February 12, 2020 • 35 mins
Jason and Mike talk about how Carlos Beltran might be the worst human alive. David Tepper isn't sold on Cam Newton as the Panther's quarterback, and the guys break down how there might be another QB opening in the NFL. Also, Ric Bucher joins the show to talk about the latest happenings in the NBA.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to the best of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmen podcast. Be sure to catch us
live every week night from ten pm to two a m.
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 R. This is the best of The
(00:22):
Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon on Fox Sports Radio.
Not quite a tell all, but an expose today about
Carlos Beltran's role in sign stealing with the Astros in
two thousand and seventeen. His role in this, he was
the He was the guy in charge of it. He
(00:43):
was the one who put it all together. He was
the one who managed this from top to bottom. And
as a result, Bell Tran and some of the other
managers and general managers who who took part in this
have lost their jobs. Alex Cora as manager of the
Red Sox, A. J. Hinch lost his job, Jeff Luno
lost his job, and Beltran, who was no longer with
the Astros but manager the Mets, lost his job. Because
(01:05):
the Mets knew we can't go on because he is
the face of this scandal. And now it turns out,
and I don't say this that often. How right of
a move did the Mets make to move on from
Carlos Beltran? How right? How right were the Mets? I mean,
I can't ever say that, how right were the Mets?
Because after today's column in which members of the Astros
(01:28):
this is per ken Rosenthal. They referred to him. He
was the godfather of this entire operation. Quote, he disregarded
anyone who said, I don't know that we should be
stealing signs and steamrolled everybody. Where do you go If
you're a young, impressionable player with the Astros and this
guy says we're doing this, what do you do? Even
(01:50):
according to reports, manager A. J. Hinch had no power
to stop Carlos Beltran because of the sway he had
in the clubhouse. He was powerful. Not even the man's
like a bunch of cords. No, he was too powerful.
I couldn't overcome that. In other words, this is helping us, right,
this is helping us. Okay, Carlos Beltran like, do what
(02:11):
you gotta do? Yeah, I love, I'm just the manager.
I'm just the manager just saw just the manager just pathetic,
and it makes him out like he's the head of
a crime family. And we were going to cross him
because it's like if we hit him like he's Billy Batts,
bad things are gonna happen. Then come back and get you. Yeah,
(02:32):
and it's a made man. You gotta watch out. They'll
bring into that room. She knew right away, Sorry, pet
she knew right Ah, he knew right there. Man, you
could overpowered them now and that was the end of
a phone booth. I mean there was a lot of collateral.
Damn there was. That was tough. But I like how
that's exactly how like this is like like how there's play.
(02:53):
It's it's like the mafia in baseball. No, you can't
cross carl He's really the most powerful. Can we hire
him to come do a photo shoots so I can
put him in a nice suit reminiscent of all the
shots I've got of al Capone. I think we could
make millions off this. Good God, all so dumb and
soft and pathetic. Yeah no, hey, look, Carlos Beltran told
(03:14):
us this is the way it and you can't do it, man,
you can't do you can't go. Yeah, I got nothing.
Come on, I'm Beltran. Come on, I got a twenty
year career. I'm going to the Hall of Fame. Come on,
I got everything. Man, You do what I say, don't
do what Skip says. You do what I say? Skip,
What did I say? Go back and sit down and
shut up. See that's the kind of power I have.
(03:36):
I can tell the A J. Hinch those things. I mean,
J Hinch has gone from how do you not know?
You let him? You're the guy responsible to now oh
so now you were the guy that that that ran
to the corner and got cigarettes for Beltran when you
did him. I mean, really, that's that's what That's what
a J. Belt said. It's okay, he said, it's okay.
He's a little little Joe Pesci selling cigarettes out of
(03:57):
a bagage. Listen, Carlos, So, if I want to avoid
a room today or an area of the field where
do I not want to go with, not go outside
of the dug out anywhere there. In fact, I want
you for this game to sit in the trainers room.
(04:17):
We'll tell people that you're sick. Okay, thanks, Carlo's point.
This is great. You had that report last week right
that you had the intern with code Breaker and working
on the Dark Art. You missed that story too. That
was a good story. I mean between that was in
my defense against the Dark Arts, That's right, I mean,
that's just it. It was the Dark Arts program. And
(04:38):
again Luno had tried to claim he didn't know anything,
and you've got all these you know, allegations that start
popping up again of how intricately and intimately he knew
the details of that. So it's like all these guys,
they've they've written their own death warrant in terms of
being back in Major League Baseball, Like a J. Hinch,
(05:00):
how do you ever let a guy run your clubhouse?
You couldn't stop a place if this is that, Because
at the first point, it's like, look, we've been forgiving.
All these guys got back in McGuire, from my hitting
instructor to a bench coach and everything else. Barry bonds
around teams again, and you see some positivity there. Go
(05:21):
on down the line. We can talk about you know,
Kurt Chilling and politics and whatever. I mean, it's as
much of that as anything else. But most of these
other guys have gotten back in the game. Alex Rodriguez
is one of the faces of baseball again, right, And
so for a J. Hinch, I was like, oh, he'll
get back in now. I wouldn't let him come within
three yards in my clubhouse. Get out. You can't try.
(05:44):
You can't trust him. Now, you couldn't do this. I'm
gonna bring you in now to oversee my team. Other
players are going, this is gonna be club med man.
I can know it. He's so weak I could do
whatever I want to. But here's the next part of this, right,
here's the next part of this is what where this
is gonna end up? Beltran started. Let's just say he
started it around with the Assis, right, Let's just say
(06:07):
he started it then, right, Let's just let's just say.
Let's just say, is that something brand new? Did he did?
He never do it before then, He didn't do it
in when he was with the Yankees, didn't do it
in ten when he's with Texas, didn't do it when
he went back to the Yankees as a special advisor.
Last year. You remember, Alex Cora, we played the SoundBite
(06:28):
on the show after the big series in London in
which all kinds of runs were being scored, and we thought, Okay,
this is it's London, it's crazy, the field is nuts
and Alex Corris at all. You know, they have Carlos
Beltran there and he's kind of helping them and he
winked best. No one's talking about what a great offseason acquisition.
And now you know what he meant by it. He meant, oh,
(06:49):
he's teaching them how to steal signs however electronically whatever
they're doing. Do you really think the Yankees are gonna
walk away from this clean? Do you really think this
is gonna be you know what, we don't need to
look at it now that you know that Beltran did this.
Now if you're Rob Manford and he won't do it
because he doesn't want to do anything. Hey, look we're
gonna span playoffs. Look it's over here and the piece
(07:09):
of play is great. Sad about this, but you have
to go look at the Yankees and look at his
recent time and say, okay, did he do it in Texas?
Did you do it with the Yankees? Let's go back
to St. Louis. He played everywhere. I mean I don't
want to get where he was before, but he played everywhere.
I mean, you know, you have to go. Especially look
at the Yankees. You have that smoking gun SoundBite from
(07:30):
Alex Coral last year, and if he was doing it
in seen not getting caught, you really think the Yankees
weren't doing it? You really think the Yankees weren't doing it. Now,
let's see, let's see the governor. Let the governor. Let's
see the commissioner govern that's that's the Yeah, they got
rid of him walking owner. No, but those are the owners,
the governor, Basketball, the governors, the governor, Let's see the commissioner.
(07:53):
Now really step up. Let's now take a look at
the Yankees. Good. Let's let's see. Let's see what the
Yankees did. Because if he did this in twenties seventeen,
and you're looking at the Red Sox in eighteen, because
Alex Cora went from the Astros to the Red Sox,
you have to look at the Yankees. And now let's see.
