March 3, 2021 • 38 mins
Jason Smith and Mike Harmon discuss Terry Francona’s son Nick calling out the Cleveland Indians’ organization for the handling of Mickey Calloway’s actions amidst his sexual allegations. The guys also discuss what the Chicago Bears will do with QB Mitchell Trubisky and discuss the rumor mill surrounding QB Russell Wilson. Plus, FSR/MLB Insider Jon Paul Morosi joins the guys to discuss all from the MLB!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to the best of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Carmen podcast. Be sure to catch us
live every weeknight from ten pm to two am Eastern
seven to eleven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find
your local station for The Jason Smith Show with Mike
Harmon at Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream us
live every night on the I Heart Radio app by
searching fs. This is the best of The Jason Smith
(00:23):
Show with Mike Harmon on Fox Sports Radio. If Major
League Baseball isn't careful, they have a story that's gonna
put a stain on the game for the next couple
of months. Look, you're getting ready. Teams are in spring training.
Now games have just started. Everybody's excited. Hope springs eternal.
(00:44):
And then we get this story today about Mickey Calloway.
Mickey Calloway who is under investigation by Major League Baseball
for uh sexual behavior of an unwanted sort towards women
who have accused him of this over the course of
his time with a couple of different organizations. And Mickey
(01:04):
Callaway has taken a leave where he has been suspended
with pay from the Angels. He's their pitching coach. Now,
while this is being investigated, and it was a real
seamy story with a lot of tawdry facts. Uh. For
the last few years, Mickey Callaway is fighting this. However,
there's a lot of people that have come forward and said, yes,
(01:25):
he did this. He would send me pictures that were
unsolicited Mickey Callaway now with three different organizations, and who
is going to say they knew what when you have
the angels Now, he was a manager of the Mets,
and he was the pitching coach of the Cleveland Indians.
So while this story had kind of gone away for
a little while, today it comes up in a big
(01:45):
way because it was found out that while he was
the pitching coach of the Cleveland Indians, there was a
situation in which he allegedly had an affair with another woman,
and the woman's husband eventually came full word and spoke
to the Indians and spoke to them all about what
was going on. That there were unsolicited pictures that he
(02:06):
was sending to his wife of parts of his anatomy.
And this was a story that got so far as
there were conversations with the Indians manager Terry Francona and
and other members in the organization. President of Baseball Operations
Chris Antonetti. Uh, many people were in on this got
so much the point where the husband wanted to talk
(02:28):
to Mickey Callaway. Terry Francona offered to talk to the
husband instead, and Mickey Callaway just wanted this to go away. Now,
why is this a big deal? It's a big deal
because Antonetti, when he responded to this story about Mickey Callaway, said,
we had no knowledge of anything going on with Mickey
Callaway while he was pitching coach here. So the thing
(02:48):
is about the part Mike with the What did the
Indians know? That's the big thing. You talk about affairs
and in Major League Baseball. Okay, then if you're just
talking about people having affairs and sports, uh, all of
a sudden, you're opening a can of worms that that
you know it's affairs, right, it's not between the people involved, right,
And it's not illegally consenting, and it's not illegal, and
(03:12):
it's not about and it's not about anything someone's gonna
go to jail for. But when you are accused by
multiple people of potentially committing a crime, then this is
where you get in a lot of trouble. And when
you say no, we had no knowledge, when clearly the
reports have shown that you did know. And when you
(03:33):
were asked about Mickey Callaway, you didn't say anything. You
didn't bring anything up to the Mets when the Mets
wanted to hime because Callaway was a really hot guy. Right,
everybody wanted to hire Mickey Callaway a couple of years ago.
It's great bitching coach got guys to sigh Young's. He
was terrific, he had great ideas. When you lied about it, okay,
lying about saying we didn't know anything about Mickey Callaway.
This is where the Indians suck. Okay, this is where
(03:55):
they suck. And this is why situations like this continue
to happen in the world of sports. Right, and I'm
gonna get to the Mets in a second, because the
Mets suck to all Right, this is where situations happen
in sports where women are not able to feel empowered
and feel that they are victims. Because you couldn't even
get the Indians to say, you know what, yeah, this happened.
We didn't know. It was so devout, we didn't know.
(04:17):
We just knew we had an affair. But oh yeah,
but when you lie and say nothing ever came to
to our attention on this one. Clearly unsolicited pornographic pictures
were a part of this. How could you sit there
and say, oh, yeah, we didn't know about it. This
is why I understand why women are afraid to come forward,
because here's where the story actually breaks. And the Cleveland
Indians decide, no, we're gonna have a ten year old's
(04:38):
attitude of I don't wanted many things. I might get
in trouble, so let's just say, okay, no, it didn't happen,
when clearly everybody in in the situation knows this had
come up before, and this is something that could become public.
I I really the the Cleveland Indians, they suck with this, man,
I really get you know what if you got to
take d L because you had a guy who have
sexually inappropriate behavior get accused it, and you had a
(05:00):
I and say no, you gotta take the L and
say yeah, we gotta do better on it, at least
the Mets, and they gotta do better. And then the
Mets have the story today that Mickey Calloye had a
nickname called blank pick Mick, and he would text me,
texting people all the time, like a couple of hours
before the game, what are you doing on your phone?
You're not doing any worried about why are you on
your phone two hours before you have a game at night?
So the Mets kind of knew that he was this
(05:21):
kind of guy. And still the Mets, Oh yeah, we
didn't know anything. We we didn't know anything. Really, the
Mets suck too when it comes to this, all right,
they you know, you have to take the loss and
understand that the biggest thing here is that you have
to make sure everything is safe for people to be
able to have their careers, and they should be People
should be able to women should be able to work
(05:42):
in the sports world not having to worry about things
like this. And you couldn't even admit, yeah, boy, we
screwed up. Yeah boy, we really screwed this up. That
that's just embarrassing to me on all levels because we're
the was this something for the Indians that they could say, well, no,
I wasn't affair, Okay, I get it, But boy, when
this comes you say, no, we didn't know anything about it. No, No,
that that's the bad part of it for me. Man,
(06:02):
when I see that that's the bad part. Well again,
if it was just an indiscretion and consenting adults, and
obviously that's that's terrible. But you got it to the
point where you have security getting involved and a woman's
husband coming in saying, look, this is all you know unsolicited.
And now we've we've crossed the line between you know
(06:25):
a guy and you know his his phone to keep
it clean for the good people across this country. Uh,
and what it it becomes and it becomes a pattern. Right,
you have Terry Francona's son took to Twitter and started
blasting the organization and what they they knew and and look,
(06:46):
the cover up was always worse than the crime itself. Right.
Once you look like you're just trying to push things
things away, it means that you've got to do a
larger investigation to see what else is potentially bare there
as well. And if this happens in multiple organization and
you keep passing the buck, yeah, we don't know anything.
(07:06):
Good luck. You know it's the the you get fired
from a company and the only thing they can do
in verification is get the dates that you work somewhere.
You might have been a horrible man, woman, employee, whatever
you were doing. But all they can say is, yeah,
they were here for a year, and that it's you know,
buy or beware. And you have people trying to find
(07:26):
out exactly what happened, uh if someone separating from companies
too quickly. But in this case, we know that is
a close knit fraternity across Major League Baseball, and the
Walls have years and clearly today they so they got
the walls got in front of a microphone. Uh, and
this went up to a whole other level. I really,
(07:48):
it's it's just amazing that when when you have to
take the l when you have to you know what,
we did this and we didn't do it right, and
when we should have done it better, when you lie
and say we didn't know, Oh my goodness man. I mean,
that's that's something that makes me feel bad because because
that makes me even worse because the the outcome of
this should be and I'm hoping that the outcome is
(08:09):
this kind of behavior now across sports is not going
to be allowed, is not going to be tolerated anymore,
where we're gonna wink and look the other way for
whatever reason, we don't want to be embarrassed. We don't
want to be a national story. We don't want this
to be a thing. I'm hoping that that's the result
of this. This is a bad story for everybody involved. Look,
it was Mickey Callaway, it was Jared Porter, it's it
we just it was just it's just been bad and
(08:30):
and the hopefully the outcome would be that all right. Now,
teams have to do more due diligence when they're hiring somebody,
and if there's something in their past, they have to
they have to make sure they know it. Uh, Teams
have to make sure they tell the truth about players
when they know things. I'm hoping that that's the outcome
because we need something good come out of this situation,
which has been really bad. But it's just I'm not
(08:52):
convinced that it's going to be good because of how
the Indians have acted, you know, throughout this, and the
Mets to an extent too. You know, it's I I
really just shake my head and go, how do you
not just say, hey, we'll do better. We really screwed
this up, man, we really really did. And we apologize
and we're sorry, but man, we we screwed this up.
