonna be Pop and then I don't think Sharon's decided yet.
Speaker 3: That's Alex's parents, my son in law. So I said,
Speaker 3: leave it up to Blakely. Whatever Blakelee wants to call me,
Speaker 3: I'm fine with She's an angel, so yeah, she I
Speaker 3: have her pictures Lauren gave us for Christmas where the
Speaker 3: pictures just rotate back there. So every time I walk
Speaker 3: in here, I got Blakeley, Blakelee, Blakely. So hey, we
Speaker 3: keep in contact Lauren pretty much all day. Facetiming gives
Speaker 3: us a chance. I haven't been able to see her
Speaker 3: for doing all this stuff for the draft for the
Speaker 3: last week, and I think we make get out their Saturday.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's amazing. So for McKinley and for Blakee,
Speaker 3: you know, couldn't be happier. Like I say, it's great
Speaker 3: with the like I said, but she will be an athlete.
Speaker 3: I guarant see that. The house is a great volleyball
Speaker 3: player at Stevenson University. That's where Lauren and Alex met
Speaker 3: at Stevenson University. He was a volleyball player out of
Speaker 3: Pennsylvania Steeler fan by the way, Tim and Jeff and
Speaker 3: uh and then Lauren athlete through high school playing all
Speaker 3: three sports. Played you know, golf. She was actually she
Speaker 3: does really good golfer, but she played in high school
Speaker 3: three different sports, and she got the Seine marklan Kelly
Speaker 3: Award for the best senior in her school. So she
Speaker 3: was athletic, and Alex is athletic, and so I would
Speaker 3: think Blakely. I mean, we're not gonna force her. But
Speaker 3: I can always see Tim I put that little ball
Speaker 3: in her hand. I can see her throw and I
Speaker 3: don't look. She throws left end right, So I don't
Speaker 3: know what she is yet, but she's gonna I think
Speaker 3: she'll be an athlete. She'll be tall. Alex's six fourth,
Speaker 3: so I always predicted she'd probably be five ten, five eleven,
Speaker 3: so we'll see, Say Alex is sixty four. It looks
Speaker 3: like Blakely's gonna be tall as well.
Speaker 1: Well, listen combined, I don't think my wife and I
Speaker 1: are the size of your son in law.
Speaker 3: My wife's four ten and I'm.
Speaker 1: Barely five foot six, So I think we either have
Speaker 1: a jockey on our hands or a theater kid.
Speaker 3: I don't know if a might be whatever worth all
Speaker 3: five that all works, Hey, I grew up with Hey,
Speaker 3: Tim and Freddie Pottek. My favorites with the Kansas City
Speaker 3: Royals Manti tal who is a guard with the member
Speaker 3: A great NC State wolf Pack basketball twenty five. Yes,
Speaker 3: I know all the little guys of yeah, the Freddie Pottek,
Speaker 3: the shortstop at the Royals during all those great years.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's like I say, that's the thing I've
Speaker 3: beut baseball to where in football you can as well,
Speaker 3: but in baseball you size who cares, like I say,
Speaker 3: you can play the game. And it's amazing though when
Speaker 3: I see baseball players now, the ability to see that
Speaker 3: ball and hit that ball, and elevate that ball and
Speaker 3: just do the things they do with that fastball sim
Speaker 3: that's coming in ninety If you throw less than ninety
Speaker 3: five now, it's like everybody's at ninety seven, ninety eight
Speaker 3: hundred miles an hour. I don't know how to hit
Speaker 3: the ball. I mean, to have that ability to see
Speaker 3: that ball coming in a movement the way these pictures have.
Speaker 3: It's amazing. They can hit the ball with the consistency
Speaker 3: they do. And what Otani's doing is amazing. I mean,
Speaker 3: Travis Hunter is the closest thing coming out this year
Speaker 3: playing both ways. But what Otani does, what these baseball
Speaker 3: players do in general, when you get on that field
Speaker 3: and you get at that plate and you see how
Speaker 3: close that picture is. On TV, you don't get a
Speaker 3: real good feel for that. But when you're at that
Speaker 3: play and you see how close that picture is, it's
Speaker 3: amazing that these hitters in Major League Baseball are able
Speaker 3: to do what they do because these pitchers are bringing
Speaker 3: it and I don't know how. I don't know how
Speaker 3: they do it, Tim, but they are amazing athletes. And
Speaker 3: they say Ted Williams, did they have the best eyesight
Speaker 3: of anybody? Tim back in the day, Great Ted Williams.