The Yankees done a great job so far, going Oh,
I don't believe this, but they've been pretty quiet lately,
(08:13):
so I wonder I want let's see him have the
guts to roll the dead and say, you know what,
I'm sorry, Yankees, but we're coming to town. We're gonna
talk to people, and we're gonna see what we see
called let me see him do that called c C
smathew see if he's changed his tune. Remember he was
the one most out razing. Hey, CC, you know you
know you had him with you a year ago. You
(08:33):
know that, right, says Okay, I just want to let
you know, Yeah, okay, I was in the Nobody said
I didn't see nothing. The Yankees should be the next
part of this. Let's see if he's got the guts
to go do no, no, no, that he's gonna keep
a lock on all of that and just say, hey,
we've moved on. We've adjudicated this. Be sure to catch
live editions of The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon
weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific on Fox
(08:57):
Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio Whip. Hey, there
may be another quarterback opening that we're not thinking about,
and there may be, as a result, another quarterback available
to your team if you need one this offseason in
the National Football League, and this could be Cam Newton,
who may no longer be the quarterback in Carolina. We
(09:19):
talked about this, and we told you they're gonna move
on from him. It's just a matter of time. We
talked about it all during the season. His time was
coming up, it was ending. They part ways with Ron Rivera,
they get rid of greg Olsen, Luke kick Lee retired.
This is Carolina saying we're going to start over now.
And so if it wasn't good, if it was gonna
be one more year for Cam Newton maybe before all
(09:41):
of these things happened. Now, you know, the Panthers are
looking to say, let's it reset. Cam gave us nearly
a great decade, but he's injured. I don't know that
he's the same guy. Let's move on. It's not just
all of this evidence pointing to that. But way till
we tell you what team owner David Tepper said earlier
today to ESPN. He was asked about Cam Newton's future
(10:05):
with the team when he talked to reporters on Tuesday,
Tepper said, quote, Listen, I'm not a doctor, So let
me just didn't say it wasn't it. It's good you
gotta put that disclaimer out there. Said, listen, I'm not
a doctor. I said it a million times. Is he healthy?
He's not a doctor. So there's a lot of different
things that can happen, But first, is he healthy? Tell
me that, and then we can talk. And this is
(10:26):
not something new from David Tepper. This has always been well,
if Cam's healthy, off, Cam's healthy, But now this is
is he healthy? Right? I'm not a doctor, He's not
a doctor. It's almost as if David Tepper is saying,
I don't trust anyone to tell me if he's healthy
unless I'm talking to a doctor, unless it's somebody else
who is gonna give me some kind of indestructible comment
(10:51):
about his health. He can play. He cannot play because
I still could see them saying, all you know, we
don't have it for one year. But now they really
want to move on. They want to move on from him,
and they want to start over, and it's this is
what it's about. And if he's gonna push this narrative,
is he healthy? Is he healthy? We don't know that
he's ever gonna be healthy. They will move on from him.
(11:12):
And this means there's gonna be opening in Carolina. And
this means anybody else who wanted Cam Newton, hey, let's go.
We can get him because they can save nineteen million
dollars in cap space if they kind of more trade
him so they can get all this money to get
a new quarterback, trade up in the draft, whatever they
want to do. They can go and get their new
quarterback and figure things out. So it's not like Cam
(11:33):
Newton's gotta stay. He's pushing this narrative and this tells
me they want to move on from him. Now he's
hurting his trade value if he wants to trade Cam Newton.
So he may just have to bite the bullet and say, listen,
we're cutting you were moving on. We're gonna go get
somebody new. And that's how it works. But this doesn't
tell just like Brady in New England, this doesn't tell
me that, yeah, we love Cam Newton, want him back
for one more year he's gone. Yeah, but at least
(11:55):
from the dollars and cents perspective, I mean, he's a
nineteen million dollar contract for this year, two million dollars
dead cap hit. That's what we we talked about it
months ago when it was really starting to look like
it was operations shut down in Carolina for Cam Newton.
And this puts another team maybe in the Philip Rivers sweepstakes.
(12:15):
When it comes down to it, if you want to
go down that road and pay him. With some of
those young receivers, they've got to figure out what the
tight end position is gonna because they've already decided they're
done with Greg Olsen and he's taken the tours and
deciding what the next phases of football or broadcasting as
it were. You know, for Temper, I watched these quotes
(12:35):
and I look at him and I go, all right,
he's fifteen years the junior of Jerry Jones. Every once
in a while, I wonder if he's not gonna become
the next Jerry Jones. Maybe not with the like crazy
ass analogies that start flowing, but the guy that's gonna
want to be in front of the camera, right, because
there's a lot of owners that people have, You said,
what does this guy look like? They have no idea?
But Tepper looks like a guy who he's gonna want
(12:56):
to be the one making news, making noise. And in
this case, yeah, health, what's the healthy situation? Tell me that?
And and really kind of being indignant about it of
you know, I can't answer that question until we've gotten
physicals and everything else, which means the beginning of the
next calendar year and free agency ready to begin several
weeks from now. But yeah, he's gonna be your next
(13:18):
Jerry Jones. You gotta work on a temper impression. I
talked about drafting Cam Newton back in eleven, but when
I was a boy, I had a had a bad
experience with a case of fig Newton's. So anytime I
hear Newton, I didn't really like it. I like, gravity
helps me walk, but uh, the bad fig Newton's I
(13:38):
get that bad connotation. Couldn't draft Camp. Also didn't draft
number one overall, so we moved on. We were still
with Tony, and uh that was great. Remember Tony was great,
and we drafted Doc. Remember I drafted Dax. So, uh,
that's why we couldn't get a camp. I'm sorry, what
was your question? That's good? Get that circular thing. People
(13:59):
start going looking for another quote and then eventually bring
it back like, wait, what did he say? He definitely
is someone who is not going to be one of
those owners who is okay receding in the background saying
I just want to be the guy at the party. Oh,
he's the owner of the Carolina Panthers and the other
undred and fifty people are always whispering about him. No,
he wants to be vocal and he wants to move
on again. This is not how you talk about a
(14:21):
player if you want to bring him back. You know
what say is he got tell you his healthy Tell
me why is he getting combative? Why? Why? Why does
this have to be a combative thing. He wants you
to know we want to move on. I want to
move on. Cam Newton is not going to be here.
But it's fun because its you work in parallel. Right,
we look at New England and it's a matter of
all right, in principle we both still kind of want
(14:42):
to work together because it works, right, But now the
devil's in the details of you've got to get me
some help and what am I gonna get paid here?
It's the all right, let's just set the parameters of
where we're going. Fundamentally, perhaps Cam Newton could be the guy,
but you you're he's broken, so you're setting that up.
(15:03):
So as much as Robert Kraft's hey, he's deserved, his
option temper is like, well, if he's you know, the whole,
then maybe maybe there's a shot. So both kind of saying, hey,
we're ready to move on, but but doing so with
kid gloves. And here it's on the reporters more than
the situation. And where Cam Newton is right, Cam Newton
(15:24):
showed up. He was on Super Bowl sets. He was
walking around handing out backpacks to people and stuff and
had his resume in him. Yeah you know, and his
X rays here, I'm healthy. Just take a look inside.
Not now, not away from the cameras, but not now
is if you open that bag. And he also gave
you one of his funky hats. Like here's like, if
you get a hat, it means I really want to
(15:45):
go to your train. If you just get a resume
and and X rays, it means hey, maybe we could
work up. But you get a hat. That's the guy
that I would in a media scrum. I would try
to do a hat swap. Everybody else does jersey swap,
Like we both have the jaunty hat thing. Go ok,
I think we could work that out. Be sure to
catch live editions of The Jason Smith Show with Mike
(16:05):
harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific. As
the late Great Beano Cook would say, and I always
like to bring out one of his best lines. Going
into the baseball season. He would always say to me,
he would say, there's two phrases. He'd say, there's two
phrases I hate hearing more than anything else in the world.
(16:25):
I said, okay, what aren't He goes the first one
is we're in a recession and the economy is in
a downturn. All right, what's the second one? He'd say,
pictures and catchers report tomorrow. Hated baseball, you know, hated baseball.