But we will I promise we're gonna do better. It's
like people don't want to say that. No, no no, no,
(09:13):
because if I if I just ignore it, maybe it
won't come up. Maybe it won't come up. And you
know what if this was or yeah, okay, I can
see where stories get buried and you have the confidence
that well, this is never gonna come up. Why would
this come up? I mean, there's no reason for this
to come up. And know it's two thousand one. People
find stuff out now, especially when everything was documented. When
(09:34):
you went to Major League Baseball and you went to
the Indians and they talked about it, did you really
think that wasn't gonna happen? I mean, I don't understand
what the philosophy people have when they when they think, well,
maybe it won't come up, right that that that's where
I want to go to. I want I want to
I want to pin all my hopes on the maybe
nobody will say anything. Oh wow, that's that's that's just
that's just never gonna work out for you, no matter
(09:54):
how I really, it's just not just never never gonna work.
Spending your days wishing, wanting, ho being, waiting to be
whether it's find out whether you're part of the news
cycle or not. Not not a good way to be.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven
pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart
(10:15):
Radio app. Hey, what's up everybody? It's me three time
pro bowler La Barrington and I couldn't be more excited
to announce a new podcast called Up on Game? What
is Up on Game? You asked, along with my fellow
pro bowler t J. Hudshman's OTTA and Super Bowl Champion.
That's right, Plexico Birds. You can only name a show
(10:36):
with that type of talent on it. Up on Game.
We're going to be sharing our real life experiences loaded
with teachable moments. Listen to Up on Game with Me,
LaVar Arrington, t J. Hudgman's OTTA, and Plexico Birds on
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you
get your podcast from. A big statement from the Bears
(10:59):
to a Ryan Pace saying that, hey, you know, we
haven't ruled out anything as far as quarterbacks next year,
and there is a report that the Bears could stick
with Mitchell Trabisky is their quarterback. There's also report that
the Bears could go after Alex Smith because look, Alex Smith, Look,
when when you play for the head coach previously, you're
(11:20):
gonna be somebody the head coach likes. And so just
like Frank Gore with Adam Gates, this is what could
happen now in Chicago. This would be the most Bears
of Bears results in one if your quarterbacks were Mitchell
Trabisky and Alex Smith, It's like, let's keep going and
make it like it's eighteen. We're gonna give the guy
(11:42):
another chance who has shown that he really isn't the
next level quarterback, and we're gonna get a backup who
can play if he has to that everybody's gonna want
to see play at some point, just like we had
Nick Foles. It's like you're repeating again, same GM, same
head coach, eight and eight is your sea link. This
would be the most Bears of Bears quarterback stories if
(12:04):
your guys next year were True Bisky and Alex Smith,
and you know what's gonna happen, And I will vote
the Bears most of the team most destined for mediocrity
because I'm gonna well, but You've got all sorts of
stories that circulate because the other one is, hey, don't
be surprised if they take a huge swing to bring
in either Russell Wilson or Deshaun Watson. Just basically, the
(12:26):
will mortgage all the future to save our jobs for
as long as the new quarterback can carry us. There's
that obviously. Uh you listen to a Bears presser. Uh
And I did listen to as much as I could
stomach before really walking away, learning nothing except if I
had a bingo card of euphemisms for uh teamwork and
(12:48):
camaraderie and everything that goes down there. Uh you you
you could have filled a full card and then some
uh hey, right, as many words as you can about
how you can get along as good teammates. Okay, let's go,
and that's it. Obviously praised Alex Smith's leadership. That was
part of it. So that's what gets everybody's tongues wagging.
(13:10):
He saw Mitchell Robinski the final month of the season
when they, you know, called some plays that took advantage
of the fact that he can move as a runner
and get to the outside and create some space. Gee,
who might have looked at game taped in his first
couple of years, and seeing that that was there, not
that coaching staff didn't want to bother it was too much. Hey,
(13:33):
let's get Nick Foles on the field. We promised, uh,
we promised him basically is what you got out of Chicago.
So I think it's an absolute uttermass because the other
part is that you know, now they're shooting back at
Allen Robinson's agent about getting to the table, and Robinson
has been in the in the press. He's actually shown
(13:53):
up in a couple of zoom calls just randomly to
talk about free agency and contracts. It's like, yeah, they
haven't even offered me anything. Be sure to catch live
editions of The Jason Smith Show with Mike harmon weekdays
at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific. The NBA and
many insiders and executives are thinking and preparing themselves for
(14:17):
a star player who was going to force his way
to the Knicks next season. Right now, that's an incredible,
incredible storyline. Kurt Healan's got it. Pro Basketball Talk uh
NBN NBC insider Brian win Horst as well, we're gonna
have them. We're gonna have Kurt Healen on the show
next hour. But just think about that for a second. Alright,
(14:38):
the NBA is ready for for a story where a
star is gonna force his way to the Knicks, not
away from the Knicks, not leaving the Knicks, but to
the Knicks. I mean, this hasn't happened in years, and
it goes to show you. Right, the Nets can sign
all the superstars they want to write. They could put
their three superstars on the floor, and right now they
are barely staying ahead of the Knicks in headlines and
(15:02):
relevancy in New York and outside of the market it is.
It's always gonna be a Knicks town, right. The Knicks
at five hundred is as big as story as the
Nets doing that obviously throughout the country well, the Nets
and their superstars, because superstars in the NBA, that's who
we follow. We follow the k Ds of the world,
the Kyrie Irving's to James Harden's, you know, But in
your in your hometown market, you want to be able
to Hey, we're the number one team. Dodgers. Never want
(15:24):
to be number two to the Angels, right, you can't.
You can't be that. Pups never want to say Hey,
you know the White Sox really, but they know they
don't want that, all right, They can't. They can't have
the years when that happened. Hell, even when the White
Sox went to the World Series and and dominated the
Astros in two thousand five, it was what's wrong with
the Cubs? How come they can't do this about the
White Sox? But really, I mean, that's when you think
(15:47):
about it, that's a that's a really big deal that
you could have all this great stuff in brook Law. Yeah,
but the Knicks are five hundred boy, they're a big story, right,
and you get a superstar next year. I mean, look,
whether it's Janice or Luca don sich Or or Spie
Mitchell or Steph Curry, you know Lillard Lebron while he's
(16:08):
on the Devin Booker. Sure, I mean all you who
who knows who this superstar is that wants to it's
gonna force his way to the Knicks. Look, Brian win
Horse and Kurt Healin said, we have ideas who they are,
but they they're not saying anything right now. So Kurt
h next hour, he doesn't leave the show next hour
until he tells us who it is. He doesn't leave
the show until he tells us. But that's a really
(16:30):
big deal, man. I mean you you've gone, and you've
changed that narrative in a second, in an absolute second,
I really. I mean look, i mean Janice or Steph
or I mean, look, I'm sure there's guys I'm missing too.
You know, it could be Nicola Yokitch. It couldn't. Yeah,
there's all that. I mean, look, it could be anybody,
because the Knicks are just that desirable. I mean, Jordan's
always played well in the garden. Sure, Look, everybody loves
(16:51):
playing in the garden. They just didn't want to play
for the Knicks in the garden. They just didn't want that.
So it's like, well I like playing there, but you know,
I don't want to actually play on the team. It's
okay to play on the team the fog cat like
playing in the garden. So who knows who it could be.
I mean, listen, we don't know who it's gonna be.
We have no idea. It could be Jimmy Butler. Well,
(17:12):
it could be anybody that wants three weeks ago it
was if they if they don't get over, then Julius
Randall be in another uniform. You know, the former and
once again laker. I think was the ashtag that started
making the Yeah, I mean listen, listen, you know, you know, listen,
whether it is Rudy Gobert or not, whether it's Zion
(17:35):
Williamson or not, I mean, it's it's somebody that's look that,
that's who the Knicks are gonna get forcing their way
via trade. Can you imagine if that's what it was,
if it was Zion who wanted to do it. Can
you imagine, Hey, let's just throw out people and be
really irresponsible. These are the players we heard who could
be forcing their way to the Knicks next year. I
just started ripping off stars and say, oh, I can't
(17:56):
believe that could be one of these guys. Can I
Can I throw this out to you? Sure? Go ahead, buddy.
