August 23, 2023 • 38 mins
Big Ben talks about Chris Jones being prepared to miss up to 8 weeks of the Chiefs season, the odds that Wander Franco ever plays for the Rays again, Maller to the Third Degree, Password: Word Game of the Stars, and more!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:24):
This is the best of the Ben Maler Show on
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Speaker 1 (00:32):
Keeping up with the Joneses. Welcome in the beginning of
another edition of the Ben Maler Show. We are in
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hope all is going okay for you. We are back
at it again. Here a brand new night, a blank canvas,
and we will paint baloney all over the blank canvas.
We're gonna throw the baloney against the canvas and see
see what sticks. Now our lead this hour coming from
the heartland. The raining soup for Bowl champions. And I
(01:59):
learned this when I was a kid watching professional wrestling.
But to be the champ, you got to beat the champ.
So someone's gonna have to beat Kansas City in a
playoff situation down the line. But the Chiefs course have
to get there. Seems impossible for them not to get
to the postseason with the Raiders and Broncos two of
the teams in the division the AFC West. But is
(02:22):
there a headache awaiting? Kansas City? Has the headache already arrived?
The leader, the Mahomes of the defense, there's nowhere to
be seen.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Now.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
We've talked about this a few times over last month
or so, and it's back. Yes, the Chiefs defensive stalwart
keeping up with the Joneses. Chris Jones does it all
for the Kansas City defense, and he also continues to
hold out at this point, he is not reported to duty.
He does have a contract, he says, I don't like
(02:55):
that contract. I'd like a new contract, so what I
By the way, but I'm not holding out here. And
I think most people would like new contrasts, but they
show up to work. But this guy, Chris Jones, is
making it very clear that he is prepared to not
only continue his holdout into the regular season, but his
sabbatical will go deep, deep into the twenty twenty three
(03:20):
regular season. If you believe the ratcheting up of tensions
for Chris Jones. Now, if you didn't see this, and
I'm going to assume that you're not following defensive players
from the Kansas City Chiefs because most of the audience
not Chiefs fans. But if you didn't miss it, and
you probably did, Chris Jones responding to a troll, a fame,
(03:43):
I don't know, you make your mind. Responding to someone
or a bot who asked when he plans on showing
up to his job with the Kansas City football team,
Chris Jones revealed that he is willing to hold out
until wait for week one, no week two? No, no,
(04:07):
no week two? How about three do I hear week
three is week three? How about four? Week four? No,
how about double that? Week number eight, week number eight.
He says he plans on holding on till at least
week eight of the twenty twenty three Championship campaign. Now,
Jones is entering the final year of his contract, and
(04:30):
he wants to get paid the riches of Solomon and
anyone else that's got a lot of money. The go
down the list of the rich people he wants. He
wants Jeff Bezos money. He wants Elon Musk, Buddy Zuckerberg.
He wants that kind of money by NFL standards, of course.
And we are hearing now through the grapevine that Chris
Jones wants to be the second at worst the second
(04:54):
highest paid player at his position, aka the Donald, as
in in Donald, you can ram it all day, you
can ram it all night. The Rams were so giddy
when they won the Super Bowl. They were like Oprah
Winfrey handing out cars. You with contracts. You get a contract,
you get a new contract, you get a new everyone
gets a new contract, mega mega, mega millions. All right, now,
(05:18):
let us discuss the question. Talk about Kansas City football
and the defensive side the Chris Jones plan that he
will miss eight weeks of the regular season for Kansas City.
Thumbs up or thumbs down to this being a big
(05:38):
deal for the Chiefs that Chris Jones planning on missing
eight weeks of the regular season. So I'm gonna go
thumbs down on this one. The reason I'm going thumbs down,
I've got Aristotle, misery index, and suspended animation, and we
will combine all of these things together and we are
going to make a nice legal massage. Not the kind
(06:01):
of massage that Sean Watson got, but the legal massage.
So a Chris Jones is based on his commentary. Unwavering
is the word I will use. He's unwavering with his demands,
which you kind of have to be right. There's a
little bit of performance art involved in this. You got
(06:21):
to be a douchebag, you got to be an a hole.
You got the world know that you mean business, otherwise
people will just ignore you. So he's digging into the
bunker publicly Jones, and he's already racked up. This is
the part that blows me away. I would I would
need anxiety medication if you told me that I was
(06:42):
getting fined fifty thousand dollars a day, and I had
to pay the money. He's been fined over one million
dollars because the courd to the CBA, you can be
fined fifty thousand dollars per day that you don't show
up to work and you're inner contract. So he's already
out over a million dollars and fines which he has
to pay. Now that being said, is it true that
(07:06):
Chris Jones made a tactical error. Yes, yes, Chris Jones
did make a tactical error. I I'm nodding my head. Yes,
And what it was that tactical error. Let me tell
you why he made the error. The error was revealing
your hand. It's like playing a game of poker. He
(07:27):
gave the end date, and by giving the end date,
he then cheapened the hold. So that makes so if
you're Andy Reid and the big brass there with the chiefs,
you're in pretty good shape right now. You feel like
you've won. Now you haven't won because he always changed
his mind. Go longer than that, but Chris Jones said
(07:49):
he had budgeted. He has enough money he can afford
to miss eight weeks of the regular season. So keep
in mind that if you're Andy reiding the Chiefs, you
just twiddled your thumbs and let this kamikaze mission financially
play out. Chris Jones is willing to give up game
checks for each game for the first eight weeks of
the regular season. Each game check one million dollars, over
(08:13):
one million dollars per game that he gets paid, and
he's willing to give that up. If you believe him,
you're take him at face value. So based on the
base salary of nineteen and a half million dollars for
Chris Jones, using malor math, he is willing to give
back eight point six six six million dollars in salary.
(08:38):
So that's a whole lot of cheddar that you're willing
to push back. But that's what he says. He says
he's budgeted for that, and Kansas City's gonna be fine
because as long as Chris Jones is there midway through
the season, he'll actually end up being fresher down the stretch,
assuming he doesn't break a leg and is actually out
(08:59):
there on the field, even if he goes a wall
for the Chiefs defense. Here is the Greek philosopher. Philosopher
back of the day Aristotle. He said the whole is
greater than the sum of its parts, and so he
is replaceable. And he's been balling. He's been great Chris Jones,
but he's replaceable. The Kansas City just have to be
a little bit better on offense. Everyone and everything is
(09:22):
just temporary, to quote Jim Irsay, But Chris Jones will
be back, based on his own reporting, by week nine.
That's November fifth. The Chiefs they have one of those
international games. They play the Miami Dolphins across the ocean.
If I have that correct now page two here, let's
(09:43):
go to Indianapolis. After the Colts granted their running back
Jonathan Taylor a opportunity to go out and roll them
around and find a new contract out in the boondocks
of the NFL. They gave him permission to seek a trade.
The market is taking shape. Now, I get a kick
out of this because you've got the Coult side that
(10:06):
is leaking. Nobody wants this guy. We're not getting any
real offers. Then you've got the agent for Jonathan Taylor,
who is leaking all kinds of amazing offers better than expected.
You can tell who's writing the story where they got
the source from. It's either from the Taylor camp or
the Colts camp. The culture saying nobody really wants this guy.