Hated baseball. He would always say, the two worst jobs
in the world. The first one is reporters who have
(16:46):
to cover the war. The second is covering Major League baseball.
Beto was just not a baseball fan. But pitches and
catches report tomorrow. And we have two big stories revolving
around sign stealing with the Houston Astros. As on the
eve of the Astros actually having to meet and talk
(17:08):
to people for the first time since the sign stealing
scandal came up and their GM and manager lost their jobs,
and the Astros have been outed as a team that
did they cheat all the way to win the World Series,
which the answer is yes. Uh. The Astros owner Jim
Crane is gonna meet with all the Astros roster tomorrow
to talk about their strategy for addressing the sign stealing
(17:31):
scandal that rock the franchise all off season. Never ran
on your friends and always keep your mouth shut. You
got that. You put a cigarette in his mouth and
he walks away. So we're getting everybody together. This is
how we're gonna talk about the sign stealing scandal. Obviously,
he wants to get into damage control and doesn't want
this to take the entire exhibition season to gain more fodder.
(17:54):
We go into the regular season of the Astros stealing signs,
here's your first games at home. Let's look as anything
happening and untoward going on. He wants to try to
keep this a united front, so no one is saying
things that is outside of the relev asceptibility. Maybe because
Marwin Gonzalez today was the first Astro to publicly apologize
(18:15):
for stealing signs, which he didd so I'm sorry for what
what we did in seen, He's gonna say, hey, hey,
we're not gonna apologize, so we're not going to give
people any more ammunition. Okay, we're not gonna do it.
So I'm interested to see exactly what kind of strategy
the Astros followed. But I would bet going from and
knowing what I would say if I was the pr
(18:36):
advisor to the Astros, this is what I would say.
You would you go Shammy Sosa and suddenly forget how
to speak any language in which the questions maybe it
would it would go this way. I would tell everybody,
this is what you say. I am sorry for what happened,
and it was. It's a not a good story for anybody.
It's not good for us, it's not good for major
(18:57):
League Baseball. This is now. That was three years ago,
and we're onto this season and what we're going to do,
and anybody who wants to ask another question, I would
say again, I'm sorry it happened. We're sorry, everybody is sorry.
It's bad for baseball, but we're moving on. It's three
years later, and that would be my stat answer I
(19:19):
would give everybody to say, and no one deviate from
that answer. The more the more you allow players to
say what they want to say about it, the more
chance there is for someone to say what you don't
want them to say. For this to be more fuel
to the fire and things to get worse for you.
That's exactly what I was at. You tell them this
(19:40):
and then we're moving on, and that's what I want
to hear. And eventually they're gonna stop asking questions because
they know you're not going to answer those, even though
it's what everybody wants. And the first day is going
to be a very big deal. That's what I would say. Yeah,
I think the problem is if you try to just
kind of push it away a little bit, it's gonna
keep coming up. But and every road trip it's gonna
(20:01):
keep coming because it's gonna be the keep poking at you,
and eventually someone's gonna bust. Yeah. But the whole thing
is that Rob Manford knows he blew it. And now
with more stories coming out about exactly what the Astros did,
we'll get to Carlos Beltran coming up in a second, right,
the capot at the top. They know that we're not
(20:24):
still immune from prosecution from Major League Baseball, that if
new things come up, the commissioner knows he blew it,
so he could come back at us. We don't want
him coming back at us. So don't say anything, right
because you imagine it's gonna be that's gonna be the
message that he's gonna give the I have to imagine
before anybody gets anywhere near a reporter that there's the
first meeting is not hey, let's introduce the new teammates.
(20:48):
It's here's our crisis management guy that we've brought in.
He's gonna sit with each of you and try to
discuss the new way that we're living here in our clubhouse.
I mean, that's it. I mean, and it becomes the
here's the messaging, and to your point, trying to figure
out what that message entails and how you keep guys
on script, because that's the hard part, because you're gonna
(21:09):
have a number of players like Gonzalez, like other and
probably a few others that are going to want to
talk a bit more we can trite, give a little
more detail and color their involvement in it, because that's
the hard peer part is that eventually someone's gonna start
going down the road. Well, I remember this series in
blank and all of a sudden, the devil starts, you know,
(21:32):
appearing in the details here of oh No, and you
get more and more insights and allegedly they've already spilled
everything they need to to the Commissioner's office in exchange
for immunity. But doesn't mean they told the whole story.
Doesn't mean that there's not something still sitting there waiting
to bubble to the surface when asked the right question
(21:53):
or or however, you know, the conscious starts to work
as they go into this next year. I just think
it's fascinating study on the human condition and Major League Baseball.
And we know sports always leads our ways and a lot,
here's one of all. Right, let's mirror into the political
world and our business feer and everything else, and watch
(22:15):
how people handle things. Go. No, it's it's not gonna
be a difficult It's not gonna be a difficult time
for them. Now. The difficult time is going to be
during the season trying to play with all of this
over the pressure on the players to produce whether they're
playing at home on the road, really to produce their
home numbers that they can still hit three fifty at
(22:36):
home and and get the bulk of their home runs
and r bis when they're not doing it on the road.
I mean, that's where the pressure is really gonna start.
And for Houston at least, there is that and for
Major League Baseball fans that even if the Astros didn't
get punished as much as they should have, and they
should have, they should have been punished more, They should
have had the World Series taken away. All of these
(22:56):
things should have happened. At least the players that were
involved in this scheme. And again we'll get to Carlos
Beltran coming up in about twenty minutes, but at least
the players who were involved in this. No, they're gonna
think about it every day of their life. They're gonna
think about the extent they went to to cheat to
try to win the World Series, and they're gonna know
that no Baseball fan sees them as legitimate and legitimate
(23:21):
World Series champions. And even though nothing was done, it
still doesn't mean that's not something that they're going to
try to have to live with forever. Because you can
reconcile with yourself. Oh I did X, Y and Z,
but they used to. Every time fans see them they're
out in public and it's not in Houston, they know
they're saying cheaters everywhere every day the rest of your life.
(23:42):
That's what you're gonna wear. That's about two days gonna
wear that's a Bregman's gonna wear All of them are
gonna wear it. And that's that's difficult. That's a difficult
It's not what the punishment should be, but that's a
difficult thing to have to live with, knowing every time
someone looks at you, they're saying So it's like Roger
Clements when you hear Roger Clemens name, or people Roger
Clemens out and about when he goes to the grocery store,
(24:02):
goes to Philips Gas and wow, there's Roger Clemens cheater. Yeah,
it never got caught in an Emitte cheater. That's Roger Clements.
And you know that's what people are saying about you.
And that's difficult thing because you've gotta process that every
single time you go out and see somebody, people see
you out, when you go to one mall, when you
go to a car show, whatever it is. And that's
what it's gonna be for the for all these Astros
players for the rest of their careers at some point,
(24:25):
and you just have to make peace with yourself and
we'll see what kind of goods good works go out
from that, right, I mean it kind of flows. But
I'd also be curious in Houston because there's gonna be
a percentage of folks that are gonna be salty that
the World Series they waited so long for, uh now
has this hanging over it, right, because I mean, think
(24:47):
about all those fans in the big seats and how
quickly Nolan Ryan bailed from the organization as all of
this started to unfold as well. Be sure to catch
live editions of The Jason Smith Show with Mike them
In weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific on
Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app. Joining
us now on the Hotline, Fox Sports NBA analysts Bleach
(25:10):
your report, senior writer, a longtime friend of the show.
It's Rick Buker. Rick, what's happening tonight? My friend? Oh,
you know, I'm I'm here in l A actually because
I'm doing a little bit of TV and little did
I know that, Um, they black out Lakers and Clippers
games when they're on T n T. How did I
not do this? No, you're in a you're you know, yo,
(25:33):
you might be you might be trying to watch the Dodgers.