Um if it is zign, you want to buy some
Zigon rookie cards, you know all, dude, I was thinking
about you today. I almost called almost facetimed you. Have
I ever facetimed you before? No, I almost FaceTime to
(18:17):
you because today we were going to lunch, right Pam
and I and Zoe and we were going to uh,
we're getting We're getting bagels for lunch. And we parked
and it's in this big like minimall area, and we
parked the car and we get out and we were
walking across the sidewalk and there are all these baseball
cards that are just spread out on the sidewalk like
somebody had like open like two packs of baseball cards
(18:40):
and for some reason just dropped them and ran away.
There's all the like from a display and from there
you could be right, but I mean, if someone's chased them,
you'd think they would have picked up the cards. So
I'm going, boy, look at all these guys. There was
a Michael Confordo. There, there was this and I was
almost gonna FaceTime. You would go, dude, should I pick
these up? But you know, I'm thinking COVID and who
knows why they're here? And the way I to wash
(19:00):
the cards and wash my hands, I'm like, nah, I'm
not gonna do it. So we go into eat and
I come out ten minutes later and two women are
are are are throwing them in their backpacks and the
regularly go look at this one, look at this one.
I said, I actually go buy him, and I go, hey, hey,
Michael Confordo. One's where some money? Huh? You mean, while
you know Michael confordo card is not worth anything, but hey,
the Conflorda one was where's some money? So okay, a
(19:21):
Conforto card. I almost called you to say, hey, should
I pick these up or not? You know, I don't know,
and I probably would have if it wasn't for COVID,
but be with COVID, I think, you know, I don't know.
And then this was something from a you know, and
who knews if it was something from a card store
like you said that, you know, and the owner was
chasing down these kids. Hey, come back here with that
(19:42):
need right now, there's a lot of investors in the
Fernando Tatis junior market. Uh No, the big thing right
now is anything at retail, at a Target of Walmart
or anywhere else. Uh. You got lines of grown men
looking to just find the distributor and clear him out,
(20:04):
so they split it evenly, send them on their way,
and then they sell it on re resale. Like you're
not finding cards just in the wild generally, and if
you do, you've kind of won the lottery. Ah, alright,
very nice and all right, So I would have I
thought about you today. But I appreciate that body the
COMFORTO really wouldn't have moved the needle for me. I mean,
I found this cool old Sam Vincent card that has uh,
(20:27):
Michael Jordan in the number twelve uniform. That's cool. Wow,
that's gonna be worth some money. That's worth yeah, normally
a nickel. But then you say, hey, wait, it's Jordan's
in the number twelve jersey. But seriously about the Knicks.
And we'll get to the labels in a second, but
the thing was seriously about the Knicks. No, this is
(20:47):
not just a Knicks conversation, but this is about how
important it is to change the culture and what you
can do once you do that, and it's it's it
seems like a very difficult thing to do because the
Knick couldn' change the culture for years, but they finally
figured out the right combination. Leon Rose running things, James
Donlan not making headlines at all. Tom Thibodeaux is the
(21:09):
right coach, and and it's instantaneous, and it just happens
that fast. When you hire the right people, you kind
of know, and around the league people know because you
can you can sit back and and and and think
well as a player gonna want to go play for
this GM or this head coach. You don't think when
players are coming up and their free agents there are
not on the phone with their agents saying, hey, this
is what this head coach is like, this is what
(21:30):
this GM is like, this is who I trust, this
is who I don't trust. And then when you find out, oh, dude,
Tom Thibodeaux, man, he's gonna get the Knicks playing hard.
He's gonna be great for your career. Look what he's
doing for Julius Randall, the guys an All Star now,
and we'll get me to New York. I mean, that's
how fast it changes. It changes in a second. I
was gonna avoid doing the New York manute thing because
I wasn't doing my Berman impression. But anything can change.
(21:54):
That shows you how important it is and how big
you can you can flip it like that, And and
the Knicks are the shining example. Then for every team
that thinks, oh we're we're mired and mediocrity, where this
for that? Look look at a team like the Sons, right,
the Sons just gonna be a team that Look, they're
gonna waste Devin Booker's career, and who know, and now
suddenly what do they do. They go get Chris Paul
and hey, wait a minute, now we got a nice
(22:15):
big three with Booker and Paul and eight is pretty good,
and Bridges is playing well, and you know, you are
are our bench is okay. But we're winning a lot
of games here, man, we got the same record as
the Lakers. Basically, suddenly the Suns in one offseason and
and you can really point to, hey, what happened at
the end in the bubble. The Sons won a lot
of games. Then Chris Paul jumps in. That changes the
(22:36):
culture and and the Sons are now a team that, hey,
we're ready to compete in the Western Conference. We are.
We are that good. Sometimes it's a coach, sometimes the GM,
sometimes the player. But you look at these teams and
then look, the Sons are giving the Lakers all they
can handle. Right now, they're up by two less than
two minutes before halftime. And and that's how it is.
You know, for all these teams that are sitting in
the bottom of the conference, whether it's the NBA, NFL, Hey,
(22:59):
you know, what all you need is is one big move,
one good move, and you could change exactly how your
team goes. I mean, the Sixers came into this year
with basically the same team. What do they get to
get a little bit more from their bench? And Doc
Rivers has come in and he's been the guy that, Hey,
it's always great early on with Doc with a new team, right,
that's when the salad days are. Doc is a players coach.
(23:20):
They love him. Then think the more Doc stays, the
worst things get. But this first year with Philadelphia has
been great so far, and that's been a big culture
change for a team. It was a nice fifty win
team over the course of season. Hey, we're gonna win
fifty games. We're gonna be seated fourth and fifth. Maybe
we win the first round, maybe we don't. Now, Hey
the seventies Sixers are a team their favorite to get
(23:40):
to the Eastern Conference finals. Now sometimes it changes like that. Well,
and the biggest step is if you've had issues with
your ownership, read the Knicks that they got to get
out of the way. And then he finally seemingly has
gotten out of the way, hired basketball people that are
there to build four that aren't looking to the past.
(24:01):
Sorry Phil uh and carrying whatever you know, there's gonna
be animosity trying to get things done with with Phil Jackson.
For the number of guys that he vanquished through the years,
they're not gonna help him rebuild in in New York
now as an exact, So that didn't work, and now
you have a new team. You've got a coach that
(24:22):
these guys, at least for the moment it bought into.
I mean what they're gonna look like. Regular season goes
through mid May. That's a long time to play the
kind of minutes and style that Thibodeau wants to do.
But they're in for the moment you have Philadelphia mentioned
Doc Rivers honeymoon phase. Guys are in. They they're excited.
You know, he's had his success shortfalls as well, and
(24:46):
and a lot swirling out of last season. But the
bubble created its own unique circumstances that everybody kind of
had to deal with, and well, as we saw, the
Clippers didn't handle very well. But yeah, it takes one
or two moves, but you've got to have a team
that decides they're gonna adopt the style that the coach
(25:07):
is going to implement. As much as we like to say, hey,
the coach should work with what talent he has. We
know that's not the way it goes. It makes more
sense that way. But nine times out of ten, it's
all right, here's what I want to do, and you're
either in or you're out. Right they go full Oceans
eleven Danny Ocean slapping that ticket to Vegas in front
of Matt Damon and saying right now, and that's that's it.
(25:31):
And for some of these younger teams it's easier, right,
they're still trying to make their bones. Guy like Julius Randall,
he's he knows all the bad headlines he got as
a young player. When we go back to the Knicks,
he he doesn't want to see those again, right. He
wants to show that he belongs among the highest paid
and high highest complimented players for your beloved Knicks. Because
(25:51):
if you could restore basketball at the Garden, you're a
hero forever. I mean now that otherwise you gotta go
back to Willis Red. I mean, that's what's talking about, man,
and what Phil Jackson was throwing bows in the low
post going back to seventy three when the Mets and
the Knicks or at the top of the world in
sports Twitter and out about a Fresco, Mike and Swollender.
(26:13):
But just look at those teams like the Sixers, the Sons,
the Knicks. Bravo to them for getting it right and
changing the culture with one move. Could be a GM,
could be a head coach, could be a player, could
be front office. You'd make the right move and look
how fast you can become big time players. Be sure
to catch live editions of The Jason Smith Show with
Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific
(26:36):
on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app.
Getting set to join us now on the hotline Fox
Sports One Baseball Insider MLB Network insider who is working
on a ten thousand page column on the debut of
Marcus Stroman's new split change. It is John Paul Morossy JP.
What's happening, Buddy, Good evening, my friends, and I appreciate
(27:00):
that we will not dwell too much on Michigan's lopsided
loss to illinoisa this evening. I think it was a
grand total of two field goals made between Dickinson and Wagner.
So hard for the Mazing Blue to win under those circumstances. Yeah,
but you're still gonna be a one seed in the tournament.
