September 5, 2026 • 41 mins
Jason Smith and Mike Harmon update you on all the latest from a massive night in College Football. Are we sure Malachi Toney isn't the best WR in college football? WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert announced her retirement right after the WC team plays in Germany. The knuckleheads unpacked Pablo Torre’s latest findings very carefully. And PCA will run away with the NL MVP Award!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:23):
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Speaker 1 (00:29):
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(00:50):
big college football night, a big hot take basketball kind
of day. Yeah, I think we're moving into fall pretty well,
Mike Harmon. I don't think there's going to be, boy,
the dog days of summer. No, no. We're moving right
into big time storylines very easily.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yeah, there's never been a lull. I mean, we had
the FIFA World Cup coming out of that. We had
controversy in that and then coming out of it. And
we roll into what has been the most legally– A
dominated week in terms of sports headlines, perhaps ever?
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yeah, a lot of you didn't know a lot of
law stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
We got that today.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Well, today, the Pablo.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
I mean, we're finding out. I mean, come on, dude.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
You could watch as much as much any kind of
law and order as you want. You're not going to
understand the Pablo Torrey thing. No, no, no.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
I've tried to break it down and read it back
to myself like I was a five year old.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
No, no, dude.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Like a proposition.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Just just reading the Cliff Notes version of what it
is is like, OK, wait a minute. You're still losing
me on the Cliff Notes version. So I kind of get,
I kind of get why he said last night, I
hope people want to stick through and see to the
end of the big story. Yeah. People are going, yeah,
I don't get it. I don't know what it's about.
I'm gone. I'm gone. I'm sorry. I'm done.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Money is being funneled here and borrowed back here. Like
you're drawing a giant, like, I don't know. Danny G
was working on something where he had a bunch of whiteboards.
I don't know if it was for a game they
play or something, but I was going to steal them
and Voltron them. And even then, I don't think I
have enough space to kind of connect all those dots.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Hand. So again, we'll get into that coming up in
a bit, but college football first, and it's a big
night of college football. We have three top 25 teams playing. tonight,
and I say playing because none of the games are
really close.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
However... Oh, come on. They're games. There's people in the stands.
They're fighting through traffic. There's a lot going on.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Don't worry. Everybody will be at that USC game soon.
Don't worry. Don't worry. They'll be there soon.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
May the boilers put up 44. Oklahoma's rolling, so Chris
Plank's excited. I'm watching Pat Fitzgerald and Sparty getting after it.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Come on. But here's the thing, right? Coming off tonight,
coming into this year, it was widely assumed, well, Jeremiah Smith,
best wide receiver in college football, and it's not close, right?
He's going to get Heisman votes. He's going to be
up there. He's going to be a top five overall
draft pick. He's the whole package, and he is. He
is terrific. But I want to say this. Are we
sure that Malachi Toney is not the best receiver in
(03:23):
college football?
Speaker 3 (03:24):
How about that? Hot take debates. Let's go.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Picking up where he left off last year, so far
against Stanford, it's 21-3 in the second quarter. Seven catches
for 141 yards. and two touchdowns. And what we saw
him do when he started to make headlines towards the
end of last year, I mean, 18 years old, right?
When we saw the end of last year when Miami
started to gain a lot of attention because they won
(03:49):
their way through the playoff and suddenly, hey, wait a minute,
this kid's pretty good. You just watch... The any sort
of clip reel from Malachi Tony, just watch from tonight
where it's the the separation, the route running, the hands,
the quick twitch movements. I mean, I really I don't
know that he's not the best wide receiver in college football.
(04:10):
He's a smaller guy. Maybe he's a better Steve Smith.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Right.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Which would be pretty bleep and good. But like I mean,
you watch some of it. He had one. He caught
one one pass today. where he was in the slot
and he just gave a little bit of a jog
and a faint inside, and he just blew outside for
a quick out 15-yard gain. And what's the DB going
to do? I'm telling you, Jeremiah Smith is great. Are
(04:34):
we sure he is the best? Is he as explosive
as Malachi Toney? Man, I can't believe anybody's going to
be explosive with him this year. And you're bringing in
a big quarterback in Darian Mensah, who's been able to
get him the football. Obviously, taking over from Carson Beck
is a big deal. But, man, Malachi, Tony, you're looking
at this kid going, oh, my goodness. I mean, it's
really unbelievable what he could do at such a young
(04:54):
age to be able to be this good and already
this good with a new quarterback, jumping off of what
happened last year when you think, okay, maybe Miami takes
a little bit of a step back. They graduated their quarterback.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Nope.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
He is just picking up right where he left off.
This kid is unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
And now you have Leviosa, I mean Mensah, down there
as their quarterback, Darian Mensah. Well, because, you know, we
like to put some numbers to things, and why not?
Right now you're plus 250 for Jeremiah Smith to win
the Bolitnikoff Award. Malachi Toney at plus 650. Cam Coleman
(05:33):
of Texas at plus 900.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
So a big blowout so far for Miami against Stanford. And, look,
we talked about Oklahoma beating UTEP. And, look, I think
fans are still getting to the game at U.S. I
think there was traffic. I think the 101 across the
valley floor, there was a little bit of traffic. There
might have been a police chase. There might have been
some protests. There might have been some road work being done.
(05:57):
Maybe people didn't know what time the game was. Maybe
the sun was too.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
High in the sky. There was a Dodger game.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, you know, but at least, you know, when you
look and say– Hey, the lower bowl is filled. We're
getting there. Okay. All right. USC, we're getting there.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Look, the long road begins with the first step. We
talked about it a bunch, though. I mean, this is
while the heat was such a big factor and such
a talking point last week, as well as all the
stuff going on in L.A., the liking problem that people
have with the coach and how he's never really tried
to embrace anybody as the coach. not even walking five
(06:31):
steps to grab a reporter and make them, make them
a buddy. No, I mean, he hates everybody, but tonight,
Friday night of a holiday weekend in Los Angeles, I
got to the parking garage and like, there was this
moment where I like, look, it's a, it's a Friday.
Like I'm not thinking about it from the larger scale of, Hey,
(06:53):
it's a holiday weekend. Cause what do we do? Lunch pail,
we go to work, right? It's a football weekend. We
go to work. I get into the parking lot and
there are like three cars on the first level where
normally you've got everybody from the hot yoga studio fighting
to try to back in terribly with their car repeatedly.
(07:14):
There's nobody there. I looked at our guy and I go,
what's going on? He goes, you know, holiday. Everybody just
left early.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
I'm like, holiday, holiday.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Or they were all fighting to get over to the Coliseum.
I don't know which was truer.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yes. And they're, and they're still fighting. They're still fighting
to get there. So we'll keep you updated on the
college football games. Again, all the, all three top 25
teams have a leave, at least a couple of touchdowns
in this game, but I've been waiting to get to
this all day. Cause I love starting things with a
great big hot take and, And, you know, we talked
about this a lot last night on the show, getting
(07:47):
into the FIBA World Cup and the women playing this
morning and Caitlin Clark, for some reason, and Paige Becker's
coming off the bench, the best players coming off the bench,
which is absolutely ridiculous. But that's not the hot take.
That's not the hot take. I got a better hot
take for you. I got a better hot take for you.
You think that the players in the WNBA... Didn't like
(08:10):
Kathy Engelbert.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
The story today that she announces that she is retiring
as commissioner of the WNBA. And we've talked about her
ad nauseum for a long time. And many shows have
picked up along it after we've talked about. That's great.
We have big shoulders. We can carry you. She's an
A-to-B commissioner, to quote my friend Mike Harmon. She's not
a B-to-C commissioner. She had no idea how to handle
(08:32):
this era of the WNBA with the new players and
the new stardom, and she just decided, I'm going to
be invisible the entire time instead of addressing things like our...
players being adjudicated the right way when it comes to fouls, right?
Are we dealing with controversies outside of the WNBA, even
(08:53):
stupid stuff? Are we dealing with it right? Instead, I'm
just absolutely invisible. And you've seen some players who were
very vocal about Kathy Engelbert, not liking the job she's done,
and that's come out a lot in the last couple weeks.
So think about this. She's retiring, right? And we knew
she was going to retire, right? We knew it. If
(09:13):
you want to thank me for my role in this,
that's fine. We knew she was going to retire. She
could have announced her retirement at any time, right? I
could announce my retirement tomorrow. Could have done it yesterday.
Could have done it Monday. Could have done whatever. But
this is one of those announcements that I think was
carefully crafted to serve a couple of different outcomes here.
(09:36):
Number one, if she's going to retire... When am I
going to do it? Well, when I'm not going to
get as much hate or celebration or controversy, which is
when the FIBA women's national team is playing in Germany, right?
Because they're not going to have enough time to weigh
in on the W. They're going to be worried about
winning the gold medal. There's not going to be as much.
(09:58):
You're not going to hear a lot from Caitlin Klar.
and from Paige Beckers and anybody out there not going
to talk. Brianna Stewart not going to talk about Kathy Engler.
