Speaker 1: And welcome back to Is this a great game? Or
Speaker 1: what with the Hall of Famer Tim Kirkchen. I'm his son,
Speaker 1: Jeff Kirchen, joined today by fellow Syracuse graduate AKA Me
Speaker 1: and Jason Jason Bennetti on the podcast Major League Baseball Broadcaster. Jason,
Speaker 1: you are back for your second run as a guest
Speaker 1: here on the show, and trust me, we had one
Speaker 1: hundred questions left on the cutting room floor the first
Speaker 1: time we had you on, so I'm excited to have
Speaker 1: you back.
Speaker 2: Hey, I'm excited to be back. We had a great
Speaker 2: time when I was up in Eugene, Oregon, I think
Speaker 2: last time at the darkenest hotel room in the history
Speaker 2: of America. So ready to rock with a well lit
Speaker 2: although maybe a Grand Central station a traffic booth here
Speaker 2: if we have a plast one thousand walk behind you
Speaker 2: can just ask them questions as well as we set
Speaker 2: up for the Tigers game tonight.
Speaker 3: Well, we're not going to worry about that.
Speaker 4: So Jason, we just found out that you just interviewed
Speaker 4: Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He's a drummer,
Speaker 4: which I of course did not know since I know
Speaker 4: nothing about music. For the longest time I thought Molly
Speaker 4: Hatchett was a woman. There's so much I don't know here,
Speaker 4: but please, Jason, tell me that you have a great
Speaker 4: background in music.
Speaker 3: You know drummers, you know all this stuff. Am I
Speaker 3: right or am I wrong?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm surrounded by either real drummers or fake drummers.
Speaker 2: So Chad Smith is a Tigers fan. He grew up
Speaker 2: in Detroit and he learned how to play drums on
Speaker 2: Baskin Robbins vats of ice cream that they were throwing
Speaker 2: out in the back of the Baskin Robbins. When they
Speaker 2: were done with the big tub of cookies and cream,
Speaker 2: he'd take it home and start hitting it with Lincoln logs,
Speaker 2: no joke, Lincoln logs. And then one of the biggest
Speaker 2: Tigers fans out there is JK. Simmons, the actor who
Speaker 2: was Fantastic and Whiplage, where he very aggressively teaches somebody
Speaker 2: how to play the drums. So I played the tuba
Speaker 2: growing up. I never played the drums. But I do
Speaker 2: think play by play in some ways is a little
Speaker 2: bit like being a cover band, right, So you all
Speaker 2: the lyrics are the same, swinging a ground ball to
Speaker 2: short or there's strike three, but the way you change
Speaker 2: it is with your tone and your tempo and your rhythm.
Speaker 2: So I think there is a little music in play
Speaker 2: by play.
Speaker 4: You played the tuba, Yeah, I did.
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 4: At what age were you bigger than the tuba? Because
Speaker 4: I know a little bit about being a little man.
Speaker 4: I'm smaller than you, But was the tuba bigger than you?
Speaker 5: For a while?
Speaker 2: For forty two years on Earth, actually the tuba has
Speaker 2: been bigger than me. Uh so, so you're gonna love this.
Speaker 2: The band director in high school is actually the guy
Speaker 2: who put me in front of a micro phone for
Speaker 2: the first time. So I couldn't play the suzophone because
Speaker 2: of how I walk and whatnot. So what they did
Speaker 2: was they put the tuba on a stand and while
Speaker 2: the band was marching at halftime of the football game,
Speaker 2: they would go in planetary orbit around me to make
Speaker 2: letters for our logo, and I would just stand there
Speaker 2: in place and march in place, and everybody else would
Speaker 2: go make the H and the F and I would
Speaker 2: be the bottom of the stem of everything. Right. So
Speaker 2: the band director was like, well, that's kind of ugly
Speaker 2: and weird, so what if we just get you upstairs
Speaker 2: and you announced the sets for the band. And it
Speaker 2: was the first time I ever was behind a microphone.
Speaker 3: Did you that chime? You became a broadcaster?
Speaker 2: Because that's how I became a broadcaster is I couldn't
Speaker 2: play the suzophone because of the I'm a little teapot routine,
Speaker 2: you know, tipping over and the pouring out that you
Speaker 2: would have had. And so they he said, you know
Speaker 2: what if we put you upstairs, and so they were
Speaker 2: playing that year, they were playing rag Time, the musical.
Speaker 2: So I would say, coming up next, Wheels of a
Speaker 2: Dream by rag Time, you know from Ragtime. And that's
Speaker 2: how I started. And I remember it distinctly. I don't
Speaker 2: remember who the guy was, but there was somebody next
Speaker 2: to me in the press box. It was like, hey,
Speaker 2: you're kind of good at this. It was the first
Speaker 2: time somebody ever gave me a compliment about saying things.
Speaker 1: Listen, I don't want to go down a rabbit hole here,
Speaker 1: but I was you're looking at Henry Ford in a
Speaker 1: production of rag Time.
Speaker 2: Okay, wait, people, here's my theory of what this country
Speaker 2: is moving toward. Every worker a coggin mojo.
Speaker 1: That's the notion of Henry Ford, here's my people. See
Speaker 1: my theory of what this country is working toward? Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, And I have a terrible story about this.
Speaker 1: And I'm just going to be quick because this interview
Speaker 1: is not about me. But I was a theater kid
Speaker 1: for a very very long time, and I was in
Speaker 1: a production of Ragtime. And if you know the musical
Speaker 1: at all, and we won't go into the weeds, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's a transitional song, right, It's not really super
Speaker 1: important to the plot, but the main character is buying
Speaker 1: a car from Henry Ford. Right, Henry Ford is played
Speaker 1: by me. This was a very quick change for all
Speaker 1: of our dancers, right. So my first line, as Jason
Speaker 1: pointed out in the song, is here's my workers, right,
Speaker 1: And I make this grand gesture, here's my workers. And
Speaker 1: I turn around and zero of the four assembly line
Speaker 1: worker dancers are on stage zero. So I turn around
Speaker 1: and go, okay, we're going right back.
Speaker 2: Here because there's.
Speaker 1: No people in my assembly how are we gonna make
Speaker 1: this car? And I will never forget it because that
Speaker 1: night the director goes.
Speaker 3: Where were the workers?
Speaker 1: Henry Ford needs his workers? A very energetic director we had,
Speaker 1: And I will never forget. It's too quick of a change.
Speaker 1: Nobody really cared about the number as the dancers and
Speaker 1: they couldn't get out in time.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, that.
Speaker 1: Just sent me back, Jason. I can't believe ragtime came
Speaker 1: up on a baseball podcast.
Speaker 2: That's crazy, and it is. It's the most interstitial of
Speaker 2: interstitial songs, like you could got no offense, but you
Speaker 2: could lose that number. Speaking to on the car, it's
Speaker 2: like it's like the jfk assassination in mad Men. It's
Speaker 2: a nice touch. You don't have to have it right
Speaker 2: you you were expendable, but if you're gonna do it,
Speaker 2: you gotta have workers. It's the whole point. It's automation
Speaker 2: and manufacturing, and anybody can do it. The only person
Speaker 2: who can't do it is nobody. Jeff right right.
Speaker 1: See my people, Well here's my theory. That's the line.
Speaker 1: See my people, you can't see them, they're not there, Dad.
Speaker 1: This was the invention of the assembly line. The whole
Speaker 1: song was to try to show the historic momentum Henry
Speaker 1: Ford created. And there's U workers. I think they were
Speaker 1: taken over by AI in nineteen twenty. I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: but yeah, that was when I talk theater fails. That's
Speaker 1: my favorite. See my people, Well here's my theory. No people,
Speaker 1: none Jason.