You're still there's three great teams in college basketball, and
(27:21):
you're one of them. I'm confident. I think this is
the most excited that I have been about present and
future of Michigan basketball, probably since the bat five. I mean,
I realized that there have been two championship game appearances
in the interim. But this team is incredible and and
(27:42):
the talent that is coming John Howard, he has got
to be the coach of the year, right, the Naseman
coach of the year without question. Sure. Listen, you're a
basketball school. Now you are completely basketball school. I mean
I would say basketball and baseball they made it to
the world. Is there any other sport to discuss? Is
(28:05):
there any other sport talked about? I don't think so,
although frozen for maybe Ellen Bowman. Ellen Bowman had a
pretty good career there in Lubbock, so maybe he is
the answer after all these years of quarterback for Jim Harbaugh.
All right, well, let's get into something that's a little
bit harder to break down than the disappointment of the
Michigan football program, and that is the age of Albert
(28:27):
pool Holes. Now he has listed as forty one years old.
But earlier today, David Samson, who was former Marlin's president
for fifteen years UH said on the Dan Lebotard Show
that no one in baseball believes Albert Pools was the
age he says he was. When he was going to
sign his big contract with the Angels, Samson said, we
didn't care. We knew the last couple of years we're
gonna stink, but we wanted Albert. It didn't work out
(28:49):
for us, So Pools is listed at one. He says,
everybody believes he's older. Well, what do you hear about
pool Holes JP, Well, to me, I have no reason
into disbelieve what Albert has said about about his birthday.
And one of the big reasons is that there was
the time earlier on really was after nine eleven where
(29:11):
where basically everybody had the double check and validate what
their what their age was, And so there was a
time in baseball again it was basically the off season
after after two thousand one, where when players are coming
back into the country who may have been born elsewhere,
there was a double checking and a verifying of birthdates
(29:32):
and and obviously Albert by then was already in the
MLB system, and it never came up that there was
anything different than what he had presented. So to me,
I I realized that this has been a topic in
the past where it's been speculated about, and again it
was brought up via these comments from a former executive
(29:53):
in an interview. But to me, I've I've always said
that Albert should be taken at his word. Now has
he has he gotten? Has he gotten less healthy and
less explosive as he has gotten older? Yes, but that
is true of every player effectively. So I don't think
that at this juncture it's fair, uh to speculate about it.
(30:15):
I think that the reality is he's he's nearing the
end of his career one way or the other. And
I think that overall, you have to look at what
he has been able to do, more than six sixty
home runs, more than three thousand hits. He's the first
ballot Hall of Famer, and I I think overall that
the focus belongs there as opposed to what the speculation
(30:37):
was like about his age after the two thousand and
eleven season, which is at this point in time now
fully a decade ago. Yeah, This has gotta be one
of those things that a lot of handwringing in the offices,
right because this comes up now and again we we
hear prospects and now you've got a guy towards his end.
I don't know what the point is now. He's ageless,
(30:58):
is what you'd say. But for for Major League Baseball,
the League office, how much you know, do they dedicate
to investigating this versus working on pace of play? I
don't think that this is something that they're really gonna
worry about it all right now, Like at this point
from the standpoint of the league office, it was a
deer point. They have a lot of other issues in
(31:20):
front of them, whether it's just making sure that everybody
is as healthy as they can be this year, pace
of play as you mentioned as another one. But hey,
I as I. As we heard in the update, there
is the ability to mutually shorten games during spring training.
Maybe we'll see some aspects of this carry over into
the regular season. I say this in jest, but the
(31:41):
reality is there's been a lot of conversation about ways
to make the game more user friendly, if you will,
for the for the modern fan, and and if it's
the shorter game that will draw in more people. Uh,
then I think the Baseball has has its very strong
duty to examine that possible. JP. Let me for Baseball
(32:02):
is never gonna go for that. And here's the reason.
Because if you allowed teams to shorten games to six
or seven innings in the regular season, the Mets would
win like a hundred and forty games. I mean it's
instead of seventy five they win, they'd win like a
hundred and forty and it would be we can't even compete. Yeah,
So here's here's the EG thing. And Mike is obviously
there for you, Jason, to help you through this. But
(32:24):
usually we are on like day five of the season
before the Mets bullpen becomes your foremost concerned. We are
still at this point in time like minus This is
like day minus twenty nine the actual regular season games,
and you're you're already I mean, did you see something
already in Port St. Lucy that is concerned you? Please,
(32:46):
Jason share with us your thoughts. Well, no, just I
know what happens to the Mets bullpen when they actually
get in games that count, and so I know if
you can limit the innings, the Mets bullpen will pitch,
We'll win more games. Are you kidding? Ye? What it
is is good. The rotation should be good. And and
you know this is not This is not necessarily the
(33:06):
bullpen of juris familiar from the two fifteen World Series.
That was a long time ago, Jason, that was a
long time ago. Yeah. Jp. What he's really doing is
he's trying to extend the good will that the Nicks
are getting and he's just trying to push it over
into the Mets pile. But they do have an area
of concern as they're part of the the largesse of
this Mickey Calloway mess that is now engulfing multiple teams. Uh,
(33:32):
here is one for the league office and really for
the culture of baseball that becomes a problematic surge. Uh
in terms of attention and when we're supposed to be hope,
spring eternal about our respective teams. Well, you're you're right
that it's that it's obviously a matter for the league
to investige it, and they are. And I think that this,
(33:55):
to me is where it's going to be up to
the league, obviously neach individual team to make a decision
here as to what as to what the best way
forward is once all the facts are out there, once
it is clear who knew what when. I I am
of the mind that that let's get all the facts
(34:16):
out there, or at least let them be known to
the Commissioner's office before they can adjudicate whatever discipline needs
to follow. But I think that this needs to be
a call to action of of really examining how deep
of a problem this is again with some very severe
(34:37):
and significant allegations of of conduct by Mickey Callaway, and
this has to be discussed in in every camp this spring.
I do know that I saw the UH the MLB
Media Guide for Spring Training, and it is now taking
up i think five or six in the first seven
(34:59):
pages of the Your Manual Antidiscrimination Policies and Expected Codes
of Conduct. And that's what it should be right now.
We we should be having these conversations. And I applaud
Giroli and Katie Strength for the work they're doing, because
they're they're getting a lot of information out there for
us to think about it. And I think as a society,
(35:21):
as a sport, as a sports world, as citizens, the
goal of reporting like this is to make us all
think and understand just how deep this goes And to me,
I think obviously there has to be the process that
goes through with MLB and and any discipline or potential
losses of jobs that come as a result of it.
(35:42):
But I think the second half of that conversation has
to be, Okay, what now, how do we change? How
do we make things better? And I think that's on
everybody who's involved in the sport to make sure that
we are being as thoughtful as we can be. And
I'm optimistic that with men and women of the right uh,
I think the right compassion, the right thoughtfulness on this.
(36:02):
But I think the better days will hopefully be ahead.
But I think for the time being, it's important that
all the facts are known to those doing the investigation,
and obviously MLB has a lot of work ahead of
the Commissioner's office to get to the best ascertaining of
what what the truth was in all this. Alright, Lastly, JPM,
I want I want to tell you something. I want
you to understand that I'm coming from this with believing this,
(36:26):
I would, at worst, I think, be the twelve best
GM in Major League Baseball. This is why, at worst
I'd be the twelfth worst GM and Major League Baseball
because I know this because eleven teams sent people to
go see Joanna Sesspenous workout today thinking he can still play.
So at worst, I'm better than those eleven guys. I mean, well, yeah,
(36:50):
I would say this, um that really, in many ways
he has not been the same player since we would
say what twenty six maybe, um it's it is difficult
for me to imagine just the reality of how little
he has played, um the misadventures off the field. I
(37:14):
would be rather surprised. He has played in all of
games since and even since seventeen, he has played in
forty six games, so that means he is so in
the last three years he has played forty six games.
He has not distinguished himself, particularly with his play during
(37:36):
those forty six games. That my scouting report there is
that he doesn't have a whole lot left. But then again,
this is baseball, and I have been surprised. Before you
can fall on Twitter at John MORROSSI doesn't want to
give me a GM job. That's okay, Listen, more than happy.
(37:58):
Somebody emailed me in this morning about wanting internships and sports,
and I'm always happy to help. Job seekers. And so
if you want the internship for the big job, Jayson,
let me know, send me your resume and i'll I'll
send along to all my colleagues in the business. All right,
all right, is it is it a paid internship? Because
I mean that was a thing. No, no, no, take
(38:21):
it easy, buddy. I appreciated chat with you about that later,
the best, JP. Let's see you JP. Be sure to
catch live editions of The Jason Smith Show with Mike
Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern seven pm Pacific on
Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app.
