July 9, 2026 • 40 mins
Big Ben talks about Mark Cuban taking the Mavs owner to court and if he actually has a chance to win, Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander announcing his retirement after the season, Maller to the Third Degree, another edition of #AskBen, and more!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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
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Speaker 2 (00:24):
This is the best of the Ben Maler Show on
Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
We had a Hodgepoge of options was debating where to
go to begin and the thing that caught my attention.
Since I still have editorial control over what I talk about,
the story that I'm most interested in involves the robber
barons of sports. Our lead this hour from Dallas. This
(00:53):
is not a Jerry Jones story, So calm down. Is
not a Jerry Jones story, I promise you lead us though.
Where the Luka Doncik trade was so bad? How bad
was it? That donation wasn't even a trade, it was
a donation to the Lakers? Has now literally sparked a lawsuit?
(01:14):
How many trades there have been trades that have caused lawsuits?
This is this is the story? Is this not a
am I wrong, Am I misreading the room here? This
is not a good story that that trade was so ridiculous.
He had not a trade, it was a donation. That
this has now created a hum danger of a store.
So if you didn't see it, and perhaps you missed
(01:34):
it to hear about it, we'll give you the details here,
the inside skinny, if you will. So there's this really
rich guy that got very lucky and made the sweetheart
deal with Yahoo years ago uh rubbing audio content on
the internet and has lived off that very well as
a one percenter ever since then. His name is Mark Cuban.
(01:55):
He bankrolled the Indiana Hoosiers college football championship this past year.
Here well, Mark Cuban claims that he had a handshake
slash verbal deal months before he sold his basketball team
that gave him continued control over basketball ops. And we
(02:19):
used to call it GM general manager transactions. And this
guy Patrick Dumont, part of the rich gambling family from Vegas,
that the Dumont crew, they would handle the business stuff,
the boring stuff, you know, the real estate, casino deals,
that kind of stuff, as opposed to who gets traded
(02:43):
and who gets signed and all that stuff. Now Here's
where it gets really dicey. So Cuban sold about seventy
percent of the mavericke he owns twenty seven percent, so
he still got a stake in the team. This is
Maverick on Maverick crime. According to the court filing, this
(03:04):
guy Patrick Dumont did not honor, did not honor the
verbal contract. Oh my god. Instead he gave control to
that evil Nico Harrison, who should get his number of retired?
The Lakers retire everyone's number. DeAndre Ayten's getting his number retired.
Run on to Nico Harrison. Just give him a number.
That's it. And so Nico Harrison was in control and
(03:28):
Cuban was not. And Cuban explicity Mark Mark Cuban in
this whole situation referenced in court documents the Luca trade
as evidence that the handshake agreement was broken. So that
is a good jumping up point. Let us discuss the
question why is Mark Cuban, Why is Mark Cuban doing this?
(03:53):
It's embarrassing is that now you're taking you owned the
team for a while, you sold the team, and now
years later here you're taking the Mavericks current owner to court.
And also does Mark Cuban have a winnable case? Does
he have a oneabole case? So I've got keystone, bucket, brigade,
(04:13):
and rowing, and we will combine all of these things
together and we are going to make some Texas toast.
That's what we're going to make. So A I want
to preface it, I'm not a lawyer, but I do
play one on the radio. So you should never take
legal advice from an overnight talk shows. That being said,
I'm about to give out legal advice. So technically a
(04:34):
handshake deal. These things, believe it or not, have come
up over the years behind these powerful microphones and the
bully pulpit of Fox Sports Radio. It's rather shocking that
this story would come up, but it has in the past.
So a handshake deal can be legally enforceable. Did you
know that it can't? That's the good news. The bad
news the problem is proof with a capital P. So
(05:00):
that makes this a hail Mary play. If one person, like,
let's say I came up to you and I said, listen,
I got a deal. I'm gonna sell you. I've got
this old like this old motorbike thing that I have,
and I'm gonna give it to you and then you're
gonna give me, you know, thirty thousand dollars or something
like that. Okay, fine, that's the deal. So it's the
(05:23):
problem is you just because one person says you agreed
to it, the other one can say no, I didn't,
and then it becomes a credibility contest. Without a digital
paper trail, we're talking to email, text messages, that kind
of stuff. It becomes a credibility contest. Now, as for
the why why has Mark Cuban doing this? This isn't
(05:45):
a lawsuit. This is an oligarch temper tantrum, is what
this is. Because he's not the center of attention anymore,
not right. Mark Cuban one of the great ego maniacs
of our time. He's only suing because he cannot let
go of what he had. And his entire identity was
(06:06):
the Dallas Mavericks. They were it. That was his baby.
That's my baby right there, his ego project for decades, decades,
and he made a terrible deal. Now, financially, it wasn't
that bad. He got three point five billion dollars. However,
when you take away the emotional stake that he had
(06:29):
in that team, he got out played because he gave
it up. He gave it up, and what he had
as the face of the Mavericks was bigger, right, is
bigger now the business people they got the team. They
used some skullduggery, they got the team. And now he's
having sellers remorse and he's been going on. So instead
(06:51):
of admitting, hey, I screwed up on that one by
handing over control without ironclad contracts, he's running to the
courthouse crying about a handshake deal and using Luca that
trade as a very dramatic excuse. And deep down, if
(07:11):
you go to the very core of this, the lawsuit
is just Mark Cuban drinking keystone light because he's got
bitter beer face is what he's got. He's just bitter,
and I get it, Like, why did he not think
this through? Yeah, I already have enough money. You don't
need money now. I heard from somebody that I was
(07:32):
chatting with a few hours ago that said Cuban thought
that for some reason the price of sports teams are
going to go down. This was the time to do it,
and he wanted to get in. He misread the market.
He misread the market. That's what someone I chatted with
who knows a lot about these things. That's their theory
on this. And so here we are. Mark Cuban cannot
(07:56):
accept the new normal, and so he's filled lawsuit against
the owner of the Dallas Mavericks and he's inventing grievances
to stay relevant, kind of claw back some of that influence.
He's talked about why I should buy the team back. Well,
the team's gonna cost more money now and it's not
for sale. It's a classic case of a guy whose
(08:18):
entire foundation is so wrapped up in owning that he's
willing to go with a nuclear option. And you know,
like the Brooklyn Bridge the other day, burn it up, baby,
and you know, rather than worry about looking petty in
public and move on and just enjoy a great life,
(08:40):
a life that so many of us wish we could have,
was just not having to worry about bills or anything.
He's just he's a made man. And just watch old
episodes of Shark Tank, which you also quit. So he
quit Shark Tank and the Dallas Mavericks in the span
of a very short time. So clearly the spell is
not working now. Meanwhile, two Milwaukee go why, well, the
(09:02):
Milwaukee Bucks gave away the franchise a few days ago,
and they now are facing the music. The GM John
hurt Horst addressed the trade of Giannis Adenta Coombo to
the Miami Heat for the first time now. The Bucks
GM called trading Yannis quote a very difficult decision. He
(09:22):
acknowledged that Milwaukee is not a better team today than
they were the other day without him, and he described
Janis as one of the greatest players to ever play
in the state of Wisconsin for that basketball team. And
you'd have to say he's neck and neck with Kareem
lou Al Sender back in the day, right, they both
(09:44):
won one championship with the Bucks and they were vi'sing
the team one and all that. So the Bucks framed
it as a mutual best interest decision. That's how their
positioning is. It was a mutual best interest decision to
reset and build a sustain tender, a building a new
(10:04):
foundation for their coach, Taylor Jenkins, who has that great
track record of success. The Bucks GM emphasized he was
not forced to trade Jannis. Wink wink, nudge, nudge, All right,
So that is a good spot. Let's let's kind of
jump off that the question. The Bucks GM John Horse
(10:26):
said he wasn't forced to trade Jannis Dentic Cumbo and
it was a mutual decision. Do you believe him? So,
I'm I'm not good. I don't have a great poker face.
It's a hard no. I believe every man, woman and
child with even a rudimentary, rudimentary knowledge of basketball knows
(10:47):
that this is gaslighting. It is gas lighting disguised as
an argument. And the Bucks general manager saying that he
wasn't forced to trade a Dentic Cuombo, that it was
a mutual decision. Now, my friend Andy Furman likes to
point out we were born at night, but not last night.