Speaker 4: How is it possible Jesus that you know about Henry Ford?
Speaker 4: How is it possible that you played the tuba? You
Speaker 4: are a sports guy where it's amazing your depth of knowledge.
Speaker 3: Am I giving you too much credit? Here?
Speaker 2: The answer to that is always yes, anytime you're giving
Speaker 2: me credit, it's too much credit? Yes, too much. Here's
Speaker 2: where it comes from. Truly, I watched so many game
Speaker 2: shows as a kid, trivia game shows like I would
Speaker 2: sit at home watch Jeopardy. My parents claim that I
Speaker 2: learned to read through Wheel of Fortune, So thanks Pat Jack.
Speaker 2: I always love trivia and curiosities and like esoteric game
Speaker 2: show I'll still watch on YouTube. And my partner Andy Dirts,
Speaker 2: who's sitting over here, makes fun of me for it.
Speaker 2: So that's like, that's one of the cornerstones of why
Speaker 2: I know a lot of dumb stuff.
Speaker 1: Right, And Dad, I have to say, I just apologize
Speaker 1: because you're my father and you're my personal and professional hero.
Speaker 1: But you always seem so surprised when people who are
Speaker 1: in the industry that you've committed your life to have
Speaker 1: any other interests or knowledge of anything but the sport
Speaker 1: they love. Most people, dad have been more than more
Speaker 1: to two concerts in their life. Right, most people have.
Speaker 3: Been to three concerts? Right? And yeah, word made it?
Speaker 1: Yellow Card, Kenny Chesney, You'll never see those straight on
Speaker 1: a lineup.
Speaker 2: Wait wait wait wait wait wait did you say yellow Card? Yes?
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, no joke, no joke.
Speaker 2: I'm I kid you not. One of the members of
Speaker 2: Yellowcard was with Chad Smith when we just interviewed him.
Speaker 2: No Way, the guitarist from Yellow Card. I just met
Speaker 2: him moments ago. I said to him, Hey, this must
Speaker 2: be a huge summer for you, what with the World
Speaker 2: Cup going on, And he said, yeah, every four years
Speaker 2: on social media we get a boot.
Speaker 3: That is so great.
Speaker 4: So Yellow Card, Jason. I, my daughter Kelly, was in
Speaker 4: the seventh grade, and I took four three other seventh
Speaker 4: grade girls to go see Yellow Card at a college
Speaker 4: like an hour away. And I thought it was going
Speaker 4: to start at seven thirty. There were three opening.
Speaker 5: Acts and Yellow Card went on at ten thirty at night,
Speaker 5: and I'm with four seventh grade girls and Jeffrey was
Speaker 5: with me, crying out loud, and I screwed up the
Speaker 5: whole night and I kept hallowing him Green Card or
Speaker 5: Yellow Day.
Speaker 3: I couldn't figure out anything. It was the worst.
Speaker 4: It was one of the worst experiences of my life. However,
Speaker 4: when Yellow Card went on, you should have seen those
Speaker 4: girls ten thirty at night sway into the music.
Speaker 3: It made it all worthwhile. It was incredible.
Speaker 2: That's great great. I cannot believe. I cannot believe the
Speaker 2: ven diagram here. I cannot believe.
Speaker 1: Let's see, we are ten minutes into Jason Bennetti and
Speaker 1: we've talked Ragtime, the musical, Yellow Card, and Chad and
Speaker 1: the drummer from Red Hot. Are we ever going to
Speaker 1: get to baseball?
Speaker 2: Maybe not.
Speaker 3: That's the beauty of We'll get to it in a minute.
Speaker 3: So we have to go back to the game shows
Speaker 3: for a minute.
Speaker 4: We had Kevin Brown, the great Kevin Brown, on the
Speaker 4: podcast last year, and he's told me more than once.
Speaker 3: Oh I pulled it out of what a.
Speaker 4: Great jeopardy player he is, Okay, and I believe it
Speaker 4: because he is wicked smart. You have never been in
Speaker 4: the same room with Kevin playing Jeopardy, I assume, is
Speaker 4: that correct?
Speaker 2: No? I mean we did four years of minor league
Speaker 2: baseball together, so it was a little bit like playing
Speaker 2: Jeopardy for the audience on a nightly baseball. You want esoterica,
Speaker 2: You want to not understand play by play. Listen to
Speaker 2: twenty eleven to twenty fourteen Syracuse Chiefs Baseball. You want
Speaker 2: something to fly over your head for a longer amount
Speaker 2: of time than you can dream. Put us to behind
Speaker 2: a microphone with triple A baseball, where like, whose line
Speaker 2: is it? Anyway? The points don't matter, and you're really
Speaker 2: you're really in trouble.
Speaker 4: That is so great We ask We asked Kevin Brown
Speaker 4: on the podcast to do his Sean McDonough impersonation, and
Speaker 4: he refused to do it because he said, I will
Speaker 4: just sound like Jason Bennetti doing Sean McDonough. And he said,
Speaker 4: and I'm not nearly as good as Jason Bennetti doing
Speaker 4: Sean McDonough. How many times do you how many times
Speaker 4: you've been asked to do Sean McDonough, Like a million.
Speaker 2: Enough that I actually feel a little bit bad because
Speaker 2: some people think I'm making fun of Sean, and I
Speaker 2: hate that because I just like sounds. I think Sean
Speaker 2: is truly one of the top three announcers that has
Speaker 2: ever lived have seen it all times, no doubt, for
Speaker 2: all time. He's a genius. His wit is beyond the
Speaker 2: scale of anything that should really be behind a sports microphone.
Speaker 2: He's been great to me. So when I hear that,
Speaker 2: a couple people have thought that I was making fun
Speaker 2: of him, Like I hate I just I love the
Speaker 2: sound of his voice. It comes out of the TV
Speaker 2: and just it's a powerhouse, but it's got sort of
Speaker 2: those like rounded edges that is fun to hear. So
Speaker 2: you know, I've been asked a trillion times to do it,
Speaker 2: and I love it so much. But I also like,
Speaker 2: I hate that people think I'm making fun of him
Speaker 2: in any way, because like if I'm if I if
Speaker 2: I sit here and I say, well, Tim, what are
Speaker 2: you doing a game together? Am I making fun of you?
Speaker 2: Or am I doing your voice? It's a caricature in
Speaker 2: some way. And by the way, next time you have
Speaker 2: Kevin brown on, ask him to do his impression of me. Really,
Speaker 2: his impression of me is just me interrupting my own
Speaker 2: sentences that when I really get on a roll, I'm like,
Speaker 2: you know, the one thing, well, if you say, now,
Speaker 2: the one problem with that is that's his whole impression.
Speaker 1: That was Jason doing Kevin doing Jason, which is so
Speaker 1: beautiful that we just got that right.
Speaker 4: And Jason, you might not appreciate this as much as
Speaker 4: I do because I grew up watching Jim Palmer and
Speaker 4: I worked with Jim Pommer. But Kevin Brown's impersonation of
Speaker 4: Jim Palmer is so perfect it is really really scary. Now, Jason,
Speaker 4: who else? Who else do you do now? Besides me?
Speaker 4: That was pretty good, even though the difference between Sean
Speaker 4: McDonald and me is he has a great voice and
Speaker 4: I have a terrible voice.
Speaker 3: Who else can I do?