Thanks for listening to the best of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Carmen podcast. Be sure to catch us
live every weeknight from ten pm to two am Eastern
seven to eleven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find
your local station for The Jason Smith Show with Mike
Harmon at Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream us
live every night on the I Heart Radio app by
searching fs. This is the best of The Jason Smith
(00:23):
Show with Mike Harmon on Fox Sports Radio. If Major
League Baseball isn't careful, they have a story that's gonna
put a stain on the game for the next couple
of months. Look, you're getting ready. Teams are in spring training.
Now games have just started. Everybody's excited. Hope springs eternal.
(00:44):
And then we get this story today about Mickey Calloway.
Mickey Calloway who is under investigation by Major League Baseball
for uh sexual behavior of an unwanted sort towards women
who have accused him of this over the course of
his time with a couple of different organizations. And Mickey
(01:04):
Callaway has taken a leave where he has been suspended
with pay from the Angels. He's their pitching coach. Now,
while this is being investigated, and it was a real
seamy story with a lot of tawdry facts. Uh. For
the last few years, Mickey Callaway is fighting this. However,
there's a lot of people that have come forward and said, yes,
(01:25):
he did this. He would send me pictures that were
unsolicited Mickey Callaway now with three different organizations, and who
is going to say they knew what when you have
the angels Now, he was a manager of the Mets,
and he was the pitching coach of the Cleveland Indians.
So while this story had kind of gone away for
a little while, today it comes up in a big
(01:45):
way because it was found out that while he was
the pitching coach of the Cleveland Indians, there was a
situation in which he allegedly had an affair with another woman,
and the woman's husband eventually came full word and spoke
to the Indians and spoke to them all about what
was going on. That there were unsolicited pictures that he
(02:06):
was sending to his wife of parts of his anatomy.
And this was a story that got so far as
there were conversations with the Indians manager Terry Francona and
and other members in the organization. President of Baseball Operations
Chris Antonetti. Uh, many people were in on this got
so much the point where the husband wanted to talk
(02:28):
to Mickey Callaway. Terry Francona offered to talk to the
husband instead, and Mickey Callaway just wanted this to go away. Now,
why is this a big deal? It's a big deal
because Antonetti, when he responded to this story about Mickey Callaway, said,
we had no knowledge of anything going on with Mickey
Callaway while he was pitching coach here. So the thing
(02:48):
is about the part Mike with the What did the
Indians know? That's the big thing. You talk about affairs
and in Major League Baseball. Okay, then if you're just
talking about people having affairs and sports, uh, all of
a sudden, you're opening a can of worms that that
you know it's affairs, right, it's not between the people involved, right,
And it's not illegally consenting, and it's not illegal, and
(03:12):
it's not about and it's not about anything someone's gonna
go to jail for. But when you are accused by
multiple people of potentially committing a crime, then this is
where you get in a lot of trouble. And when
you say no, we had no knowledge, when clearly the
reports have shown that you did know. And when you
(03:33):
were asked about Mickey Callaway, you didn't say anything. You
didn't bring anything up to the Mets when the Mets
wanted to hime because Callaway was a really hot guy. Right,
everybody wanted to hire Mickey Callaway a couple of years ago.
It's great bitching coach got guys to sigh Young's. He
was terrific, he had great ideas. When you lied about it, okay,
lying about saying we didn't know anything about Mickey Callaway.
This is where the Indians suck. Okay, this is where
(03:55):
they suck. And this is why situations like this continue
to happen in the world of sports. Right, and I'm
gonna get to the Mets in a second, because the
Mets suck to all Right, this is where situations happen
in sports where women are not able to feel empowered
and feel that they are victims. Because you couldn't even
get the Indians to say, you know what, yeah, this happened.
We didn't know. It was so devout, we didn't know.
(04:17):
We just knew we had an affair. But oh yeah,
but when you lie and say nothing ever came to
to our attention on this one. Clearly unsolicited pornographic pictures
were a part of this. How could you sit there
and say, oh, yeah, we didn't know about it. This
is why I understand why women are afraid to come forward,
because here's where the story actually breaks. And the Cleveland
Indians decide, no, we're gonna have a ten year old's
(04:38):
attitude of I don't wanted many things. I might get
in trouble, so let's just say, okay, no, it didn't happen,
when clearly everybody in in the situation knows this had
come up before, and this is something that could become public.
I I really the the Cleveland Indians, they suck with this, man,
I really get you know what if you got to
take d L because you had a guy who have
sexually inappropriate behavior get accused it, and you had a
(05:00):
I and say no, you gotta take the L and
say yeah, we gotta do better on it, at least
the Mets, and they gotta do better. And then the
Mets have the story today that Mickey Calloye had a
nickname called blank pick Mick, and he would text me,
texting people all the time, like a couple of hours
before the game, what are you doing on your phone?
You're not doing any worried about why are you on
your phone two hours before you have a game at night?
So the Mets kind of knew that he was this
(05:21):
kind of guy. And still the Mets, Oh yeah, we
didn't know anything. We we didn't know anything. Really, the
Mets suck too when it comes to this, all right,
they you know, you have to take the loss and
understand that the biggest thing here is that you have
to make sure everything is safe for people to be
able to have their careers, and they should be People
should be able to women should be able to work
(05:42):
in the sports world not having to worry about things
like this. And you couldn't even admit, yeah, boy, we
screwed up. Yeah boy, we really screwed this up. That
that's just embarrassing to me on all levels because we're
the was this something for the Indians that they could say, well, no,
I wasn't affair, Okay, I get it, But boy, when
this comes you say, no, we didn't know anything about it. No, No,
that that's the bad part of it for me. Man,
(06:02):
when I see that that's the bad part. Well again,
if it was just an indiscretion and consenting adults, and
obviously that's that's terrible. But you got it to the
point where you have security getting involved and a woman's
husband coming in saying, look, this is all you know unsolicited.
And now we've we've crossed the line between you know
(06:25):
a guy and you know his his phone to keep
it clean for the good people across this country. Uh,
and what it it becomes and it becomes a pattern. Right,
you have Terry Francona's son took to Twitter and started
blasting the organization and what they they knew and and look,
(06:46):
the cover up was always worse than the crime itself. Right.
Once you look like you're just trying to push things
things away, it means that you've got to do a
larger investigation to see what else is potentially bare there
as well. And if this happens in multiple organization and
you keep passing the buck, yeah, we don't know anything.
(07:06):
Good luck. You know it's the the you get fired
from a company and the only thing they can do
in verification is get the dates that you work somewhere.
You might have been a horrible man, woman, employee, whatever
you were doing. But all they can say is, yeah,
they were here for a year, and that it's you know,
buy or beware. And you have people trying to find
(07:26):
out exactly what happened, uh if someone separating from companies
too quickly. But in this case, we know that is
a close knit fraternity across Major League Baseball, and the
Walls have years and clearly today they so they got
the walls got in front of a microphone. Uh, and
this went up to a whole other level. I really,
(07:48):
it's it's just amazing that when when you have to
take the l when you have to you know what,
we did this and we didn't do it right, and
when we should have done it better, when you lie
and say we didn't know, Oh my goodness man. I mean,
that's that's something that makes me feel bad because because
that makes me even worse because the the outcome of
this should be and I'm hoping that the outcome is
(08:09):
this kind of behavior now across sports is not going
to be allowed, is not going to be tolerated anymore,
where we're gonna wink and look the other way for
whatever reason, we don't want to be embarrassed. We don't
want to be a national story. We don't want this
to be a thing. I'm hoping that that's the result
of this. This is a bad story for everybody involved. Look,
it was Mickey Callaway, it was Jared Porter, it's it
we just it was just it's just been bad and
(08:30):
and the hopefully the outcome would be that all right. Now,
teams have to do more due diligence when they're hiring somebody,
and if there's something in their past, they have to
they have to make sure they know it. Uh, Teams
have to make sure they tell the truth about players
when they know things. I'm hoping that that's the outcome
because we need something good come out of this situation,
which has been really bad. But it's just I'm not
(08:52):
convinced that it's going to be good because of how
the Indians have acted, you know, throughout this, and the
Mets to an extent too. You know, it's I I
really just shake my head and go, how do you
not just say, hey, we'll do better. We really screwed
this up, man, we really really did. And we apologize
and we're sorry, but man, we we screwed this up.