You would need a suspension bridge to support the disbelief
(11:10):
required to buy this. Milwaukee just got completely pants Now,
it doesn't look as bad because the Celtics trade was worse.
What they did was worse. It's not great, though, it's
not great right from the entire league. Get your pants
pulled down there and you went commando style. And the
Bucks GM is part of the bucket brigade doing mop
(11:31):
up duty, trying to clean up the mess and painting
this as noble best for both sides, best being as
good as all the rest, of course, like a reset
that is the broad brush equivalent of repainting a condemned building. Well,
why would you do that? The building is going to
get knocked down by a wrecking ball. That makes no sense.
(11:53):
Why would you paint over it? It's just dumb. It's
having a car, a beater car that needs to go
to the junkyard, and you're like, well, let me take
that and get that. Give me, let me get some
new tires on that. I'll go to tire rack, get
some new tires and put some new pain on that.
What do you do? Like seriously, Now, the truth is
Giannis was fed up and he straight up forced his
(12:14):
way out of Milwaukee, no ifs ands or butts about it.
After years of quietly sulking and not so quietly checking out,
and he essentially quit. Uh you know. But he started
calling out the Bucks a couple of years ago, and
then it got progressively more and more and more and
more and more and more and more, and so it
(12:35):
was I was like, okay, well, he basically held the
franchise hostage until they caved in and shipped him out.
When you start calling out management publicly, that is a
point of no return. And now we I will give
credit to the Bucks because at least they admitted they're
not a better basketball team. They're not as good today
as they were the other day. And that is a
(12:57):
rare level of executive honesty. And you juxtapose that with
Brad Stevens, who treats that like a severe food allergy.
When Boston dropped Jalen Brown into a Salvation Army bucket,
Brad Stevens cowardly used optionality as a crutch to avoid reality.
(13:19):
And the Bucks at least didn't hide behind any kind
of buzzword here. The Greek freak is gone. The Bucks
will be an irrelevant team for years, and no amount
of corporate spin is going to change that. All right, now,
last word to Miami, Miami, Miami. Why now I know
Giannis is there, but this is about Hardaway, Tim Hardaway Junior.
(13:41):
Now we don't normally care about guys that are kind
of washed up. At this point, Hardaway is in as
late mid to late I think he's thirty four to
thirty five, something like that, and he's bounced heron. He's
a journeyman NBA player. The sequel not as good as
the not the equal to his dad. His dad made
some headlines though recently and Sam, I'm not going to
let my kid wear my old number, and so Hardaway
(14:03):
he signed a one year deal and it turns out
he will wear papa's retired number ten jersey. I know
you're very concerned about that, the numerical value of a jersey.
But again, the reports last week were that the father,
Tim Hardaway Senior, who I always associated more with the
Golden State Warriors than the Heat, although he has his
number retired by Miami. Of course, the Miami Heat retired
(14:25):
Michael Jordan's number father embarrassing anyway. So it turns out
this is what happened. The question what do you think
convinced Tim Hardaway Senior, the dad here, to allow his
Heat number ten retired jersey to be unretired for his kid.
So I have a theory using some psychobabble. So Tim
Hardaway Senior was rowing, rowing, and rowing the douche canoe,
(14:52):
all right, Row row, row, row your douche canoe, clutching
his legacy like a bitter gatekeeper. My legacy, My legacy
is by You're just by and like somehow if the
jersey was unretired. All of the accomplishments would vanish. I
(15:13):
just completely vanish if somebody else his spawn wore the jersey.
It's a piece of laundry. It is not the declaration
of independence. The Naked City never sleeps now. The rumor
has it that the Hardaway family they got together and
they staged a much needed intervention. They sat down or
(15:34):
the old man and reminded him that there's a phrase
blood is thicker than retired jerseys, and they were able
to twist his arm that this was not about erasing
the past, but extending the family legacy. All right, now
Junior Tomorroway, Junior gets the number ten jersey. Not that
(15:57):
he's going to play a meaningful role in terms of
impact on the heat. He's a rotation player who's okay,
not great. And you get the heartfelt nostalgia news conference,
you get that the warm welcome and in Tim Hardaway Senor, Yeah,
it gets move on and that's it and we'll see
(16:19):
how this goes.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
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 3 (16:30):
Hey, this is Jason McIntyre join me every weekday morning
on my podcast, Straight Fire with Jason McIntyre. This isn't
your typical sports pod pushing the same tired narratives down
your throat every day. Straight Fire gives you honest opinions
on all the biggest sports headlines, accurate stats to help
you win big at the sportsbook, and all the best guests.
(16:50):
Do yourself a favor and listen to Straight Fire with
Jason McIntyre on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
It is the hour of Baseball Talk and Bay's Ball. Yeah,
oh yeah, nothing interrupting me at all. I watched a
full night of baseball, including the Mets and Royals, Yankees
and Rais. I was flipping around there, a little bit
of this, a little bit of that, Dodgers, Rockies, a
(17:22):
bunch of games. So our lead this hour, though, is
from the Motor City, where the Motor City kiddies stole
the baseball headlines in this news cycle. As Tiger's pitcher
Justin Verlander making some news. If you didn't see this
or hear about it, perhaps not. We learned that Verlander
had been selected to the All Star Game. What what
(17:47):
are you doing? Yes, this is where Rob Manford man
fraud is. It's the equivalent of the Ghost Runner. It's
let's everyone get one name in each league and then
we'll have everyone one kissed these people's ass, give them
the Old Hawk Tour at the All Star Game. It's
in Philadelphia this year. So Verlander was the selection by
(18:08):
Rob Manford as a legend pick because he doesn't get
his ass kissed enough, so everyone will kiss his ass
at the All Star Game. Well, the surprise was the
same moment that was announced. Quickly after that, Verlanders said, Oh,
by the way, I'm done. I'm out, but I'm not
leaving right now. I'm gonna wait till the end of
(18:29):
the season. Now this led to what do you think
it led to? It led to a urinating situation. A
everyone's trying to compliment Verlander more than the other people,
like the baseball riders who are so far up, the
brown nosers that love these guys. I just can't get
it of it. So they were trying to Oh, Verlander's
(18:50):
this great, He's that He's like, Yeah, the baseball scrap
is going back and forth. Al he's so good. Oh, no,
I'm gonna compliment it more. I like it more than
you that thing. It's like, what are you doing anyway?
So going on and on, and Verlander the last of
the great starting pitchers. I don't know. It seems like
there's some decent starting pitchers now, although they don't go
very far into games anymore. But one of the opinions
(19:10):
that got my attention, and this is, I believe what
we need to focus in on. So the popular opinion
is as this is the last hurrah for Verland. It
has been mostly hurt. It's a sticky situation, has been
hurt most of the year because he's old, washed up,
can't play anymore. So of course he'll be at the
All Star Game. So Verlander, the popular opinion is he's
(19:31):
not only going to be a Hall of Famer, he's
going to be a first ballot Hall of Famer. Justin Verlander,
first ballot Hall of Famer. So I want you to
chew on that for a second. I feel like that's
a good jumping off point. Let's discuss the question does
Tiger's pitcher, Justin Verlander, deserve to be a first ballot
Hall of Famer. So I've got mister car Wash, Starbucks,
(19:56):
and zombifide, and we'll put all of these things together.
All of them will ring a bell, and we'll put
them all together, and we are going to crumble unless
we don't under pressure. I think we'll be okay. I
think we'll be okay. All right, So number one, number one,
(20:16):
I think the number one thing there it is okay,
finally there we go. I thought for a minute I
was in the twilights, all right, so number one. Yeah.
My reaction here to the question does Tiger's picture Justin
Verlander deserve to be a first ballot Hall of Famer
is can we please stop the boot licking Olympics? Can
we put a time out timeout on the boot licking Olympics?
(20:39):
Justin Verlander absolutely does not deserve to be a first
ballot Hall of Fame player. He does not deserve that. Now.
Was he a great pitcher for the Detroit Tigers. Absolutely? Absolutely. However, however,
his legacy was super charged by joining who who do
(21:02):
you think? Supercharged the legend of Verlander and put him
over the hump something he didn't do in Detroit? Ding
Ding ding ding ding. The say it with me now, kids,
The cheating E one one thousand and two, one thousand.