I think that's what it is. Yeah, I'm I am
obviously staying in a hotel down here in l A
and T n T was blacked out for the Clippers
seventy sixers. And I would dare say this is not
the first time this has happened to me in the
last couple of weeks. You want me to fill you
(25:54):
in fili on what happened. Wait, wait a minute, this
could be This could be a mass conspiracy on Rick Buker,
because Rick, one of the he's gonna talk to us
about is how Lebron is not happy in l a
big news he made earlier today. I think people, I
think people are hearing what you said and they got
to your hotel, and now you can't get the games. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(26:19):
because if Lebron isn't gonna be happy, nobody is allowed
to be right, right, all right? So so all right, well,
I'm sorry you can't get the game on on TV.
Try Spectrum Sports Dot or the hell tell hotel bar right,
I'm sure you'll be able to grab it there. But
this whole thing with the Lakers Lebron, this is a
(26:41):
whole crazy story came up today and I know that
that you know, you know you've been in the middle
of this. So so what what did you try to
get through, try to tell everybody about this whole Lebron
must not be happy with how things are going in
l A. Well, look, I said, he's happy with his life.
I just when it comes to the prior already of basketball,
there was a time where Lebron James would not be
(27:04):
happy if the if, if everything didn't point towards his
ability to win a championship, and if his team, whoever
it might be, was not doing everything possible to put
him in position to win a championship. Now, I know
it's plenty of Lakers fans out there going, really, we
(27:25):
got the best record in the Western Conference. Uh, Lakers
went out and got Anthony Davis Buker. What are you smoking? Like,
why would you say that we're not in position to
win a championship? Well, because they've lost twice to the
Clippers straight up, and the Clippers added a player in
Marcus Morris that the Lakers demonstrated interest in and all ultimately,
(27:48):
from what I know, kind of misplayed their hand and
he ended up going to a Clippers team that was
already deeper in a normal situation, in every other situation
I've seen Lebron James, if something like that happened, he
wouldn't be happy. So uh my, my point was actually
(28:08):
that he is happy because that is no longer the
same priority in his life that it was being in
l A. Being with the Lakers. He made certain concession
in order for his family to live where he wants
him to live, his kids, to go to the school
where he wants his kids to go, and to be
able to take all the meetings face you know, in
(28:30):
person that are going to benefit his production company. I
don't fault him for any of that, but this idea
that Lebron James is here and he has the same
appetite for winning championships that he's always had. His actions
say otherwise, Well, and then we look at the the
saltiness therein that has to flow from the extra draft
(28:54):
picks that went to acquire Anthony Davis, which hamstrung him
this time out right, right, No, exactly right. I mean, look,
this was always they were. They were up against it
in any sort of arms race with the Clippers because
the Clippers had their own first round pick this year,
and they also had an expiring contract in Mo Harkless
that would be very attractive that was going to allow
(29:16):
them to make a deal, whether it was for Marcus
Morris or was going to be that young for Chicago
or uh some other big they were going to be
able to add a piece without losing anything that was
already contributing to their equation. The Lakers simply weren't going
to be able to do that. They were going to
have to trade, at the very least Danny Green. And
(29:38):
if they wanted to get Marcus Morris from the Knicks,
they were going to have to include Kyle Kuzma as
well Rick Buker with us the Jason Smiths with Mike
Carmen Live from the Getico Studios. Let's go back and
you first talked about the Clippers game tonight against the
seventies Sixers. Watch the seventies Sixers win. Joel Embiid had
a nice night with twenty six points, but everything pointing
(29:59):
to before and after the game, Joel embiad taking on
seventy Sixers fans the social media post, uh you know,
telling the fans to be quiet audio from this past
weekend of him telling fans to shut up. Brett Brown
had nothing to say after saying, Hey, you know, I
get it, players get mad. This is a situation that
is really odd in Philadelphia with Joel Embiad, who who
(30:19):
just not too long ago as boy, we built around
the guy. Now it's boy, what's going on with Joel Embad?
How does this Endrick? Well? There, look, there's dissatisfaction for
where they are and it's no longer a love fest.
The expectation was that they were going to be one
of the best teams in the Eastern Conference this year,
and they are not, and they have they have demonstrated
(30:39):
not to be. And a good deal of that is
I don't know how much of it's falling on on
Mbad versus Ben Simmons or anybody else, but I would
say that you know, everything that I'm hearing in the way,
in the in the treatment of or the pecking order
of that team, is that Ben Simmons is considered the
(31:02):
guy now and Joel Embad is his partner, but he's
the He's the Robin to Ben Simmons is batman. And
I'm not sure that that's the way Joel Embiid wants
things to be, especially in a situation where now he's
being blamed at least in part for the team's failings,
and so the idea that hey, you know if if
(31:25):
I mean that, his response to Jimmy Butler was very interesting,
and Jimmy Butler saying, hey, we got I know where
villains are appreciated. Um, I mean that's as close to hey,
I really like it down here. If you want to
come join me, come on and join me, and I
can guarantee you that that's you know, pat Riley is
looking whether it's Joel Embiad or Jana Santa the Coompo,
(31:45):
he is looking to add UH at least one more
superstar to the equation down there in Miami to put
together a bona fide UH title contending team before he
calls it a day. And so the decision on who
the Sixers put their money on, whether it's m Beat
(32:06):
or Simmons, ultimately maybe decided by m Beat saying I
wouldn't mind if I was someplace else. From talk of
superstars and greatness, we go to the New York Knicks
where the team's branding consult I had to do with
Tu Smith went on first take and he was talking
about coaching, etcetera. We hear Van Gundi and Thibodeaux. Uh
(32:26):
Miller got a shot to keep this job or is
he just a placeholder? No, I fully expect that he
is a placeholder. Uh. You know, there was a time
where I thought Mark Jackson was going to have a
good shot at the next round. We'll see if ultimately
that happens. I just can we stop and think about
(32:47):
a guy who's supposed to be an expert on imaging,
and he's advising you on imaging, and he goes on TV,
he appears, uh in in the public eye and dealing
with the media, and he missteps. How does I'm just
(33:08):
fasci first of all, that you would even step out
there and put yourself in that position when you're supposed
to be advising and creating the image of your of
your employer. It's I mean, that's just extraordinary to me,
Like we have a two word phrase to describe that,
Rick Nixio, that's it. That's what we say. It's just
(33:38):
I mean, that's that to me is the most baffling
part of it. And then I don't know. And then
and then if you're Jim Dolan, obviously you need some
help in in recreating your image and upgrading your image.
But the whole idea is that you do that without
(33:59):
letting it body know you're I mean, it's just I
don't know. It's like I would imagine if somebody who's
going to get UH is going to get a surgery
to get facial surgery or whatever or trying to get
(34:20):
you know, tighten things up, and you you put out
a video of it being done. I mean, it's I
just don't know that you advertise or show how the
sausage is being made, right, You just and everybody goes, oh,
you have a nice job working on your image, Like
I like, do you buy that? Like okay, so nice job,
(34:41):
Jim pick your eyebrows? Am I nuts? Am I nuts?
But I just I look at this and are you
are you? How ridiculous can you be in that? You
have a terrible like, you have a terrible reputation, you
have a terrible image. I'm all for you saying, hey,
how do I change this? How do I you know,
(35:02):
how do I become more I don't know, personal, blew
affable whatever it maybe, but you don't turn it into
a reality show and have your guy out there like
appearing on TV and you know, announcing to the world, Hey,
I'm gonna upgrade my image. Just want to let you
know I'm not gonna be the same old Jim Dolan.
I'm gonna be nice, friendly, Kim Doll. I just want
(35:23):
you to learn how to do that. Learning how to
do that, it blows me away, blows me away. You
can follow my Twitter at Rick Buker. That is at
Rick Buker. He probably has time to answer your question
side because he can't get any games on his television
in his hotel. Whatever. Yeah, I mean your laundry. I'm here,
I got nothing. You're the best. We'll talk to you, buddy,
Thanks for listening to the best of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmen podcast. Be sure to catch us
live every week night from ten pm to two a m.