But we will I promise we're gonna do better. It's
like people don't want to say that. No, no no, no,
(09:13):
because if I if I just ignore it, maybe it
won't come up. Maybe it won't come up. And you
know what if this was or yeah, okay, I can
see where stories get buried and you have the confidence
that well, this is never gonna come up. Why would
this come up? I mean, there's no reason for this
to come up. And know it's two thousand one. People
find stuff out now, especially when everything was documented. When
(09:34):
you went to Major League Baseball and you went to
the Indians and they talked about it, did you really
think that wasn't gonna happen? I mean, I don't understand
what the philosophy people have when they when they think, well,
maybe it won't come up, right that that that's where
I want to go to. I want I want to
I want to pin all my hopes on the maybe
nobody will say anything. Oh wow, that's that's that's just
that's just never gonna work out for you, no matter
(09:54):
how I really, it's just not just never never gonna work.
Spending your days wishing, wanting, ho being, waiting to be
whether it's find out whether you're part of the news
cycle or not. Not not a good way to be.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven
pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart
(10:15):
Radio app. Hey, what's up everybody? It's me three time
pro bowler La Barrington and I couldn't be more excited
to announce a new podcast called Up on Game? What
is Up on Game? You asked, along with my fellow
pro bowler t J. Hudshman's OTTA and Super Bowl Champion.
That's right, Plexico Birds. You can only name a show
(10:36):
with that type of talent on it. Up on Game.
We're going to be sharing our real life experiences loaded
with teachable moments. Listen to Up on Game with Me,
LaVar Arrington, t J. Hudgman's OTTA, and Plexico Birds on
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you
get your podcast from. A big statement from the Bears
(10:59):
to a Ryan Pace saying that, hey, you know, we
haven't ruled out anything as far as quarterbacks next year,
and there is a report that the Bears could stick
with Mitchell Trabisky is their quarterback. There's also report that
the Bears could go after Alex Smith because look, Alex Smith, Look,
when when you play for the head coach previously, you're
(11:20):
gonna be somebody the head coach likes. And so just
like Frank Gore with Adam Gates, this is what could
happen now in Chicago. This would be the most Bears
of Bears results in one if your quarterbacks were Mitchell
Trabisky and Alex Smith, It's like, let's keep going and
make it like it's eighteen. We're gonna give the guy
(11:42):
another chance who has shown that he really isn't the
next level quarterback, and we're gonna get a backup who
can play if he has to that everybody's gonna want
to see play at some point, just like we had
Nick Foles. It's like you're repeating again, same GM, same
head coach, eight and eight is your sea link. This
would be the most Bears of Bears quarterback stories if
(12:04):
your guys next year were True Bisky and Alex Smith,
and you know what's gonna happen, And I will vote
the Bears most of the team most destined for mediocrity
because I'm gonna well, but You've got all sorts of
stories that circulate because the other one is, hey, don't
be surprised if they take a huge swing to bring
in either Russell Wilson or Deshaun Watson. Just basically, the
(12:26):
will mortgage all the future to save our jobs for
as long as the new quarterback can carry us. There's
that obviously. Uh you listen to a Bears presser. Uh
And I did listen to as much as I could
stomach before really walking away, learning nothing except if I
had a bingo card of euphemisms for uh teamwork and
(12:48):
camaraderie and everything that goes down there. Uh you you
you could have filled a full card and then some
uh hey, right, as many words as you can about
how you can get along as good teammates. Okay, let's go,
and that's it. Obviously praised Alex Smith's leadership. That was
part of it. So that's what gets everybody's tongues wagging.
(13:10):
He saw Mitchell Robinski the final month of the season
when they, you know, called some plays that took advantage
of the fact that he can move as a runner
and get to the outside and create some space. Gee,
who might have looked at game taped in his first
couple of years, and seeing that that was there, not
that coaching staff didn't want to bother it was too much. Hey,
(13:33):
let's get Nick Foles on the field. We promised, uh,
we promised him basically is what you got out of Chicago.
So I think it's an absolute uttermass because the other
part is that you know, now they're shooting back at
Allen Robinson's agent about getting to the table, and Robinson
has been in the in the press. He's actually shown
(13:53):
up in a couple of zoom calls just randomly to
talk about free agency and contracts. It's like, yeah, they
haven't even offered me anything. Be sure to catch live
editions of The Jason Smith Show with Mike harmon weekdays
at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific. The NBA and
many insiders and executives are thinking and preparing themselves for
(14:17):
a star player who was going to force his way
to the Knicks next season. Right now, that's an incredible,
incredible storyline. Kurt Healan's got it. Pro Basketball Talk uh
NBN NBC insider Brian win Horst as well, we're gonna
have them. We're gonna have Kurt Healen on the show
next hour. But just think about that for a second. Alright,
(14:38):
the NBA is ready for for a story where a
star is gonna force his way to the Knicks, not
away from the Knicks, not leaving the Knicks, but to
the Knicks. I mean, this hasn't happened in years, and
it goes to show you. Right, the Nets can sign
all the superstars they want to write. They could put
their three superstars on the floor, and right now they
are barely staying ahead of the Knicks in headlines and
(15:02):
relevancy in New York and outside of the market it is.
It's always gonna be a Knicks town, right. The Knicks
at five hundred is as big as story as the
Nets doing that obviously throughout the country well, the Nets
and their superstars, because superstars in the NBA, that's who
we follow. We follow the k Ds of the world,
the Kyrie Irving's to James Harden's, you know, But in
your in your hometown market, you want to be able
to Hey, we're the number one team. Dodgers. Never want
(15:24):
to be number two to the Angels, right, you can't.
You can't be that. Pups never want to say Hey,
you know the White Sox really, but they know they
don't want that, all right, They can't. They can't have
the years when that happened. Hell, even when the White
Sox went to the World Series and and dominated the
Astros in two thousand five, it was what's wrong with
the Cubs? How come they can't do this about the
White Sox? But really, I mean, that's when you think
(15:47):
about it, that's a that's a really big deal that
you could have all this great stuff in brook Law. Yeah,
but the Knicks are five hundred boy, they're a big story, right,
and you get a superstar next year. I mean, look,
whether it's Janice or Luca don sich Or or Spie
Mitchell or Steph Curry, you know Lillard Lebron while he's
(16:08):
on the Devin Booker. Sure, I mean all you who
who knows who this superstar is that wants to it's
gonna force his way to the Knicks. Look, Brian win
Horse and Kurt Healin said, we have ideas who they are,
but they they're not saying anything right now. So Kurt
h next hour, he doesn't leave the show next hour
until he tells us who it is. He doesn't leave
the show until he tells us. But that's a really
(16:30):
big deal, man. I mean you you've gone, and you've
changed that narrative in a second, in an absolute second,
I really. I mean look, i mean Janice or Steph
or I mean, look, I'm sure there's guys I'm missing too.
You know, it could be Nicola Yokitch. It couldn't. Yeah,
there's all that. I mean, look, it could be anybody,
because the Knicks are just that desirable. I mean, Jordan's
always played well in the garden. Sure, Look, everybody loves
(16:51):
playing in the garden. They just didn't want to play
for the Knicks in the garden. They just didn't want that.
So it's like, well I like playing there, but you know,
I don't want to actually play on the team. It's
okay to play on the team the fog cat like
playing in the garden. So who knows who it could be.
I mean, listen, we don't know who it's gonna be.
We have no idea. It could be Jimmy Butler. Well,
(17:12):
it could be anybody that wants three weeks ago it
was if they if they don't get over, then Julius
Randall be in another uniform. You know, the former and
once again laker. I think was the ashtag that started
making the Yeah, I mean listen, listen, you know, you know, listen,
whether it is Rudy Gobert or not, whether it's Zion
(17:35):
Williamson or not, I mean, it's it's somebody that's look that,
that's who the Knicks are gonna get forcing their way
via trade. Can you imagine if that's what it was,
if it was Zion who wanted to do it. Can
you imagine, Hey, let's just throw out people and be
really irresponsible. These are the players we heard who could
be forcing their way to the Knicks next year. I
just started ripping off stars and say, oh, I can't
(17:56):
believe that could be one of these guys. Can I
Can I throw this out to you? Sure? Go ahead, buddy.
Um if it is zign, you want to buy some
Zigon rookie cards, you know all, dude, I was thinking
about you today. I almost called almost facetimed you. Have
I ever facetimed you before? No, I almost FaceTime to
(18:17):
you because today we were going to lunch, right Pam
and I and Zoe and we were going to uh,
we're getting We're getting bagels for lunch. And we parked
and it's in this big like minimall area, and we
parked the car and we get out and we were
walking across the sidewalk and there are all these baseball
cards that are just spread out on the sidewalk like
somebody had like open like two packs of baseball cards
(18:40):
and for some reason just dropped them and ran away.