(21:22):
Oh uh, that was in twenty seventeen, So what did
they do in twenty seventeen? That's right, Oh, I remember
what they were doing in twenty seventeen. I do. Oh
my god, is twenty twenty six? What are you talking about? Okay,
they never got punished, Tatoo limitations has not run out,
and Cooper'stown, at least for me on this side of
(21:44):
the microphone, Cooper'stown is not a mister car wash. You
don't roll in there covered in trash, can grease and
come out sparkling. Verlander, whether you like it or not,
sullied his in tire reputation. He rode that sign stealing
(22:05):
scheme straight to a world series ring an alcs NVP
and another Cy Young. It's kind of like getting straight
a's it turns out that you stole someone else's homework,
or if you're a singer, you lip synced. So without
that tainted run where he was a part of it,
(22:28):
he's just another strong pitcher waiting his turn. Now I
realized the Hall of Fame has already embarrassed itself. It's
all you humiliated itself. The baseball riders have turned out
to be total frauds, as they've allowed Carlos to cheater
Beltron to get voted into Cooperstown. Like God forbid, they
don't put Beltron in the Hall of Fame even though
(22:48):
he was a part of that cheating thing as well.
Now Verlander, he said, well, he didn't bet mallor what
are you talking about, mallor calm down, put your pants on.
So Verlander benefited directly. Whether or not he was in
the batter's box hitting, it doesn't matter. He benefited directly
from the biggest scandal in modern baseball history, profiting from
(23:14):
the systemic culture of crooked baseball in Houston. And if
we're gonna let every cheating a hole in on the
first ballot, you might as well just bulldoze the Hall
of Fame in Cooperstown and turn it into a scape room.
Just do it. He'll get in eventually. I wouldn't, you know,
(23:36):
put none of those guys in. He'll get in. Make
them wait, make them wait a little bit. And I
just love the selective outrage that takes place among the
baseball writers. Verlander was very good for the baseball writers.
And who votes for the Hall of Fame. The baseball writers.
He gave good quotes. He gave them from what I've heard,
stuff behind the scenes, and so help them do their job.
(24:00):
They'll scratch his back. He scratched theirs. That's the way
it's gonna work. It shouldn't work that way. Should not
be a first Battle Hall of Famer because he's associated
with the scum of the a holes. Now page two
to Philadelphi. We go the Delaware Valley where Jonathan and
Delaware and Fry Daddy are very happy that the Phillies
(24:23):
have turned a miserable season around. They found a little magic,
although so much magic last night per se or did they?
Donnie Baseball has had a change of heart. Donnie Baseball,
the interim manager Don Mattingly has expressed interest in taking
the Philadelphia Phillies job full time. Yeah maddingly said that
(24:47):
he'd like to keep going. He took over as the
interim manager in late April for Rob Thompson, and the
Phillies were tied for the worst record in baseball. There
were ten games under five hundred and with Mattingly, the
Phillies have the second best record in baseball since he
took over, and the turnaround has put Philadelphia right in
(25:09):
the middle of that playoff race in the National League
with the upstart Marlins and others, So a lot of
upstart situations going on there. So the question how likely
how likely is Don Mattingly to keep the Phillies managerial gig?
All right, So here's the deal. It's been a really
(25:32):
cool story turnaround. They looked like they didn't know what
they were doing for a bunch of dopes the first
couple weeks of the baseball season, and it's great. However,
in Philadelphia, turnarounds are taxed at one hundred percent unless
they come with a deep add on playoff runt, and
it is a small sample size both ways. The start
(25:54):
at nine to nineteen was a small sample size. This
is a bigger sample size. It's still relatively small in
terms of Don Mattingly's job security. It is tied directly
to the month of October. And we all know, you know,
and I know that Don Mattingly's fate will be decided
around the time Starbucks starts pumping out those pumpkin spice lattes.
(26:19):
Because Philly they only evaluate managers in the sweater weather,
and we're not at the sweater weather, right now, so
matting Lee's job interview is going to be the postseason.
The regular season is just the warm up back. This
isn't complicated the NLCS or the World Series. And you
(26:40):
do that and you're likely back. The Dodgers should win
this thing. It's just a matter of how many games
are they gonna have to go seven games in every
series or whatever. Now, if Philly is upset the Dodgers
or something like that, well that certainly helps out. And
Don's old team. He managed the Dodgers years ago, and
so anything less than the NLCS and the World Series.
(27:01):
And he's copying Mike the Leprechaun, packing Hawaiian tropic sunscreen
and looking for flights to Bora Bora is what he's doing.
And Dave Dombrowski, who's from the Old Country, right, He's
from the Old country. Don Browski, he doesn't do patience.
He swaps managers like Dura sel batteries, is what he does.
(27:24):
All right, now, final point one of the games I
was watching, I'm gonna go to Pittsburgh. The Atlanta Braves
see Atlanta Braves and the Pittsburgh Pirates were playing a
game last night. And in that game, someone named Jared Jones.
Keeping up with the Joneses, I am told that as
a starting pitcher for the Pirates, Jared Jones, he's twenty four.
(27:45):
He threw six perfect innings of baseball against the Braves.
He struck out eight. He was only at seventy seven
pitches through six innings. It was a scoreless game against Atlanta.
And at that point, someone named Don Kelly, who we
are told is the manager of the Pittsburgh baseball team, decided,
you know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna take this
(28:07):
guy out of the game. He removed Jared Jones out
of the game at the start of the seventh inning
out of and of course an abundance of caution because
of pitch limit. And that's it. He's coming back from
elbow surgery. Of course, what do you think the fans
in Pittsburgh did the bucko fans? Did they raise the
(28:29):
jolly Roger? No, they threw the jolly roger at the
Pirates manager. They boot boom, They didn't shout shame, shame, shame.
Look the fans in Sacramento di al right, A good
job by them.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Now.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
The Braves went on to win the game three nothing.
And a former Pirate, the man named after the subway
system in San Francisco, Joey Bart, who also played for
the Giants. But he couldn't how much money Joey Bart
could have made if he was good. He sucks like
he's bad at baseball, But if he had been good
with the Giants and they thought he was gonna be good,
and you know Bart in the Bay Area, rapid transits
(29:03):
called Bart. That would have been perfect didn't work out,
although in this night it did. He hit the game
winning home run in the eighth inning. Now, the story
is not that. The story is the removal of the pitcher.
This is the second time, the second time we've been
having this conversation this week, days after the controversy with
the Marlins pulling Uri Perez after seven perfect ginnings in
(29:27):
the aforementioned Sacramento So the question, can you make any
sense of the Pirates in a home game, pulling Jared
Jones from a perfect game after just seventy seven pitches?
All right, So it's not a slope. It's a nope.
It's not a slope, it's a nope. It continues to
(29:48):
be something that is foreign to me. This is not
the baseball I grew up with. I know things evolve.
Aren't they supposed to evolve for the better? Aren't things
supposed to improve, not get worse? Can anyone tell me
that this is not a step backwards? It's bizarro world.
Major League Baseball teams are run by pathetic cowards who
hate fun and they hate history. They don't want greatness.
(30:13):
It's a race to the bottom because they've been zombified
by the Geeks. That's what's happened to baseball. And I
don't know any Don Kelly, you don't need to learn
the name of the Pirates manager because none of them
have been relevant since Jim Leland, and that's a long
time ago. But John Kelly yanked this guy Jones like
(30:33):
a little league kid over an arbitrary elbow surgery precaution
thing of a jig. Consequently, Jones became this is how
pathetic the Pirates are in baseball. This guy, Jared Jones
became the first starter since nineteen oh one to retire
every batter over six plus innings and not get the win.
(30:55):
You know what that is? Cosmic Justice. Pittsburgh lost Cosmic
Justice Front offices. And I continue to flog a dead
horse front offices are so terrified of the imaginary injury
boogeyman that they would rather ruin historic moments, which used
to be points that they would sell. I was like, hey,
(31:17):
if this guy through a perfect game next year, will
have a bobblehead night, will have perfect game blanket night.