They're not offering what we want. And then the Taylor's
(10:28):
side's like, oh yeah, man, there's so many teams horny
for this guy. They want to get a hold of them.
And so you can tell how that's going now if
you look at the reporting, state funded NFL network reporting
the Colts are receiving interest. The phone's been ringing. What
happened to the text. There's other reports indicating that it's
not the case. So we really take what you want now.
(10:50):
Regardless of that, the gambling folks over DraftKings, a partner
of Fox Sports Radio, they have the Miami Dolphins at
plus two fifty. They're the favorite to get Taylor, followed
by the Chicago Bears and the Baltimore Ravens. Bears are
plus four hundred, Ravens are plus seven hundred, and then
(11:11):
after that on DraftKings, the Broncos and the Cowboys are
plus seven fifty for Jonathan Taylor. So what do the
gambling odds regarding Jonathan Taylor Colts trade? Tell us? What
do the gambling gods sell us. So the gambling market
the trade market based on looking how the gambling market works,
(11:35):
It's like the misery index. It doesn't guarantee that you're
gonna tell you what's gonna happen, but the people on
Wall Street say, well that that's a big indicator, the
misery index and all that. So it's kind of like
that where you're looking around you're like, okay, that's pretty
good indicator. There's really no surprise on the board. The Dolphins,
everyone's like, ah, Dolphins, Dolphins, Dolphins, Dolphins, that's been there.
(11:57):
The Bears and the Races are the top three and
they all make varying degrees of sins. Miami needs They
don't necessarily need it, but they'd be better off with
a name brand running back and the guy that they
can count on, although can you really count on Taylor?
He missed a bunch of games last year. And then
(12:18):
you look at Baltimore. They're trying to go all in
and keep up with Kansas City, Cincinnati and Buffalo, and
they need more weapons for Lamar Jackson. And then Chicago
they're trying to make a splash. They have convinced themselves
that justin fields to the moon in Chicago, and they
believe he's going to be amazing. I'll believe it when
I see it. I'm a skeptic. I will see how
(12:41):
he does to begin the year against the Packers. But
the Bears are excited. They're all little giddy there. People
are fired up for the Bears, and so we'll see
how this plays out. Now the last word here, So
let's go now to Tom Brady's replacement who has been named.
The news coming out early in the day yesterday that
Baker Mayfield has won the job. He will start for
(13:04):
a different NFL team for the third consecutive year. Call
that the Carson Wentz So third consecutive year. He wins
the bucks number one job, beating out Kyle Trask, or
as some call him, Kyle Trash. But Baker Mayfield will
be the starting quarterback in Tampa. Todd Bowles made things
(13:24):
kosher on Tuesday. Is it time for the Buccaneer fans
to start stressing out about the idea of watching Baker
Mayfield start at quarterback for their favorite NFL team under center?
So I'm gonna go no, it is not time now
to start stressing out. You gotta have a grace period.
I call it suspended animation, where you kind of pause
(13:46):
everything and you get one game. You get one game.
That's it in the NFL. One game, because one game's
worth ten games in like baseball. One game in the
NFL's worth ten games in baseball. So you get one
game in football, which is ten games in baseball. And
we'll see what he does against the Minnesota Vikings, but
we'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Baker may
(14:08):
for one game, and Todd Bowles had no easy off ramp.
Lava is the floor there anywhere you go, there's lava.
If you're Todd Bowles. Now, Baker is the lesser of
two evils. No one will question the Buccaneers because he's
the big name. He was the number one overall pick.
He used to do a lot of commercials on television,
(14:28):
so people know who he is. But it's like picking
how you want to be killed. Would you take the
butcher knife or a live hand grenade? Which one are
you gonna go with? Baker Mayfield is the epitome of
big name little game. If you look at the last
twenty six games Mayfield has played over the last couple
of years, he has only six more touchdowns than interceptions,
(14:52):
His yards pert tempt is below average, his completion percentage
just over sixty percent. That blows, and his PAS eighty
one also el stinko for Baker Mayfield. So let me
rephrase this. Kyle Trask, even though he stinks, also will
at some point be playing quarterback for the Buccaneers. They'll
be rotating it in and likely someone not even on
(15:13):
the roster will end up playing for Tampa Bay.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Be sure to catch live editions of the Ben Maler
Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific on
Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
It is a clerical move, is what it's being called.
Welcome in the beginning of another hour of the Ben
Mahler Show. We are in the end everywhere.
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Shoulder to shoulder as we get a second win coast
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Will help you I get there an unmatched selection, fast
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tire buying should be in our lead this hour coming
from baseball, but not on the field baseball. No, we're
(16:28):
not gonna start with on the field baseball. Instead, we
have a follow up to a story we've talked about
over the last ten days or so. Came up in
a previous episode of the show. The Tampa Bay Rays
shortstop Wander Franco has wandered off the reservation in Battled
(16:49):
the Tampa Bay Player. Hard to say a star because
I don't know that anyone's a star on Tampa Bay.
But Wander Franco has been placed on administrative leave, a
clerical move by the corporate powers that be at Major
League Baseball until further notice. He is persona non grata
(17:11):
and Major League Baseball continuing to investigate claims that he
was dating an eighth grader and probably more than one.
According to reports out of the Dominican he had a
fancy for underage girls and did not have any kind
of decorum in terms of photos, video, you name it
all over the internet. So he clearly thought he did
(17:33):
nothing untort and maybe it will turn out that is
the case, but there's a lot of damning evidence out
there on the interweb. As Major League Baseball investigates, the
Players Association and Major League Baseball came to an agreement.
Now the move is a dead give it, dead give
it that Franco will miss the remainder of the regular
(17:57):
season and whatever happens to Tampa Bay beyond that in
the postseason. Of course, the long term outlook is not
great either, as Major League Baseball the investigative harm is
digging around, snooping around, trying to figure out what they can.
They don't have subpoena power, so you can't get that
much information. But there is an investigation in the Dominican
(18:22):
Republic which is of a law enforcement nature from what
we understand. So that's a bigger deal for Wander Franco
than it is Major League Baseball's investigation because that could
take his freedom away. So let us discuss the question,
what are the odds that Wander Franco plays another game
for Tampa Bay? What are the odds? So, based on
(18:45):
the information that we have now and a thorough review
of what has been publicly stated about Wander Franco, the
Malor sportsbook odds a very scientifical analysis. I have the
odds at plus two thousand. Now that implies a five
(19:06):
percent chance that we see Wander Franco play again in
Tampa Bay. I've got Joseph Stalin squeeze play and filibuster,
and we will combine all of these things together and
we are going to make a mayo and banana sandwich,
which came up in conversation last year. I never had
(19:28):
one of those, and I gotta get one of those.
I think i'd eat that. There's some things that people
will eat that I have no interest in it, but
I think that might be okay. All right, so number yes.
If you take the temperature in the room for Wander
Franco and the Rays eat is sisling, it is sisling.
(19:53):
Right now, Wanderfranco is being excommunicated from the Major League
Baseball community, which is fascinating to watch happen and watching
it happen in real time. And I understand these things happen.
I get it, and if he did what the accusations are,
you should pay a price for that. But it's fascinating
(20:14):
that he had a seat at the elite table generational
player and Tampa Bay gave this guy a forever contract.