Speaker 2: Voice? I love when you're in the middle of a
Speaker 2: leaf and you kind of like you're in the middle
Speaker 2: of a sentence and you can't get out of the
Speaker 2: sentence without a cackle. That's my favorite part of you,
Speaker 2: is when you're it's like a stable sentence and then
Speaker 2: suddenly you're like, you just can't. It has to emanate
Speaker 2: from you somehow.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: One of one of the other ones that I kind
Speaker 2: of like is a droopy dog. You remember the yes dog,
Speaker 2: So like, right, he'll go, hello you happy people, and
Speaker 2: you wave a little flag. You know it I'm sad. Right,
Speaker 2: that's a good one. I enjoy that one. I just
Speaker 2: liked the jug you know, when there was like a
Speaker 2: rain delay, I used to go into the other booth
Speaker 2: at the White Sox, you know, and stay the end.
Speaker 2: Cast were like it's raining.
Speaker 1: Oh my cheek shirt.
Speaker 3: Oh I'm laughing.
Speaker 2: Chris Kelly, the Sports Center voiceover guy, is one of
Speaker 2: my favorites too, because I like doing like really obscure
Speaker 2: fake menu items from chain restaurants that he has to announce,
Speaker 2: so like, uh, brought to you buy Applebee's new fruit
Speaker 2: loops and crusted rib like very Americana forward menu items
Speaker 2: that you could have imagine for the two hundred and fiftieth.
Speaker 3: Right, that is so great, Jesse, were you unfortunate?
Speaker 1: Sorry? We unfortunately?
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: He goes up.
Speaker 1: My dad gets the seam head edition of Baseball Tonight.
Speaker 1: He's been an analyst's whole career. He finally gets to
Speaker 1: host a show, and with hosting a show, you have
Speaker 1: to do ad reads, and he goes up against who
Speaker 1: but the legendary voice of ESPN. So they go to
Speaker 1: my dad and I love my dad to death, and
Speaker 1: he's amazingly talented, but he had to do Lows, and
Speaker 1: they told him you have to pause between Low's Lows
Speaker 1: Never Stop Improving, And we're watching the show and it
Speaker 1: just came off. This is brought to you by Lows
Speaker 1: Lows Never Stop Improving, And I don't we every time.
Speaker 1: That was fifteen years ago, and every time we go
Speaker 1: to Low's we say where are you going? I'm going
Speaker 1: to Low's Lows for stop improving.
Speaker 3: For Dad, I.
Speaker 2: Thought something will make you feel better about that. So,
Speaker 2: you know, we have we have the cards over here
Speaker 2: for the reads for the Tigers, and we do the
Speaker 2: billboards live. So it's a couple different sponsors over videos,
Speaker 2: you know, like it'll be by Skittles and buy the
Speaker 2: Home Depot. You know, we do them live. And for
Speaker 2: some reason, like a couple of weeks ago, I caught
Speaker 2: myself looking ahead on the card and I like panicked
Speaker 2: that I was going to do the wrong one. So
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, take it slow, make sure you
Speaker 2: read it right. So I do the McDonald's one. I say,
Speaker 2: McDonald's get a five dollars mcdouble meal today. And then
Speaker 2: I said, because I was going so slowly to make
Speaker 2: sure I didn't overread, I go and buy wallside windows,
Speaker 2: get a five dollars mcdouble meal. Today I hit the
Speaker 2: McDonald's tagline for the windows place. Because I was so
Speaker 2: worried about jumping ahead, I stalled out the same rapp
Speaker 2: as last time.
Speaker 4: That is so funny, Jason, these impersonations.
Speaker 3: Were you doing these when you were five? Were you
Speaker 3: doing them when you were ten?
Speaker 4: Or is this something that's come up since you've become
Speaker 4: an adult.
Speaker 2: So I I used to do a Hawk Harrelson as
Speaker 2: a kid. I was running around gym class, be like,
Speaker 2: you can put it on the board there, it won't
Speaker 2: you know. So that's that's where it started. But I
Speaker 2: do you know, the more I the more I live,
Speaker 2: the more I think all of the SNL I watched
Speaker 2: all of the Carmen, I listened to all of that,
Speaker 2: like Prime Comedy, Heyday of like growing up knowing John
Speaker 2: Candy and Bill Murray and the like the great comedy
Speaker 2: movies like Blazing Saddles and whatnot. Like I think there
Speaker 2: was like satire always in my heart and I I
Speaker 2: thought about this the other day. You guys are gonna
Speaker 2: find this to be ridiculous. But there was a program
Speaker 2: at my elementary school that sent to like fifth teen
Speaker 2: kids to a cable access TV station, and our assignment
Speaker 2: for this English class or whatever it was to was
Speaker 2: to come up with our own product that we created,
Speaker 2: and then we had to create an advertisement for the product.
Speaker 2: So it was like an SNL commercial parody, like Little
Speaker 2: Chocolate Donuts or Handy Off, you know, one of those things.
Speaker 2: So I came up with I don't know how or why,
Speaker 2: but it was right around the time dan Quayle. Remember
Speaker 2: dan Quayle misspelled potato in that classroom, right, the kid
Speaker 2: wrote potato and then dan Quayle was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: and then added an e at the end of it.
Speaker 2: And it was like the first viral doofy political video
Speaker 2: before Twitter, right, you know, and it was but he
Speaker 2: So I did president Vice Presidential Alphabets was the name
Speaker 2: of the product that I created, and the tagline was
Speaker 2: even you can spell potato, Oh.
Speaker 3: That is so beautiful.
Speaker 4: So, Jason, we talk about sitcoms on this show a
Speaker 4: lot because I'm you know, I'm twenty seven years older
Speaker 4: than you, but get smart. It's my great favorite sitcom
Speaker 4: of all time. Your favorite sitcom of all time is what.
Speaker 2: Favorite sitcom of all time? Is a really hard one
Speaker 2: because there are a couple. I mean, Sheers holds up beautifully. Still.
Speaker 2: I think Larry Sanders spawns so many careers. I mean
Speaker 2: from the pilot, you know, he's he's doing the garden
Speaker 2: weasel ad in the pilot and he looks at it
Speaker 2: and he treats it like a golf club, and he
Speaker 2: looks down the little mini grass and he goes, I
Speaker 2: think maybe about a seven weasel. Here's a cat, And
Speaker 2: I was hooked, right, So you know, Seinfeld's curb is
Speaker 2: on the list. I like good Fast Wit. The one
Speaker 2: that I would say probably gets underrated in the pantheon
Speaker 2: but has a really high joke per second number is Veep.
Speaker 2: Veep takes every advantage of every small moment to land
Speaker 2: another blow, and you feel like you're kind of being
Speaker 2: pummeled by comedy in an extremely cool, fun way. So
Speaker 2: I love that one too. I love the Mike Shore shows.
Speaker 2: I was very fortunate the one year twenty nineteen with
Speaker 2: the White Sox that Mike Schore did a White Sox
Speaker 2: game with me at the Angels. So the creator of
Speaker 2: Parks and rec and the Good plays, he played cousin
Speaker 2: Mose on the office, which is also on the list.
Speaker 2: But he's a huge baseball fan and he was amazing
Speaker 2: as a color analyst, Like he knew the cadence because
Speaker 2: he's a performer, but he watches so much baseball that
Speaker 2: that's kind of the confluence of comedy and baseball for me.
Speaker 2: Is Mike being nine innings of nails in the color
Speaker 2: chair for a while, Socks Angels game And are either
Speaker 2: of you Parks and Recreation fans?
Speaker 1: Hughe I am yes, and we're big Mike surefans. He
Speaker 1: recently just became the commissioner of Is this a Great Game?
Speaker 3: Or what?