You're not going to hear a lot. So, okay, I
want to make sure that's going on because I know
the players don't like me. But here's the thing. How
much of this is a final blank you to all
the players because she knows the players don't like her
They have said they don't like her, that she announced
(10:20):
or the story breaks of her retirement right after they
play their first game in World Cup. Didn't need it.
Could have done this at any time. Right. They play
their first game. Caitlin Clark stars off the bench. Paige
Becker stars off the bench. All the different memes you're
seeing of Kaitlyn Clark and Angel Reese, how they're getting along,
and Angel Reese is telling Kaitlyn, hey, you can't go
(10:41):
in the game yet. You've got to wait for the horn,
and they're laughing. All of this, it's the best overall
story the WNBA has had. Here are all the players
that we all think hate each other. They can't stand it,
and here they are playing together, and it's awesome, and
it's wonderful, and Kaitlyn Clark stars, and right after, what
do we get? I'm retiring. I'm taking away from the
headline that should go to the players today is, in
(11:03):
the first game for the World Cup, but I'm announcing
my retirement today. I'm taking away from your big party
and your big celebration. Blank me? You guys like the
job I did as commissioner? Blank you. I'm going to
announce what I'm saying right now when I could have
done it absolutely at any time. We're not playing for
another few weeks. There's many times she could have announced
(11:24):
she's retired, but it's coming, but it comes out today.
This is a final blank you. Oh, you don't like me? Okay,
I'm going to get a little bit of my petty
revenge here at the end of the day.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
How about I take you a step further? This is
forced by the NBA to say, hey, take some heat
off us because nobody likes you. Not exactly the best
week for the NBA in terms of headlines, stories, Pablo
Torre finding out and everybody else getting the Cliff Notes
version and catching up. And then what dropped today, which
(11:54):
we'll get to. But all of that in a nice
big package. Hey, Kathy, it seems like a pretty good
time for you to announce this. Because then all the hate, vitriol,
and folks that have no care one bit for the WNBA,
its players, its existence, have taken time to talk about
(12:17):
it today. Right. So you're not talking about the NBA
and Adam Silver or anybody else at this point. Look,
with her tenure, we've talked about it a lot. She
was a good business person. That's what she was brought
in to do. And she did that part of the
job well. But it's like, you know, you're building a
business and you go and it's like, all right, we
(12:40):
need to expand. So we go and we get three
floors of a building. On the top level, all your
top executives. Hey, nice corner office looking out over the
city and whatever else going on. The folks that are
building the web presence and all of that, they're on
the ground floor. In the middle, hey, what are we
doing on the second floor? We haven't figured out those
(13:01):
hires yet. That's kind of the WNBA in this growth
cycle that they've been in.
Speaker 4 (13:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Right? You had folks at the top. They got the
business stuff together. Right? And she should be commended for
everything that's worked. Obviously, corner office on the other side
of the floor is reserved for Caitlin Clark and all
the execs that she brought on board based on all
the businesses that came on board.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Right.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Timing is what it is. You take advantage of it
as you can. League partnerships. The problem is you still
need to run the league in the day to day.
And that's where it's been lax. And you've got some
players who talk very openly about their relationship with Kathy
Engelbert that they had one. So many others, including some
of your biggest stars in the game, are like, yeah,
(13:50):
I see her when she hands me an award, right?
I mean, that's a quote directly from Aja Wilson.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
I see her. You know, I'm always happy to see
her because it means she's giving me hardware. Like, that's
the biggest indictment in terms of, you know, your coordination, consideration,
and involvement on the day-to-day of this league. Those are
the people whose ears you should be bending every week. Hey,
(14:16):
what do you guys need? What's missing? Not just from
your office, but from the league as a whole. How
do we support you? And that's not just the players
and in arena. That's everything else. The tax of social media.
The tax of all the pundits and loudmouths stopping in
when it's convenient. to criticize something that went wrong at
(14:40):
a game, right? People throwing stuff, people saying things, whatever. No, no,
it's that day-to-day maintenance that's been missing. And those are
all those people on the second floor that they never
figured out how to make the intermediary. Because it's not
all going to be on the commissioner's shoulders, right? And
she gets, you know, the brunt as well as you are, right?
You've got the title, you get the smoke. But there
(15:03):
should have been a whole auxiliary staff hired, and implemented
to help this growth process. And they were remiss in
doing that, which is why you find yourself having these
battles and these squabbles. And as she exits, everybody kicking
her in the posterior as she exits the door.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
She had to go. Look, we've talked about it a lot.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
She had to fix the glitch. It was going to
be done right.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
A to B was great. She kept the league afloat,
kept it going. But now this new era, they need
their version of David Stern. Right. That's exactly what they
need is someone to come in. that can take the
league from tape delay NBA finals into, hey, we're celebrating
Magic and Larry and Michael. That's what they need now.
They had what they had, and now it's, okay, how
(15:51):
do we take advantage of this unprecedented growth? We need
someone that can actually do things. that will actually come
to the defense of the players or anybody. I mean, really,
Kathy Engelbert made Adam Silver look like the busiest guy
in the world. Like, he made him look like Bruce
Almighty when he was granting everybody's wishes, going, I can't stop.
I just got to keep helping everyone. I got to
keep helping everyone. Like, Adam Silver likes to do nothing
(16:13):
except when it comes to the Clippers. And it made
Kathy Engelbert, wow. I mean, she's just like, yeah, I'm
not going to do interviews, not going to help anything.
I'm going to give you lukewarm statements on stuff. Yeah,
she absolutely had to go. And again... You think today
wasn't planned out when she announced she could have put
her retirement out there any time she wanted. This is
a blank you to the plate. You don't like me.
You're very vocal with blaming me. I'm going to take
(16:35):
as much out of your moment as I can. I
can't do it so much when they're playing for the
gold medal. I can't do it during the playoffs, when
they're playing in the finals, because I'm going to lose it.
I've got to pick the right time, and I'm picking
now because, again, it serves both purposes of blank you
to the player's end. I'm not going to get as
much hatred because everybody's focused on what's going on in Germany.
(16:57):
So that's why we had it today. This was a
master trolling class from Kathy Engelbert here for the WNBA.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Kathy has presided over the WNBA through the most significant
period of growth in the league's 30-year history. We are
grateful for Kathy's leadership and unwavering commitment to the advancement
of women's basketball. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Beat it.
I think that's how Adam Silver's line ended.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
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more info, visit Webull.com slash disclosures. Well, coming up next,
we got more college football and try to make sense
(17:44):
of what the hell happened today with Pablo Torre. Keep
it here. We're just getting started on a big, fun
Friday night. Jason and Mike. fox sports radio.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Be sure to catch live editions of the jason smith
show with mike harman weekdays at 10 p.m eastern 7
p.m pacific on fox sports radio and the iheart radio.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
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Speaker 5 (18:10):
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Speaker 3 (18:20):
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Speaker 1 (18:40):
And you'll find today's full show and a best of
(19:06):
version posted right after we get off the air. So
a big night again, college football again, as, as, as
the games get closer or more people start getting to
the games at USC. Oh, is it too soon? Too
soon for that too soon. Uh, a bigger crowd than
last time for USC. Sure. Uh, but still the same result, uh,
(19:26):
which is good for them. They lead Fresno state right now,
23 to nothing, uh, big safety. And then a touchdown
following up has put this game out of reach. Meanwhile,
Miami continues to lead Stanford 21 to three. We talked
about the big night from Malachi, Tony, just unreal in Oklahoma,
blowing out UTEP 44 to nothing. As we get set
for the big first full day in college football tomorrow, but, uh,
(19:50):
last night, we talked about this a lot. The world
was waiting. Apparently, Pablo Torre had something new, right? He
took care of the Clippers, took care of Kawhi Leonard,
took care of Steve Ballmer. Pablo Torre found out and
we saw the penalties for the Clippers for circumventing the
salary cap with Kawhi Leonard. Well, last night, They put
out a little, just a big eye emoji on Twitter
(20:13):
for a Pablo Torrey finds out page. Now the Bob
Woodward of our generation, who puts out a big teaser
coming for tomorrow. And it was a picture of Mark
Walter and the Dodgers at the White House giving President
Trump a jersey. And the description of what was coming
from Vanity Fair, who had a teaser, it was hard
to understand. It involves a baseball team in Los Angeles,
(20:36):
Hall of Fame basketball players, big business. And you're saying, okay,
I don't understand what this is. It sounds like a...
plot line of a streaming show that i just have
to watch to see if i get but i guessed
right smith uh yeah well you well you you didn't
get the magic johnson part of it sure i did
no you didn't you did not get magic johnson come
on you just said magic johnson have a tweet about.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
It well no because of the the involvement as an
owner of the the dodgers that it all tied together
and that that it was it had to be rotten
from the core And then we'd get a tweet about it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
This story that broke today, I'm going to try to
explain it the easiest way possible, which is the best
way for my brain to understand it because it's incredibly
complicated and I don't know anyone that really understands exactly
what's going on.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Did you figure out the way to do it in
a movie or TV show? Like, say, take your favorite
protagonist in a TV show and his world.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
I'm going to use a Ted Lasso analogy to explain this.