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 R. This is the best of The
(00:22):
Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon on Fox Sports Radio.
Not quite a tell all, but an expose today about
Carlos Beltran's role in sign stealing with the Astros in
two thousand and seventeen. His role in this, he was
the He was the guy in charge of it. He
(00:43):
was the one who put it all together. He was
the one who managed this from top to bottom. And
as a result, Bell Tran and some of the other
managers and general managers who who took part in this
have lost their jobs. Alex Cora as manager of the
Red Sox, A. J. Hinch lost his job, Jeff Luno
lost his job, and Beltran, who was no longer with
the Astros but manager the Mets, lost his job. Because
(01:05):
the Mets knew we can't go on because he is
the face of this scandal. And now it turns out,
and I don't say this that often. How right of
a move did the Mets make to move on from
Carlos Beltran? How right? How right were the Mets? I mean,
I can't ever say that, how right were the Mets?
Because after today's column in which members of the Astros
(01:28):
this is per ken Rosenthal. They referred to him. He
was the godfather of this entire operation. Quote, he disregarded
anyone who said, I don't know that we should be
stealing signs and steamrolled everybody. Where do you go If
you're a young, impressionable player with the Astros and this
guy says we're doing this, what do you do? Even
(01:50):
according to reports, manager A. J. Hinch had no power
to stop Carlos Beltran because of the sway he had
in the clubhouse. He was powerful. Not even the man's
like a bunch of cords. No, he was too powerful.
I couldn't overcome that. In other words, this is helping us, right,
this is helping us. Okay, Carlos Beltran like, do what
(02:11):
you gotta do? Yeah, I love, I'm just the manager.
I'm just the manager just saw just the manager just pathetic,
and it makes him out like he's the head of
a crime family. And we were going to cross him
because it's like if we hit him like he's Billy Batts,
bad things are gonna happen. Then come back and get you. Yeah,
(02:32):
and it's a made man. You gotta watch out. They'll
bring into that room. She knew right away, Sorry, pet
she knew right Ah, he knew right there. Man, you
could overpowered them now and that was the end of
a phone booth. I mean there was a lot of collateral.
Damn there was. That was tough. But I like how
that's exactly how like this is like like how there's play.
(02:53):
It's it's like the mafia in baseball. No, you can't
cross carl He's really the most powerful. Can we hire
him to come do a photo shoots so I can
put him in a nice suit reminiscent of all the
shots I've got of al Capone. I think we could
make millions off this. Good God, all so dumb and
soft and pathetic. Yeah no, hey, look, Carlos Beltran told
(03:14):
us this is the way it and you can't do it, man,
you can't do you can't go. Yeah, I got nothing.
Come on, I'm Beltran. Come on, I got a twenty
year career. I'm going to the Hall of Fame. Come on,
I got everything. Man, You do what I say, don't
do what Skip says. You do what I say? Skip,
What did I say? Go back and sit down and
shut up. See that's the kind of power I have.
(03:36):
I can tell the A J. Hinch those things. I mean,
J Hinch has gone from how do you not know?
You let him? You're the guy responsible to now oh
so now you were the guy that that that ran
to the corner and got cigarettes for Beltran when you
did him. I mean, really, that's that's what That's what
a J. Belt said. It's okay, he said, it's okay.
He's a little little Joe Pesci selling cigarettes out of
(03:57):
a bagage. Listen, Carlos, So, if I want to avoid
a room today or an area of the field where
do I not want to go with, not go outside
of the dug out anywhere there. In fact, I want
you for this game to sit in the trainers room.
(04:17):
We'll tell people that you're sick. Okay, thanks, Carlo's point.
This is great. You had that report last week right
that you had the intern with code Breaker and working
on the Dark Art. You missed that story too. That
was a good story. I mean between that was in
my defense against the Dark Arts, That's right, I mean,
that's just it. It was the Dark Arts program. And
(04:38):
again Luno had tried to claim he didn't know anything,
and you've got all these you know, allegations that start
popping up again of how intricately and intimately he knew
the details of that. So it's like all these guys,
they've they've written their own death warrant in terms of
being back in Major League Baseball, Like a J. Hinch,
(05:00):
how do you ever let a guy run your clubhouse?
You couldn't stop a place if this is that, Because
at the first point, it's like, look, we've been forgiving.
All these guys got back in McGuire, from my hitting
instructor to a bench coach and everything else. Barry bonds
around teams again, and you see some positivity there. Go
(05:21):
on down the line. We can talk about you know,
Kurt Chilling and politics and whatever. I mean, it's as
much of that as anything else. But most of these
other guys have gotten back in the game. Alex Rodriguez
is one of the faces of baseball again, right, And
so for a J. Hinch, I was like, oh, he'll
get back in now. I wouldn't let him come within
three yards in my clubhouse. Get out. You can't try.
(05:44):
You can't trust him. Now, you couldn't do this. I'm
gonna bring you in now to oversee my team. Other
players are going, this is gonna be club med man.
I can know it. He's so weak I could do
whatever I want to. But here's the next part of this, right,
here's the next part of this is what where this
is gonna end up? Beltran started. Let's just say he
started it around with the Assis, right, Let's just say
(06:07):
he started it then, right, Let's just let's just say.
Let's just say, is that something brand new? Did he did?
He never do it before then, He didn't do it
in when he was with the Yankees, didn't do it
in ten when he's with Texas, didn't do it when
he went back to the Yankees as a special advisor.
Last year. You remember, Alex Cora, we played the SoundBite
(06:28):
on the show after the big series in London in
which all kinds of runs were being scored, and we thought, Okay,
this is it's London, it's crazy, the field is nuts
and Alex Corris at all. You know, they have Carlos
Beltran there and he's kind of helping them and he
winked best. No one's talking about what a great offseason acquisition.
And now you know what he meant by it. He meant, oh,
(06:49):
he's teaching them how to steal signs however electronically whatever
they're doing. Do you really think the Yankees are gonna
walk away from this clean? Do you really think this
is gonna be you know what, we don't need to
look at it now that you know that Beltran did this.
Now if you're Rob Manford and he won't do it
because he doesn't want to do anything. Hey, look we're
gonna span playoffs. Look it's over here and the piece
(07:09):
of play is great. Sad about this, but you have
to go look at the Yankees and look at his
recent time and say, okay, did he do it in Texas?
Did you do it with the Yankees? Let's go back
to St. Louis. He played everywhere. I mean I don't
want to get where he was before, but he played everywhere.
I mean, you know, you have to go. Especially look
at the Yankees. You have that smoking gun SoundBite from
(07:30):
Alex Coral last year, and if he was doing it
in seen not getting caught, you really think the Yankees
weren't doing it? You really think the Yankees weren't doing it. Now,
let's see, let's see the governor. Let the governor. Let's
see the commissioner govern that's that's the Yeah, they got
rid of him walking owner. No, but those are the owners,
the governor, Basketball, the governors, the governor, Let's see the commissioner.
(07:53):
Now really step up. Let's now take a look at
the Yankees. Good. Let's let's see. Let's see what the
Yankees did. Because if he did this in twenties seventeen,
and you're looking at the Red Sox in eighteen, because
Alex Cora went from the Astros to the Red Sox,
you have to look at the Yankees. And now let's see.