There's all the like from a display and from there
you could be right, but I mean, if someone's chased them,
you'd think they would have picked up the cards. So
I'm going, boy, look at all these guys. There was
a Michael Confordo. There, there was this and I was
almost gonna FaceTime. You would go, dude, should I pick
these up? But you know, I'm thinking COVID and who
knows why they're here? And the way I to wash
(19:00):
the cards and wash my hands, I'm like, nah, I'm
not gonna do it. So we go into eat and
I come out ten minutes later and two women are
are are are throwing them in their backpacks and the
regularly go look at this one, look at this one.
I said, I actually go buy him, and I go, hey, hey,
Michael Confordo. One's where some money? Huh? You mean, while
you know Michael confordo card is not worth anything, but hey,
the Conflorda one was where's some money? So okay, a
(19:21):
Conforto card. I almost called you to say, hey, should
I pick these up or not? You know, I don't know,
and I probably would have if it wasn't for COVID,
but be with COVID, I think, you know, I don't know.
And then this was something from a you know, and
who knews if it was something from a card store
like you said that, you know, and the owner was
chasing down these kids. Hey, come back here with that
(19:42):
need right now, there's a lot of investors in the
Fernando Tatis junior market. Uh No, the big thing right
now is anything at retail, at a Target of Walmart
or anywhere else. Uh. You got lines of grown men
looking to just find the distributor and clear him out,
(20:04):
so they split it evenly, send them on their way,
and then they sell it on re resale. Like you're
not finding cards just in the wild generally, and if
you do, you've kind of won the lottery. Ah, alright,
very nice and all right, So I would have I
thought about you today. But I appreciate that body the
COMFORTO really wouldn't have moved the needle for me. I mean,
I found this cool old Sam Vincent card that has uh,
(20:27):
Michael Jordan in the number twelve uniform. That's cool. Wow,
that's gonna be worth some money. That's worth yeah, normally
a nickel. But then you say, hey, wait, it's Jordan's
in the number twelve jersey. But seriously about the Knicks.
And we'll get to the labels in a second, but
the thing was seriously about the Knicks. No, this is
(20:47):
not just a Knicks conversation, but this is about how
important it is to change the culture and what you
can do once you do that, and it's it's it
seems like a very difficult thing to do because the
Knick couldn' change the culture for years, but they finally
figured out the right combination. Leon Rose running things, James
Donlan not making headlines at all. Tom Thibodeaux is the
(21:09):
right coach, and and it's instantaneous, and it just happens
that fast. When you hire the right people, you kind
of know, and around the league people know because you
can you can sit back and and and and think
well as a player gonna want to go play for
this GM or this head coach. You don't think when
players are coming up and their free agents there are
not on the phone with their agents saying, hey, this
is what this head coach is like, this is what
(21:30):
this GM is like, this is who I trust, this
is who I don't trust. And then when you find out, oh, dude,
Tom Thibodeaux, man, he's gonna get the Knicks playing hard.
He's gonna be great for your career. Look what he's
doing for Julius Randall, the guys an All Star now,
and we'll get me to New York. I mean, that's
how fast it changes. It changes in a second. I
was gonna avoid doing the New York manute thing because
I wasn't doing my Berman impression. But anything can change.
(21:54):
That shows you how important it is and how big
you can you can flip it like that, And and
the Knicks are the shining example. Then for every team
that thinks, oh we're we're mired and mediocrity, where this
for that? Look look at a team like the Sons, right,
the Sons just gonna be a team that Look, they're
gonna waste Devin Booker's career, and who know, and now
suddenly what do they do. They go get Chris Paul
and hey, wait a minute, now we got a nice
(22:15):
big three with Booker and Paul and eight is pretty good,
and Bridges is playing well, and you know, you are
are our bench is okay. But we're winning a lot
of games here, man, we got the same record as
the Lakers. Basically, suddenly the Suns in one offseason and
and you can really point to, hey, what happened at
the end in the bubble. The Sons won a lot
of games. Then Chris Paul jumps in. That changes the
(22:36):
culture and and the Sons are now a team that, hey,
we're ready to compete in the Western Conference. We are.
We are that good. Sometimes it's a coach, sometimes the GM,
sometimes the player. But you look at these teams and
then look, the Sons are giving the Lakers all they
can handle. Right now, they're up by two less than
two minutes before halftime. And and that's how it is.
You know, for all these teams that are sitting in
the bottom of the conference, whether it's the NBA, NFL, Hey,
(22:59):
you know, what all you need is is one big move,
one good move, and you could change exactly how your
team goes. I mean, the Sixers came into this year
with basically the same team. What do they get to
get a little bit more from their bench? And Doc
Rivers has come in and he's been the guy that, Hey,
it's always great early on with Doc with a new team, right,
that's when the salad days are. Doc is a players coach.
(23:20):
They love him. Then think the more Doc stays, the
worst things get. But this first year with Philadelphia has
been great so far, and that's been a big culture
change for a team. It was a nice fifty win
team over the course of season. Hey, we're gonna win
fifty games. We're gonna be seated fourth and fifth. Maybe
we win the first round, maybe we don't. Now, Hey
the seventies Sixers are a team their favorite to get
(23:40):
to the Eastern Conference finals. Now sometimes it changes like that. Well,
and the biggest step is if you've had issues with
your ownership, read the Knicks that they got to get
out of the way. And then he finally seemingly has
gotten out of the way, hired basketball people that are
there to build four that aren't looking to the past.
(24:01):
Sorry Phil uh and carrying whatever you know, there's gonna
be animosity trying to get things done with with Phil Jackson.
For the number of guys that he vanquished through the years,
they're not gonna help him rebuild in in New York
now as an exact, So that didn't work, and now
you have a new team. You've got a coach that
(24:22):
these guys, at least for the moment it bought into.
I mean what they're gonna look like. Regular season goes
through mid May. That's a long time to play the
kind of minutes and style that Thibodeau wants to do.
But they're in for the moment you have Philadelphia mentioned
Doc Rivers honeymoon phase. Guys are in. They they're excited.
You know, he's had his success shortfalls as well, and
(24:46):
and a lot swirling out of last season. But the
bubble created its own unique circumstances that everybody kind of
had to deal with, and well, as we saw, the
Clippers didn't handle very well. But yeah, it takes one
or two moves, but you've got to have a team
that decides they're gonna adopt the style that the coach
(25:07):
is going to implement. As much as we like to say, hey,
the coach should work with what talent he has. We
know that's not the way it goes. It makes more
sense that way. But nine times out of ten, it's
all right, here's what I want to do, and you're
either in or you're out. Right they go full Oceans
eleven Danny Ocean slapping that ticket to Vegas in front
of Matt Damon and saying right now, and that's that's it.
(25:31):
And for some of these younger teams it's easier, right,
they're still trying to make their bones. Guy like Julius Randall,
he's he knows all the bad headlines he got as
a young player. When we go back to the Knicks,
he he doesn't want to see those again, right. He
wants to show that he belongs among the highest paid
and high highest complimented players for your beloved Knicks. Because
(25:51):
if you could restore basketball at the Garden, you're a
hero forever. I mean now that otherwise you gotta go
back to Willis Red. I mean, that's what's talking about, man,
and what Phil Jackson was throwing bows in the low
post going back to seventy three when the Mets and
the Knicks or at the top of the world in
sports Twitter and out about a Fresco, Mike and Swollender.
(26:13):
But just look at those teams like the Sixers, the Sons,
the Knicks. Bravo to them for getting it right and
changing the culture with one move. Could be a GM,
could be a head coach, could be a player, could
be front office. You'd make the right move and look
how fast you can become big time players. Be sure
to catch live editions of The Jason Smith Show with
Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific
(26:36):
on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app.
Getting set to join us now on the hotline Fox
Sports One Baseball Insider MLB Network insider who is working
on a ten thousand page column on the debut of
Marcus Stroman's new split change. It is John Paul Morossy JP.
What's happening, Buddy, Good evening, my friends, and I appreciate
(27:00):
that we will not dwell too much on Michigan's lopsided
loss to illinoisa this evening. I think it was a
grand total of two field goals made between Dickinson and Wagner.
So hard for the Mazing Blue to win under those circumstances. Yeah,
but you're still gonna be a one seed in the tournament.