Catch you later, Epeppy. he, he kind of warned last
night by saying, I like saying something like, well, I
hope everybody sticks with this tomorrow for this big story
that it is. And it's like, okay. All right. So
when he, when you have to say that I'm going, okay,
he knows this is going to be something that's hard
(21:56):
to swallow. And again, there's the podcast that he talked
about it on. And then there's different websites to try
to recap what was said. And even if you read
the recap of, It's impossible to figure out. It's like, yeah,
it's like, you know, when you had cliff notes. And
so I always knew a book was really difficult in school.
Like if I'm reading something and I don't get it
(22:17):
and I get the cliff notes so I can understand
or write a paper a little bit better. when I'm
reading stuff that's so incredibly dry and boring, like Jude
the Obscure or, you know, crazy stuff. And I'm like,
I don't want to read any of this in high school.
Come on. I read all the time. I don't want
to read any of this stuff. Come on. Like when I,
when the cliff notes are still something they go, yeah,
I still not sure I understand what's going on. You
(22:39):
know how difficult that story is going to be to
cut through. This story landed today with a thud, with
an absolute thud, right? This was the, I'll give you
an analogy. If Pablo Torre finds out about the Clippers,
was Michael Jordan and the Last Dance 30 for 30, right? Wow,
as big a deal as that was. Hey, what do
(23:01):
they have coming up next? And then they had the
Lance Armstrong documentary, which nobody cared about, which landed with
a huge thud. This is the Lance Armstrong thud. of, of, of,
of following up. Hey, we're following up the last dance
with Lance Armstrong and boy, no one really cares. That's
a big thud for many different reasons. Okay. Now we're
moving on past that. So that's what this is. This
(23:22):
is the Lance Armstrong doc of, of Pablo tour.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
See, I was going to give you a scripted TV
show and say, it was like your opinion of the
last season of the bear.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yeah. You know what? I can't say because I didn't
watch it.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Oh, you didn't watch it?
Speaker 1 (23:36):
No, I had no interest in seeing the last season
of The Bear. It's been terrible for three years. Why
am I going to do it again? Nothing happens. I'm
not going to watch it.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
No.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
At least I read and did research and looked into
this to try to understand it. At least I looked
into it, man. Bear, I'm like, yeah, no, skip it.
I'll watch something else. I'll watch Ride or Die with
Hannah Waddingham. Yeah, I love Hannah Waddingham.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
It didn't give you a lot. And I'm sure you
watched Gary, the spinoff. Cause that was entertaining.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
I made it through about the first half hour, Gary.
Then I stopped. Wow.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Even getting after it.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Come on. I'm just done. I was just done. Well,
either way.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
So this story, and again, I'll try to, this will
be the best way. If you want to record this somehow,
use your phone. So when you explain it, this, this
is the best way I can explain it. Now, you
know that Mark Walter is already under investigation and, for
insurance fraud, right? It's why he sold, potentially, why he
sold the Lakers, why selling his shares in Chelsea, why
(24:35):
he looked into selling the Dodgers TV contract, which is
the most lucrative thing in the world, right?
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Which is also part of all of this.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yeah. So, you know, Mark Walter is under investigation for
insurance fraud. This is the best, easiest way to explain it.
When he bought the Dodgers, bought them for a lot
less money, Magic Johnson helped him out with some money.
And in the ensuing years, there was some insurance fraud
that he's being investigated for, and Magic Johnson is caught
(25:02):
up in this. And the reason the picture was up
there of Mark Walter giving the jersey to President Trump
is because, according to Pablo Torre, knowing that this is
how it happens in America now, Walter was hoping that
President Trump would be able to do something to help
him out financially. of this situation. So that's really the story.
That's the easiest way. Anything else, forget it. It just
(25:23):
gets too difficult. It's too weird. It's too much inside baseball.
It's too hard for the average person to get worked
up over a story like this because, number one, it's
really complicated. Number two, did I say it was complicated?
And number three, I don't know that this is breaking
any ground on anything that we really care about. Like
(25:44):
Kawhi Leonard getting a fake job and circumventing the salary cap, wow,
that's easy to process and that's something we've never seen before.
How's the NBA going to deal with this? But here's
a story about billionaires who are potentially involved in some
sort of or fraud, which we see these stories every
(26:05):
single day, right? We see big business stories involving President
Trump one way or another every single day. I don't
see how this moves the needle, right? This would have
to get to a point where, honestly, Walter's got to
sell the Dodgers and Magic Johnson's going to prison, right? Like,
that's really where this would have to get to for
people to be interested in. That's where it's got to
get to because everything else is just– Okay. Yeah. I mean,
(26:30):
I guess I'll kind of follow this. I don't know.
That's why this is followed up. I get it. It's
investigative journalism, and it can be really soupy, and there's
lots of red tape to cut through, and there's lots of–
I get it. But overall, publicly, I don't think this
is going to garner our attention. I don't think it's
going to be something that we really harp on a
(26:50):
lot unless the Dodgers become for sale and Magic Johnson
can go to prison. That's really the two things that
would make people go, oh, what's going on here now?
What do I need to know? The rest of it,
it's billionaire problems, and it's nothing that really is something that, whoa,
it gathers up, grabs my attention for something new. Because
we knew that Mark Walter was being investigated. We knew
(27:11):
this was going on. We knew it. Okay, Magic Johnson, okay,
that's a new thing. Didn't think, you know, the money
that he lent him and now caught up in the
insurance fraud too. But outside of that, like, this didn't
really land nearly as much as he thought it was
going to.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Yeah, it's interesting. Like, some of it goes back to
the sale to Walter and the Guggenheim group and how
they came over the top in what seemed like a
multi-bidder kind of system, including Stan Kroenke. So that's part
of the details there. That that has, I think, some
interest because it gets into the the TV deal that
(27:46):
had been brokered in the bankruptcy court, as we've talked
about in past episodes. We've got Steve Desegar at the
news desk today, and I know this has is this
is he was pouring through this legalese in between that
and getting ready for week one. of Chargers football, and
(28:06):
stats for days, of course. But when you get down
to it, the Magic Johnson side of it's interesting because
you're talking about a life insurance company that he owns,
and I'm curious what the premiums were doing that people
were paying in during these years or settlements and all
of that. You're following trails of money. And again, that's
(28:29):
me being a nerd. The general consensus, like you said,
unless someone's slapping cuffs on somebody, Nobody cares. Just play baseball.
Make sure that the game is on at 7-10, not 7-11,
and we get back to the business of things kind
of operating as normal. Because right now the Dodgers are
worried about Shohei Otani and a million other things. So
(28:51):
people can't be mired down in legalese.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Yeah, it's just some things just are too tough to–
explain that cut.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Oh, it's not digestible at all.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
You have to be able to cut through the clutter, right?
And make it something where, okay, you're good. Cause the
news world is really, it's very difficult to cut through. Now,
this is a story that you had people's attention. Okay.
What does he got next? And not that, not that
he failed at it, but just, okay. That this just
doesn't quite have the same meat to it unless other
things happen. Like we talked about, that's going to be
(29:24):
really difficult. And, and, you know, so far for seeing this,
I'm like, okay, this will be something that drags on,
investigate it, find out. It's almost like when, it's almost like,
to kind of make another analogy on it, is like
when you have to read about collective bargaining stories and
what goes back and forth between players and the union
and what is said and what the commissioner's office say
(29:46):
and what the representatives of the of the union have
to say. And it's like, you know what? I really
don't care. You know, they get into so much detail
and stuff about about backloaded salaries and different like you
need to give me the nuts and bolts of it.
What do I care about? Like, that's kind of what
it's like, which is why I think we have less
stomach for that as we go on, which is why
no one wants to talk about the upcoming potential baseball lockout,
(30:08):
because it's just so daunting to even think about the
back and forth between both sides and the in the.
sheer amount of minutia that's going to go into it.
So that's kind of how I see this thing unfolding.
Following it like, well, I'm following the baseball, the talks,
and I'll get interested when there's a deal. When there's
(30:29):
going to be a deal. A deal is close. There
could be a deal. That's going to gain my attention, right?
Like we said, that's when this story... We'll gain more
attention if those couple of things happen.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Yeah, I mean, one of the pieces, just to go
back to the TV part of it, was that the
charge here, not criminal, but just the assessment of it,
is that Major League Baseball may have allowed the Dodgers
to keep more of the money from its TV deal
(30:56):
because Walter purchased the team and it pushed the asking
price North. Like this is, this is how inside, as
you say, inside baseball against where you're talking about all
of that going back over a decade ago. I think
with football kicking off, people will be worried about the
eighth team in their respective division. I mean, they got
(31:18):
fantasy drafts this week and of course a lot of
betting to do.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Exit out about a fresca. Exit Swollen Dome, the Jason
Smith Show, with my best friend, Mike Harmon. Time now
to find out what's trending in the wide world of
sports from special delivery Steve to Sager SD. What do
you got?
