October 10, 2025 • 37 mins
We kicked off the program with four news stories and different guests on the stories we think you need to know about!
The Plans to Tear Down and Revamp the iconic Kowloon in Saugus that’s been a staple on RT 1 for 75 years! Not everyone happy about it…
Guest: James Rojas – WBZ NewsRadio Reporter
The 22nd annual 100 Innings of Baseball- Saturday and Sunday (Oct 11th & 12th) at Adams Field in Quincy, MA ! Raising money for ALS research to benefit The Angel Fund for ALS Research.
Guest: Walter Bentson - organizer of the event and the head umpire & also lives with ALS
Former Red Sox left fielder Mike Greenwell dies at 62 after cancer diagnosis.
Guest: Tim Healey – Boston Globe Sports Reporter
Boston nor'easter weather forecast calls for strong wind gusts, heavy rain for part of holiday weekend.
Guest: AccuWeather Meteorologist Matt Benz
The Plans to Tear Down and Revamp the iconic Kowloon in Saugus that’s been a staple on RT 1 for 75 years! Not everyone happy about it…
Guest: James Rojas – WBZ NewsRadio Reporter
The 22nd annual 100 Innings of Baseball- Saturday and Sunday (Oct 11th & 12th) at Adams Field in Quincy, MA ! Raising money for ALS research to benefit The Angel Fund for ALS Research.
Guest: Walter Bentson - organizer of the event and the head umpire & also lives with ALS
Former Red Sox left fielder Mike Greenwell dies at 62 after cancer diagnosis.
Guest: Tim Healey – Boston Globe Sports Reporter
Boston nor'easter weather forecast calls for strong wind gusts, heavy rain for part of holiday weekend.
Guest: AccuWeather Meteorologist Matt Benz
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's night with Dan Ray. I'm going easy Bondon's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
The weekend looks like it might be pretty good. Certainly
Tomorrow looks like a good day and most of Sunday.
But Sunday night, Monday, well it's better on Sunday night
and Monday than it is on Saturday and Sunday. MO
name is Dan Ray. We are here for you for
the next four hours, just about. We'll get you all
the way until technically the weekend. I'm still working and
(00:28):
you were still listening tonight's side. Thank you very much.
My name is Dan Ray. Rob Brooks is back in
the control room. We have an interesting program tonight, as
I think we always do, but that's for you to
decide in the long run, that is for sure. We're
going to talk tonight at nine o'clock with two individuals
(00:49):
who are really amazing women, Wendy Roka and Kelly Conroy.
Both of them are involved in programs that send care
packages to the US troops overseas and w did you
know it? There's a United Nations agency which I had
never heard of, which is now going to make it
(01:09):
more difficult for Americans to send these care packages. This
sort of supplies toiletries, Ke and D's, Oh Chapsticks and
things like that to the troops overseas, the little things
that make life a little easier for people who are
not very close to like Walgreens or a CBS if
(01:30):
you get my drift. While they're somewhere overseas, we'll talk
to them, and then we will talk tonight about the
Nobel Peace Prize, which President Donald Trump did not receive.
Today we'll get into all of that, and then later
on tonight during the twentieth hour, I'm going to ask
you to tell us what is the farthest place you
have ever traveled to or what is the father's place
(01:54):
in the world has to be in the world. By
the way, don't tell me you want to go to
the moon of Mars, although some if you might, if
you're young enough. What is the farthest place you'd like
to travel? So with that said, that kind of sets
up the show for you. Hope you'll stay with us
for the entireday of the evening and we'll get you
all the way until virtually Saturday morning. We have four
(02:15):
guests tonight in the eight o'clock hour, as we always do,
we're going to talk about the passing of former Red
Sox outfielder Mike Greenwell, going to talk about ironically a
one hundred inning baseball game which would be played this
weekend in Quinsy on Saturday and Sunday. They will get
that game in and of course we will have a
(02:37):
ACCU weather meteorologist to really break down the weekend for you.