The Yankees done a great job so far, going Oh,
I don't believe this, but they've been pretty quiet lately,
(08:13):
so I wonder I want let's see him have the
guts to roll the dead and say, you know what,
I'm sorry, Yankees, but we're coming to town. We're gonna
talk to people, and we're gonna see what we see
called let me see him do that called c C
smathew see if he's changed his tune. Remember he was
the one most out razing. Hey, CC, you know you
know you had him with you a year ago. You
(08:33):
know that, right, says Okay, I just want to let
you know, Yeah, okay, I was in the Nobody said
I didn't see nothing. The Yankees should be the next
part of this. Let's see if he's got the guts
to go do no, no, no, that he's gonna keep
a lock on all of that and just say, hey,
we've moved on. We've adjudicated this. Be sure to catch
live editions of The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon
weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific on Fox
(08:57):
Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio Whip. Hey, there
may be another quarterback opening that we're not thinking about,
and there may be, as a result, another quarterback available
to your team if you need one this offseason in
the National Football League, and this could be Cam Newton,
who may no longer be the quarterback in Carolina. We
(09:19):
talked about this, and we told you they're gonna move
on from him. It's just a matter of time. We
talked about it all during the season. His time was
coming up, it was ending. They part ways with Ron Rivera,
they get rid of greg Olsen, Luke kick Lee retired.
This is Carolina saying we're going to start over now.
And so if it wasn't good, if it was gonna
be one more year for Cam Newton maybe before all
(09:41):
of these things happened. Now, you know, the Panthers are
looking to say, let's it reset. Cam gave us nearly
a great decade, but he's injured. I don't know that
he's the same guy. Let's move on. It's not just
all of this evidence pointing to that. But way till
we tell you what team owner David Tepper said earlier
today to ESPN. He was asked about Cam Newton's future
(10:05):
with the team when he talked to reporters on Tuesday,
Tepper said, quote, Listen, I'm not a doctor, So let
me just didn't say it wasn't it. It's good you
gotta put that disclaimer out there. Said, listen, I'm not
a doctor. I said it a million times. Is he healthy?
He's not a doctor. So there's a lot of different
things that can happen, But first, is he healthy? Tell
me that, and then we can talk. And this is
(10:26):
not something new from David Tepper. This has always been well,
if Cam's healthy, off, Cam's healthy, But now this is
is he healthy? Right? I'm not a doctor, He's not
a doctor. It's almost as if David Tepper is saying,
I don't trust anyone to tell me if he's healthy
unless I'm talking to a doctor, unless it's somebody else
who is gonna give me some kind of indestructible comment
(10:51):
about his health. He can play. He cannot play because
I still could see them saying, all you know, we
don't have it for one year. But now they really
want to move on. They want to move on from him,
and they want to start over, and it's this is
what it's about. And if he's gonna push this narrative,
is he healthy? Is he healthy? We don't know that
he's ever gonna be healthy. They will move on from him.
(11:12):
And this means there's gonna be opening in Carolina. And
this means anybody else who wanted Cam Newton, hey, let's go.
We can get him because they can save nineteen million
dollars in cap space if they kind of more trade
him so they can get all this money to get
a new quarterback, trade up in the draft, whatever they
want to do. They can go and get their new
quarterback and figure things out. So it's not like Cam
(11:33):
Newton's gotta stay. He's pushing this narrative and this tells
me they want to move on from him. Now he's
hurting his trade value if he wants to trade Cam Newton.
So he may just have to bite the bullet and say, listen,
we're cutting you were moving on. We're gonna go get
somebody new. And that's how it works. But this doesn't
tell just like Brady in New England, this doesn't tell
me that, yeah, we love Cam Newton, want him back
for one more year he's gone. Yeah, but at least
(11:55):
from the dollars and cents perspective, I mean, he's a
nineteen million dollar contract for this year, two million dollars
dead cap hit. That's what we we talked about it
months ago when it was really starting to look like
it was operations shut down in Carolina for Cam Newton.
And this puts another team maybe in the Philip Rivers sweepstakes.
(12:15):
When it comes down to it, if you want to
go down that road and pay him. With some of
those young receivers, they've got to figure out what the
tight end position is gonna because they've already decided they're
done with Greg Olsen and he's taken the tours and
deciding what the next phases of football or broadcasting as
it were. You know, for Temper, I watched these quotes
(12:35):
and I look at him and I go, all right,
he's fifteen years the junior of Jerry Jones. Every once
in a while, I wonder if he's not gonna become
the next Jerry Jones. Maybe not with the like crazy
ass analogies that start flowing, but the guy that's gonna
want to be in front of the camera, right, because
there's a lot of owners that people have, You said,
what does this guy look like? They have no idea?
But Tepper looks like a guy who he's gonna want
(12:56):
to be the one making news, making noise. And in
this case, yeah, health, what's the healthy situation? Tell me that?
And and really kind of being indignant about it of
you know, I can't answer that question until we've gotten
physicals and everything else, which means the beginning of the
next calendar year and free agency ready to begin several
weeks from now. But yeah, he's gonna be your next
(13:18):
Jerry Jones. You gotta work on a temper impression. I
talked about drafting Cam Newton back in eleven, but when
I was a boy, I had a had a bad
experience with a case of fig Newton's. So anytime I
hear Newton, I didn't really like it. I like, gravity
helps me walk, but uh, the bad fig Newton's I
(13:38):
get that bad connotation. Couldn't draft Camp. Also didn't draft
number one overall, so we moved on. We were still
with Tony, and uh that was great. Remember Tony was great,
and we drafted Doc. Remember I drafted Dax. So, uh,
that's why we couldn't get a camp. I'm sorry, what
was your question? That's good? Get that circular thing. People
(13:59):
start going looking for another quote and then eventually bring
it back like, wait, what did he say? He definitely
is someone who is not going to be one of
those owners who is okay receding in the background saying
I just want to be the guy at the party. Oh,
he's the owner of the Carolina Panthers and the other
undred and fifty people are always whispering about him. No,
he wants to be vocal and he wants to move
on again. This is not how you talk about a
(14:21):
player if you want to bring him back. You know
what say is he got tell you his healthy Tell
me why is he getting combative? Why? Why? Why does
this have to be a combative thing. He wants you
to know we want to move on. I want to
move on. Cam Newton is not going to be here.
But it's fun because its you work in parallel. Right,
we look at New England and it's a matter of
all right, in principle we both still kind of want
(14:42):
to work together because it works, right, But now the
devil's in the details of you've got to get me
some help and what am I gonna get paid here?
It's the all right, let's just set the parameters of
where we're going. Fundamentally, perhaps Cam Newton could be the guy,
but you you're he's broken, so you're setting that up.
(15:03):
So as much as Robert Kraft's hey, he's deserved, his
option temper is like, well, if he's you know, the whole,
then maybe maybe there's a shot. So both kind of saying, hey,
we're ready to move on, but but doing so with
kid gloves. And here it's on the reporters more than
the situation. And where Cam Newton is right, Cam Newton
(15:24):
showed up. He was on Super Bowl sets. He was
walking around handing out backpacks to people and stuff and
had his resume in him. Yeah you know, and his
X rays here, I'm healthy. Just take a look inside.
Not now, not away from the cameras, but not now
is if you open that bag. And he also gave
you one of his funky hats. Like here's like, if
you get a hat, it means I really want to
(15:45):
go to your train. If you just get a resume
and and X rays, it means hey, maybe we could
work up. But you get a hat. That's the guy
that I would in a media scrum. I would try
to do a hat swap. Everybody else does jersey swap,
Like we both have the jaunty hat thing. Go ok,
I think we could work that out. Be sure to
catch live editions of The Jason Smith Show with Mike
(16:05):
harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific. As
the late Great Beano Cook would say, and I always
like to bring out one of his best lines. Going
into the baseball season. He would always say to me,
he would say, there's two phrases. He'd say, there's two
phrases I hate hearing more than anything else in the world.
(16:25):
I said, okay, what aren't He goes the first one
is we're in a recession and the economy is in
a downturn. All right, what's the second one? He'd say,
pictures and catchers report tomorrow. Hated baseball, you know, hated baseball.
Hated baseball. He would always say, the two worst jobs
in the world. The first one is reporters who have
(16:46):
to cover the war. The second is covering Major League baseball.