Speaker 4 (31:34):
Hello, and I think even bringing up the Dodger TV deal.
That even makes it more undigestible because then you have
to say, well, actually, that all started with the previous
owner and the bankruptcy that even created the need for
a sale. I mean, you know, I think the verb
we're looking for is the Mark Walter story is very
hard to parse.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Nicely done.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
You cannot break it down into bits and then analyze,
connect and maybe actually understand it.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
We're just going to do that for four hours. Everything
else is gone.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
What is laid out there is apparently we have a
very rich guy who has many, many companies predating sports
who apparently had one of the companies loaning money to
another one of his companies and didn't report it. So
it's apparent self-dealing.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
And that's where it stands. Like they always tell you,
if you're going to set up the simple LLC or
limited partnership in any case, it's got to be separate
from the rest of your monies.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
Money's, yet again, plural on this show.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
That's correct.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
As for college football, on FS1 at Michigan State, Toledo
has just scored a touchdown to take the lead on
the Spartans, 20-19 early in the fourth quarter. Meanwhile, on
Fox TV, halftime at 14th ranked USC, Trojans 30-0 over
Fresno State. My goodness, Jaden Maiava, good again. Not only
three touchdown passes, but 17 of 18 through the air,
(32:56):
284 yards in the first half. Halftime, No. 7 Miami
leads at Stanford 28-6. And I'm glad you brought up
Malachi Toney of the Hurricanes. It's 10 receptions in the
first half for 182 yards and two scores. Early in
the fourth quarter, 10th-ranked Oklahoma driving again.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Sooners up 44-0 on UTEP.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
And Kansas, starting the fourth, leads 37-0 against Long Island.
Road wins for San Jose State and, no, not Indiana State.
They were tied at Purdue 3-3 late first, and that
was about as close as they got. Even Purdue wins
in a blowout this weekend, 44-19 the final. Most teams
are opening the season on Saturday. There are three college
(33:41):
games this Sunday. The Pro Football Hall of Fame is
changing its voting rules. A separate seniors category is out,
and there will only be 25 voters now, not 50.
To Major League Baseball, Cleveland has won in walk-off fashion
in both ends of a doubleheader. 7-6 today against Detroit
and in 10 innings tonight, 4-3 against the Tigers. The
(34:02):
Rays are ahead in the top of the ninth at Texas, 6-5.
Houston at home ahead of Arizona, 3-1 in the top
of the ninth. The Arizona Diamondbacks a half game ahead
of San Diego for the last NL wildcard. The Padres
at home are tied with the Yankees, 1-1 in the
bottom of the fourth. The Dodgers and Blakes now scoreless
with the Nationals in the third.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
D.H.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
Shohei Otani of L.A. out again due to his injuries. Earlier,
we had road wins for Boston and the Cubs. Home
victory for the White Sox, 44-1 over Minnesota, and now
30 homers this year for both Miguel Vargas and Colson Montgomery.
What is going on with this team? Not just alone
for first in the AL Central. They, I guess, just
(34:42):
lost the half game on the day because Cleveland swept
a doubleheader. Still, two and a half game lead. Atlanta
won in Philadelphia 5-2 and Milwaukee beat the Reds 10-7.
WNBA Commissioner Kathy Engelberg will retire at the end of
this year. And Team USA won its opener at the
Women's World Cup. In hoops, it was 94-61, Americans over China.
(35:07):
Kaitlyn Clark led with 14 points and 11 assists off
the bench.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
No turnovers. Back to you.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Thank you, Steve-O. Jason Smith, Mike Harmon, live from the
Fox Sports Radio Studios. Coming up next, two separate events
tonight in the same sport has pretty much guaranteed one
big piece of hardware is going to be won this
offseason by one person and one person only, and his
initials are somewhat close to PCA. That's next. Jason and Mike, Fox.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Be sure to catch live editions of the Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at 10 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m.
Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Fox Sports Radio, the Jason Smith Show with my best friend,
Mike Harmon. And I know that the debate was trending recently.
one way but sometimes you get a black and white
situation that tells you okay whatever debate this was this
(36:18):
is now over and it's not just about what happens
one day but about two things that happen about the
same time and you say to yourself yeah okay this
debate is over uh pete crowe armstrong is going to
win nlmvp and it's going to not even be a
close race with shohei otani We know both of their
resumes over the course of the past year, right? What
(36:40):
Shohei Otani has done, but you can't give him the
MVP just because he's Shohei Otani. He has struggled lately.
He has not been able to pitch. He is not healthy.
He rested tonight, the second game in a row, and
the Dodgers are hoping that a IL stay is not
in the offing for Otani, right? He's not ending on
a flourish. He's not ending big. They're hoping they can
(37:02):
keep him healthy as they get into the playoffs. Meanwhile,
another night, Another big highlight for Pete Crow Armstrong makes
a great leaping catch at the fence against the Marlins. So,
you know, just these two things just happen to happen within,
you know, a little bit of time with each other.
But this should be the night that tells you, OK,
PCA is going to win the MVP and Otani is
(37:23):
Otani is not. He's probably going to finish second, but
it's not the vote isn't even going to be close.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Yeah, we've watched it swell the last couple of weeks
because Otani's been unavailable on the mound and. most of
the time pretty terrible at the plate right not driving
the ball with any authority uh and the rbi production
has been decimated meanwhile you've watched pete crowe armstrong much
to your dismay as well as like back-to-back home runs
(37:48):
from guys like lewis robert jr and pete alonzo for
the baltimore orioles but let's keep it here for now
uh 280 39 home runs 93 rbi you're talking about
the defense and then obviously adding another 32 stolen bases
At this point, you're looking at a 40-40 season, and
just he's been tremendous. The implied odds right now are 95%.
(38:11):
So all you folks, if you're trading card collectors, get
ready to bust out all of those Topps Chromes for trade-ins, man.
Let's go.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
Now, it's not just about that because this is, you know, okay, yeah, okay,
obviously these guys are going to win MVP. Look at
Pete Coral Armstrong. Look at the way he's training. It's
just an interesting thing that this is what happens tonight
between these two guys that push it one way.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Well, they dovetail, you know, it's like they're neck and
neck for the longest time. You finally have it to
where it's like, all right, let's have this discussion. How
much does the first half pitching matter? And now you're like, yeah,
it doesn't. And for Pete Coral Armstrong, remember, second half
of last year, everybody thought he was broken. right? Because
he had a huge first half to the year and
(38:52):
then he was terrible. And then I've seen some of
the video overlays talking about some of the adjustments made
to the swing to get him on track to what
he's done this year, which has been incredible.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
The other part of this is that we've talked about
pitching with Shohei Otani and said he's got to close.
It's clear his arm is not up to The wear
and tear of being a starting pitcher. And now you're
seeing it affect him when he has to DH every day.
So at some point, you have to have the conversation of,
(39:28):
should he be done pitching? Now, I don't know that
you can have that cold turkey conversation with him. Again, closer.
I've said it for two and a half years. He
should close with two Tommy John, two UCL surgeries, and
now another injury that's keeping him from pitching and maybe
hurting him when he hits. Like, he can't pitch that
many innings. I know he wants to, but you've got
(39:48):
to keep his bat in the lineup because he's a
slugger unlike anything we have ever seen. If you want
to try him at closer, great. Let's see if that
works out. pitch 60 innings or so a year, that
might do it. But we are closing in on the
end of his pitching days. If he can't close or
he doesn't want to, the Dodgers have to have a
tough conversation to go, you know what, I know you
want to, but you got to be in the lineup
(40:09):
155 games a year, 150 games a year. We can't
have you pitch. The end of his pitching days are coming.
sometime soon. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
I skipped straight past, uh, go, uh, and we're done
with it. Right. You're not pitching again. Cause you're also
a really good base runner and very smart. Uh, and
we've seen you steal bases. We could use some of
that because you know, uh, a lot of guys in
the Dodger lineup seemingly have forgotten how to hit these
last couple of months. So, uh, having a guy that
(40:36):
could be active on the base paths, actually a big
win for you.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Exit out about a fresca, exit swollen dough on the
Jason Smith Show with my best friend Mike Harmon live
from the Fox Sports Radio Studios. Coming up next, we
get back into the biggest story of the day that
we told you was going to happen last night. Jason
and Mike, this is Fox Sports Radio.
Thanks for listening to the Jason Smith Show with Mike
Harmon podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weeknight,
10 p.m. to 2 a.m. Eastern, 7 to 11 p.m.
Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station for
the Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon at foxsportsradio.com or
stream us live every night on the iHeartRadio app by
searching FSR. Now let's get this party started.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Best friend, Mike Harmon. Listen to us tonight. Check out
our YouTube channel and see us. Just search Jason Smith
Show within YouTube again. That's Jason Smith Show. Hit the
subscribe button, then tap the thumbs up icon. Comment away
whether you agree or disagree. Let us know what you think. Again,
just search Jason Smith Show on YouTube and subscribe. A
(00:50):
big college football night, a big hot take basketball kind
of day. Yeah, I think we're moving into fall pretty well,
Mike Harmon. I don't think there's going to be, boy,
the dog days of summer. No, no. We're moving right
into big time storylines very easily.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yeah, there's never been a lull. I mean, we had
the FIFA World Cup coming out of that. We had
controversy in that and then coming out of it. And
we roll into what has been the most legally– A
dominated week in terms of sports headlines, perhaps ever?
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yeah, a lot of you didn't know a lot of
law stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
We got that today.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Well, today, the Pablo.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
I mean, we're finding out. I mean, come on, dude.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
You could watch as much as much any kind of
law and order as you want. You're not going to
understand the Pablo Torrey thing. No, no, no.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
I've tried to break it down and read it back
to myself like I was a five year old.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
No, no, dude.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Like a proposition.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Just just reading the Cliff Notes version of what it
is is like, OK, wait a minute. You're still losing
me on the Cliff Notes version. So I kind of get,
I kind of get why he said last night, I
hope people want to stick through and see to the
end of the big story. Yeah. People are going, yeah,
I don't get it. I don't know what it's about.
I'm gone. I'm gone. I'm sorry. I'm done.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Money is being funneled here and borrowed back here. Like
you're drawing a giant, like, I don't know. Danny G
was working on something where he had a bunch of whiteboards.
I don't know if it was for a game they
play or something, but I was going to steal them
and Voltron them. And even then, I don't think I
have enough space to kind of connect all those dots.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Hand. So again, we'll get into that coming up in
a bit, but college football first, and it's a big
night of college football. We have three top 25 teams playing. tonight,
and I say playing because none of the games are
really close.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
However... Oh, come on. They're games. There's people in the stands.
They're fighting through traffic. There's a lot going on.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Don't worry. Everybody will be at that USC game soon.
Don't worry. Don't worry. They'll be there soon.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
May the boilers put up 44. Oklahoma's rolling, so Chris
Plank's excited. I'm watching Pat Fitzgerald and Sparty getting after it.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Come on. But here's the thing, right? Coming off tonight,
coming into this year, it was widely assumed, well, Jeremiah Smith,
best wide receiver in college football, and it's not close, right?
He's going to get Heisman votes. He's going to be
up there. He's going to be a top five overall
draft pick. He's the whole package, and he is. He
is terrific. But I want to say this. Are we
sure that Malachi Toney is not the best receiver in
(03:23):
college football?
Speaker 3 (03:24):
How about that? Hot take debates. Let's go.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Picking up where he left off last year, so far
against Stanford, it's 21-3 in the second quarter. Seven catches
for 141 yards. and two touchdowns. And what we saw
him do when he started to make headlines towards the
end of last year, I mean, 18 years old, right?
When we saw the end of last year when Miami
started to gain a lot of attention because they won
(03:49):
their way through the playoff and suddenly, hey, wait a minute,
this kid's pretty good. You just watch... The any sort
of clip reel from Malachi Tony, just watch from tonight
where it's the the separation, the route running, the hands,
the quick twitch movements. I mean, I really I don't
know that he's not the best wide receiver in college football.
(04:10):
He's a smaller guy. Maybe he's a better Steve Smith.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Right.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Which would be pretty bleep and good. But like I mean,
you watch some of it. He had one. He caught
one one pass today. where he was in the slot
and he just gave a little bit of a jog
and a faint inside, and he just blew outside for
a quick out 15-yard gain. And what's the DB going
to do? I'm telling you, Jeremiah Smith is great. Are
(04:34):
we sure he is the best? Is he as explosive
as Malachi Toney? Man, I can't believe anybody's going to
be explosive with him this year. And you're bringing in
a big quarterback in Darian Mensah, who's been able to
get him the football. Obviously, taking over from Carson Beck
is a big deal. But, man, Malachi, Tony, you're looking
at this kid going, oh, my goodness. I mean, it's
really unbelievable what he could do at such a young
(04:54):
age to be able to be this good and already
this good with a new quarterback, jumping off of what
happened last year when you think, okay, maybe Miami takes
a little bit of a step back. They graduated their quarterback.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Nope.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
He is just picking up right where he left off.
This kid is unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
And now you have Leviosa, I mean Mensah, down there
as their quarterback, Darian Mensah. Well, because, you know, we
like to put some numbers to things, and why not?
Right now you're plus 250 for Jeremiah Smith to win
the Bolitnikoff Award. Malachi Toney at plus 650. Cam Coleman
(05:33):
of Texas at plus 900.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
So a big blowout so far for Miami against Stanford. And, look,
we talked about Oklahoma beating UTEP. And, look, I think
fans are still getting to the game at U.S. I
think there was traffic. I think the 101 across the
valley floor, there was a little bit of traffic. There
might have been a police chase. There might have been
some protests. There might have been some road work being done.
(05:57):
Maybe people didn't know what time the game was. Maybe
the sun was too.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
High in the sky. There was a Dodger game.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, you know, but at least, you know, when you
look and say– Hey, the lower bowl is filled. We're
getting there. Okay. All right. USC, we're getting there.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Look, the long road begins with the first step. We
talked about it a bunch, though. I mean, this is
while the heat was such a big factor and such
a talking point last week, as well as all the
stuff going on in L.A., the liking problem that people
have with the coach and how he's never really tried
to embrace anybody as the coach. not even walking five
(06:31):
steps to grab a reporter and make them, make them
a buddy. No, I mean, he hates everybody, but tonight,
Friday night of a holiday weekend in Los Angeles, I
got to the parking garage and like, there was this
moment where I like, look, it's a, it's a Friday.
Like I'm not thinking about it from the larger scale of, Hey,
(06:53):
it's a holiday weekend. Cause what do we do? Lunch pail,
we go to work, right? It's a football weekend. We
go to work. I get into the parking lot and
there are like three cars on the first level where
normally you've got everybody from the hot yoga studio fighting
to try to back in terribly with their car repeatedly.
(07:14):
There's nobody there. I looked at our guy and I go,
what's going on? He goes, you know, holiday. Everybody just
left early.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
I'm like, holiday, holiday.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Or they were all fighting to get over to the Coliseum.
I don't know which was truer.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yes. And they're, and they're still fighting. They're still fighting
to get there. So we'll keep you updated on the
college football games. Again, all the, all three top 25
teams have a leave, at least a couple of touchdowns
in this game, but I've been waiting to get to
this all day. Cause I love starting things with a
great big hot take and, And, you know, we talked
about this a lot last night on the show, getting
(07:47):
into the FIBA World Cup and the women playing this
morning and Caitlin Clark, for some reason, and Paige Becker's
coming off the bench, the best players coming off the bench,
which is absolutely ridiculous. But that's not the hot take.
That's not the hot take. I got a better hot
take for you. I got a better hot take for you.
You think that the players in the WNBA... Didn't like
(08:10):
Kathy Engelbert.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
The story today that she announces that she is retiring
as commissioner of the WNBA. And we've talked about her
ad nauseum for a long time. And many shows have
picked up along it after we've talked about. That's great.
We have big shoulders. We can carry you. She's an
A-to-B commissioner, to quote my friend Mike Harmon. She's not
a B-to-C commissioner. She had no idea how to handle
(08:32):
this era of the WNBA with the new players and
the new stardom, and she just decided, I'm going to
be invisible the entire time instead of addressing things like our...
players being adjudicated the right way when it comes to fouls, right?
Are we dealing with controversies outside of the WNBA, even
(08:53):
stupid stuff? Are we dealing with it right? Instead, I'm
just absolutely invisible. And you've seen some players who were
very vocal about Kathy Engelbert, not liking the job she's done,
and that's come out a lot in the last couple weeks.
So think about this. She's retiring, right? And we knew
she was going to retire, right? We knew it. If
(09:13):
you want to thank me for my role in this,
that's fine. We knew she was going to retire. She
could have announced her retirement at any time, right? I
could announce my retirement tomorrow. Could have done it yesterday.
Could have done it Monday. Could have done whatever. But
this is one of those announcements that I think was
carefully crafted to serve a couple of different outcomes here.
(09:36):
Number one, if she's going to retire... When am I
going to do it? Well, when I'm not going to
get as much hate or celebration or controversy, which is
when the FIBA women's national team is playing in Germany, right?
Because they're not going to have enough time to weigh
in on the W. They're going to be worried about
winning the gold medal. There's not going to be as much.
(09:58):
You're not going to hear a lot from Caitlin Klar.
and from Paige Beckers and anybody out there not going
to talk. Brianna Stewart not going to talk about Kathy Engler.
You're not going to hear a lot. So, okay, I
want to make sure that's going on because I know
the players don't like me. But here's the thing. How
much of this is a final blank you to all
the players because she knows the players don't like her
They have said they don't like her, that she announced
(10:20):
or the story breaks of her retirement right after they
play their first game in World Cup. Didn't need it.