Speaker 1: We had him on for his second time just a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago, and we were chatting about, you know,
Speaker 1: listener questions and things, and he said he deemed it.
Speaker 1: He said, if you ever need a ruling, if you
Speaker 1: ever need I love baseball more than anything. So he's
Speaker 1: already sent voice notes in for corrections and whatever it
Speaker 1: might be.
Speaker 5: He is.
Speaker 1: He is, in fact, the third closest to third member
Speaker 1: of this show.
Speaker 2: That we have love. I love this Mike. So Mike
Speaker 2: Sure I just called emailed him like, hey, do you
Speaker 2: want to do this? I've read that you've wanted to
Speaker 2: call a game. You're interested in baseball. I love your
Speaker 2: work and he said sure, fine, whatever. So we he's
Speaker 2: looking at the rosters before he gets to the game,
Speaker 2: maybe a couple of weeks in advance, and he writes
Speaker 2: me a note to say that Ross Debt Wilder, who
Speaker 2: now is a member of the Orioles Farm System coaching staff.
Speaker 2: They just hired him a couple of weeks ago, I think,
Speaker 2: But Ross Dettweiler was on the White Sox, and Mike
Speaker 2: writes me to tell me that he named a place
Speaker 2: in Parks and Rec after Ross Detweiler. There is an
Speaker 2: episode where Dettweiler Square gets mentioned in Parks and Rec
Speaker 2: and it was after Ross Dettwiler. He would just go
Speaker 2: to a baseball reference and find names for the for
Speaker 2: stuff in the shows. So I got to introduce Mike
Speaker 2: to Ross Dettweiler and watch him tell him the story.
Speaker 2: It was amazing. It was amazing.
Speaker 4: Mike Sure is so funny. His recollection of baseball is incredible.
Speaker 4: So as the commissioner, he's made two rulings so far
Speaker 4: that correct me. Here, Jeff striking out the side means
Speaker 4: you face three batters in an inning, and you strike
Speaker 4: them all out as opposed to facing six batters, dragging
Speaker 4: out three and giving up three home runs. That's not so,
Speaker 4: Mike Schure says, that is striking out the side. And
Speaker 4: then he we had a guy right in that if
Speaker 4: you're fourteen and ten as a team, you're not four
Speaker 4: games over five hundred, you're only two games over five hundred,
Speaker 4: because twelve.
Speaker 3: And twelve is two away.
Speaker 4: So Mike Sure came on and made a ruling that
Speaker 4: fourteen and ten is actually four games over. And then
Speaker 4: somehow took Doctor Frankenstein and Frankenstein the Monster and made
Speaker 4: the analogy, and that's how he came up with it's
Speaker 4: four games over five hundred. That's what Mike Schure brings
Speaker 4: to our show.
Speaker 2: I can understand that because over time it's evolved to
Speaker 2: just Frankenstein, but it was doctor Frankenstein's monster, but nobody
Speaker 2: knows it as that, right, So I wonder how you
Speaker 2: would I wonder what he would think about me saying
Speaker 2: that the count isn't even at one and one.
Speaker 4: Right, and explain, Jason, because I saw you did this
Speaker 4: on Jason Stark and Doug Lambville's so explain. Look, I'm
Speaker 4: a pedantic, little twit. I've made that clear on this
Speaker 4: podcast many times.
Speaker 3: Little things bother me.
Speaker 4: I love baseball more than anything in the world, but
Speaker 4: little things bug me. And but I've never even considered
Speaker 4: that one until you brought it up.
Speaker 3: Now, please explain. I love it.
Speaker 2: Four balls, three strikes, So you start out as a
Speaker 2: batter at a disadvantage in terms of balls and strikes.
Speaker 2: For good reason, nobody wants to see three pitchwalks. But
Speaker 2: if you're at one and one, you're two strikes away
Speaker 2: from a strikeout, three balls away from a walk, that's
Speaker 2: not even. There's nothing even about that. You are closer
Speaker 2: to a strikeout than a walk. And so I don't
Speaker 2: think the count is even at one and one. I
Speaker 2: think the count is even at two and one.
Speaker 1: I think the unfortunate truth is by the numbers, not
Speaker 1: to poke holes in the theory is I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: you're two away, but from percentages, it took you longer,
Speaker 1: you know, fifty percent away from a walk, and only
Speaker 1: you know thirty three percent away from a strikeout. But
Speaker 1: if you're two strikes and two walks away, I think
Speaker 1: I I think I agree with you that you're you're
Speaker 1: even because two pitches could put you on first base
Speaker 1: or could send you back to the dugout. Two and
Speaker 1: one is an even count, I think I agree. Does
Speaker 1: that make three and two and even count?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Three two is even. You know people are like, oh,
Speaker 2: full count, payoff pitch, right, Well, doesn't the payoff pitch
Speaker 2: come when the count is even? Nothing's paying off if
Speaker 2: it's two and two. But it was like, oh even count, No,
Speaker 2: there's no payoff.
Speaker 4: This sounds something like we should ask Mike Sure the commissioner,
Speaker 4: about and have him make a ruling for when Jason's
Speaker 4: the week after Jason comes to agreed Jeff, Well.
Speaker 1: I mean we have enough time, you know, I could.
Speaker 1: I could insert it, you know what, the magic of
Speaker 1: podcasting without anybody knowing what he's going to say. Here's
Speaker 1: what we're gonna do. I'm going to insert Mike Sure
Speaker 1: right here, and then after I play it, we're all
Speaker 1: going to react as if we just heard it. Ready.
Speaker 1: Here's Mike Sure.
Speaker 6: Hi, everyone, Mike Sure here the commissioner. This is a
Speaker 6: very interesting question. Is the count even as per tradition
Speaker 6: when the number of balls and strikes in the EBAT
Speaker 6: is the same, A one in one count or a
Speaker 6: two and two count, or because it requires four balls
Speaker 6: or three strikes to end in a bat? Is the
Speaker 6: count actually even when the number of balls is one
Speaker 6: greater than the number of strikes A one and zero count,
Speaker 6: two and one, three and two. Ordinarily, in issues like this,
Speaker 6: I'm a sort of a pragmatist. I think, look, the
Speaker 6: count is even when the numbers are even. That's generally
Speaker 6: the way I break with these things. However, this is
Speaker 6: bothered me since I was a kid. I remember thinking,
Speaker 6: the count isn't even if it's two and two one
Speaker 6: more strike. This guy's out and it requires two balls
Speaker 6: to get him to first base. So it's going to
Speaker 6: take a lot of work and a lot of patience.
Speaker 6: But I think we can all come together as a
Speaker 6: baseball community and declare that it's actually only an even
Speaker 6: count when it's one more ball than there is strikes.
Speaker 6: This is my ruling, and as always, my rulings are
Speaker 6: final and there is no appeals process.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: What a brilliant right.
Speaker 1: He just provided such insight that was incredible.
Speaker 4: Right, Jason, you're right now, Mike sure has convinced me
Speaker 4: that you are right.
Speaker 3: Two and one is an even count. I'm seventy years old.
Speaker 3: I never thought about that.
Speaker 2: Now if Mike says the opposite, we should do another
Speaker 2: take where I get I get very angry, right, Mike,
Speaker 2: and then swear off all of his television programs, And.
Speaker 1: I just want the record set straight. I'm going to
Speaker 1: run both of these, So let me just add in here.
Speaker 1: Thanks Mike for calling me as handsome as I am.
Speaker 1: That's very sweet of you to say, just in Casey
Speaker 1: says that, No, how dare you Mike? How dare you
Speaker 1: never watching The Office again?
Speaker 2: Yeah? That Andy, he's too zany?