And when I say it forever contract, we're talking one
of those eleven year contracts for one hundred and eighty
two million dollars before taxes, with an extra year a
(20:35):
twelve year added on at a team option for another
twenty five million dollars. So that's over two hundred million
dollars in salary. It's all going to go away. It's
all going to eventually go away if there turns out
to be some kind of criminal charges, even if they're
not a criminal charge, but there's a violation of the
(20:56):
morals clause in the standard Major League Baseball contract. This
guy's that's it. You're done, see you later. In terms
of that money, the team can get out of it.
The only concern, the only reason you wouldn't get out
of it is if you think that he's going to
be allowed to play in Major League Baseball and then
he would just go sign with the Yankees or the
Red Sox or something like that. But assuming he's banished
(21:17):
from baseball and he's gonna have to play in the
Mexican League or somewhere in Asia, then if you're Tampa Bay,
you're like, all right, we're not paying him, I pay
him one hundred and eighty two million dollars. Now to
give me an idea of how crazy that is for
a team like Tampa Bay. You can't already know that,
but just to touch up my work here. So that
contract by Wander Franco is not only the largest contract
(21:40):
in Ray's history, it is the largest contract for any
player anywhere on any team at any time with less
than one year of service time signing the contract. It
is unprecedented what Tampa Bay did. And now here they
find themselves at a crossroads and then the fork in
(22:01):
the road. What are you gonna do? You're gonna choke
on the fork? The path here for Wander Franco is
booby trapped in more ways than one apparently. But he's
got problems. He's got a lot of problems. Now are
several factors here. This Baseball Insider gets all these great
stories on Latin American baseball players. Hector Gomez is the
(22:23):
guy's name. This guy's really good and he reported we
mentioned this on the show the other day. He reported
that a source told him the Rays shortstop is very
unlikely to play in Major League baseball again, So that's
strike one more importantly, our strike two strike two, where
it strike too, it's an O two count for Wander Franco.
(22:43):
Strike too. Is Major League Baseball marketing giving Wander Franco
the Joseph Stalin treatment. Right now, Major League Baseball and
the Tampa Bay Rays are taking part in the great
purge of Wander Franco. Any evidence that Franco was a
star player in Tampa is being erased as we speak,
(23:04):
vanished as not my opinion, it is a factoid. We
are told the Rays began pulling down likenesses of the
player Wander Franco all around Tropicicana Field. His face was
all over the ballpark. They're taking all that down. As
a banner outside the stadium featuring Wander Franco, it has
(23:26):
been taken down, replaced by Yondi Diez. Also, there was
an elevator rap that had Wander on it that's been
replaced by someone named Pete Fairbanks. We don't know who
that is, but apparently he plays for the Raises, a pitcher.
And there were signs featuring Wander Franco from a sports bar,
a prominent sports bar in Tampa. Fergs you think that's
(23:48):
Fergcatz sports bar? Fergs in Tampa. I don't know, but
Ferg's that is also coming down. But wait, there's more
strike number two or is this strike three count? So
wander Franco highlights have also been removed from in stadium
and also on the Tampa Bay Rays state sponsored television
(24:09):
broadcast there on the Bally's Sports channel. So that's also gone.
And despite being on leave, it's not all bad news
for wander Franco. Despite being on leave, he is still
getting paid. He's still getting his contract and he will
collect his two million dollars salary and will continue to
occure service time. So he's he's adding to that. So
(24:34):
the pension plan of Major League Baseball now page number
two to the Windy City we Go. Am I going
to sit here and do a deep dive on the
Chicago White Sox firing their general manager and their vice president. No,
I'm not going to do that, But I am going
to do a story that I cut my attention here
involving Jerry reinstorre We mentioned this in a previous episode
of the show, but I want to go a little
(24:55):
in depth on it. So Jerry Reinsdorf, the chairman's, you know,
the owner of the White Sox. He's considering moving the
franchise from the South Side, the baddest part of town
in Chicago, where the White Sox have been my entire life,
and your entire life, your parents entire life, your grandparents'
entire life, your great rampar. I don't know how far
back you want to go, but it's been a long time.
(25:16):
They've been in Chicago on the South Side, at a
stadium that has one of these corporate names guaranteed ratesfield.
The deal expires in twenty twenty nine. If you look
at your calendar app on your phone, it's twenty twenty three,
and we are told that, well, no decision has been
made by the Chicago American League Baseball team. No decision
(25:37):
is either intimate or has been made, but all possibilities
are on the table, including moving to a stadium out
in the burbs, somewhere else in the Greater Chicago land area.
As far as the city of Chicago. I'm sure the
Cubs will have no problem with that if they match.
If they they should build a ballpark right across from
(26:00):
field for the White Sox, like on one side of
the street, you've got the Socks Park, and then on
the other side, you got the Cubs park and just
just let it rip. Yeah. Or the other possibility is
relocating Nashville, Tennessee. Get your cowboy boots ready. I wonder
if for our old friend Klay Travis would buy season
tickets to the Nashville Probably not Nashville busy he has
(26:22):
tightened season tickets. I don't know about that. But anyway,
that's been a rumor for a little while that the
Nashville White Sox. There's a connection there. So the question
on this one, how concerned should Chicago baseball fans be
about losing the White Sox to Nashville. We're gonna dust
off the Mallard scale of anxiety, the Mallard scale of anxiety,
(26:42):
which is never wrong one to ten. I am at
a free I'm at a three on the Mallard scale
of anxiety. And here's why Chicago is the number three
television mark. And even though television has changed a lot
and everyone's watching stuff on the internet, it's all about
out how many people are available to watch your product.
There are more people in Chicago. I know half of
(27:05):
them are cub fans, or more than half, but that's
not the point, it's number three media market in the
United States. Nashville. While it's growing and it's hip and
it's cool and everyone seems to love it and famous
people and moving to Nashville, it is still the twenty
ninth biggest media market. That's a that's a massive gap.
(27:25):
That is the gap the size of the Grand Canyon.
So as a distant relative of Nostradamus and friend of Nostradinas,
he lives in Seattle. This is what's known as a
skoeze play skaeese play. The White Sox are doing the
legwork to shake down Illinois politicians, which is kind of
(27:45):
funny because Illinois politicians don't You don't even need to
put on a show. They'll just hand you the money.
It's Illinois Chicago in particular. And so this is the
same squeeze that Jerry Reinstorff pulled off years ago in
the nineteen eighties, before my time, of course, But the
White Sox were going to move to Saint Petersburg, Tampa,
(28:07):
years before the Tampa Bay Rays came into existence. They
were gonna leave the old Kimiski Park. It was all
set up, but it is a timeless extortion move in
the sporting world. You want a new stadium in your city,
but you don't feel like paying for the stadium. What
are you gonna do? Well, you threaten to leave. That's
(28:30):
what happens, right, you threaten to move. It's a swindle.
It's always effective. It's always because either you get the
stadium you want in the city you don't have to move,
or you just relocate like the Athletics and then you
get the stadium in Vegas. All right, final points. So
let's go to Anaheim where Angels superstar Mike Trout referenced
(28:50):
Shohei Otani and his free agent mystery, and the quote
hurt round the baseball world. So here is quote, I'll
give you a part of it from Mike Trout. He said,
you never know what's gonna happen regarding Otani. There's gonna
be a lot of teams out there wanting him. Who
wouldn't was the Trout quote. So is there some kind
(29:12):
of hidden meaning in the Mike Trout comments about sho
Hey Otani? And I am going yes, but it's subtle.