Could have done this at any time. Right. They play
their first game. Caitlin Clark stars off the bench. Paige
Becker stars off the bench. All the different memes you're
seeing of Kaitlyn Clark and Angel Reese, how they're getting along,
and Angel Reese is telling Kaitlyn, hey, you can't go
(10:41):
in the game yet. You've got to wait for the horn,
and they're laughing. All of this, it's the best overall
story the WNBA has had. Here are all the players
that we all think hate each other. They can't stand it,
and here they are playing together, and it's awesome, and
it's wonderful, and Kaitlyn Clark stars, and right after, what
do we get? I'm retiring. I'm taking away from the
headline that should go to the players today is, in
(11:03):
the first game for the World Cup, but I'm announcing
my retirement today. I'm taking away from your big party
and your big celebration. Blank me? You guys like the
job I did as commissioner? Blank you. I'm going to
announce what I'm saying right now when I could have
done it absolutely at any time. We're not playing for
another few weeks. There's many times she could have announced
(11:24):
she's retired, but it's coming, but it comes out today.
This is a final blank you. Oh, you don't like me? Okay,
I'm going to get a little bit of my petty
revenge here at the end of the day.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
How about I take you a step further? This is
forced by the NBA to say, hey, take some heat
off us because nobody likes you. Not exactly the best
week for the NBA in terms of headlines, stories, Pablo
Torre finding out and everybody else getting the Cliff Notes
version and catching up. And then what dropped today, which
(11:54):
we'll get to. But all of that in a nice
big package. Hey, Kathy, it seems like a pretty good
time for you to announce this. Because then all the hate, vitriol,
and folks that have no care one bit for the WNBA,
its players, its existence, have taken time to talk about
(12:17):
it today. Right. So you're not talking about the NBA
and Adam Silver or anybody else at this point. Look,
with her tenure, we've talked about it a lot. She
was a good business person. That's what she was brought
in to do. And she did that part of the
job well. But it's like, you know, you're building a
business and you go and it's like, all right, we
(12:40):
need to expand. So we go and we get three
floors of a building. On the top level, all your
top executives. Hey, nice corner office looking out over the
city and whatever else going on. The folks that are
building the web presence and all of that, they're on
the ground floor. In the middle, hey, what are we
doing on the second floor? We haven't figured out those
(13:01):
hires yet. That's kind of the WNBA in this growth
cycle that they've been in.
Speaker 4 (13:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Right? You had folks at the top. They got the
business stuff together. Right? And she should be commended for
everything that's worked. Obviously, corner office on the other side
of the floor is reserved for Caitlin Clark and all
the execs that she brought on board based on all
the businesses that came on board.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Right.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Timing is what it is. You take advantage of it
as you can. League partnerships. The problem is you still
need to run the league in the day to day.
And that's where it's been lax. And you've got some
players who talk very openly about their relationship with Kathy
Engelbert that they had one. So many others, including some
of your biggest stars in the game, are like, yeah,
(13:50):
I see her when she hands me an award, right?
I mean, that's a quote directly from Aja Wilson.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
I see her. You know, I'm always happy to see
her because it means she's giving me hardware. Like, that's
the biggest indictment in terms of, you know, your coordination, consideration,
and involvement on the day-to-day of this league. Those are
the people whose ears you should be bending every week. Hey,
(14:16):
what do you guys need? What's missing? Not just from
your office, but from the league as a whole. How
do we support you? And that's not just the players
and in arena. That's everything else. The tax of social media.
The tax of all the pundits and loudmouths stopping in
when it's convenient. to criticize something that went wrong at
(14:40):
a game, right? People throwing stuff, people saying things, whatever. No, no,
it's that day-to-day maintenance that's been missing. And those are
all those people on the second floor that they never
figured out how to make the intermediary. Because it's not
all going to be on the commissioner's shoulders, right? And
she gets, you know, the brunt as well as you are, right?
You've got the title, you get the smoke. But there
(15:03):
should have been a whole auxiliary staff hired, and implemented
to help this growth process. And they were remiss in
doing that, which is why you find yourself having these
battles and these squabbles. And as she exits, everybody kicking
her in the posterior as she exits the door.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
She had to go. Look, we've talked about it a lot.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
She had to fix the glitch. It was going to
be done right.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
A to B was great. She kept the league afloat,
kept it going. But now this new era, they need
their version of David Stern. Right. That's exactly what they
need is someone to come in. that can take the
league from tape delay NBA finals into, hey, we're celebrating
Magic and Larry and Michael. That's what they need now.
They had what they had, and now it's, okay, how
(15:51):
do we take advantage of this unprecedented growth? We need
someone that can actually do things. that will actually come
to the defense of the players or anybody. I mean, really,
Kathy Engelbert made Adam Silver look like the busiest guy
in the world. Like, he made him look like Bruce
Almighty when he was granting everybody's wishes, going, I can't stop.
I just got to keep helping everyone. I got to
keep helping everyone. Like, Adam Silver likes to do nothing
(16:13):
except when it comes to the Clippers. And it made
Kathy Engelbert, wow. I mean, she's just like, yeah, I'm
not going to do interviews, not going to help anything.
I'm going to give you lukewarm statements on stuff. Yeah,
she absolutely had to go. And again... You think today
wasn't planned out when she announced she could have put
her retirement out there any time she wanted. This is
a blank you to the plate. You don't like me.
You're very vocal with blaming me. I'm going to take
(16:35):
as much out of your moment as I can. I
can't do it so much when they're playing for the
gold medal. I can't do it during the playoffs, when
they're playing in the finals, because I'm going to lose it.
I've got to pick the right time, and I'm picking
now because, again, it serves both purposes of blank you
to the player's end. I'm not going to get as
much hatred because everybody's focused on what's going on in Germany.
(16:57):
So that's why we had it today. This was a
master trolling class from Kathy Engelbert here for the WNBA.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Kathy has presided over the WNBA through the most significant
period of growth in the league's 30-year history. We are
grateful for Kathy's leadership and unwavering commitment to the advancement
of women's basketball. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Beat it.
I think that's how Adam Silver's line ended.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
It's time to get your financial portfolio game ready with Webull.
Get powerful investing tools and real-time data all in one platform.
Get started by downloading the Webull app today or visiting Webull.com.
Webull Financial LLC member SIPC Frenra. Investing involves risk. For
more info, visit Webull.com slash disclosures. Well, coming up next,
we got more college football and try to make sense
(17:44):
of what the hell happened today with Pablo Torre. Keep
it here. We're just getting started on a big, fun
Friday night. Jason and Mike. fox sports radio.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Be sure to catch live editions of the jason smith
show with mike harman weekdays at 10 p.m eastern 7
p.m pacific on fox sports radio and the iheart radio.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
App Hey, it's Covino and Rich from Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
Now, in addition to hearing us live weekdays from 5
to 7 p.m. Eastern, 2 to 4 Pacific on Fox
Sports Radio, we're excited to announce a brand new YouTube
channel for the show.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Yup, that's right.
Speaker 5 (18:21):
You can now watch Covino and Rich live on YouTube
every day. All you gotta do, search Covino and Rich
FSR on YouTube. Again, go to YouTube, search Covino and
Rich FSR. Check us out on YouTube, subscribe, hit that
thumbs up icon, and comment away.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
And you'll find today's full show and a best of
(19:06):
version posted right after we get off the air. So
a big night again, college football again, as, as, as
the games get closer or more people start getting to
the games at USC. Oh, is it too soon? Too
soon for that too soon. Uh, a bigger crowd than
last time for USC. Sure. Uh, but still the same result, uh,
(19:26):
which is good for them. They lead Fresno state right now,
23 to nothing, uh, big safety. And then a touchdown
following up has put this game out of reach. Meanwhile,
Miami continues to lead Stanford 21 to three. We talked
about the big night from Malachi, Tony, just unreal in Oklahoma,
blowing out UTEP 44 to nothing. As we get set
for the big first full day in college football tomorrow, but, uh,
(19:50):
last night, we talked about this a lot. The world
was waiting. Apparently, Pablo Torre had something new, right? He
took care of the Clippers, took care of Kawhi Leonard,
took care of Steve Ballmer. Pablo Torre found out and
we saw the penalties for the Clippers for circumventing the
salary cap with Kawhi Leonard. Well, last night, They put
out a little, just a big eye emoji on Twitter
(20:13):
for a Pablo Torrey finds out page. Now the Bob
Woodward of our generation, who puts out a big teaser
coming for tomorrow. And it was a picture of Mark
Walter and the Dodgers at the White House giving President
Trump a jersey. And the description of what was coming
from Vanity Fair, who had a teaser, it was hard
to understand. It involves a baseball team in Los Angeles,
(20:36):
Hall of Fame basketball players, big business. And you're saying, okay,
I don't understand what this is. It sounds like a...
plot line of a streaming show that i just have
to watch to see if i get but i guessed
right smith uh yeah well you well you you didn't
get the magic johnson part of it sure i did
no you didn't you did not get magic johnson come
on you just said magic johnson have a tweet about.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
It well no because of the the involvement as an
owner of the the dodgers that it all tied together
and that that it was it had to be rotten
from the core And then we'd get a tweet about it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
This story that broke today, I'm going to try to
explain it the easiest way possible, which is the best
way for my brain to understand it because it's incredibly
complicated and I don't know anyone that really understands exactly
what's going on.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Did you figure out the way to do it in
a movie or TV show? Like, say, take your favorite
protagonist in a TV show and his world.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
I'm going to use a Ted Lasso analogy to explain this.