Now it's like no, no, no, we must take these
people out of the game. It's wild, and it just
goes against everything that I was raised with with sports
that you're supposed to chase immortality. There have been twenty
four perfect games in baseball. That's it. They don't care
(31:40):
about that. That's a legacy game, a perfect game. They
don't care about that. What they care about more is
appeasing the nerds and more importantly, covering their asses. That's
what this is about, right, Conservative pitch counts. As we
pointed out in a previous episode of the show, major
League Baseball actually has the data that proves pitch counts
(32:02):
are for gays, meaning there's no direct correlation causation that
if you throw eighty pitches, you're fine. If you throw
ninety five pitches, it's a problem. Right if you throw
ninety five pigs like this guy Jones he threw seventy
seven pitches. If he threw one hundred and ten pitches,
his arm would have fallen like if you drop a
(32:23):
candalope off a skyscraper and it would have blown up. Now,
there was a game involving the Blue Jays and the
Giants where Dylan Cees did have a no hitter and
he threw one hundred and eighteen pitches, and the reaction
he's an older player. Good for the Blue Jays. I
will compliment the Blue Jays. Good job by them. They
allowed him in a ten to nothing game to go
out there. There's a guy that a team that gets it.
(32:46):
Of course, not an American team. The Toronto Blue Jays,
they get it. They allowed their guy to go out
there and Chase History didn't work out. He didn't get
the no hitter and you know, gave up a base
hit to start the ninth inning. But the point is
you go for and I promise you all right, the
idea is that you don't shoot for the moon. They
don't shoot for the moon. They're happy circling the parking lot,
(33:08):
babying pictures most of the time into mediocrity. Now, when
I become Commissioner of baseball. I am opening up re
education camps to teach these bozos that doing the bare
minimum is not a good thing. It should not be
celebrated and it should be looked down upon. You should
(33:29):
be shamed when you do this kind of bull crap.
And that's just the way it is.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Meller
Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
He go, here we go, here we go, here we go.
Speaker 4 (33:41):
How about we go.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
To the third degree?
Speaker 4 (33:46):
Oh man, what does that open sound like? I don't
even I don't even hear it anymore. It was noted
on Tuesday morning by The Athletic that Donovan Mitchell signing
his new extension que will not impact the salary cap
for this coming season, so it wouldn't impact Cleveland's attempt
to sign Lebron James Ben the Cavs was your prediction
all along?
Speaker 1 (34:04):
That's right?
Speaker 4 (34:04):
What odds would you give it of happening at this point?
Speaker 1 (34:06):
All right? So I say it's a seventy five percent
chance that Lebron goes to Cleveland. So that's a seven
to fifty hitter in baseball. That's the ending Lebron's all
worried about his image, his reputation. That's the Disney when
they make the Disney movie about Lebron, that's the ending
fade to black. Lebron comes back, wins another championship in
Cleveland with his son next.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
Kevin O'Connell made some comments this week that suggests that
the starting quarterback job in Minnesota is Kyler Murrays to lose,
which had me wondering, how much of a leash do
you think Murray will have during the season.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
So Kyle usually is pretty good for the first three
or four games. Right about the time the new Call
of Duty comes out, he's cooked. So you just got
to look at the date, contact the maker of Call
of Duty, and that's when you're gonna know that he's out. Listen,
Murray's not that good. He's a mediocre NFL quarterback. He'll
play well for a few games now and then, but
he's not He's not gonna last in Minnesota.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
Next this week, Connor McGregor returns to the octagon for
the first time in five years in a rematch with
Max Holloway. McGregor returns as a plus one eighty underdog
Ben how much would a Losster at McGregor's brand at
this point.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
All right, this is how bad it is. I did
I did the math on the scoop. If Connor McGregor
loses and gets embarrassed again, he's going to have to
fight one of the Paul brothers. Okay, that's how bad
this is. Connor McGregor versus like Jake Paul. If he
doesn't get it done this week, how did we go?
You pass this edition? That is a when winter win
a winner.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
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. It's now time for.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Time for Horry Henry Harry.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Wait ask bad Twitter said this your questions on Twitter?
Speaker 4 (35:53):
Now?
Speaker 1 (35:54):
All right, here we go. It's point at me and
like a trained seal at sea, World will start bouncing
the beach ball on my head in this case, over
to the Kooper loop for the reading of the questions.
Here we go, Coop.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
All right, We're gonna start off with a question from
ferg Dog. Hi Fergie, he would like to know do
you like sprinkles on your ice cream? Or are you
an adult?
Speaker 1 (36:21):
I don't hate sprinkles. I'm more of like a cupcake guy.
I don't mind sprinkles on that. But that's not like
I demand sprinkles. I'm open to them, Lorena.
Speaker 5 (36:32):
You know, I don't hate sprinkles. I love the aesthetic
of it. I'm not a big fan of the flavor itself.
It's very there's no flavor of Yeah, it's just very chalky.
I don't know if it's needed, but I do think
it's pretty well.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
It's like our our friend Tammy Montana used to send us,
Remember the Coop's the cakes we got Coop that were
with fond it yes, which looks wonderful caste like crap
so bad, it's so terrible, Coop.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
I have never been a fan of sprinkles, even even
as a kid.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
That's that's a flex by Coop. I'm better than you, Papa.
With you those sprinkles. They don't don't taste good. There's
no taste to them. It's more of a visual case.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
It's not a good one.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
I don't think there's a taste if you if you
have the syrup on top of them, there's really no taste. Next.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
All right, here's a question for some reason, he says,
just for me and Loraina.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
I don't I don't know, Okay, I will not answer.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
This is from alf the alien o Piner. He wants
to know how do you guys feel about people who
put their feet on the dash while writing in car?
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Oh? He he asked me this on the Okay.
Speaker 5 (37:38):
I should start then. Yes, I am the people who
put the feet on the dash and I feel really
bad sometimes because I'll do it like barefooted too, and
then I'll leave my I can see my little toe
prints on the on the dashboard, and I have cute feet,
and I'm still like, oh huh, I should watch that.
Speaker 4 (37:53):
I feel bad sometimes that goes back.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
I did say on the podcast. I know I'm interrupting,
but I said, it's mostly women that do this.
Speaker 4 (38:00):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (38:00):
A lot of men who put their feet up exactly.
I like sitting in a ball.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
What can I say?
Speaker 1 (38:06):
I hate it.
Speaker 4 (38:06):
It's disgusting. Don't put your feet on my dash.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
I feel like Coop. You love your car, right, You
take good care of your car. That's a big part
of who you are is your car. I do I
do like my car.
Speaker 4 (38:22):
Yeah, I like my car.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
I like my too. But I don't worry. I watch
it every weekend. I think I have the oldest car
on the show, by the way, Yeah you do, pretty sure.
Speaker 5 (38:30):
So you also said that you don't like buying new cars.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
So that's just Oh I got burned. I had a lemon.
I got the back door.
Speaker 5 (38:37):
But the back passenger door of my brand new car
does not open from the inside, completely broken, and I
haven't known because I don't sit back there.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Oh man, well do you? Is it under warranty? You
get fixed? Right? Okay, get it fixed, but you better
not wait on that or else you drive a lot,
so on it next, all right?
Speaker 4 (38:54):
Shane and des Moines would like to know. Hi, Shane,
would you rather have what would you rather have in
your home? A movie theater style popcorn machine or a
cotton candy machine?
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Definitely popcorn. You know you can only eat so much
cotton candy and then your your head will explode. Popcorn
is great because you nor only make the butter popcorn.
There's ways you can manipulate it with the kettle corn
and all that. So the popcorn is the way to go.
What about you, Lorena? Popcorn all day cool?
Speaker 4 (39:21):
Not even a big fan of popcorn, But I would
rather have that than the cotton candy machine.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
All right, movie popcorn those next level.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Next Donkey Sausage would like to know what would you
consider the funniest moment in the show's history.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
It's a tough one. Yeah, I mean there, you know,
there's been so many crazy things that have happened, like
on the air, off the air. We've had zany moments.
You eating the hot dog, the what else did you eat? Tea?
The vacilline vasoline years ago? Hemis Henry Hill yelling and
(40:02):
cursing at me outside the door of the Fox Sports
mob guy. You know who Henry Hill is? Lorena he
uh yeah, good fellas. He was in the Witness Protection.
That was amazing. Weed Man on the Lifeguard Tower, Genie
and Medford versus Pete and Pittsburgh. I can go on
and on.