I'm going yes, but it's subtle. What Trout had to
say about Otani on the surface to the untrained novice,
you'll still has nothing there. He just gave gave empty words,
and that's that's true to a point. It was a
(29:34):
Mike Trout filibuster talking about show, hey Otani, your lips
are moving, but you're not saying anything at all. The
art of saying nothing at all is a gift that
many political hacks have and whatnot. Uh. Nevertheless, though, if
I'm already Marino the Angel's owner, I'm upset with Mike
(29:54):
Trout today, and I tell you why. Because Mike Trout
was given an opportunity, he was given a soap box
to stand on there and he could have said, we
want Otani back, I want a play with Otani, we
want him here, the Angels want him and all that.
But Trout his message was one of apathy. That was
(30:18):
the message of Mike Trout. He's the face of the
Bleeping Angel franchise. He's the one that signed the forever
contract for the Angels, but he just refused to publicly
endorse and campaign for sho Heltani to stay with the Angels.
He was given a platform to do it. He chose
not to do it. And why not? That sounds like
(30:38):
a guy that's checked out Mike Trout Kawabunga Dude.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Meller
Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific.
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He's Mike Carmen, I'm Dan Byern.
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We have a brand new fantasy football podcast called I
Want Your Flex. Twice a week, every Tuesday and Friday,
we come up with new episodes to not only look
back at what happened, what you need to do at
that minute, and also look ahead of what's coming up
in the fantasy football world.
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That's right, Dan.
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Every week we're going to scour the waiver wire to
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Met Dan Byer on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts and
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Speaker 2 (31:29):
It's Maller. How about that to the third degree. This
is one big fan gets grilled hoop a loop.
Speaker 6 (31:38):
It was reported this week that Nick Bosa could miss
the start of the regular season due to his contract
dispute with the forty nine ers. Ben do you think
it'll actually come to that.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
No, No, I believe he will be out there. Nick
Bosa would have to donate a lot of money to
the Fraternal Order of the forty nine Ers Donation bin
if you were to not show up, And he's set
to earn at worst seventeen point eight million. And we're told,
just like Chris Jones in Kansas City, he also wants
(32:08):
Aaron Donald Muddy. But I do not believe he will
actually miss regular season games for the Niners. I'd be
surprised if that happened.
Speaker 6 (32:15):
Next it was announced on Monday that the Nationals have
extended Dave Martinez for two years and they will be
doing the same with GM.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Mike Rizzo as well. That nattitude Coop.
Speaker 6 (32:24):
Yes, Ben, the Nationals are likely on their way to
the fourth consecutive losing season.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Is this a bad mover?
Speaker 6 (32:31):
Those guys really not to blame?
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Now everyone is to blame, right, the Nationals won the
World Series. They took a wrecking ball to the locker
room after they won the World Series a couple of
years ago, bare bones the Juan Soto. They didn't they
wanted him, but they didn't offer him enough money. He
didn't want to play there and so but the Nationals,
they've actually played with a little bit of moxie this year.
But everyone gets the blame. But those guys are safe
(32:54):
because the team's about to be sold, so they're gonna
wait for the new owner to fire everybody next.
Speaker 6 (33:00):
Lonzo Ball revealed on a podcast this week that he
will miss the entire twenty twenty three twenty twenty four
NBA season. Now, Ball hasn't played in the game since
January of twenty twenty And do you think we've seen
the last of Lonzo Ball?
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Well, no, he was on social media. I saw him
goofing on stephen A. Smith. So we've not seen the
last one. But his impact days are old balls too.
There's about all. There's about a five percent chance that
Lonzo Ball can return, and he could come back as
like a savvy bench guy like Sean Livingston, but not
as an impact guy. How did we do you passes?
(33:33):
That is a where great monotone Cooko. Not a lot
of life from cook we'd monotone.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsports radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app search FSR to
listen live. Attention everyone, and the password is password idiot,
password the word Game of the Stars.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Here's Ben Meller and let's welcome into our contesss are
password the word Game of the Stars. We have Bob,
who's in Saint Louis. Hello Bob, Hello, welcome Bob. You're
ready to play the game?
Speaker 5 (34:18):
I'm in Yes, I'll give it a run for the money.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
All right, Bob, very good? What are you up to
this morning? I just got done taking a strike vote
for General motors? And did you vote to strike or
not to strike?
Speaker 5 (34:32):
I'm voting to strike.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Okay, there to strike? He voted to strike? All right,
hold on I sake, Bob. We have John in Vegas.
Hello John, what's going on?
Speaker 2 (34:45):
John?
Speaker 1 (34:45):
You're ready to go here?
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Yes sir?
Speaker 1 (34:48):
All right? John, very good? And let's see here, Bob.
Who do you want to partner up with? Bob? You
voted to strike? You can play with me? Ben, Eddie Cooper, Iowa.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Sam, I'm joking Eddie.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
It's bad pick by you?
Speaker 5 (35:06):
All right?
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Yeah? John? Go ahead?
Speaker 2 (35:08):
John?
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Who do you want to partner up with? John?
Speaker 4 (35:11):
I'm not bull washing, but I'll take you.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
That's a good pick. We're in it to win it, uh, Bob,
Bob's distracted. John, We're gonna win the game. So we
have a list of words one to ten, and Bob
picking number one to ten. You're gonna go first. We
start with ten points, work our way down until we
get to about five. Then we figure the word out.
If we don't get it, I will go with number three,
(35:34):
number three. E Z easy, Eddie easy, All right, let's
go nightmare, Freddy Krueger. It's not your turn, Eddie. John,
(35:58):
I'm gonna use the malord maneuver. You hear what Eddie said.
I'm gonna go day day. It's a mall and maneuver shot, Eddie, clue,
I've got day Yeah, my god, why do we have
(36:23):
the uniting of the stupid? You gotta be joking? Come
on now, oh my, all right, go back to you, Eddie.
It's gonna be one of those games. Yeah. Uh, let's go,
I said nightmare. Uh, let's go fantasy. Yeah yeah, yeah,
(36:46):
because those those nightmares are daylight, is what they are. Yeah,
they're daylight. All right? Yeah, boy, John, pick a number
one to ten, but not three six, number six? Okay, Well,
number six is appropriate because anyway, let's go with I
(37:09):
go with misdemeanor. O my god. All right, so we've
had misdemeanor and felony. Let's go with uh transgression. That's
(37:35):
a word, Eddie, EDDI know your audience. Eddie, hurry up.
We need an answer though, Bob, what do you say?
Speaker 4 (37:42):
Patty?
Speaker 1 (37:44):
No, no, boy, how about transgression? Good clue, Ben. I'm done.
I'm done with I'm done with everyone. I'm no. The
word was crime. Mis Demeanor is a you know that
(38:06):
game was a crime. Why did I play the game?
My god? And your clues sucked. Also, by the way,
Thanks for listening to the best of the Ben Mahler
Show podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weeknight
from two to six Eastern eleven pm to three am
Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and to find your local
station for the Benmathers Show at Foxsports Radio dot Com.
You can find it there or stream us live every
night on the iHeartRadio app by searching FSR.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
This is the best of the Ben Maler Show on
Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Keeping up with the Joneses. Welcome in the beginning of
another edition of the Ben Maler Show. We are in
the air everywhere in partnership. As we know there is
trouble brewing somewhere someplace. We just have to find it.