Catch you later, Epeppy. he, he kind of warned last
night by saying, I like saying something like, well, I
hope everybody sticks with this tomorrow for this big story
that it is. And it's like, okay. All right. So
when he, when you have to say that I'm going, okay,
he knows this is going to be something that's hard
(21:56):
to swallow. And again, there's the podcast that he talked
about it on. And then there's different websites to try
to recap what was said. And even if you read
the recap of, It's impossible to figure out. It's like, yeah,
it's like, you know, when you had cliff notes. And
so I always knew a book was really difficult in school.
Like if I'm reading something and I don't get it
(22:17):
and I get the cliff notes so I can understand
or write a paper a little bit better. when I'm
reading stuff that's so incredibly dry and boring, like Jude
the Obscure or, you know, crazy stuff. And I'm like,
I don't want to read any of this in high school.
Come on. I read all the time. I don't want
to read any of this stuff. Come on. Like when I,
when the cliff notes are still something they go, yeah,
I still not sure I understand what's going on. You
(22:39):
know how difficult that story is going to be to
cut through. This story landed today with a thud, with
an absolute thud, right? This was the, I'll give you
an analogy. If Pablo Torre finds out about the Clippers,
was Michael Jordan and the Last Dance 30 for 30, right? Wow,
as big a deal as that was. Hey, what do
(23:01):
they have coming up next? And then they had the
Lance Armstrong documentary, which nobody cared about, which landed with
a huge thud. This is the Lance Armstrong thud. of, of, of,
of following up. Hey, we're following up the last dance
with Lance Armstrong and boy, no one really cares. That's
a big thud for many different reasons. Okay. Now we're
moving on past that. So that's what this is. This
(23:22):
is the Lance Armstrong doc of, of Pablo tour.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
See, I was going to give you a scripted TV
show and say, it was like your opinion of the
last season of the bear.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yeah. You know what? I can't say because I didn't
watch it.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Oh, you didn't watch it?
Speaker 1 (23:36):
No, I had no interest in seeing the last season
of The Bear. It's been terrible for three years. Why
am I going to do it again? Nothing happens. I'm
not going to watch it.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
No.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
At least I read and did research and looked into
this to try to understand it. At least I looked
into it, man. Bear, I'm like, yeah, no, skip it.
I'll watch something else. I'll watch Ride or Die with
Hannah Waddingham. Yeah, I love Hannah Waddingham.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
It didn't give you a lot. And I'm sure you
watched Gary, the spinoff. Cause that was entertaining.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
I made it through about the first half hour, Gary.
Then I stopped. Wow.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Even getting after it.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Come on. I'm just done. I was just done. Well,
either way.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
So this story, and again, I'll try to, this will
be the best way. If you want to record this somehow,
use your phone. So when you explain it, this, this
is the best way I can explain it. Now, you
know that Mark Walter is already under investigation and, for
insurance fraud, right? It's why he sold, potentially, why he
sold the Lakers, why selling his shares in Chelsea, why
(24:35):
he looked into selling the Dodgers TV contract, which is
the most lucrative thing in the world, right?
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Which is also part of all of this.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yeah. So, you know, Mark Walter is under investigation for
insurance fraud. This is the best, easiest way to explain it.
When he bought the Dodgers, bought them for a lot
less money, Magic Johnson helped him out with some money.
And in the ensuing years, there was some insurance fraud
that he's being investigated for, and Magic Johnson is caught
(25:02):
up in this. And the reason the picture was up
there of Mark Walter giving the jersey to President Trump
is because, according to Pablo Torre, knowing that this is
how it happens in America now, Walter was hoping that
President Trump would be able to do something to help
him out financially. of this situation. So that's really the story.
That's the easiest way. Anything else, forget it. It just
(25:23):
gets too difficult. It's too weird. It's too much inside baseball.
It's too hard for the average person to get worked
up over a story like this because, number one, it's
really complicated. Number two, did I say it was complicated?
And number three, I don't know that this is breaking
any ground on anything that we really care about. Like
(25:44):
Kawhi Leonard getting a fake job and circumventing the salary cap, wow,
that's easy to process and that's something we've never seen before.
How's the NBA going to deal with this? But here's
a story about billionaires who are potentially involved in some
sort of or fraud, which we see these stories every
(26:05):
single day, right? We see big business stories involving President
Trump one way or another every single day. I don't
see how this moves the needle, right? This would have
to get to a point where, honestly, Walter's got to
sell the Dodgers and Magic Johnson's going to prison, right? Like,
that's really where this would have to get to for
people to be interested in. That's where it's got to
get to because everything else is just– Okay. Yeah. I mean,
(26:30):
I guess I'll kind of follow this. I don't know.
That's why this is followed up. I get it. It's
investigative journalism, and it can be really soupy, and there's
lots of red tape to cut through, and there's lots of–
I get it. But overall, publicly, I don't think this
is going to garner our attention. I don't think it's
going to be something that we really harp on a
(26:50):
lot unless the Dodgers become for sale and Magic Johnson
can go to prison. That's really the two things that
would make people go, oh, what's going on here now?
What do I need to know? The rest of it,
it's billionaire problems, and it's nothing that really is something that, whoa,
it gathers up, grabs my attention for something new. Because
we knew that Mark Walter was being investigated. We knew
(27:11):
this was going on. We knew it. Okay, Magic Johnson, okay,
that's a new thing. Didn't think, you know, the money
that he lent him and now caught up in the
insurance fraud too. But outside of that, like, this didn't
really land nearly as much as he thought it was
going to.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Yeah, it's interesting. Like, some of it goes back to
the sale to Walter and the Guggenheim group and how
they came over the top in what seemed like a
multi-bidder kind of system, including Stan Kroenke. So that's part
of the details there. That that has, I think, some
interest because it gets into the the TV deal that
(27:46):
had been brokered in the bankruptcy court, as we've talked
about in past episodes. We've got Steve Desegar at the
news desk today, and I know this has is this
is he was pouring through this legalese in between that
and getting ready for week one. of Chargers football, and
(28:06):
stats for days, of course. But when you get down
to it, the Magic Johnson side of it's interesting because
you're talking about a life insurance company that he owns,
and I'm curious what the premiums were doing that people
were paying in during these years or settlements and all
of that. You're following trails of money. And again, that's
(28:29):
me being a nerd. The general consensus, like you said,
unless someone's slapping cuffs on somebody, Nobody cares. Just play baseball.
Make sure that the game is on at 7-10, not 7-11,
and we get back to the business of things kind
of operating as normal. Because right now the Dodgers are
worried about Shohei Otani and a million other things. So
(28:51):
people can't be mired down in legalese.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Yeah, it's just some things just are too tough to–
explain that cut.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Oh, it's not digestible at all.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
You have to be able to cut through the clutter, right?
And make it something where, okay, you're good. Cause the
news world is really, it's very difficult to cut through. Now,
this is a story that you had people's attention. Okay.
What does he got next? And not that, not that
he failed at it, but just, okay. That this just
doesn't quite have the same meat to it unless other
things happen. Like we talked about, that's going to be
(29:24):
really difficult. And, and, you know, so far for seeing this,
I'm like, okay, this will be something that drags on,
investigate it, find out. It's almost like when, it's almost like,
to kind of make another analogy on it, is like
when you have to read about collective bargaining stories and
what goes back and forth between players and the union
and what is said and what the commissioner's office say
(29:46):
and what the representatives of the of the union have
to say. And it's like, you know what? I really
don't care. You know, they get into so much detail
and stuff about about backloaded salaries and different like you
need to give me the nuts and bolts of it.
What do I care about? Like, that's kind of what
it's like, which is why I think we have less
stomach for that as we go on, which is why
no one wants to talk about the upcoming potential baseball lockout,
(30:08):
because it's just so daunting to even think about the
back and forth between both sides and the in the.
sheer amount of minutia that's going to go into it.
So that's kind of how I see this thing unfolding.
Following it like, well, I'm following the baseball, the talks,
and I'll get interested when there's a deal. When there's
(30:29):
going to be a deal. A deal is close. There
could be a deal. That's going to gain my attention, right?