Speaker 1: Right, Oh my gosh, Well thank you, Mike. Sure whatever
Speaker 1: you said was insightful and beautiful and we can't wait
Speaker 1: to hear it when the episode airs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, all right.
Speaker 4: So Jason, a couple a couple of little things that
Speaker 4: bother me. Both are about like pitches and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: It's always, it's always.
Speaker 4: I've always wondered why you only unquirk two things in
Speaker 4: the world. You uncork a bottle of champagne and a
Speaker 4: wild pitch. Have you ever thought about that before? That
Speaker 4: uncorked is never used except for those two examples. Is
Speaker 4: that the dumbest thing you've ever heard.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna try to uncork a theory here and think
Speaker 2: undo this. Yeah, it is this. It is one of
Speaker 2: the strange things. Dan Dickerson, the Tigers radio guy, and
Speaker 2: I have a running list of phrases that are either
Speaker 2: nonsense or we need the the origins of and we
Speaker 2: we decided that the phrase I got half a mind
Speaker 2: uh is only used in one instance. Usually it's immediately
Speaker 2: followed by a threat of battery. Nobody's ever right I
Speaker 2: got half of mine to buy you a tray of brownies.
Speaker 2: It's always like I got a half a mind to
Speaker 2: slap you, but like I got a half of mind
Speaker 2: to beat you up. Nobody ever has half a mind
Speaker 2: to get you a gift for Christmas?
Speaker 4: Right, good point, Nation, You're absolutely right, So give give
Speaker 4: me something else that you and Dan go back and
Speaker 4: forth on, because I I have a one thing that
Speaker 4: always has bothered me is when somebody gets hit by
Speaker 4: a pitch, they say he got beaned, he got hit
Speaker 4: in the leg, he got beaned in the leg. I
Speaker 4: always thought, and I will always think, that you get
Speaker 4: bean only when you get hit in the head, because
Speaker 4: this is called the bean You can't get beaned in
Speaker 4: the leg by a pitch.
Speaker 3: Am I right or wrong?
Speaker 2: No, your head is your bean. It's destroying the origin
Speaker 2: of the phrase. Yeah, that's that's like getting a shinburger
Speaker 2: in your chin. It's not gonna happen. The other one
Speaker 2: we were talking about today was the word uncouth. Few
Speaker 2: people use kuth but everything we all know what isn't kuth,
Speaker 2: But we're just circling around what is kuth by negating
Speaker 2: thing because they're not kuth enough. We know what kuth isn't.
Speaker 1: It's a good point.
Speaker 3: And Jason, no, it's we do that all the time.
Speaker 3: You're You're absolutely right.
Speaker 2: One thing, Jason, that's uncouth, this is unrue, that's untrue.
Speaker 2: Show me something that's coothing.
Speaker 1: The quick, Jason. One thing I brought up to my
Speaker 1: dad for years that I I don't know why it
Speaker 1: irks my nerves so much, but when when broadcasters, you know, analysts,
Speaker 1: whatever it might be, say they have the best home
Speaker 1: run hitter in Kyle Schwarber, when I look at it,
Speaker 1: you should just say they have the best home run
Speaker 1: hitter Kyle Schwarber. We don't need to add the inn.
Speaker 1: It's unnecessary to me, right.
Speaker 2: Do you ever watch. Do you ever watch teenage Mutant
Speaker 2: Ninja Turtles, Jeff when you're growing up?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was the little brain guy crying right. He
Speaker 2: was he was the mastermind of all the evil plots.
Speaker 2: But he had a he had a human suit that
Speaker 2: he would sit and sort of like the torso of
Speaker 2: and he'd run the levers of the very large robo
Speaker 2: human that he was in charge up. That's actually what's
Speaker 2: going on when we use that, we're being very specific.
Speaker 2: There is a tiny brain inside of Kyle Schwarber that
Speaker 2: is in sort of the Manchurian candidate sense joysticking the
Speaker 2: powerhouse that is the left handed tormentor of Major League baseballs.
Speaker 2: There is a home run hitter in Kyle Schwarber, right,
Speaker 2: right time, right.
Speaker 4: So, Jason, give us something. Give us something that you
Speaker 4: really stink at. Your great at game shows, you're great
Speaker 4: at trivia, you're great at broadcasting. Give us something that
Speaker 4: you don't know anything about, Like, I don't know anything
Speaker 4: about everything except for baseball, basketball, and sitcoms from the sixties.
Speaker 4: Give me something out there that most people know that
Speaker 4: you just don't know anything about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's crazy. I navigate the world and I have
Speaker 2: no idea how to walk straight. No, I uh the
Speaker 2: thing that I the thing that I wish I knew
Speaker 2: much more about. And I'm a foodie. But if you
Speaker 2: put me in the Chopped kitchen and said here are
Speaker 2: all the ingredients, make anything, I would make nothing that
Speaker 2: tasted good.
Speaker 5: Love.
Speaker 2: I love the idea of cooking. I've watched every episode
Speaker 2: of The Bear. I really enjoyed Chopped. I like a
Speaker 2: good meal. I'm happy to have a great restaurant in
Speaker 2: every city. I don't know how to cook. I don't
Speaker 2: and I wish I did, and it's terrible.
Speaker 4: Well, I do all the cooking at our house, Jason,
Speaker 4: believe me, we pray after we.
Speaker 3: Eat at my house.
Speaker 2: That's how bad I am.
Speaker 4: But Jason, you can get better at this, because I
Speaker 4: stink at it still.
Speaker 3: But I've gotten better.
Speaker 4: So you're telling me you're a bad cook, and you've
Speaker 4: actually tried to do it.
Speaker 2: So I'm not even just a bad cook. I'm just
Speaker 2: a non cook whenever I try like so. So, when
Speaker 2: I was in law school, I decided that I was
Speaker 2: going to make like couscous out of a box before
Speaker 2: I had people over for poker, and instead, instead of butter.
Speaker 2: I used olive oil and put it in the microwave,
Speaker 2: and I got to tell you, olive oil seems to
Speaker 2: be some sort of I didn't get a great grade
Speaker 2: in physics, but olive oil seems to be some sort
Speaker 2: of electroconductor of something that happened in that microwave, because
Speaker 2: immediately it fried the microwave. It was out on my
Speaker 2: porch in the back within twenty minutes of me trying
Speaker 2: to do this, And when everybody came over to play poker,
Speaker 2: it smelled like tire in my living room, like I
Speaker 2: tried to make. I tried to make boxed rice and failed.
Speaker 3: So that was uncouth tooth?
Speaker 4: Is that what you're saying is that, yes, Tim, Yes,
Speaker 4: all right.
Speaker 3: We have to switch subjects again.
Speaker 4: So I don't know if you know Jason, but Jeffrey
Speaker 4: was auto the Orange for four years at Syracuse. We
Speaker 4: paid fifty thousand dollars a year for him to go
Speaker 4: to school and he ran around in that little orange
Speaker 4: suit for.
Speaker 3: Four years and he loved it.
Speaker 4: And he was, believe it or not, a Division one athlete,
Speaker 4: and a lot of his personality came from that. You
Speaker 4: must have had a run in somewhere with a mascot
Speaker 4: somewhere along line, because we all have, especially little guys
Speaker 4: like you and me, seem to get in more trouble
Speaker 4: with mascots than the rest is any as a mascot ever, Like,
Speaker 4: give us a favorite mascot story.