(00:53):
Coast to coast, border to border and beyond. On the
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Ty rack dot com. The Way Tire buying should be
(01:34):
hope all is going okay for you. We are back
at it again. Here a brand new night, a blank canvas,
and we will paint baloney all over the blank canvas.
We're gonna throw the baloney against the canvas and see
see what sticks. Now our lead this hour coming from
the heartland. The raining soup for Bowl champions. And I
(01:59):
learned this when I was a kid watching professional wrestling.
But to be the champ, you got to beat the champ.
So someone's gonna have to beat Kansas City in a
playoff situation down the line. But the Chiefs course have
to get there. Seems impossible for them not to get
to the postseason with the Raiders and Broncos two of
the teams in the division the AFC West. But is
(02:22):
there a headache awaiting? Kansas City? Has the headache already arrived?
The leader, the Mahomes of the defense, there's nowhere to
be seen.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Now.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
We've talked about this a few times over last month
or so, and it's back. Yes, the Chiefs defensive stalwart
keeping up with the Joneses. Chris Jones does it all
for the Kansas City defense, and he also continues to
hold out at this point, he is not reported to duty.
He does have a contract, he says, I don't like
(02:55):
that contract. I'd like a new contract, so what I
By the way, but I'm not holding out here. And
I think most people would like new contrasts, but they
show up to work. But this guy, Chris Jones, is
making it very clear that he is prepared to not
only continue his holdout into the regular season, but his
sabbatical will go deep, deep into the twenty twenty three
(03:20):
regular season. If you believe the ratcheting up of tensions
for Chris Jones. Now, if you didn't see this, and
I'm going to assume that you're not following defensive players
from the Kansas City Chiefs because most of the audience
not Chiefs fans. But if you didn't miss it, and
you probably did, Chris Jones responding to a troll, a fame,
(03:43):
I don't know, you make your mind. Responding to someone
or a bot who asked when he plans on showing
up to his job with the Kansas City football team,
Chris Jones revealed that he is willing to hold out
until wait for week one, no week two? No, no,
(04:07):
no week two? How about three do I hear week
three is week three? How about four? Week four? No,
how about double that? Week number eight, week number eight.
He says he plans on holding on till at least
week eight of the twenty twenty three Championship campaign. Now,
Jones is entering the final year of his contract, and
(04:30):
he wants to get paid the riches of Solomon and
anyone else that's got a lot of money. The go
down the list of the rich people he wants. He
wants Jeff Bezos money. He wants Elon Musk, Buddy Zuckerberg.
He wants that kind of money by NFL standards, of course.
And we are hearing now through the grapevine that Chris
Jones wants to be the second at worst the second
(04:54):
highest paid player at his position, aka the Donald, as
in in Donald, you can ram it all day, you
can ram it all night. The Rams were so giddy
when they won the Super Bowl. They were like Oprah
Winfrey handing out cars. You with contracts. You get a contract,
you get a new contract, you get a new everyone
gets a new contract, mega mega, mega millions. All right, now,
(05:18):
let us discuss the question. Talk about Kansas City football
and the defensive side the Chris Jones plan that he
will miss eight weeks of the regular season for Kansas City.
Thumbs up or thumbs down to this being a big
(05:38):
deal for the Chiefs that Chris Jones planning on missing
eight weeks of the regular season. So I'm gonna go
thumbs down on this one. The reason I'm going thumbs down,
I've got Aristotle, misery index, and suspended animation, and we
will combine all of these things together and we are
going to make a nice legal massage. Not the kind
(06:01):
of massage that Sean Watson got, but the legal massage.
So a Chris Jones is based on his commentary. Unwavering
is the word I will use. He's unwavering with his demands,
which you kind of have to be right. There's a
little bit of performance art involved in this. You got
(06:21):
to be a douchebag, you got to be an a hole.
You got the world know that you mean business, otherwise
people will just ignore you. So he's digging into the
bunker publicly Jones, and he's already racked up. This is
the part that blows me away. I would I would
need anxiety medication if you told me that I was
(06:42):
getting fined fifty thousand dollars a day, and I had
to pay the money. He's been fined over one million
dollars because the courd to the CBA, you can be
fined fifty thousand dollars per day that you don't show
up to work and you're inner contract. So he's already
out over a million dollars and fines which he has
to pay. Now that being said, is it true that
(07:06):
Chris Jones made a tactical error. Yes, yes, Chris Jones
did make a tactical error. I I'm nodding my head. Yes,
And what it was that tactical error. Let me tell
you why he made the error. The error was revealing
your hand. It's like playing a game of poker. He
(07:27):
gave the end date, and by giving the end date,
he then cheapened the hold. So that makes so if
you're Andy Reid and the big brass there with the chiefs,
you're in pretty good shape right now. You feel like
you've won. Now you haven't won because he always changed
his mind. Go longer than that, but Chris Jones said
(07:49):
he had budgeted. He has enough money he can afford
to miss eight weeks of the regular season. So keep
in mind that if you're Andy reiding the Chiefs, you
just twiddled your thumbs and let this kamikaze mission financially
play out. Chris Jones is willing to give up game
checks for each game for the first eight weeks of
the regular season. Each game check one million dollars, over
(08:13):
one million dollars per game that he gets paid, and
he's willing to give that up. If you believe him,
you're take him at face value. So based on the
base salary of nineteen and a half million dollars for
Chris Jones, using malor math, he is willing to give
back eight point six six six million dollars in salary.
(08:38):
So that's a whole lot of cheddar that you're willing
to push back. But that's what he says. He says
he's budgeted for that, and Kansas City's gonna be fine
because as long as Chris Jones is there midway through
the season, he'll actually end up being fresher down the stretch,
assuming he doesn't break a leg and is actually out
(08:59):
there on the field, even if he goes a wall
for the Chiefs defense. Here is the Greek philosopher. Philosopher
back of the day Aristotle. He said the whole is
greater than the sum of its parts, and so he
is replaceable. And he's been balling. He's been great Chris Jones,
but he's replaceable. The Kansas City just have to be
a little bit better on offense. Everyone and everything is
(09:22):
just temporary, to quote Jim Irsay, But Chris Jones will
be back, based on his own reporting, by week nine.
That's November fifth. The Chiefs they have one of those
international games. They play the Miami Dolphins across the ocean.
If I have that correct now page two here, let's
(09:43):
go to Indianapolis. After the Colts granted their running back
Jonathan Taylor a opportunity to go out and roll them
around and find a new contract out in the boondocks
of the NFL. They gave him permission to seek a trade.
The market is taking shape. Now, I get a kick
out of this because you've got the Coult side that
(10:06):
is leaking. Nobody wants this guy. We're not getting any
real offers. Then you've got the agent for Jonathan Taylor,
who is leaking all kinds of amazing offers better than expected.
You can tell who's writing the story where they got
the source from. It's either from the Taylor camp or
the Colts camp. The culture saying nobody really wants this guy.
They're not offering what we want. And then the Taylor's
(10:28):
side's like, oh yeah, man, there's so many teams horny
for this guy. They want to get a hold of them.