Like we said, that's when this story... We'll gain more
attention if those couple of things happen.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Yeah, I mean, one of the pieces, just to go
back to the TV part of it, was that the
charge here, not criminal, but just the assessment of it,
is that Major League Baseball may have allowed the Dodgers
to keep more of the money from its TV deal
(30:56):
because Walter purchased the team and it pushed the asking
price North. Like this is, this is how inside, as
you say, inside baseball against where you're talking about all
of that going back over a decade ago. I think
with football kicking off, people will be worried about the
eighth team in their respective division. I mean, they got
(31:18):
fantasy drafts this week and of course a lot of
betting to do.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Exit out about a fresca. Exit Swollen Dome, the Jason
Smith Show, with my best friend, Mike Harmon. Time now
to find out what's trending in the wide world of
sports from special delivery Steve to Sager SD. What do
you got?
Speaker 4 (31:34):
Hello, and I think even bringing up the Dodger TV deal.
That even makes it more undigestible because then you have
to say, well, actually, that all started with the previous
owner and the bankruptcy that even created the need for
a sale. I mean, you know, I think the verb
we're looking for is the Mark Walter story is very
hard to parse.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Nicely done.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
You cannot break it down into bits and then analyze,
connect and maybe actually understand it.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
We're just going to do that for four hours. Everything
else is gone.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
What is laid out there is apparently we have a
very rich guy who has many, many companies predating sports
who apparently had one of the companies loaning money to
another one of his companies and didn't report it. So
it's apparent self-dealing.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
And that's where it stands. Like they always tell you,
if you're going to set up the simple LLC or
limited partnership in any case, it's got to be separate
from the rest of your monies.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
Money's, yet again, plural on this show.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
That's correct.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
As for college football, on FS1 at Michigan State, Toledo
has just scored a touchdown to take the lead on
the Spartans, 20-19 early in the fourth quarter. Meanwhile, on
Fox TV, halftime at 14th ranked USC, Trojans 30-0 over
Fresno State. My goodness, Jaden Maiava, good again. Not only
three touchdown passes, but 17 of 18 through the air,
(32:56):
284 yards in the first half. Halftime, No. 7 Miami
leads at Stanford 28-6. And I'm glad you brought up
Malachi Toney of the Hurricanes. It's 10 receptions in the
first half for 182 yards and two scores. Early in
the fourth quarter, 10th-ranked Oklahoma driving again.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Sooners up 44-0 on UTEP.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
And Kansas, starting the fourth, leads 37-0 against Long Island.
Road wins for San Jose State and, no, not Indiana State.
They were tied at Purdue 3-3 late first, and that
was about as close as they got. Even Purdue wins
in a blowout this weekend, 44-19 the final. Most teams
are opening the season on Saturday. There are three college
(33:41):
games this Sunday. The Pro Football Hall of Fame is
changing its voting rules. A separate seniors category is out,
and there will only be 25 voters now, not 50.
To Major League Baseball, Cleveland has won in walk-off fashion
in both ends of a doubleheader. 7-6 today against Detroit
and in 10 innings tonight, 4-3 against the Tigers. The
(34:02):
Rays are ahead in the top of the ninth at Texas, 6-5.
Houston at home ahead of Arizona, 3-1 in the top
of the ninth. The Arizona Diamondbacks a half game ahead
of San Diego for the last NL wildcard. The Padres
at home are tied with the Yankees, 1-1 in the
bottom of the fourth. The Dodgers and Blakes now scoreless
with the Nationals in the third.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
D.H.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
Shohei Otani of L.A. out again due to his injuries. Earlier,
we had road wins for Boston and the Cubs. Home
victory for the White Sox, 44-1 over Minnesota, and now
30 homers this year for both Miguel Vargas and Colson Montgomery.
What is going on with this team? Not just alone
for first in the AL Central. They, I guess, just
(34:42):
lost the half game on the day because Cleveland swept
a doubleheader. Still, two and a half game lead. Atlanta
won in Philadelphia 5-2 and Milwaukee beat the Reds 10-7.
WNBA Commissioner Kathy Engelberg will retire at the end of
this year. And Team USA won its opener at the
Women's World Cup. In hoops, it was 94-61, Americans over China.
(35:07):
Kaitlyn Clark led with 14 points and 11 assists off
the bench.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
No turnovers. Back to you.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Thank you, Steve-O. Jason Smith, Mike Harmon, live from the
Fox Sports Radio Studios. Coming up next, two separate events
tonight in the same sport has pretty much guaranteed one
big piece of hardware is going to be won this
offseason by one person and one person only, and his
initials are somewhat close to PCA. That's next. Jason and Mike, Fox.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Be sure to catch live editions of the Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at 10 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m.
Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Fox Sports Radio, the Jason Smith Show with my best friend,
Mike Harmon. And I know that the debate was trending recently.
one way but sometimes you get a black and white
situation that tells you okay whatever debate this was this
(36:18):
is now over and it's not just about what happens
one day but about two things that happen about the
same time and you say to yourself yeah okay this
debate is over uh pete crowe armstrong is going to
win nlmvp and it's going to not even be a
close race with shohei otani We know both of their
resumes over the course of the past year, right? What
(36:40):
Shohei Otani has done, but you can't give him the
MVP just because he's Shohei Otani. He has struggled lately.
He has not been able to pitch. He is not healthy.
He rested tonight, the second game in a row, and
the Dodgers are hoping that a IL stay is not
in the offing for Otani, right? He's not ending on
a flourish. He's not ending big. They're hoping they can
(37:02):
keep him healthy as they get into the playoffs. Meanwhile,
another night, Another big highlight for Pete Crow Armstrong makes
a great leaping catch at the fence against the Marlins. So,
you know, just these two things just happen to happen within,
you know, a little bit of time with each other.
But this should be the night that tells you, OK,
PCA is going to win the MVP and Otani is
(37:23):
Otani is not. He's probably going to finish second, but
it's not the vote isn't even going to be close.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Yeah, we've watched it swell the last couple of weeks
because Otani's been unavailable on the mound and. most of
the time pretty terrible at the plate right not driving
the ball with any authority uh and the rbi production
has been decimated meanwhile you've watched pete crowe armstrong much
to your dismay as well as like back-to-back home runs
(37:48):
from guys like lewis robert jr and pete alonzo for
the baltimore orioles but let's keep it here for now
uh 280 39 home runs 93 rbi you're talking about
the defense and then obviously adding another 32 stolen bases
At this point, you're looking at a 40-40 season, and
just he's been tremendous. The implied odds right now are 95%.
(38:11):
So all you folks, if you're trading card collectors, get
ready to bust out all of those Topps Chromes for trade-ins, man.
Let's go.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
Now, it's not just about that because this is, you know, okay, yeah, okay,
obviously these guys are going to win MVP. Look at
Pete Coral Armstrong. Look at the way he's training. It's
just an interesting thing that this is what happens tonight
between these two guys that push it one way.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Well, they dovetail, you know, it's like they're neck and
neck for the longest time. You finally have it to
where it's like, all right, let's have this discussion. How
much does the first half pitching matter? And now you're like, yeah,
it doesn't. And for Pete Coral Armstrong, remember, second half
of last year, everybody thought he was broken. right? Because
he had a huge first half to the year and
(38:52):
then he was terrible. And then I've seen some of
the video overlays talking about some of the adjustments made
to the swing to get him on track to what
he's done this year, which has been incredible.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
The other part of this is that we've talked about
pitching with Shohei Otani and said he's got to close.
It's clear his arm is not up to The wear
and tear of being a starting pitcher. And now you're
seeing it affect him when he has to DH every day.
So at some point, you have to have the conversation of,
(39:28):
should he be done pitching? Now, I don't know that
you can have that cold turkey conversation with him. Again, closer.
I've said it for two and a half years. He
should close with two Tommy John, two UCL surgeries, and
now another injury that's keeping him from pitching and maybe
hurting him when he hits. Like, he can't pitch that
many innings. I know he wants to, but you've got
(39:48):
to keep his bat in the lineup because he's a
slugger unlike anything we have ever seen. If you want
to try him at closer, great. Let's see if that
works out. pitch 60 innings or so a year, that
might do it. But we are closing in on the
end of his pitching days. If he can't close or
he doesn't want to, the Dodgers have to have a
tough conversation to go, you know what, I know you
want to, but you got to be in the lineup
(40:09):
155 games a year, 150 games a year. We can't
have you pitch. The end of his pitching days are coming.
sometime soon. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
I skipped straight past, uh, go, uh, and we're done
with it. Right. You're not pitching again. Cause you're also
a really good base runner and very smart. Uh, and
we've seen you steal bases. We could use some of
that because you know, uh, a lot of guys in
the Dodger lineup seemingly have forgotten how to hit these
last couple of months. So, uh, having a guy that
(40:36):
could be active on the base paths, actually a big
win for you.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Exit out about a fresca, exit swollen dough on the
Jason Smith Show with my best friend Mike Harmon live
from the Fox Sports Radio Studios. Coming up next, we
get back into the biggest story of the day that
we told you was going to happen last night. Jason
and Mike, this is Fox Sports Radio.
Hosts And Creators
Jason Smith
Mike Harmon
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