Speaker 4 (40:19):
We've had some duet with oh yes, real talking Eddie.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
It was so good, Oh Eddie, mister serious newsman and
breaking into song. We can go on and on. That
was a good question.
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 Benmatlers 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 (00:31):
We had a Hodgepoge of options was debating where to
go to begin and the thing that caught my attention.
Since I still have editorial control over what I talk about,
the story that I'm most interested in involves the robber
barons of sports. Our lead this hour from Dallas. This
(00:53):
is not a Jerry Jones story, So calm down. Is
not a Jerry Jones story, I promise you lead us though.
Where the Luka Doncik trade was so bad? How bad
was it? That donation wasn't even a trade, it was
a donation to the Lakers? Has now literally sparked a lawsuit?
(01:14):
How many trades there have been trades that have caused lawsuits?
This is this is the story? Is this not a
am I wrong, Am I misreading the room here? This
is not a good story that that trade was so ridiculous.
He had not a trade, it was a donation. That
this has now created a hum danger of a store.
So if you didn't see it, and perhaps you missed
(01:34):
it to hear about it, we'll give you the details here,
the inside skinny, if you will. So there's this really
rich guy that got very lucky and made the sweetheart
deal with Yahoo years ago uh rubbing audio content on
the internet and has lived off that very well as
a one percenter ever since then. His name is Mark Cuban.
(01:55):
He bankrolled the Indiana Hoosiers college football championship this past year.
Here well, Mark Cuban claims that he had a handshake
slash verbal deal months before he sold his basketball team
that gave him continued control over basketball ops. And we
(02:19):
used to call it GM general manager transactions. And this
guy Patrick Dumont, part of the rich gambling family from Vegas,
that the Dumont crew, they would handle the business stuff,
the boring stuff, you know, the real estate, casino deals,
that kind of stuff, as opposed to who gets traded
(02:43):
and who gets signed and all that stuff. Now Here's
where it gets really dicey. So Cuban sold about seventy
percent of the mavericke he owns twenty seven percent, so
he still got a stake in the team. This is
Maverick on Maverick crime. According to the court filing, this
(03:04):
guy Patrick Dumont did not honor, did not honor the
verbal contract. Oh my god. Instead he gave control to
that evil Nico Harrison, who should get his number of retired?
The Lakers retire everyone's number. DeAndre Ayten's getting his number retired.
Run on to Nico Harrison. Just give him a number.
That's it. And so Nico Harrison was in control and
(03:28):
Cuban was not. And Cuban explicity Mark Mark Cuban in
this whole situation referenced in court documents the Luca trade
as evidence that the handshake agreement was broken. So that
is a good jumping up point. Let us discuss the
question why is Mark Cuban, Why is Mark Cuban doing this?
(03:53):
It's embarrassing is that now you're taking you owned the
team for a while, you sold the team, and now
years later here you're taking the Mavericks current owner to court.
And also does Mark Cuban have a winnable case? Does
he have a oneabole case? So I've got keystone, bucket, brigade,
(04:13):
and rowing, and we will combine all of these things
together and we are going to make some Texas toast.
That's what we're going to make. So A I want
to preface it, I'm not a lawyer, but I do
play one on the radio. So you should never take
legal advice from an overnight talk shows. That being said,
I'm about to give out legal advice. So technically a
(04:34):
handshake deal. These things, believe it or not, have come
up over the years behind these powerful microphones and the
bully pulpit of Fox Sports Radio. It's rather shocking that
this story would come up, but it has in the past.
So a handshake deal can be legally enforceable. Did you
know that it can't? That's the good news. The bad
news the problem is proof with a capital P. So
(05:00):
that makes this a hail Mary play. If one person, like,
let's say I came up to you and I said, listen,
I got a deal. I'm gonna sell you. I've got
this old like this old motorbike thing that I have,
and I'm gonna give it to you and then you're
gonna give me, you know, thirty thousand dollars or something
like that. Okay, fine, that's the deal. So it's the
(05:23):
problem is you just because one person says you agreed
to it, the other one can say no, I didn't,
and then it becomes a credibility contest. Without a digital
paper trail, we're talking to email, text messages, that kind
of stuff. It becomes a credibility contest. Now, as for
the why why has Mark Cuban doing this? This isn't
(05:45):
a lawsuit. This is an oligarch temper tantrum, is what
this is. Because he's not the center of attention anymore,
not right. Mark Cuban one of the great ego maniacs
of our time. He's only suing because he cannot let
go of what he had. And his entire identity was
(06:06):
the Dallas Mavericks. They were it. That was his baby.
That's my baby right there, his ego project for decades, decades,
and he made a terrible deal. Now, financially, it wasn't
that bad. He got three point five billion dollars. However,
when you take away the emotional stake that he had
(06:29):
in that team, he got out played because he gave
it up. He gave it up, and what he had
as the face of the Mavericks was bigger, right, is
bigger now the business people they got the team. They
used some skullduggery, they got the team. And now he's
having sellers remorse and he's been going on. So instead
(06:51):
of admitting, hey, I screwed up on that one by
handing over control without ironclad contracts, he's running to the
courthouse crying about a handshake deal and using Luca that
trade as a very dramatic excuse. And deep down, if
(07:11):
you go to the very core of this, the lawsuit
is just Mark Cuban drinking keystone light because he's got
bitter beer face is what he's got. He's just bitter,
and I get it, Like, why did he not think
this through? Yeah, I already have enough money. You don't
need money now. I heard from somebody that I was
(07:32):
chatting with a few hours ago that said Cuban thought
that for some reason the price of sports teams are
going to go down. This was the time to do it,
and he wanted to get in. He misread the market.
He misread the market. That's what someone I chatted with
who knows a lot about these things. That's their theory
on this. And so here we are. Mark Cuban cannot
(07:56):
accept the new normal, and so he's filled lawsuit against
the owner of the Dallas Mavericks and he's inventing grievances
to stay relevant, kind of claw back some of that influence.
He's talked about why I should buy the team back. Well,
the team's gonna cost more money now and it's not
for sale. It's a classic case of a guy whose
(08:18):
entire foundation is so wrapped up in owning that he's
willing to go with a nuclear option. And you know,
like the Brooklyn Bridge the other day, burn it up, baby,
and you know, rather than worry about looking petty in
public and move on and just enjoy a great life,
(08:40):
a life that so many of us wish we could have,
was just not having to worry about bills or anything.
He's just he's a made man. And just watch old
episodes of Shark Tank, which you also quit. So he
quit Shark Tank and the Dallas Mavericks in the span
of a very short time. So clearly the spell is
not working now. Meanwhile, two Milwaukee go why, well, the
(09:02):
Milwaukee Bucks gave away the franchise a few days ago,
and they now are facing the music. The GM John
hurt Horst addressed the trade of Giannis Adenta Coombo to
the Miami Heat for the first time now. The Bucks
GM called trading Yannis quote a very difficult decision. He
(09:22):
acknowledged that Milwaukee is not a better team today than
they were the other day without him, and he described
Janis as one of the greatest players to ever play
in the state of Wisconsin for that basketball team. And
you'd have to say he's neck and neck with Kareem
lou Al Sender back in the day, right, they both
(09:44):
won one championship with the Bucks and they were vi'sing
the team one and all that. So the Bucks framed
it as a mutual best interest decision. That's how their
positioning is. It was a mutual best interest decision to
reset and build a sustain tender, a building a new
(10:04):
foundation for their coach, Taylor Jenkins, who has that great
track record of success. The Bucks GM emphasized he was
not forced to trade Jannis. Wink wink, nudge, nudge, All right,
So that is a good spot. Let's let's kind of
jump off that the question. The Bucks GM John Horse
(10:26):
said he wasn't forced to trade Jannis Dentic Cumbo and
it was a mutual decision. Do you believe him? So,
I'm I'm not good. I don't have a great poker face.
It's a hard no. I believe every man, woman and
child with even a rudimentary, rudimentary knowledge of basketball knows
(10:47):
that this is gaslighting. It is gas lighting disguised as
an argument. And the Bucks general manager saying that he
wasn't forced to trade a Dentic Cuombo, that it was
a mutual decision. Now, my friend Andy Furman likes to
point out we were born at night, but not last night.
You would need a suspension bridge to support the disbelief
(11:10):
required to buy this. Milwaukee just got completely pants Now,
it doesn't look as bad because the Celtics trade was worse.