You're still there's three great teams in college basketball, and
(27:21):
you're one of them. I'm confident. I think this is
the most excited that I have been about present and
future of Michigan basketball, probably since the bat five. I mean,
I realized that there have been two championship game appearances
in the interim. But this team is incredible and and
(27:42):
the talent that is coming John Howard, he has got
to be the coach of the year, right, the Naseman
coach of the year without question. Sure. Listen, you're a
basketball school. Now you are completely basketball school. I mean
I would say basketball and baseball they made it to
the world. Is there any other sport to discuss? Is
(28:05):
there any other sport talked about? I don't think so,
although frozen for maybe Ellen Bowman. Ellen Bowman had a
pretty good career there in Lubbock, so maybe he is
the answer after all these years of quarterback for Jim Harbaugh.
All right, well, let's get into something that's a little
bit harder to break down than the disappointment of the
Michigan football program, and that is the age of Albert
(28:27):
pool Holes. Now he has listed as forty one years old.
But earlier today, David Samson, who was former Marlin's president
for fifteen years UH said on the Dan Lebotard Show
that no one in baseball believes Albert Pools was the
age he says he was. When he was going to
sign his big contract with the Angels, Samson said, we
didn't care. We knew the last couple of years we're
gonna stink, but we wanted Albert. It didn't work out
(28:49):
for us, So Pools is listed at one. He says,
everybody believes he's older. Well, what do you hear about
pool Holes JP, Well, to me, I have no reason
into disbelieve what Albert has said about about his birthday.
And one of the big reasons is that there was
the time earlier on really was after nine eleven where
(29:11):
where basically everybody had the double check and validate what
their what their age was, And so there was a
time in baseball again it was basically the off season
after after two thousand one, where when players are coming
back into the country who may have been born elsewhere,
there was a double checking and a verifying of birthdates
(29:32):
and and obviously Albert by then was already in the
MLB system, and it never came up that there was
anything different than what he had presented. So to me,
I I realized that this has been a topic in
the past where it's been speculated about, and again it
was brought up via these comments from a former executive
(29:53):
in an interview. But to me, I've I've always said
that Albert should be taken at his word. Now has
he has he gotten? Has he gotten less healthy and
less explosive as he has gotten older? Yes, but that
is true of every player effectively. So I don't think
that at this juncture it's fair, uh to speculate about it.
(30:15):
I think that the reality is he's he's nearing the
end of his career one way or the other. And
I think that overall, you have to look at what
he has been able to do, more than six sixty
home runs, more than three thousand hits. He's the first
ballot Hall of Famer, and I I think overall that
the focus belongs there as opposed to what the speculation
(30:37):
was like about his age after the two thousand and
eleven season, which is at this point in time now
fully a decade ago. Yeah, This has gotta be one
of those things that a lot of handwringing in the offices,
right because this comes up now and again we we
hear prospects and now you've got a guy towards his end.
I don't know what the point is now. He's ageless,
(30:58):
is what you'd say. But for for Major League Baseball,
the League office, how much you know, do they dedicate
to investigating this versus working on pace of play? I
don't think that this is something that they're really gonna
worry about it all right now, Like at this point
from the standpoint of the league office, it was a
deer point. They have a lot of other issues in
(31:20):
front of them, whether it's just making sure that everybody
is as healthy as they can be this year, pace
of play as you mentioned as another one. But hey,
I as I. As we heard in the update, there
is the ability to mutually shorten games during spring training.
Maybe we'll see some aspects of this carry over into
the regular season. I say this in jest, but the
(31:41):
reality is there's been a lot of conversation about ways
to make the game more user friendly, if you will,
for the for the modern fan, and and if it's
the shorter game that will draw in more people. Uh,
then I think the Baseball has has its very strong
duty to examine that possible. JP. Let me for Baseball
(32:02):
is never gonna go for that. And here's the reason.
Because if you allowed teams to shorten games to six
or seven innings in the regular season, the Mets would
win like a hundred and forty games. I mean it's
instead of seventy five they win, they'd win like a
hundred and forty and it would be we can't even compete. Yeah,
So here's here's the EG thing. And Mike is obviously
there for you, Jason, to help you through this. But
(32:24):
usually we are on like day five of the season
before the Mets bullpen becomes your foremost concerned. We are
still at this point in time like minus This is
like day minus twenty nine the actual regular season games,
and you're you're already I mean, did you see something
already in Port St. Lucy that is concerned you? Please,
(32:46):
Jason share with us your thoughts. Well, no, just I
know what happens to the Mets bullpen when they actually
get in games that count, and so I know if
you can limit the innings, the Mets bullpen will pitch,
We'll win more games. Are you kidding? Ye? What it
is is good. The rotation should be good. And and
you know this is not This is not necessarily the
(33:06):
bullpen of juris familiar from the two fifteen World Series.
That was a long time ago, Jason, that was a
long time ago. Yeah. Jp. What he's really doing is
he's trying to extend the good will that the Nicks
are getting and he's just trying to push it over
into the Mets pile. But they do have an area
of concern as they're part of the the largesse of
this Mickey Calloway mess that is now engulfing multiple teams. Uh,
(33:32):
here is one for the league office and really for
the culture of baseball that becomes a problematic surge. Uh
in terms of attention and when we're supposed to be hope,
spring eternal about our respective teams. Well, you're you're right
that it's that it's obviously a matter for the league
to investige it, and they are. And I think that this,
(33:55):
to me is where it's going to be up to
the league, obviously neach individual team to make a decision
here as to what as to what the best way
forward is once all the facts are out there, once
it is clear who knew what when. I I am
of the mind that that let's get all the facts
(34:16):
out there, or at least let them be known to
the Commissioner's office before they can adjudicate whatever discipline needs
to follow. But I think that this needs to be
a call to action of of really examining how deep
of a problem this is again with some very severe
(34:37):
and significant allegations of of conduct by Mickey Callaway, and
this has to be discussed in in every camp this spring.
I do know that I saw the UH the MLB
Media Guide for Spring Training, and it is now taking
up i think five or six in the first seven
(34:59):
pages of the Your Manual Antidiscrimination Policies and Expected Codes
of Conduct. And that's what it should be right now.
We we should be having these conversations. And I applaud
Giroli and Katie Strength for the work they're doing, because
they're they're getting a lot of information out there for
us to think about it. And I think as a society,
(35:21):
as a sport, as a sports world, as citizens, the
goal of reporting like this is to make us all
think and understand just how deep this goes And to me,
I think obviously there has to be the process that
goes through with MLB and and any discipline or potential
losses of jobs that come as a result of it.
(35:42):
But I think the second half of that conversation has
to be, Okay, what now, how do we change? How
do we make things better? And I think that's on
everybody who's involved in the sport to make sure that
we are being as thoughtful as we can be. And
I'm optimistic that with men and women of the right uh,
I think the right compassion, the right thoughtfulness on this.
(36:02):
But I think the better days will hopefully be ahead.
But I think for the time being, it's important that
all the facts are known to those doing the investigation,
and obviously MLB has a lot of work ahead of
the Commissioner's office to get to the best ascertaining of
what what the truth was in all this. Alright, Lastly, JPM,
I want I want to tell you something. I want
you to understand that I'm coming from this with believing this,
(36:26):
I would, at worst, I think, be the twelve best
GM in Major League Baseball. This is why, at worst
I'd be the twelfth worst GM and Major League Baseball
because I know this because eleven teams sent people to
go see Joanna Sesspenous workout today thinking he can still play.
So at worst, I'm better than those eleven guys. I mean, well, yeah,
(36:50):
I would say this, um that really, in many ways
he has not been the same player since we would
say what twenty six maybe, um it's it is difficult
for me to imagine just the reality of how little
he has played, um the misadventures off the field. I
(37:14):
would be rather surprised. He has played in all of
games since and even since seventeen, he has played in
forty six games, so that means he is so in
the last three years he has played forty six games.
He has not distinguished himself, particularly with his play during
(37:36):
those forty six games. That my scouting report there is
that he doesn't have a whole lot left. But then again,
this is baseball, and I have been surprised. Before you
can fall on Twitter at John MORROSSI doesn't want to
give me a GM job. That's okay, Listen, more than happy.
(37:58):
Somebody emailed me in this morning about wanting internships and sports,
and I'm always happy to help. Job seekers. And so
if you want the internship for the big job, Jayson,
let me know, send me your resume and i'll I'll
send along to all my colleagues in the business. All right,
all right, is it is it a paid internship? Because
I mean that was a thing. No, no, no, take
(38:21):
it easy, buddy. I appreciated chat with you about that later,
the best, JP. Let's see you JP. Be sure to
catch live editions of The Jason Smith Show with Mike
Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern seven pm Pacific on
Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app.
Hosts And Creators
Jason Smith
Mike Harmon
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