Beto was just not a baseball fan. But pitches and
catches report tomorrow. And we have two big stories revolving
around sign stealing with the Houston Astros. As on the
eve of the Astros actually having to meet and talk
(17:08):
to people for the first time since the sign stealing
scandal came up and their GM and manager lost their jobs,
and the Astros have been outed as a team that
did they cheat all the way to win the World Series,
which the answer is yes. Uh. The Astros owner Jim
Crane is gonna meet with all the Astros roster tomorrow
to talk about their strategy for addressing the sign stealing
(17:31):
scandal that rock the franchise all off season. Never ran
on your friends and always keep your mouth shut. You
got that. You put a cigarette in his mouth and
he walks away. So we're getting everybody together. This is
how we're gonna talk about the sign stealing scandal. Obviously,
he wants to get into damage control and doesn't want
this to take the entire exhibition season to gain more fodder.
(17:54):
We go into the regular season of the Astros stealing signs,
here's your first games at home. Let's look as anything
happening and untoward going on. He wants to try to
keep this a united front, so no one is saying
things that is outside of the relev asceptibility. Maybe because
Marwin Gonzalez today was the first Astro to publicly apologize
(18:15):
for stealing signs, which he didd so I'm sorry for what
what we did in seen, He's gonna say, hey, hey,
we're not gonna apologize, so we're not going to give
people any more ammunition. Okay, we're not gonna do it.
So I'm interested to see exactly what kind of strategy
the Astros followed. But I would bet going from and
knowing what I would say if I was the pr
(18:36):
advisor to the Astros, this is what I would say.
You would you go Shammy Sosa and suddenly forget how
to speak any language in which the questions maybe it
would it would go this way. I would tell everybody,
this is what you say. I am sorry for what happened,
and it was. It's a not a good story for anybody.
It's not good for us, it's not good for major
(18:57):
League Baseball. This is now. That was three years ago,
and we're onto this season and what we're going to do,
and anybody who wants to ask another question, I would
say again, I'm sorry it happened. We're sorry, everybody is sorry.
It's bad for baseball, but we're moving on. It's three
years later, and that would be my stat answer I
(19:19):
would give everybody to say, and no one deviate from
that answer. The more the more you allow players to
say what they want to say about it, the more
chance there is for someone to say what you don't
want them to say. For this to be more fuel
to the fire and things to get worse for you.
That's exactly what I was at. You tell them this
(19:40):
and then we're moving on, and that's what I want
to hear. And eventually they're gonna stop asking questions because
they know you're not going to answer those, even though
it's what everybody wants. And the first day is going
to be a very big deal. That's what I would say. Yeah,
I think the problem is if you try to just
kind of push it away a little bit, it's gonna
keep coming up. But and every road trip it's gonna
(20:01):
keep coming because it's gonna be the keep poking at you,
and eventually someone's gonna bust. Yeah. But the whole thing
is that Rob Manford knows he blew it. And now
with more stories coming out about exactly what the Astros did,
we'll get to Carlos Beltran coming up in a second, right,
the capot at the top. They know that we're not
(20:24):
still immune from prosecution from Major League Baseball, that if
new things come up, the commissioner knows he blew it,
so he could come back at us. We don't want
him coming back at us. So don't say anything, right
because you imagine it's gonna be that's gonna be the
message that he's gonna give the I have to imagine
before anybody gets anywhere near a reporter that there's the
first meeting is not hey, let's introduce the new teammates.
(20:48):
It's here's our crisis management guy that we've brought in.
He's gonna sit with each of you and try to
discuss the new way that we're living here in our clubhouse.
I mean, that's it. I mean, and it becomes the
here's the messaging, and to your point, trying to figure
out what that message entails and how you keep guys
on script, because that's the hard part, because you're gonna
(21:09):
have a number of players like Gonzalez, like other and
probably a few others that are going to want to
talk a bit more we can trite, give a little
more detail and color their involvement in it, because that's
the hard peer part is that eventually someone's gonna start
going down the road. Well, I remember this series in
blank and all of a sudden, the devil starts, you know,
(21:32):
appearing in the details here of oh No, and you
get more and more insights and allegedly they've already spilled
everything they need to to the Commissioner's office in exchange
for immunity. But doesn't mean they told the whole story.
Doesn't mean that there's not something still sitting there waiting
to bubble to the surface when asked the right question
(21:53):
or or however, you know, the conscious starts to work
as they go into this next year. I just think
it's fascinating study on the human condition and Major League Baseball.
And we know sports always leads our ways and a lot,
here's one of all. Right, let's mirror into the political
world and our business feer and everything else, and watch
(22:15):
how people handle things. Go. No, it's it's not gonna
be a difficult It's not gonna be a difficult time
for them. Now. The difficult time is going to be
during the season trying to play with all of this
over the pressure on the players to produce whether they're
playing at home on the road, really to produce their
home numbers that they can still hit three fifty at
(22:36):
home and and get the bulk of their home runs
and r bis when they're not doing it on the road.
I mean, that's where the pressure is really gonna start.
And for Houston at least, there is that and for
Major League Baseball fans that even if the Astros didn't
get punished as much as they should have, and they
should have, they should have been punished more, They should
have had the World Series taken away. All of these
(22:56):
things should have happened. At least the players that were
involved in this scheme. And again we'll get to Carlos
Beltran coming up in about twenty minutes, but at least
the players who were involved in this. No, they're gonna
think about it every day of their life. They're gonna
think about the extent they went to to cheat to
try to win the World Series, and they're gonna know
that no Baseball fan sees them as legitimate and legitimate
(23:21):
World Series champions. And even though nothing was done, it
still doesn't mean that's not something that they're going to
try to have to live with forever. Because you can
reconcile with yourself. Oh I did X, Y and Z,
but they used to. Every time fans see them they're
out in public and it's not in Houston, they know
they're saying cheaters everywhere every day the rest of your life.
(23:42):
That's what you're gonna wear. That's about two days gonna
wear that's a Bregman's gonna wear All of them are
gonna wear it. And that's that's difficult. That's a difficult
It's not what the punishment should be, but that's a
difficult thing to have to live with, knowing every time
someone looks at you, they're saying So it's like Roger
Clements when you hear Roger Clemens name, or people Roger
Clemens out and about when he goes to the grocery store,
(24:02):
goes to Philips Gas and wow, there's Roger Clemens cheater. Yeah,
it never got caught in an Emitte cheater. That's Roger Clements.
And you know that's what people are saying about you.
And that's difficult thing because you've gotta process that every
single time you go out and see somebody, people see
you out, when you go to one mall, when you
go to a car show, whatever it is. And that's
what it's gonna be for the for all these Astros
players for the rest of their careers at some point,
(24:25):
and you just have to make peace with yourself and
we'll see what kind of goods good works go out
from that, right, I mean it kind of flows. But
I'd also be curious in Houston because there's gonna be
a percentage of folks that are gonna be salty that
the World Series they waited so long for, uh now
has this hanging over it, right, because I mean, think
(24:47):
about all those fans in the big seats and how
quickly Nolan Ryan bailed from the organization as all of
this started to unfold as well. Be sure to catch
live editions of The Jason Smith Show with Mike them
In weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific on
Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app. Joining
us now on the Hotline, Fox Sports NBA analysts Bleach
(25:10):
your report, senior writer, a longtime friend of the show.
It's Rick Buker. Rick, what's happening tonight? My friend? Oh,
you know, I'm I'm here in l A actually because
I'm doing a little bit of TV and little did
I know that, Um, they black out Lakers and Clippers
games when they're on T n T. How did I
not do this? No, you're in a you're you know, yo,
(25:33):
you might be you might be trying to watch the Dodgers.