What they did was worse. It's not great, though, it's
not great right from the entire league. Get your pants
pulled down there and you went commando style. And the
Bucks GM is part of the bucket brigade doing mop
(11:31):
up duty, trying to clean up the mess and painting
this as noble best for both sides, best being as
good as all the rest, of course, like a reset
that is the broad brush equivalent of repainting a condemned building. Well,
why would you do that? The building is going to
get knocked down by a wrecking ball. That makes no sense.
(11:53):
Why would you paint over it? It's just dumb. It's
having a car, a beater car that needs to go
to the junkyard, and you're like, well, let me take
that and get that. Give me, let me get some
new tires on that. I'll go to tire rack, get
some new tires and put some new pain on that.
What do you do? Like seriously, Now, the truth is
Giannis was fed up and he straight up forced his
(12:14):
way out of Milwaukee, no ifs ands or butts about it.
After years of quietly sulking and not so quietly checking out,
and he essentially quit. Uh you know. But he started
calling out the Bucks a couple of years ago, and
then it got progressively more and more and more and
more and more and more and more, and so it
(12:35):
was I was like, okay, well, he basically held the
franchise hostage until they caved in and shipped him out.
When you start calling out management publicly, that is a
point of no return. And now we I will give
credit to the Bucks because at least they admitted they're
not a better basketball team. They're not as good today
as they were the other day. And that is a
(12:57):
rare level of executive honesty. And you juxtapose that with
Brad Stevens, who treats that like a severe food allergy.
When Boston dropped Jalen Brown into a Salvation Army bucket,
Brad Stevens cowardly used optionality as a crutch to avoid reality.
(13:19):
And the Bucks at least didn't hide behind any kind
of buzzword here. The Greek freak is gone. The Bucks
will be an irrelevant team for years, and no amount
of corporate spin is going to change that. All right, now,
last word to Miami, Miami, Miami. Why now I know
Giannis is there, but this is about Hardaway, Tim Hardaway Junior.
(13:41):
Now we don't normally care about guys that are kind
of washed up. At this point, Hardaway is in as
late mid to late I think he's thirty four to
thirty five, something like that, and he's bounced heron. He's
a journeyman NBA player. The sequel not as good as
the not the equal to his dad. His dad made
some headlines though recently and Sam, I'm not going to
let my kid wear my old number, and so Hardaway
(14:03):
he signed a one year deal and it turns out
he will wear papa's retired number ten jersey. I know
you're very concerned about that, the numerical value of a jersey.
But again, the reports last week were that the father,
Tim Hardaway Senior, who I always associated more with the
Golden State Warriors than the Heat, although he has his
number retired by Miami. Of course, the Miami Heat retired
(14:25):
Michael Jordan's number father embarrassing anyway. So it turns out
this is what happened. The question what do you think
convinced Tim Hardaway Senior, the dad here, to allow his
Heat number ten retired jersey to be unretired for his kid.
So I have a theory using some psychobabble. So Tim
Hardaway Senior was rowing, rowing, and rowing the douche canoe,
(14:52):
all right, Row row, row, row your douche canoe, clutching
his legacy like a bitter gatekeeper. My legacy, My legacy
is by You're just by and like somehow if the
jersey was unretired. All of the accomplishments would vanish. I
(15:13):
just completely vanish if somebody else his spawn wore the jersey.
It's a piece of laundry. It is not the declaration
of independence. The Naked City never sleeps now. The rumor
has it that the Hardaway family they got together and
they staged a much needed intervention. They sat down or
(15:34):
the old man and reminded him that there's a phrase
blood is thicker than retired jerseys, and they were able
to twist his arm that this was not about erasing
the past, but extending the family legacy. All right, now
Junior Tomorroway, Junior gets the number ten jersey. Not that
(15:57):
he's going to play a meaningful role in terms of
impact on the heat. He's a rotation player who's okay,
not great. And you get the heartfelt nostalgia news conference,
you get that the warm welcome and in Tim Hardaway Senor, Yeah,
it gets move on and that's it and we'll see
(16:19):
how this goes.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
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 3 (16:30):
Hey, this is Jason McIntyre join me every weekday morning
on my podcast, Straight Fire with Jason McIntyre. This isn't
your typical sports pod pushing the same tired narratives down
your throat every day. Straight Fire gives you honest opinions
on all the biggest sports headlines, accurate stats to help
you win big at the sportsbook, and all the best guests.
(16:50):
Do yourself a favor and listen to Straight Fire with
Jason McIntyre on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
It is the hour of Baseball Talk and Bay's Ball. Yeah,
oh yeah, nothing interrupting me at all. I watched a
full night of baseball, including the Mets and Royals, Yankees
and Rais. I was flipping around there, a little bit
of this, a little bit of that, Dodgers, Rockies, a
(17:22):
bunch of games. So our lead this hour, though, is
from the Motor City, where the Motor City kiddies stole
the baseball headlines in this news cycle. As Tiger's pitcher
Justin Verlander making some news. If you didn't see this
or hear about it, perhaps not. We learned that Verlander
had been selected to the All Star Game. What what
(17:47):
are you doing? Yes, this is where Rob Manford man
fraud is. It's the equivalent of the Ghost Runner. It's
let's everyone get one name in each league and then
we'll have everyone one kissed these people's ass, give them
the Old Hawk Tour at the All Star Game. It's
in Philadelphia this year. So Verlander was the selection by
(18:08):
Rob Manford as a legend pick because he doesn't get
his ass kissed enough, so everyone will kiss his ass
at the All Star Game. Well, the surprise was the
same moment that was announced. Quickly after that, Verlanders said, Oh,
by the way, I'm done. I'm out, but I'm not
leaving right now. I'm gonna wait till the end of
(18:29):
the season. Now this led to what do you think
it led to? It led to a urinating situation. A
everyone's trying to compliment Verlander more than the other people,
like the baseball riders who are so far up, the
brown nosers that love these guys. I just can't get
it of it. So they were trying to Oh, Verlander's
(18:50):
this great, He's that He's like, Yeah, the baseball scrap
is going back and forth. Al he's so good. Oh, no,
I'm gonna compliment it more. I like it more than
you that thing. It's like, what are you doing anyway?
So going on and on, and Verlander the last of
the great starting pitchers. I don't know. It seems like
there's some decent starting pitchers now, although they don't go
very far into games anymore. But one of the opinions
(19:10):
that got my attention, and this is, I believe what
we need to focus in on. So the popular opinion
is as this is the last hurrah for Verland. It
has been mostly hurt. It's a sticky situation, has been
hurt most of the year because he's old, washed up,
can't play anymore. So of course he'll be at the
All Star Game. So Verlander, the popular opinion is he's
(19:31):
not only going to be a Hall of Famer, he's
going to be a first ballot Hall of Famer. Justin Verlander,
first ballot Hall of Famer. So I want you to
chew on that for a second. I feel like that's
a good jumping off point. Let's discuss the question does
Tiger's pitcher, Justin Verlander, deserve to be a first ballot
Hall of Famer. So I've got mister car Wash, Starbucks,
(19:56):
and zombifide, and we'll put all of these things together.
All of them will ring a bell, and we'll put
them all together, and we are going to crumble unless
we don't under pressure. I think we'll be okay. I
think we'll be okay. All right, So number one, number one,
(20:16):
I think the number one thing there it is okay,
finally there we go. I thought for a minute I
was in the twilights, all right, so number one. Yeah.
My reaction here to the question does Tiger's picture Justin
Verlander deserve to be a first ballot Hall of Famer
is can we please stop the boot licking Olympics? Can
we put a time out timeout on the boot licking Olympics?
(20:39):
Justin Verlander absolutely does not deserve to be a first
ballot Hall of Fame player. He does not deserve that. Now.
Was he a great pitcher for the Detroit Tigers. Absolutely? Absolutely. However, however,
his legacy was super charged by joining who who do
(21:02):
you think? Supercharged the legend of Verlander and put him
over the hump something he didn't do in Detroit? Ding
Ding ding ding ding. The say it with me now, kids,
The cheating E one one thousand and two, one thousand.