And so you can tell how that's going now if
you look at the reporting, state funded NFL network reporting
the Colts are receiving interest. The phone's been ringing. What
happened to the text. There's other reports indicating that it's
not the case. So we really take what you want now.
(10:50):
Regardless of that, the gambling folks over DraftKings, a partner
of Fox Sports Radio, they have the Miami Dolphins at
plus two fifty. They're the favorite to get Taylor, followed
by the Chicago Bears and the Baltimore Ravens. Bears are
plus four hundred, Ravens are plus seven hundred, and then
(11:11):
after that on DraftKings, the Broncos and the Cowboys are
plus seven fifty for Jonathan Taylor. So what do the
gambling odds regarding Jonathan Taylor Colts trade? Tell us? What
do the gambling gods sell us. So the gambling market
the trade market based on looking how the gambling market works,
(11:35):
It's like the misery index. It doesn't guarantee that you're
gonna tell you what's gonna happen, but the people on
Wall Street say, well that that's a big indicator, the
misery index and all that. So it's kind of like
that where you're looking around you're like, okay, that's pretty
good indicator. There's really no surprise on the board. The Dolphins,
everyone's like, ah, Dolphins, Dolphins, Dolphins, Dolphins, that's been there.
(11:57):
The Bears and the Races are the top three and
they all make varying degrees of sins. Miami needs They
don't necessarily need it, but they'd be better off with
a name brand running back and the guy that they
can count on, although can you really count on Taylor?
He missed a bunch of games last year. And then
(12:18):
you look at Baltimore. They're trying to go all in
and keep up with Kansas City, Cincinnati and Buffalo, and
they need more weapons for Lamar Jackson. And then Chicago
they're trying to make a splash. They have convinced themselves
that justin fields to the moon in Chicago, and they
believe he's going to be amazing. I'll believe it when
I see it. I'm a skeptic. I will see how
(12:41):
he does to begin the year against the Packers. But
the Bears are excited. They're all little giddy there. People
are fired up for the Bears, and so we'll see
how this plays out. Now the last word here, So
let's go now to Tom Brady's replacement who has been named.
The news coming out early in the day yesterday that
Baker Mayfield has won the job. He will start for
(13:04):
a different NFL team for the third consecutive year. Call
that the Carson Wentz So third consecutive year. He wins
the bucks number one job, beating out Kyle Trask, or
as some call him, Kyle Trash. But Baker Mayfield will
be the starting quarterback in Tampa. Todd Bowles made things
(13:24):
kosher on Tuesday. Is it time for the Buccaneer fans
to start stressing out about the idea of watching Baker
Mayfield start at quarterback for their favorite NFL team under center?
So I'm gonna go no, it is not time now
to start stressing out. You gotta have a grace period.
I call it suspended animation, where you kind of pause
(13:46):
everything and you get one game. You get one game.
That's it in the NFL. One game, because one game's
worth ten games in like baseball. One game in the
NFL's worth ten games in baseball. So you get one
game in football, which is ten games in baseball. And
we'll see what he does against the Minnesota Vikings, but
we'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Baker may
(14:08):
for one game, and Todd Bowles had no easy off ramp.
Lava is the floor there anywhere you go, there's lava.
If you're Todd Bowles. Now, Baker is the lesser of
two evils. No one will question the Buccaneers because he's
the big name. He was the number one overall pick.
He used to do a lot of commercials on television,
(14:28):
so people know who he is. But it's like picking
how you want to be killed. Would you take the
butcher knife or a live hand grenade? Which one are
you gonna go with? Baker Mayfield is the epitome of
big name little game. If you look at the last
twenty six games Mayfield has played over the last couple
of years, he has only six more touchdowns than interceptions,
(14:52):
His yards pert tempt is below average, his completion percentage
just over sixty percent. That blows, and his PAS eighty
one also el stinko for Baker Mayfield. So let me
rephrase this. Kyle Trask, even though he stinks, also will
at some point be playing quarterback for the Buccaneers. They'll
be rotating it in and likely someone not even on
(15:13):
the roster will end up playing for Tampa Bay.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Be sure to catch live editions of the Ben Maler
Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific on
Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
It is a clerical move, is what it's being called.
Welcome in the beginning of another hour of the Ben
Mahler Show. We are in the end everywhere.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Shoulder to shoulder as we get a second win coast
border the motor and beyond on the mast and smashingly
powerful microphones of FSR emmating live from a circle the
on deck circles. We are broadcasting live from the ty
(16:05):
rack dot Com studios. Tyrack dot Com.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Will help you I get there an unmatched selection, fast
free shipping, free road hazard protection and over ten thousand
recommended in stallers tyer rack dot com. The way that
tire buying should be in our lead this hour coming
from baseball, but not on the field baseball. No, we're
(16:28):
not gonna start with on the field baseball. Instead, we
have a follow up to a story we've talked about
over the last ten days or so. Came up in
a previous episode of the show. The Tampa Bay Rays
shortstop Wander Franco has wandered off the reservation in Battled
(16:49):
the Tampa Bay Player. Hard to say a star because
I don't know that anyone's a star on Tampa Bay.
But Wander Franco has been placed on administrative leave, a
clerical move by the corporate powers that be at Major
League Baseball until further notice. He is persona non grata
(17:11):
and Major League Baseball continuing to investigate claims that he
was dating an eighth grader and probably more than one.
According to reports out of the Dominican he had a
fancy for underage girls and did not have any kind
of decorum in terms of photos, video, you name it
all over the internet. So he clearly thought he did
(17:33):
nothing untort and maybe it will turn out that is
the case, but there's a lot of damning evidence out
there on the interweb. As Major League Baseball investigates, the
Players Association and Major League Baseball came to an agreement.
Now the move is a dead give it, dead give
it that Franco will miss the remainder of the regular
(17:57):
season and whatever happens to Tampa Bay beyond that in
the postseason. Of course, the long term outlook is not
great either, as Major League Baseball the investigative harm is
digging around, snooping around, trying to figure out what they can.
They don't have subpoena power, so you can't get that
much information. But there is an investigation in the Dominican
(18:22):
Republic which is of a law enforcement nature from what
we understand. So that's a bigger deal for Wander Franco
than it is Major League Baseball's investigation because that could
take his freedom away. So let us discuss the question,
what are the odds that Wander Franco plays another game
for Tampa Bay? What are the odds? So, based on
(18:45):
the information that we have now and a thorough review
of what has been publicly stated about Wander Franco, the
Malor sportsbook odds a very scientifical analysis. I have the
odds at plus two thousand. Now that implies a five
(19:06):
percent chance that we see Wander Franco play again in
Tampa Bay. I've got Joseph Stalin squeeze play and filibuster,
and we will combine all of these things together and
we are going to make a mayo and banana sandwich,
which came up in conversation last year. I never had
(19:28):
one of those, and I gotta get one of those.
I think i'd eat that. There's some things that people
will eat that I have no interest in it, but
I think that might be okay. All right, so number yes.
If you take the temperature in the room for Wander
Franco and the Rays eat is sisling, it is sisling.
(19:53):
Right now, Wanderfranco is being excommunicated from the Major League
Baseball community, which is fascinating to watch happen and watching
it happen in real time. And I understand these things happen.
I get it, and if he did what the accusations are,
you should pay a price for that. But it's fascinating
(20:14):
that he had a seat at the elite table generational
player and Tampa Bay gave this guy a forever contract.