I think that's what it is. Yeah, I'm I am
obviously staying in a hotel down here in l A
and T n T was blacked out for the Clippers
seventy sixers. And I would dare say this is not
the first time this has happened to me in the
last couple of weeks. You want me to fill you
(25:54):
in fili on what happened. Wait, wait a minute, this
could be This could be a mass conspiracy on Rick Buker,
because Rick, one of the he's gonna talk to us
about is how Lebron is not happy in l a
big news he made earlier today. I think people, I
think people are hearing what you said and they got
to your hotel, and now you can't get the games. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(26:19):
because if Lebron isn't gonna be happy, nobody is allowed
to be right, right, all right? So so all right, well,
I'm sorry you can't get the game on on TV.
Try Spectrum Sports Dot or the hell tell hotel bar right,
I'm sure you'll be able to grab it there. But
this whole thing with the Lakers Lebron, this is a
(26:41):
whole crazy story came up today and I know that
that you know, you know you've been in the middle
of this. So so what what did you try to
get through, try to tell everybody about this whole Lebron
must not be happy with how things are going in
l A. Well, look, I said, he's happy with his life.
I just when it comes to the prior already of basketball,
there was a time where Lebron James would not be
(27:04):
happy if the if, if everything didn't point towards his
ability to win a championship, and if his team, whoever
it might be, was not doing everything possible to put
him in position to win a championship. Now, I know
it's plenty of Lakers fans out there going, really, we
(27:25):
got the best record in the Western Conference. Uh, Lakers
went out and got Anthony Davis Buker. What are you smoking? Like,
why would you say that we're not in position to
win a championship? Well, because they've lost twice to the
Clippers straight up, and the Clippers added a player in
Marcus Morris that the Lakers demonstrated interest in and all ultimately,
(27:48):
from what I know, kind of misplayed their hand and
he ended up going to a Clippers team that was
already deeper in a normal situation, in every other situation
I've seen Lebron James, if something like that happened, he
wouldn't be happy. So uh my, my point was actually
(28:08):
that he is happy because that is no longer the
same priority in his life that it was being in
l A. Being with the Lakers. He made certain concession
in order for his family to live where he wants
him to live, his kids, to go to the school
where he wants his kids to go, and to be
able to take all the meetings face you know, in
(28:30):
person that are going to benefit his production company. I
don't fault him for any of that, but this idea
that Lebron James is here and he has the same
appetite for winning championships that he's always had. His actions
say otherwise, Well, and then we look at the the
saltiness therein that has to flow from the extra draft
(28:54):
picks that went to acquire Anthony Davis, which hamstrung him
this time out right, right, No, exactly right. I mean, look,
this was always they were. They were up against it
in any sort of arms race with the Clippers because
the Clippers had their own first round pick this year,
and they also had an expiring contract in Mo Harkless
that would be very attractive that was going to allow
(29:16):
them to make a deal, whether it was for Marcus
Morris or was going to be that young for Chicago
or uh some other big they were going to be
able to add a piece without losing anything that was
already contributing to their equation. The Lakers simply weren't going
to be able to do that. They were going to
have to trade, at the very least Danny Green. And
(29:38):
if they wanted to get Marcus Morris from the Knicks,
they were going to have to include Kyle Kuzma as
well Rick Buker with us the Jason Smiths with Mike
Carmen Live from the Getico Studios. Let's go back and
you first talked about the Clippers game tonight against the
seventies Sixers. Watch the seventies Sixers win. Joel Embiid had
a nice night with twenty six points, but everything pointing
(29:59):
to before and after the game, Joel embiad taking on
seventy Sixers fans the social media post, uh you know,
telling the fans to be quiet audio from this past
weekend of him telling fans to shut up. Brett Brown
had nothing to say after saying, Hey, you know, I
get it, players get mad. This is a situation that
is really odd in Philadelphia with Joel Embiad, who who
(30:19):
just not too long ago as boy, we built around
the guy. Now it's boy, what's going on with Joel Embad?
How does this Endrick? Well? There, look, there's dissatisfaction for
where they are and it's no longer a love fest.
The expectation was that they were going to be one
of the best teams in the Eastern Conference this year,
and they are not, and they have they have demonstrated
(30:39):
not to be. And a good deal of that is
I don't know how much of it's falling on on
Mbad versus Ben Simmons or anybody else, but I would
say that you know, everything that I'm hearing in the way,
in the in the treatment of or the pecking order
of that team, is that Ben Simmons is considered the
(31:02):
guy now and Joel Embad is his partner, but he's
the He's the Robin to Ben Simmons is batman. And
I'm not sure that that's the way Joel Embiid wants
things to be, especially in a situation where now he's
being blamed at least in part for the team's failings,
and so the idea that hey, you know if if
(31:25):
I mean that, his response to Jimmy Butler was very interesting,
and Jimmy Butler saying, hey, we got I know where
villains are appreciated. Um, I mean that's as close to hey,
I really like it down here. If you want to
come join me, come on and join me, and I
can guarantee you that that's you know, pat Riley is
looking whether it's Joel Embiad or Jana Santa the Coompo,
(31:45):
he is looking to add UH at least one more
superstar to the equation down there in Miami to put
together a bona fide UH title contending team before he
calls it a day. And so the decision on who
the Sixers put their money on, whether it's m Beat
(32:06):
or Simmons, ultimately maybe decided by m Beat saying I
wouldn't mind if I was someplace else. From talk of
superstars and greatness, we go to the New York Knicks
where the team's branding consult I had to do with
Tu Smith went on first take and he was talking
about coaching, etcetera. We hear Van Gundi and Thibodeaux. Uh
(32:26):
Miller got a shot to keep this job or is
he just a placeholder? No, I fully expect that he
is a placeholder. Uh. You know, there was a time
where I thought Mark Jackson was going to have a
good shot at the next round. We'll see if ultimately
that happens. I just can we stop and think about
(32:47):
a guy who's supposed to be an expert on imaging,
and he's advising you on imaging, and he goes on TV,
he appears, uh in in the public eye and dealing
with the media, and he missteps. How does I'm just
(33:08):
fasci first of all, that you would even step out
there and put yourself in that position when you're supposed
to be advising and creating the image of your of
your employer. It's I mean, that's just extraordinary to me,
Like we have a two word phrase to describe that,
Rick Nixio, that's it. That's what we say. It's just
(33:38):
I mean, that's that to me is the most baffling
part of it. And then I don't know. And then
and then if you're Jim Dolan, obviously you need some
help in in recreating your image and upgrading your image.
But the whole idea is that you do that without
(33:59):
letting it body know you're I mean, it's just I
don't know. It's like I would imagine if somebody who's
going to get UH is going to get a surgery
to get facial surgery or whatever or trying to get
(34:20):
you know, tighten things up, and you you put out
a video of it being done. I mean, it's I
just don't know that you advertise or show how the
sausage is being made, right, You just and everybody goes, oh,
you have a nice job working on your image, Like
I like, do you buy that? Like okay, so nice job,
(34:41):
Jim pick your eyebrows? Am I nuts? Am I nuts?
But I just I look at this and are you
are you? How ridiculous can you be in that? You
have a terrible like, you have a terrible reputation, you
have a terrible image. I'm all for you saying, hey,
how do I change this? How do I you know,
(35:02):
how do I become more I don't know, personal, blew
affable whatever it maybe, but you don't turn it into
a reality show and have your guy out there like
appearing on TV and you know, announcing to the world, Hey,
I'm gonna upgrade my image. Just want to let you
know I'm not gonna be the same old Jim Dolan.
I'm gonna be nice, friendly, Kim Doll. I just want
(35:23):
you to learn how to do that. Learning how to
do that, it blows me away, blows me away. You
can follow my Twitter at Rick Buker. That is at
Rick Buker. He probably has time to answer your question
side because he can't get any games on his television
in his hotel. Whatever. Yeah, I mean your laundry. I'm here,
I got nothing. You're the best. We'll talk to you, buddy,
Hosts And Creators
Jason Smith
Mike Harmon
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com