(21:22):
Oh uh, that was in twenty seventeen, So what did
they do in twenty seventeen? That's right, Oh, I remember
what they were doing in twenty seventeen. I do. Oh
my god, is twenty twenty six? What are you talking about? Okay,
they never got punished, Tatoo limitations has not run out,
and Cooper'stown, at least for me on this side of
(21:44):
the microphone, Cooper'stown is not a mister car wash. You
don't roll in there covered in trash, can grease and
come out sparkling. Verlander, whether you like it or not,
sullied his in tire reputation. He rode that sign stealing
(22:05):
scheme straight to a world series ring an alcs NVP
and another Cy Young. It's kind of like getting straight
a's it turns out that you stole someone else's homework,
or if you're a singer, you lip synced. So without
that tainted run where he was a part of it,
(22:28):
he's just another strong pitcher waiting his turn. Now I
realized the Hall of Fame has already embarrassed itself. It's
all you humiliated itself. The baseball riders have turned out
to be total frauds, as they've allowed Carlos to cheater
Beltron to get voted into Cooperstown. Like God forbid, they
don't put Beltron in the Hall of Fame even though
(22:48):
he was a part of that cheating thing as well.
Now Verlander, he said, well, he didn't bet mallor what
are you talking about, mallor calm down, put your pants on.
So Verlander benefited directly. Whether or not he was in
the batter's box hitting, it doesn't matter. He benefited directly
from the biggest scandal in modern baseball history, profiting from
(23:14):
the systemic culture of crooked baseball in Houston. And if
we're gonna let every cheating a hole in on the
first ballot, you might as well just bulldoze the Hall
of Fame in Cooperstown and turn it into a scape room.
Just do it. He'll get in eventually. I wouldn't, you know,
(23:36):
put none of those guys in. He'll get in. Make
them wait, make them wait a little bit. And I
just love the selective outrage that takes place among the
baseball writers. Verlander was very good for the baseball writers.
And who votes for the Hall of Fame. The baseball writers.
He gave good quotes. He gave them from what I've heard,
stuff behind the scenes, and so help them do their job.
(24:00):
They'll scratch his back. He scratched theirs. That's the way
it's gonna work. It shouldn't work that way. Should not
be a first Battle Hall of Famer because he's associated
with the scum of the a holes. Now page two
to Philadelphi. We go the Delaware Valley where Jonathan and
Delaware and Fry Daddy are very happy that the Phillies
(24:23):
have turned a miserable season around. They found a little magic,
although so much magic last night per se or did they?
Donnie Baseball has had a change of heart. Donnie Baseball,
the interim manager Don Mattingly has expressed interest in taking
the Philadelphia Phillies job full time. Yeah maddingly said that
(24:47):
he'd like to keep going. He took over as the
interim manager in late April for Rob Thompson, and the
Phillies were tied for the worst record in baseball. There
were ten games under five hundred and with Mattingly, the
Phillies have the second best record in baseball since he
took over, and the turnaround has put Philadelphia right in
(25:09):
the middle of that playoff race in the National League
with the upstart Marlins and others, So a lot of
upstart situations going on there. So the question how likely
how likely is Don Mattingly to keep the Phillies managerial gig?
All right, So here's the deal. It's been a really
(25:32):
cool story turnaround. They looked like they didn't know what
they were doing for a bunch of dopes the first
couple weeks of the baseball season, and it's great. However,
in Philadelphia, turnarounds are taxed at one hundred percent unless
they come with a deep add on playoff runt, and
it is a small sample size both ways. The start
(25:54):
at nine to nineteen was a small sample size. This
is a bigger sample size. It's still relatively small in
terms of Don Mattingly's job security. It is tied directly
to the month of October. And we all know, you know,
and I know that Don Mattingly's fate will be decided
around the time Starbucks starts pumping out those pumpkin spice lattes.
(26:19):
Because Philly they only evaluate managers in the sweater weather,
and we're not at the sweater weather, right now, so
matting Lee's job interview is going to be the postseason.
The regular season is just the warm up back. This
isn't complicated the NLCS or the World Series. And you
(26:40):
do that and you're likely back. The Dodgers should win
this thing. It's just a matter of how many games
are they gonna have to go seven games in every
series or whatever. Now, if Philly is upset the Dodgers
or something like that, well that certainly helps out. And
Don's old team. He managed the Dodgers years ago, and
so anything less than the NLCS and the World Series.
(27:01):
And he's copying Mike the Leprechaun, packing Hawaiian tropic sunscreen
and looking for flights to Bora Bora is what he's doing.
And Dave Dombrowski, who's from the Old Country, right, He's
from the Old country. Don Browski, he doesn't do patience.
He swaps managers like Dura sel batteries, is what he does.
(27:24):
All right, now, final point one of the games I
was watching, I'm gonna go to Pittsburgh. The Atlanta Braves
see Atlanta Braves and the Pittsburgh Pirates were playing a
game last night. And in that game, someone named Jared Jones.
Keeping up with the Joneses, I am told that as
a starting pitcher for the Pirates, Jared Jones, he's twenty four.
(27:45):
He threw six perfect innings of baseball against the Braves.
He struck out eight. He was only at seventy seven
pitches through six innings. It was a scoreless game against Atlanta.
And at that point, someone named Don Kelly, who we
are told is the manager of the Pittsburgh baseball team, decided,
you know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna take this
(28:07):
guy out of the game. He removed Jared Jones out
of the game at the start of the seventh inning
out of and of course an abundance of caution because
of pitch limit. And that's it. He's coming back from
elbow surgery. Of course, what do you think the fans
in Pittsburgh did the bucko fans? Did they raise the
(28:29):
jolly Roger? No, they threw the jolly roger at the
Pirates manager. They boot boom, They didn't shout shame, shame, shame.
Look the fans in Sacramento di al right, A good
job by them.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Now.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
The Braves went on to win the game three nothing.
And a former Pirate, the man named after the subway
system in San Francisco, Joey Bart, who also played for
the Giants. But he couldn't how much money Joey Bart
could have made if he was good. He sucks like
he's bad at baseball, But if he had been good
with the Giants and they thought he was gonna be good,
and you know Bart in the Bay Area, rapid transits
(29:03):
called Bart. That would have been perfect didn't work out,
although in this night it did. He hit the game
winning home run in the eighth inning. Now, the story
is not that. The story is the removal of the pitcher.
This is the second time, the second time we've been
having this conversation this week, days after the controversy with
the Marlins pulling Uri Perez after seven perfect ginnings in
(29:27):
the aforementioned Sacramento So the question, can you make any
sense of the Pirates in a home game, pulling Jared
Jones from a perfect game after just seventy seven pitches?
All right, So it's not a slope. It's a nope.
It's not a slope, it's a nope. It continues to
(29:48):
be something that is foreign to me. This is not
the baseball I grew up with. I know things evolve.
Aren't they supposed to evolve for the better? Aren't things
supposed to improve, not get worse? Can anyone tell me
that this is not a step backwards? It's bizarro world.
Major League Baseball teams are run by pathetic cowards who
hate fun and they hate history. They don't want greatness.
(30:13):
It's a race to the bottom because they've been zombified
by the Geeks. That's what's happened to baseball. And I
don't know any Don Kelly, you don't need to learn
the name of the Pirates manager because none of them
have been relevant since Jim Leland, and that's a long
time ago. But John Kelly yanked this guy Jones like
(30:33):
a little league kid over an arbitrary elbow surgery precaution
thing of a jig. Consequently, Jones became this is how
pathetic the Pirates are in baseball. This guy, Jared Jones
became the first starter since nineteen oh one to retire
every batter over six plus innings and not get the win.
(30:55):
You know what that is? Cosmic Justice. Pittsburgh lost Cosmic
Justice Front offices. And I continue to flog a dead
horse front offices are so terrified of the imaginary injury
boogeyman that they would rather ruin historic moments, which used
to be points that they would sell. I was like, hey,
(31:17):
if this guy through a perfect game next year, will
have a bobblehead night, will have perfect game blanket night.