And when I say it forever contract, we're talking one
of those eleven year contracts for one hundred and eighty
two million dollars before taxes, with an extra year a
(20:35):
twelve year added on at a team option for another
twenty five million dollars. So that's over two hundred million
dollars in salary. It's all going to go away. It's
all going to eventually go away if there turns out
to be some kind of criminal charges, even if they're
not a criminal charge, but there's a violation of the
(20:56):
morals clause in the standard Major League Baseball contract. This
guy's that's it. You're done, see you later. In terms
of that money, the team can get out of it.
The only concern, the only reason you wouldn't get out
of it is if you think that he's going to
be allowed to play in Major League Baseball and then
he would just go sign with the Yankees or the
Red Sox or something like that. But assuming he's banished
(21:17):
from baseball and he's gonna have to play in the
Mexican League or somewhere in Asia, then if you're Tampa Bay,
you're like, all right, we're not paying him, I pay
him one hundred and eighty two million dollars. Now to
give me an idea of how crazy that is for
a team like Tampa Bay. You can't already know that,
but just to touch up my work here. So that
contract by Wander Franco is not only the largest contract
(21:40):
in Ray's history, it is the largest contract for any
player anywhere on any team at any time with less
than one year of service time signing the contract. It
is unprecedented what Tampa Bay did. And now here they
find themselves at a crossroads and then the fork in
(22:01):
the road. What are you gonna do? You're gonna choke
on the fork? The path here for Wander Franco is
booby trapped in more ways than one apparently. But he's
got problems. He's got a lot of problems. Now are
several factors here. This Baseball Insider gets all these great
stories on Latin American baseball players. Hector Gomez is the
(22:23):
guy's name. This guy's really good and he reported we
mentioned this on the show the other day. He reported
that a source told him the Rays shortstop is very
unlikely to play in Major League baseball again, So that's
strike one more importantly, our strike two strike two, where
it strike too, it's an O two count for Wander Franco.
(22:43):
Strike too. Is Major League Baseball marketing giving Wander Franco
the Joseph Stalin treatment. Right now, Major League Baseball and
the Tampa Bay Rays are taking part in the great
purge of Wander Franco. Any evidence that Franco was a
star player in Tampa is being erased as we speak,
(23:04):
vanished as not my opinion, it is a factoid. We
are told the Rays began pulling down likenesses of the
player Wander Franco all around Tropicicana Field. His face was
all over the ballpark. They're taking all that down. As
a banner outside the stadium featuring Wander Franco, it has
(23:26):
been taken down, replaced by Yondi Diez. Also, there was
an elevator rap that had Wander on it that's been
replaced by someone named Pete Fairbanks. We don't know who
that is, but apparently he plays for the Raises, a pitcher.
And there were signs featuring Wander Franco from a sports bar,
a prominent sports bar in Tampa. Fergs you think that's
(23:48):
Fergcatz sports bar? Fergs in Tampa. I don't know, but
Ferg's that is also coming down. But wait, there's more
strike number two or is this strike three count? So
wander Franco highlights have also been removed from in stadium
and also on the Tampa Bay Rays state sponsored television
(24:09):
broadcast there on the Bally's Sports channel. So that's also gone.
And despite being on leave, it's not all bad news
for wander Franco. Despite being on leave, he is still
getting paid. He's still getting his contract and he will
collect his two million dollars salary and will continue to
occure service time. So he's he's adding to that. So
(24:34):
the pension plan of Major League Baseball now page number
two to the Windy City we Go. Am I going
to sit here and do a deep dive on the
Chicago White Sox firing their general manager and their vice president. No,
I'm not going to do that, But I am going
to do a story that I cut my attention here
involving Jerry reinstorre We mentioned this in a previous episode
of the show, but I want to go a little
(24:55):
in depth on it. So Jerry Reinsdorf, the chairman's, you know,
the owner of the White Sox. He's considering moving the
franchise from the South Side, the baddest part of town
in Chicago, where the White Sox have been my entire life,
and your entire life, your parents entire life, your grandparents'
entire life, your great rampar. I don't know how far
back you want to go, but it's been a long time.
(25:16):
They've been in Chicago on the South Side, at a
stadium that has one of these corporate names guaranteed ratesfield.
The deal expires in twenty twenty nine. If you look
at your calendar app on your phone, it's twenty twenty three,
and we are told that, well, no decision has been
made by the Chicago American League Baseball team. No decision
(25:37):
is either intimate or has been made, but all possibilities
are on the table, including moving to a stadium out
in the burbs, somewhere else in the Greater Chicago land area.
As far as the city of Chicago. I'm sure the
Cubs will have no problem with that if they match.
If they they should build a ballpark right across from
(26:00):
field for the White Sox, like on one side of
the street, you've got the Socks Park, and then on
the other side, you got the Cubs park and just
just let it rip. Yeah. Or the other possibility is
relocating Nashville, Tennessee. Get your cowboy boots ready. I wonder
if for our old friend Klay Travis would buy season
tickets to the Nashville Probably not Nashville busy he has
(26:22):
tightened season tickets. I don't know about that. But anyway,
that's been a rumor for a little while that the
Nashville White Sox. There's a connection there. So the question
on this one, how concerned should Chicago baseball fans be
about losing the White Sox to Nashville. We're gonna dust
off the Mallard scale of anxiety, the Mallard scale of anxiety,
(26:42):
which is never wrong one to ten. I am at
a free I'm at a three on the Mallard scale
of anxiety. And here's why Chicago is the number three
television mark. And even though television has changed a lot
and everyone's watching stuff on the internet, it's all about
out how many people are available to watch your product.
There are more people in Chicago. I know half of
(27:05):
them are cub fans, or more than half, but that's
not the point, it's number three media market in the
United States. Nashville. While it's growing and it's hip and
it's cool and everyone seems to love it and famous
people and moving to Nashville, it is still the twenty
ninth biggest media market. That's a that's a massive gap.
(27:25):
That is the gap the size of the Grand Canyon.
So as a distant relative of Nostradamus and friend of Nostradinas,
he lives in Seattle. This is what's known as a
skoeze play skaeese play. The White Sox are doing the
legwork to shake down Illinois politicians, which is kind of
(27:45):
funny because Illinois politicians don't You don't even need to
put on a show. They'll just hand you the money.
It's Illinois Chicago in particular. And so this is the
same squeeze that Jerry Reinstorff pulled off years ago in
the nineteen eighties, before my time, of course, But the
White Sox were going to move to Saint Petersburg, Tampa,
(28:07):
years before the Tampa Bay Rays came into existence. They
were gonna leave the old Kimiski Park. It was all
set up, but it is a timeless extortion move in
the sporting world. You want a new stadium in your city,
but you don't feel like paying for the stadium. What
are you gonna do? Well, you threaten to leave. That's
(28:30):
what happens, right, you threaten to move. It's a swindle.
It's always effective. It's always because either you get the
stadium you want in the city you don't have to move,
or you just relocate like the Athletics and then you
get the stadium in Vegas. All right, final points. So
let's go to Anaheim where Angels superstar Mike Trout referenced
(28:50):
Shohei Otani and his free agent mystery, and the quote
hurt round the baseball world. So here is quote, I'll
give you a part of it from Mike Trout. He said,
you never know what's gonna happen regarding Otani. There's gonna
be a lot of teams out there wanting him. Who
wouldn't was the Trout quote. So is there some kind
(29:12):
of hidden meaning in the Mike Trout comments about sho
Hey Otani? And I am going yes, but it's subtle.