Speaker 2: You're gonna love this. You're really gonna love this, and
Speaker 2: it's gonna be one of those where you laugh in
Speaker 2: the background and then they cut to your reaction because
Speaker 2: it's very baseball like that, exactly like that. So the
Speaker 2: one thing I can eat is shellfish. I have a
Speaker 2: shellfish allergy. It's not for cross pollination, cross contamination. It's
Speaker 2: just if I eat klamario, I'll have a reaction. So
Speaker 2: Alex Cora was in his first game as an ESPN
Speaker 2: Baseball analyst on the major league Baseball side. He had
Speaker 2: done like little league, junior league. We did a junior
Speaker 2: league final up in Bangor Main once. But his first
Speaker 2: ever game as an analyst was in the booth with me.
Speaker 2: I think it was Andy Jacobson producing in Baltimore. It
Speaker 2: was Boston and Baltimore. So they decide that for his
Speaker 2: first game, the oriole bird is going to come up
Speaker 2: to the booth with a certificate or a sign that
Speaker 2: says Alex's first game as a major league analyst. Very
Speaker 2: nice gesture, you know, al east Thowd rivalry. The oriol
Speaker 2: Bird comes up with the sign and a big boat
Speaker 2: of crab fries, and so Alex is like, why don't
Speaker 2: you have one? And I was like, oh, okay, And
Speaker 2: then I had and I was like, wait a secon,
Speaker 2: what's that seasoning? And they said, oh, it's crab fries.
Speaker 2: And I was like, well, Alex, you almost did the
Speaker 2: game on your own. The oriole Bird, as the story goes,
Speaker 2: was trying to kill me Allah Professor Plumber Conservatory with
Speaker 2: the fight with the crab fries. With the crab fries.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, that's incredible. Jason, I did a stand
Speaker 4: up at in Philadelphia. This is fifteen years ago, and
Speaker 4: the Philly Fanatic this is before the game, this is
Speaker 4: the open to the game on the sideline reporters. So
Speaker 4: we go from Sean McDonough and Sut and.
Speaker 3: Booty in the booth and throw it down to me.
Speaker 4: And I'm doing a stand up in Philadelphia and the
Speaker 4: fanatic comes up right next to me. He gets down
Speaker 4: on his knees so he's my height and he's got
Speaker 4: he pretends to be like the shortest guy on the field,
Speaker 4: and I'm trying to concentrate on doing the open and
Speaker 4: there is the fanatic on his knees. I just burst
Speaker 4: into laughter. It completely ruined the open and it was hilariously.
Speaker 2: Funny, phenomenal the fanatic, I would say, the Fanatic. And
Speaker 2: now Orbit in Houston. I think Orbit does a great
Speaker 2: job as well. If we're gonna do mascot rankings or
Speaker 2: anything like it, or Orbit has done a really nice
Speaker 2: job of going to the top of the pantheon of mascots.
Speaker 2: But I'm I'm sorry for all the short jokes that
Speaker 2: have happened, and I'm sorry to have contributed that time before,
Speaker 2: you know, before the Yankees finished their night that night.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, right, Jeff, If you don't remember, I did
Speaker 4: a Little League every year for ten years, and one
Speaker 4: year they somebody actually looked up that fifty two percent
Speaker 4: of the players in the Little League World Series.
Speaker 3: That year were taller than me.
Speaker 4: So I just left the Little League World Series go
Speaker 4: to a game in New York, first game I've ever
Speaker 4: done with knucklehead Jason Bennetti, and I explained this on
Speaker 4: the air fifty two percent, and he said.
Speaker 3: I was a little low to me. That's what he said.
Speaker 4: Ah, so bad, And I said and then what did
Speaker 4: I say after that?
Speaker 2: Well, you laugh for like three minutes and I love you.
Speaker 2: And that was your your notebook too, write this notebook everywhere.
Speaker 3: Right everywhere I go and get this, Jason.
Speaker 4: At the same Little League World Series I showed, Todd
Speaker 4: Fraser asked me how to use Tell me about your notebook?
Speaker 4: Why do you use it this way? Why do you
Speaker 4: use it that way? And the next day he shows
Speaker 4: up and he's got one of my notebooks and he's
Speaker 4: taken notes.
Speaker 3: Like I am. How about that?
Speaker 4: A major league player asked for my input on how
Speaker 4: to use a notebook and the next day he was
Speaker 4: using it just like I do.
Speaker 2: So I assume it sounded something like your big dog.
Speaker 2: What's in that notebook? Big dog?
Speaker 4: For an entire broadcast on a Little League World Series,
Speaker 4: you called me big dog, And I'm thinking, no person
Speaker 4: on earth you should be called big dog.
Speaker 3: Less than me, because that's ridiculous.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Todd Fraser's the biggest twelve year old of all.
Speaker 3: Time, still, Jason, after all these years, it is.
Speaker 2: So two things about Todd Fraser. Number One, this is
Speaker 2: nothing against any other play by play announcer that's ever
Speaker 2: been created. But I don't know that there's more joy
Speaker 2: in a booth than when you Todd Fraser and Mike
Speaker 2: Monaco are all together doing the Little League stuff. It
Speaker 2: is nonsense and it's hilarious. And then two, when Todd
Speaker 2: Fraser was with the White Sox in twenty sixteen, they
Speaker 2: had a fans beanbag tournament like a cornhole tournament where
Speaker 2: you could pair up, and they had a big bracket
Speaker 2: for White Sox fans. So Fraser and I entered and
Speaker 2: they did They did like a video bit about it,
Speaker 2: and the whole time he was just yelling at me
Speaker 2: for not landingback. Come on, j Z, what are you doing.
Speaker 4: That?
Speaker 3: Jason.
Speaker 4: I don't know why I get such a kick out
Speaker 4: of this. But Todd Fraser shares a birthday with.
Speaker 3: Abraham Lincoln, and.
Speaker 5: Just the thought of Todd Fraser and Abraham Lincoln have
Speaker 5: the same birthday, he goes like.
Speaker 1: This, me and honest day, same day, the same same birthday, like.
Speaker 2: Me, you know four score? You know we got four?
Speaker 2: They got two?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Herb score eighty years ago yeah, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: That is so marvel. I just I picture Todd in
Speaker 2: the hat and the beard, you know, I mean to
Speaker 2: be honest, like he married Todd Lincoln Todd Frasier. There's
Speaker 2: something going on there.
Speaker 1: Mary Todd Frasier. I mean, it all works out, it
Speaker 1: all makes its way. It's like seven degrees of Kevin Bacon.
Speaker 1: It will get there eventually.
Speaker 4: Well, Jeff, we do a lot of stupid things on
Speaker 4: this podcast, but this has been forty five minutes of
Speaker 4: complete lunacy here with Jason Bennetti.
Speaker 3: I'm going to ask you one.
Speaker 4: Baseball question before before we have to let you go here,
Speaker 4: even though we would love to keep you for five
Speaker 4: more hours. So, Jason, what has it been like on
Speaker 4: Sunday night when you are getting sometimes two different analysts
Speaker 4: that you've never worked with before, and you make it
Speaker 4: work so easily.
Speaker 3: And I know you could.
Speaker 4: Do anything, but it has to be a challenge to
Speaker 4: figure out, Hey, I've never done a game with this guy,
Speaker 4: and now I am what has that been like.
Speaker 2: It's honestly, it's one of the joys of my career. Tim.