Now it's like no, no, no, we must take these
people out of the game. It's wild, and it just
goes against everything that I was raised with with sports
that you're supposed to chase immortality. There have been twenty
four perfect games in baseball. That's it. They don't care
(31:40):
about that. That's a legacy game, a perfect game. They
don't care about that. What they care about more is
appeasing the nerds and more importantly, covering their asses. That's
what this is about, right, Conservative pitch counts. As we
pointed out in a previous episode of the show, major
League Baseball actually has the data that proves pitch counts
(32:02):
are for gays, meaning there's no direct correlation causation that
if you throw eighty pitches, you're fine. If you throw
ninety five pitches, it's a problem. Right if you throw
ninety five pigs like this guy Jones he threw seventy
seven pitches. If he threw one hundred and ten pitches,
his arm would have fallen like if you drop a
(32:23):
candalope off a skyscraper and it would have blown up. Now,
there was a game involving the Blue Jays and the
Giants where Dylan Cees did have a no hitter and
he threw one hundred and eighteen pitches, and the reaction
he's an older player. Good for the Blue Jays. I
will compliment the Blue Jays. Good job by them. They
allowed him in a ten to nothing game to go
out there. There's a guy that a team that gets it.
(32:46):
Of course, not an American team. The Toronto Blue Jays,
they get it. They allowed their guy to go out
there and Chase History didn't work out. He didn't get
the no hitter and you know, gave up a base
hit to start the ninth inning. But the point is
you go for and I promise you all right, the
idea is that you don't shoot for the moon. They
don't shoot for the moon. They're happy circling the parking lot,
(33:08):
babying pictures most of the time into mediocrity. Now, when
I become Commissioner of baseball. I am opening up re
education camps to teach these bozos that doing the bare
minimum is not a good thing. It should not be
celebrated and it should be looked down upon. You should
(33:29):
be shamed when you do this kind of bull crap.
And that's just the way it is.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Meller
Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
He go, here we go, here we go, here we go.
Speaker 4 (33:41):
How about we go.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
To the third degree?
Speaker 4 (33:46):
Oh man, what does that open sound like? I don't
even I don't even hear it anymore. It was noted
on Tuesday morning by The Athletic that Donovan Mitchell signing
his new extension que will not impact the salary cap
for this coming season, so it wouldn't impact Cleveland's attempt
to sign Lebron James Ben the Cavs was your prediction
all along?
Speaker 1 (34:04):
That's right?
Speaker 4 (34:04):
What odds would you give it of happening at this point?
Speaker 1 (34:06):
All right? So I say it's a seventy five percent
chance that Lebron goes to Cleveland. So that's a seven
to fifty hitter in baseball. That's the ending Lebron's all
worried about his image, his reputation. That's the Disney when
they make the Disney movie about Lebron, that's the ending
fade to black. Lebron comes back, wins another championship in
Cleveland with his son next.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
Kevin O'Connell made some comments this week that suggests that
the starting quarterback job in Minnesota is Kyler Murrays to lose,
which had me wondering, how much of a leash do
you think Murray will have during the season.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
So Kyle usually is pretty good for the first three
or four games. Right about the time the new Call
of Duty comes out, he's cooked. So you just got
to look at the date, contact the maker of Call
of Duty, and that's when you're gonna know that he's out. Listen,
Murray's not that good. He's a mediocre NFL quarterback. He'll
play well for a few games now and then, but
he's not He's not gonna last in Minnesota.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
Next this week, Connor McGregor returns to the octagon for
the first time in five years in a rematch with
Max Holloway. McGregor returns as a plus one eighty underdog
Ben how much would a Losster at McGregor's brand at
this point.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
All right, this is how bad it is. I did
I did the math on the scoop. If Connor McGregor
loses and gets embarrassed again, he's going to have to
fight one of the Paul brothers. Okay, that's how bad
this is. Connor McGregor versus like Jake Paul. If he
doesn't get it done this week, how did we go?
You pass this edition? That is a when winter win
a winner.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
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. It's now time for.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Time for Horry Henry Harry.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Wait ask bad Twitter said this your questions on Twitter?
Speaker 4 (35:53):
Now?
Speaker 1 (35:54):
All right, here we go. It's point at me and
like a trained seal at sea, World will start bouncing
the beach ball on my head in this case, over
to the Kooper loop for the reading of the questions.
Here we go, Coop.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
All right, We're gonna start off with a question from
ferg Dog. Hi Fergie, he would like to know do
you like sprinkles on your ice cream? Or are you
an adult?
Speaker 1 (36:21):
I don't hate sprinkles. I'm more of like a cupcake guy.
I don't mind sprinkles on that. But that's not like
I demand sprinkles. I'm open to them, Lorena.
Speaker 5 (36:32):
You know, I don't hate sprinkles. I love the aesthetic
of it. I'm not a big fan of the flavor itself.
It's very there's no flavor of Yeah, it's just very chalky.
I don't know if it's needed, but I do think
it's pretty well.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
It's like our our friend Tammy Montana used to send us,
Remember the Coop's the cakes we got Coop that were
with fond it yes, which looks wonderful caste like crap
so bad, it's so terrible, Coop.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
I have never been a fan of sprinkles, even even
as a kid.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
That's that's a flex by Coop. I'm better than you, Papa.
With you those sprinkles. They don't don't taste good. There's
no taste to them. It's more of a visual case.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
It's not a good one.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
I don't think there's a taste if you if you
have the syrup on top of them, there's really no taste. Next.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
All right, here's a question for some reason, he says,
just for me and Loraina.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
I don't I don't know, Okay, I will not answer.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
This is from alf the alien o Piner. He wants
to know how do you guys feel about people who
put their feet on the dash while writing in car?
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Oh? He he asked me this on the Okay.
Speaker 5 (37:38):
I should start then. Yes, I am the people who
put the feet on the dash and I feel really
bad sometimes because I'll do it like barefooted too, and
then I'll leave my I can see my little toe
prints on the on the dashboard, and I have cute feet,
and I'm still like, oh huh, I should watch that.
Speaker 4 (37:53):
I feel bad sometimes that goes back.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
I did say on the podcast. I know I'm interrupting,
but I said, it's mostly women that do this.
Speaker 4 (38:00):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (38:00):
A lot of men who put their feet up exactly.
I like sitting in a ball.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
What can I say?
Speaker 1 (38:06):
I hate it.
Speaker 4 (38:06):
It's disgusting. Don't put your feet on my dash.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
I feel like Coop. You love your car, right, You
take good care of your car. That's a big part
of who you are is your car. I do I
do like my car.
Speaker 4 (38:22):
Yeah, I like my car.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
I like my too. But I don't worry. I watch
it every weekend. I think I have the oldest car
on the show, by the way, Yeah you do, pretty sure.
Speaker 5 (38:30):
So you also said that you don't like buying new cars.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
So that's just Oh I got burned. I had a lemon.
I got the back door.
Speaker 5 (38:37):
But the back passenger door of my brand new car
does not open from the inside, completely broken, and I
haven't known because I don't sit back there.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Oh man, well do you? Is it under warranty? You
get fixed? Right? Okay, get it fixed, but you better
not wait on that or else you drive a lot,
so on it next, all right?
Speaker 4 (38:54):
Shane and des Moines would like to know. Hi, Shane,
would you rather have what would you rather have in
your home? A movie theater style popcorn machine or a
cotton candy machine?
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Definitely popcorn. You know you can only eat so much
cotton candy and then your your head will explode. Popcorn
is great because you nor only make the butter popcorn.
There's ways you can manipulate it with the kettle corn
and all that. So the popcorn is the way to go.
What about you, Lorena? Popcorn all day cool?
Speaker 4 (39:21):
Not even a big fan of popcorn, But I would
rather have that than the cotton candy machine.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
All right, movie popcorn those next level.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Next Donkey Sausage would like to know what would you
consider the funniest moment in the show's history.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
It's a tough one. Yeah, I mean there, you know,
there's been so many crazy things that have happened, like
on the air, off the air. We've had zany moments.
You eating the hot dog, the what else did you eat? Tea?
The vacilline vasoline years ago? Hemis Henry Hill yelling and
(40:02):
cursing at me outside the door of the Fox Sports
mob guy. You know who Henry Hill is? Lorena he
uh yeah, good fellas. He was in the Witness Protection.
That was amazing. Weed Man on the Lifeguard Tower, Genie
and Medford versus Pete and Pittsburgh. I can go on
and on.
Speaker 4 (40:19):
We've had some duet with oh yes, real talking Eddie.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
It was so good, Oh Eddie, mister serious newsman and
breaking into song. We can go on and on. That
was a good question.
Host
Ben Maller
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