I'm going yes, but it's subtle. What Trout had to
say about Otani on the surface to the untrained novice,
you'll still has nothing there. He just gave gave empty words,
and that's that's true to a point. It was a
(29:34):
Mike Trout filibuster talking about show, hey Otani, your lips
are moving, but you're not saying anything at all. The
art of saying nothing at all is a gift that
many political hacks have and whatnot. Uh. Nevertheless, though, if
I'm already Marino the Angel's owner, I'm upset with Mike
(29:54):
Trout today, and I tell you why. Because Mike Trout
was given an opportunity, he was given a soap box
to stand on there and he could have said, we
want Otani back, I want a play with Otani, we
want him here, the Angels want him and all that.
But Trout his message was one of apathy. That was
(30:18):
the message of Mike Trout. He's the face of the
Bleeping Angel franchise. He's the one that signed the forever
contract for the Angels, but he just refused to publicly
endorse and campaign for sho Heltani to stay with the Angels.
He was given a platform to do it. He chose
not to do it. And why not? That sounds like
(30:38):
a guy that's checked out Mike Trout Kawabunga Dude.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Meller
Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
He's Mike Carmen, I'm Dan Byern.
Speaker 4 (30:51):
We have a brand new fantasy football podcast called I
Want Your Flex. Twice a week, every Tuesday and Friday,
we come up with new episodes to not only look
back at what happened, what you need to do at
that minute, and also look ahead of what's coming up
in the fantasy football world.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
That's right, Dan.
Speaker 5 (31:09):
Every week we're going to scour the waiver wire to
find the pickups to turbo boost your fantasy lineup, sit starts,
fantasy football players rankings to get you ready to dominate
the competition.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
Listen to I Want Your Flex with Mike Carmon and
Met Dan Byer on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts and
wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
It's Maller. How about that to the third degree. This
is one big fan gets grilled hoop a loop.
Speaker 6 (31:38):
It was reported this week that Nick Bosa could miss
the start of the regular season due to his contract
dispute with the forty nine ers. Ben do you think
it'll actually come to that.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
No, No, I believe he will be out there. Nick
Bosa would have to donate a lot of money to
the Fraternal Order of the forty nine Ers Donation bin
if you were to not show up, And he's set
to earn at worst seventeen point eight million. And we're told,
just like Chris Jones in Kansas City, he also wants
(32:08):
Aaron Donald Muddy. But I do not believe he will
actually miss regular season games for the Niners. I'd be
surprised if that happened.
Speaker 6 (32:15):
Next it was announced on Monday that the Nationals have
extended Dave Martinez for two years and they will be
doing the same with GM.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Mike Rizzo as well. That nattitude Coop.
Speaker 6 (32:24):
Yes, Ben, the Nationals are likely on their way to
the fourth consecutive losing season.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Is this a bad mover?
Speaker 6 (32:31):
Those guys really not to blame?
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Now everyone is to blame, right, the Nationals won the
World Series. They took a wrecking ball to the locker
room after they won the World Series a couple of
years ago, bare bones the Juan Soto. They didn't they
wanted him, but they didn't offer him enough money. He
didn't want to play there and so but the Nationals,
they've actually played with a little bit of moxie this year.
But everyone gets the blame. But those guys are safe
(32:54):
because the team's about to be sold, so they're gonna
wait for the new owner to fire everybody next.
Speaker 6 (33:00):
Lonzo Ball revealed on a podcast this week that he
will miss the entire twenty twenty three twenty twenty four
NBA season. Now, Ball hasn't played in the game since
January of twenty twenty And do you think we've seen
the last of Lonzo Ball?
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Well, no, he was on social media. I saw him
goofing on stephen A. Smith. So we've not seen the
last one. But his impact days are old balls too.
There's about all. There's about a five percent chance that
Lonzo Ball can return, and he could come back as
like a savvy bench guy like Sean Livingston, but not
as an impact guy. How did we do you passes?
(33:33):
That is a where great monotone Cooko. Not a lot
of life from cook we'd monotone.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsports radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app search FSR to
listen live. Attention everyone, and the password is password idiot,
password the word Game of the Stars.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Here's Ben Meller and let's welcome into our contesss are
password the word Game of the Stars. We have Bob,
who's in Saint Louis. Hello Bob, Hello, welcome Bob. You're
ready to play the game?
Speaker 5 (34:18):
I'm in Yes, I'll give it a run for the money.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
All right, Bob, very good? What are you up to
this morning? I just got done taking a strike vote
for General motors? And did you vote to strike or
not to strike?
Speaker 5 (34:32):
I'm voting to strike.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Okay, there to strike? He voted to strike? All right,
hold on I sake, Bob. We have John in Vegas.
Hello John, what's going on?
Speaker 2 (34:45):
John?
Speaker 1 (34:45):
You're ready to go here?
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Yes sir?
Speaker 1 (34:48):
All right? John, very good? And let's see here, Bob.
Who do you want to partner up with? Bob? You
voted to strike? You can play with me? Ben, Eddie Cooper, Iowa.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Sam, I'm joking Eddie.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
It's bad pick by you?
Speaker 5 (35:06):
All right?
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Yeah? John? Go ahead?
Speaker 2 (35:08):
John?
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Who do you want to partner up with? John?
Speaker 4 (35:11):
I'm not bull washing, but I'll take you.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
That's a good pick. We're in it to win it, uh, Bob,
Bob's distracted. John, We're gonna win the game. So we
have a list of words one to ten, and Bob
picking number one to ten. You're gonna go first. We
start with ten points, work our way down until we
get to about five. Then we figure the word out.
If we don't get it, I will go with number three,
(35:34):
number three. E Z easy, Eddie easy, All right, let's
go nightmare, Freddy Krueger. It's not your turn, Eddie. John,
(35:58):
I'm gonna use the malord maneuver. You hear what Eddie said.
I'm gonna go day day. It's a mall and maneuver shot, Eddie, clue,
I've got day Yeah, my god, why do we have
(36:23):
the uniting of the stupid? You gotta be joking? Come
on now, oh my, all right, go back to you, Eddie.
It's gonna be one of those games. Yeah. Uh, let's go,
I said nightmare. Uh, let's go fantasy. Yeah yeah, yeah,
(36:46):
because those those nightmares are daylight, is what they are. Yeah,
they're daylight. All right? Yeah, boy, John, pick a number
one to ten, but not three six, number six? Okay, Well,
number six is appropriate because anyway, let's go with I
(37:09):
go with misdemeanor. O my god. All right, so we've
had misdemeanor and felony. Let's go with uh transgression. That's
(37:35):
a word, Eddie, EDDI know your audience. Eddie, hurry up.
We need an answer though, Bob, what do you say?
Speaker 4 (37:42):
Patty?
Speaker 1 (37:44):
No, no, boy, how about transgression? Good clue, Ben. I'm done.
I'm done with I'm done with everyone. I'm no. The
word was crime. Mis Demeanor is a you know that
(38:06):
game was a crime. Why did I play the game?
My god? And your clues sucked. Also, by the way,
Host
Ben Maller
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