Speaker 2: That's unbelievable.
Speaker 3: Yes, eyesight and be able to spot. Just to be
Speaker 3: able to do that, to me is all inspiring. So
Speaker 3: when I watch this on TV, you really don't get it.
Speaker 3: That's why I like to sit behind home plate and
Speaker 3: then in football being the end zone and watch the
Speaker 3: plays develop, because you really don't get an appreciation for
Speaker 3: how difficult it is to hit a baseball just put
Speaker 3: it in play. Is amazing what these do.
Speaker 2: Said it a million times. Mel average fan gets a
Speaker 2: thousand of bats of the big leagues. He gets zero hits,
Speaker 2: he puts no balls in play. He might not even
Speaker 2: make contact. That's how hard it is, all right, McKinley,
Speaker 2: Hope is on the move. So Mel, we are gonna
Speaker 2: let you go only because we have a sixteen month old.
Speaker 3: Said enough of that, Mel.
Speaker 1: The best part is that this is what the show
Speaker 1: is all about. This is ours a family podcast, right.
Speaker 1: We're not breaking down you know, oh Tani's change of
Speaker 1: his swing. We're not doing the important stuff you do
Speaker 1: analyzing these players. So to talk about you being a grandfather,
Speaker 1: to talk about your love of the game, I mean,
Speaker 1: that is what this show is all about, Jep.
Speaker 3: Tim, next year, I promise I'll have Blakely sitting here
Speaker 3: right with you when we do this. If we do
Speaker 3: it again, I'll hopefully I have Blakely sitting here right now.
Speaker 3: It's a great idea.
Speaker 2: It's a great idea.
Speaker 3: Mel.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for joining us in the middle
Speaker 2: of your busiest time ever. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: If you could call me the night before the draft,
Speaker 3: I'll do it. If you're the best. You've been a
Speaker 3: great friend over the years. I have great respect and
Speaker 3: aberration for the work you do. Nobody does it better.
Speaker 3: And Jeff, I'll tell you fun to be with you, guys,
Speaker 3: So yeah, keep it going, Tim, work till you're one
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty pou because, like I said, I love
Speaker 3: watching you.
Speaker 2: Right, that's next year, Mel So Yes.
Speaker 1: Dad had a great line to end the interview with
Speaker 1: mel Kiper. Thank you to mel for joining us. And
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm a firm believer Dad that if there's
Speaker 1: two guys in this industry who were going to work
Speaker 1: until they're one hundred and fifty, it's you and mel Kiper.
Speaker 2: All right, if I get to seventy, that's two more years, Jeff,
Speaker 2: it will be a miracle. But I really believe.
Speaker 3: That Mel don't say that is timeless.
Speaker 2: He is a lunatic and that is the ultimate compliment.
Speaker 2: You heard what he talked about. He's got slips of
Speaker 2: paper all over his office of phone numbers. It was
Speaker 2: absolutely priceless. And he loves football so so much that
Speaker 2: I can't imagine and the draft happening without mel Kiper.
Speaker 3: So you know, God.
Speaker 2: Bless him for being this enthusiastic and this energetic for
Speaker 2: anything after all the years that he's done it. He
Speaker 2: is a national treasure on so many levels.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow morning on is this a great game or what
Speaker 1: another episode for you? Including Dad? The greatest number nine
Speaker 1: of all time from Ozzie to oral.
Speaker 2: In my correct and the greatest number ten and as
Speaker 2: a tribute to mel Kiper and the NFL Draft will
Speaker 2: have the All Major League Baseball college football team guys
Speaker 2: that played collegiately and then went on to play in
Speaker 2: the major leagues.
Speaker 1: New episodes Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays wherever you love to listen.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to hit subscribe and share the podcast with
Speaker 1: somebody you know who loves this game as much as
Speaker 1: Sweet here. Thank you for listening, and as always, thank
Speaker 1: you for being a part of our family.