Speaker 2: I really love spontaneity. I've learned to love it. Even
Speaker 2: more because of the late great Bill Walton. I love
Speaker 2: that man so much and how much he meant to
Speaker 2: my career. Is inescapable he you know, he always number
Speaker 2: one wanted to have the music on. That was his
Speaker 2: advice always to me and to so many others. Just
Speaker 2: always have the music on, have something playing. And his
Speaker 2: mind was so vivid. But he also didn't want to
Speaker 2: talk to you before the game. He wanted to go
Speaker 2: on the air, and he wanted to in the moment
Speaker 2: do whatever it was. You know, he wanted to live
Speaker 2: it the way it was going to be, in the
Speaker 2: most spontaneous form. And it has been an absolute blast
Speaker 2: to watch people come together over baseball, like conversations in
Speaker 2: the booth that happened that you never I never would
Speaker 2: have expected based on the people we have and the
Speaker 2: questions that get asked. I just is it is like
Speaker 2: I imagine Hall of Fame week and at Cooperstown, where
Speaker 2: everybody is sitting around and talking and sharing stories. But
Speaker 2: we're watching the game and doing this game as well,
Speaker 2: and we're evolving like it's only going to get better.
Speaker 2: But it does feel a little bit like an oblique
Speaker 2: version of SNL, which has always tickled my fancy. You know,
Speaker 2: they have table reads and they have writers' rooms and
Speaker 2: all that stuff, and we have our production crew and
Speaker 2: then two people show up and then a third one downstairs,
Speaker 2: and it's all like guest hosts. But if we do
Speaker 2: it right, anybody should be comfortable doing it. And I
Speaker 2: think that if people say that baseball is a common
Speaker 2: language that you can speak, I think this show proves that.
Speaker 2: Then a game breaks out, multiple people who care about
Speaker 2: the sport are talking about it, and it just works.
Speaker 2: And I think it works because of the universe universality
Speaker 2: of baseball as a land.
Speaker 4: Which Jason, I'm repeating you though, But isn't this what
Speaker 4: makes baseball so beautiful is you just show up and
Speaker 4: suddenly that it works because everyone has the shared love
Speaker 4: of the game. Doesn't matter where you're from, or how
Speaker 4: tall you are, how short you are, if you love
Speaker 4: the game, it's all gonna work. Right.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you said that, because I do. I When
Speaker 2: I think about it like that, Tim, I feel like
Speaker 2: I'm being a little soupy because I'm part of this show.
Speaker 2: But I would love this show even if I wasn't
Speaker 2: part of this show because of exactly that because the
Speaker 2: love for baseball Number one. NBC has such a rich
Speaker 2: history of doing the game and caring about the history
Speaker 2: of Major League Baseball and this day in baseball that
Speaker 2: we do most weeks, and the baseball cards they put
Speaker 2: up of guys who played for both teams and the
Speaker 2: game that we're doing. But the game itself has this
Speaker 2: richness and this beauty, and part of the beauty is
Speaker 2: see it from a different angle and still love it.
Speaker 2: Even if you're the type of person who talks about
Speaker 2: no hitters like I am, and Roger Clemens is sitting
Speaker 2: next to you, thinking, if only there wasn't this microphone
Speaker 2: in this camera, I would have half a mind to
Speaker 2: swat at this guy for talking about no hitters, you know,
Speaker 2: he he he said, in the middle of sunny is
Speaker 2: seven and a third no hit possibility. He said to
Speaker 2: Middlebrooks and me, Will Middlebrooks, he goes, can you guys
Speaker 2: just move your chairs away from me? And that's great.
Speaker 2: It's great that he didn't want to be any part
Speaker 2: of somebody talking about a no hitter as it's happening,
Speaker 2: and he just he was furious. Under the surface, it
Speaker 2: was great, But that's the thing you can you watch
Speaker 2: a game with somebody, there's this commonality of the love
Speaker 2: for the game. He knows what I'm doing, I know
Speaker 2: what he's doing. And nobody took a swing at each other, thankfully,
Speaker 2: because I would have not made it to the end
Speaker 2: of the night.
Speaker 3: We got to go back to Bill Walton for one second. Here.
Speaker 4: I'm sure I told you this story, Jason, but I
Speaker 4: met Bill Walton at an ESPN like get together where
Speaker 4: all the analysts and all the TV guys were there.
Speaker 4: So I go up to Bill Walton and I don't
Speaker 4: have the courage. I'm so afraid because he's Bill Walton
Speaker 4: and I grew up watching him.
Speaker 3: He's the greatest.
Speaker 4: College basketball player other than Luel Cinder I've ever seen.
Speaker 4: So I go up to him, and I'd had a
Speaker 4: couple of beers. That's the only way I could go
Speaker 4: up to him. And I said, Bill, my whole gold
Speaker 4: in life is to play at a pick up basketball game
Speaker 4: with you and Larry Bird, Like that would be the
Speaker 4: greatest thing ever because you would be the two greatest
Speaker 4: teammates in the history, especially for a dinky little point
Speaker 4: guard like me. So he looks right at me and
Speaker 4: he says well, now that you're off the San Francisco
Speaker 4: Giants beat, maybe.
Speaker 3: We can arrange that.
Speaker 5: So here, he got me mixed up with the late
Speaker 5: Pedro Goldbez.
Speaker 3: He thought it was Pedro Goldman, So I told him no.
Speaker 4: I told him this story, like I'm really I'm really
Speaker 4: putting myself out there to go talk to him, and
Speaker 4: he thinks I'm somebody else.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, what Yeah? That Bill.
Speaker 4: It was a brilliant man and a brilliant broadcaster and
Speaker 4: a repeat one of the greatest basketball players I've ever seen.
Speaker 4: But he thought I was somebody else and I left it.
Speaker 4: All I could do was just laugh out loud, like,
Speaker 4: oh my god, I bared my soul and I want
Speaker 4: I want to feed him in the low post that
Speaker 4: he doesn't even.
Speaker 3: Know what my name is.
Speaker 2: That's phenomenal. Oh my gosh, that's phenomenal. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: So, Jason, is there a moment in addition to the
Speaker 1: Clemens moment that you've had in the booth. You know,
Speaker 1: it's such a great concept that you guys have going
Speaker 1: on there in that booth. I love it, you know,
Speaker 1: representatives from both teams and it's just it's special. It's
Speaker 1: really really special. Tell us a little bit, you know,
Speaker 1: about the players you've come across, sat next to, played with,
Speaker 1: or you know, done a game with stories that have really,
Speaker 1: you know, made a difference.
Speaker 4: In your mind. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's every week there's something new, there's
Speaker 2: something random that comes up. I mean, you know, Dan
Speaker 2: Petrie and Mike Bassett did a Tiger's Rangers game and
Speaker 2: they're from different generations, and randomly Dan Petrie started talking
Speaker 2: about this guy, Bill Fahey. Tim you might remember Bill fa.
Speaker 3: Remember Bill Catcher, of course, yes, Yeah.
Speaker 2: So Dan mentions Bill Fahey and Mike Bassett on the
Speaker 2: air looks at him like, how do you know Bill Fahey,
Speaker 2: and Mike goes, yeah, I grew up knowing Bill Fahee's kids.
Speaker 2: So they have this mutual friend that they had no
Speaker 2: idea they were going to have, and they're having this
Speaker 2: really cool moment where baseball is connecting both of them
Speaker 2: and they talked for a couple of pictures about Bill
Speaker 2: Fahee and actually, Dan when we were down in Texas
Speaker 2: recently had lunch with Bill and hung out at his
Speaker 2: house and they rekindled you know, it was very nice.
Speaker 2: But in the middle of this conversation Rizzo jumps in.
Speaker 2: Anthony Rizzo is downstairs doing the inside of the pitch thing.
Speaker 2: He goes, you guys are old, great perfect. The other
Speaker 2: one that was that was really funny was John Cruck,
Speaker 2: who you know. John Kruck gets this reputation for being
Speaker 2: zany and off the wall and saying weird stuff with it.
Speaker 2: He's a great baseball analyst. I think John is fantastic
Speaker 2: at the job. And he you know, there's all the
Speaker 2: catch for you know whatever, right the wild sort of
Speaker 2: Bill Walton, this is John Kruck. We have an SNL
Speaker 2: promo in the game we did in April. It was C.
Speaker 2: J at Kowski, John Cruck and Rizzo and I and
Speaker 2: there's a Saturday Night Live promo And I say, hey, John,
Speaker 2: weren't you on Saturday Night Live ones mistakenly remembering Chris
Speaker 2: Farley playing John Cruck on Weekend up Right, No harm,
Speaker 2: no foul. He goes, I've never seen it. And I said, well, what,
Speaker 2: it's Saturday Night Live. You had to have seen it.
Speaker 2: He goes, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know comedy.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 2: He goes, you know what I do like? I like?
Speaker 2: There are two newscasters that share jokes and they write
Speaker 2: jokes for each other on the web. There and I go,
Speaker 2: that's Michael, Jay and Colin jokes on Weekend Update on
Speaker 2: Saturday Night Live.
Speaker 3: He said he's never seen it before.
Speaker 1: And then he's a referenced. This is a huge bit
Speaker 1: that's become famous in the last five six years. Every
Speaker 1: year they do it on their final show.
Speaker 2: That's yeah, it's exactly right. It's like him saying, you
Speaker 2: know what, I've never seen that twenty four. But there's
Speaker 2: this crime fighter Jack Bauer, who I really enjoyed.
Speaker 3: Well, Jason.
Speaker 4: When you talk about connecting, that's the beauty of baseball.
Speaker 3: They're connections everywhere.
Speaker 4: I want to ask John Kruck when we were going
Speaker 4: to see the Marlins on the bus tour at ESPN,
Speaker 4: I said, do you know, have you ever met Edwin Rodriguez,
Speaker 4: who was the manager of the Marlins, brand new to
Speaker 4: the team. So he goes, yeah, I played with him
Speaker 4: in winter ball. That's always the answer. You know, oh,
Speaker 4: I play he was a teammate of winter ball, or
Speaker 4: I played with him at Bakersfield. They're always connected one
Speaker 4: way or another. So he tells the story, this is
Speaker 4: gruesome but Edwin Rodriguez got hit by a pitch in
Speaker 4: the mouth in a game, and he's on the ground
Speaker 4: at home plate. Blood is everywhere and he's on his knees.
Speaker 4: Jose de Leone, the first base coach, comes running in
Speaker 4: to see if Edwin Rodriguez is okay, and Jose d
Speaker 4: Leone sees this crucive sight and he faints on the
Speaker 4: field and they bring an ambulance and they take Jose
Speaker 4: de Leone away in the ambulance and not Edward Rodriguez,
Speaker 4: who got hit in the mouth with a That's the
Speaker 4: story Kruk, he told me when I asked him, do
Speaker 4: you know Edward and Rodriguez? This is the beauty of
Speaker 4: Kruoky and the beauty of baseball. You ask just a
Speaker 4: simple question, do you know this guy? And that's the
Speaker 4: answer that you get. Oh, it's just the most beautiful.
Speaker 4: It's the most beautiful sport in the world.
Speaker 2: It's NonStop connectivity. And can I make one more connection
Speaker 2: before we go. I've been asking about you. I've been
Speaker 2: thinking about your laugh, tim Uh, and the spontaneity of
Speaker 2: your laugh, and I've been trying to place it. Did
Speaker 2: you ever watch the TV show soap.
Speaker 4: Yes I did. Was not one of my favorites, but
Speaker 4: I know the show.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: So there's a character Chuck and Bob, and it's a
Speaker 2: ventriloquist act. So Chuck is the human Bob is the
Speaker 2: ventriloquist dummy. And there's a time when Danny's daughter gets
Speaker 2: gets kidnapped, and every time Bob thinks about little Wendy,
Speaker 2: he goes into like this raucous crying fit Bob does
Speaker 2: and he's like, Oh, I just misser.
Speaker 3: Wenny, Wenny, Wendy, Wendy, whnny.
Speaker 2: That's what I The sponsaneity of your laugh sounds like
Speaker 2: when Bob goes into that fit about Wendy. It is
Speaker 2: one of the greatest characters of all time because all
Speaker 2: of the regular characters on soap, because Chuck is so
Speaker 2: good at it, start talking to Bob the dump. They
Speaker 2: do a bit where Bob is blindfolded and he's guessing
Speaker 2: what other people are holding. So the dummy has a
Speaker 2: blindfold on and they're holding an apple and they go
Speaker 2: watch watch Bob will be able to guess what it is,
Speaker 2: and he goes.
Speaker 3: It's round and it's red.
Speaker 2: It's an apple, and I think it sounds a little
Speaker 2: bit too much like your lap, tim.
Speaker 3: Oh god, that is so bad. All right, I can't
Speaker 3: leave without this.
Speaker 4: So Daniel Herrera pitched in the major leagues for several years,
Speaker 4: like five to seven, weigh one hundred and forty pounds.
Speaker 3: He's the littlest picture I think I've ever seen.
Speaker 4: And I asked him once, you know, guys make fun
Speaker 4: of you and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: He goes, Yeah.
Speaker 4: In the minor leagues, we had a bullpen coach who
Speaker 4: used to put me on his lap and put his
Speaker 4: hand up the back of my jersey and he would
Speaker 4: do a ventriloquist act where I was the dummies sitting
Speaker 4: on his lap because.
Speaker 3: I was so much smaller than him.
Speaker 4: Albert Covina was the bullpen catcher, coach or whatever.
Speaker 3: How about that?
Speaker 2: That's amazing. That is the quintessential baseball story, isn't it.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, of course, all you gotta do is,
Speaker 4: as Daniel rrare, what's your funniest little guy story?
Speaker 3: And that's what you get.
Speaker 4: They put him on his lap and pretended he was
Speaker 4: a vitriloquius fact. Oh god, all right, Jason's got a
Speaker 4: call him major league game tonight. And we haven't talked
Speaker 4: baseball for more than fifteen seconds. I'm sorry, Jason, but
Speaker 4: thank you, thank you so much for making us laugh
Speaker 4: like this.
Speaker 2: Thank you for making me laugh just like this too.
Speaker 2: It's always a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Guy Jason from is this a great game or what?
Speaker 1: Just shoot me a text with your address will pass
Speaker 1: you along. A rice cooker makes life so much easier.
Speaker 1: You won't ever have to worry.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Thank you so much. I'll present
Speaker 2: it to Ben Rice when we have the anchor.
Speaker 4: How about what Max Freed pitched to Ben Rice when
Speaker 4: he caught her that time with the battery?
Speaker 3: Was Fried Rice to me, Come on, this can it
Speaker 3: can't happen.
Speaker 4: It can happen, but only in baseball. This is what
Speaker 4: we live for, is what we do for a living. Gosh,
Speaker 4: now I'm gonna go back and listen to Kevin Brown
Speaker 4: and Jason Bennetti doing the Syracuse Chiefs game from eleven
Speaker 4: to fourteen.
Speaker 3: That must have been a complete riot.
Speaker 2: The whole time we play. We used to play a
Speaker 2: game called where are the Parents, where there would just
Speaker 2: be ferial children running around and we narrate what they're
Speaker 2: doing without adult supervision.
Speaker 3: In the stands, Meet the parents, Where are the parents?
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Jason call a major league baseball game.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining our little podcast yet again.
Speaker 2: Flag to