But first we are going to talk about the Kowloon
restaurant in Saugus and James Rohja Rojas WBZ NewsRadio reporter
has been covering this story. James, welcome back to Night's Side.
I guess yeah, well, thank you for sticking around later
(02:59):
on a Friday evening. I suspect that you know a
lot more about this subject than I do, because you
covered the story. I'm sure at some point I must
have I'm not a north Shore guy. I must have
dined at the kow Loon, but I don't have a
specific recall of that event. I've only driven by it
(03:21):
probably a thousand times in my life. Uh, and everybody
knows where it is in Saugas. So what's the deal?
They are downsizing but also kind of selling a lot
of property off, which I guess has real that land
has a lot of value, So the the family will
keep a restaurant, not the same size, but they're gonna
(03:44):
They're gonna be pretty wealthy, it sounds to me. With
their plans here to develop some of the property here
us go on.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
It's a bit of a bittersweet cand of scenario for sure.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Bittersweet for who, for the for the owners or for
the for the patrons.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
I think a little bit for both for sure. But yeah,
this is there, they're not a few years ago there
were talks about the Wank family who owned the Kowloon,
of closing the doors for good entirely. But over the
past several years there's more discussions and more developments, and
so they decided to go with a more of a
downsizing approach as opposed to a full closure. So, you know,
(04:25):
bittersweet as in like it's bitter that the Kowloon as
it is right now will not remain, but sweet in
it that though there will be more development around there,
there will be a smaller version of the Kowloon that
will see a significant less amount of customers, but it
will so be open for outdoor indoor seating and even
(04:46):
a drive through. But yeah, the Wang family. They say
that they're not ready to throw in the towel just yet,
but you know, want to pull back a little bit
and line the line the workload.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Now, the family has owned this restaurant, I guess for decades.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Right, yeah, seventy five years. The Kowloon has been there
off of Root one, and yeah, it's just been a
staple for the community. And I was actually over there
this past week and talking to folks nearby, and you know,
people are mixed. Of course, there are those who say
that they hate to see any form of the Kowloon
going away or at least the very least changing, especially
(05:22):
the iconic facade of it. Right now, others say, you
know what, you know, times are changing, and they're okay
with things changing. And among the plans for this big
change include the construction of two six story buildings which
will be used for both apartment units and commercial space,
(05:43):
So around two hundred apartment units would be created and
a lot of commercial space for what was considered high
end stores. But in the midst of that, there will
also be a Kowloon again, smaller but there, hopefully with
the same amount of food selection on the menu.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Now, you know, because you've done this with me before.
I sometimes will ask my questions that come to mind.
We don't script questions here on Nightside. How big is
the property up there? Do you know what the acreage
is for the property, because obviously you got the restaurant
and you got a huge parking area.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Yeah, at the top of my head, I don't know
the square footage, but I do know that they seat
currently they can seat around twelve hundred customers, So twelve
hundred space for twelve hundred customers in one spot. That's
gonna be reduced to around two hundred customers. But yeah,
it's a good amount of space. And so they definitely
do have the land in order to again build these
(06:42):
two individual buildings six stories high each, and the developers,
the architects, they presented their plans recently to the Saugust
Planning Board and so right now it's up for review,
still needs to get the green light. But I would
find it hard to imagine in not getting getting the
go to go ahead and do this, because of course,
(07:04):
you know, people are always saying there needs to be
more housing options, more housing developments in Massachusetts, and so this,
you know, seems like a logical place to put in
where you.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Got the MBTA Communities Housing Act that is impacting a
lot of cities and towns in eastern Massachusetts. I think
one hundred and seventy seven of them. And I assume
that the SELECTMENTO whoever runs Saugus will see this as
a great opportunity to comply with that MBTA Housing Act
(07:36):
in a way that doesn't really impact the neighborhoods of Saugus.
Is there a separate developer if you know they selling
the property and just going to run a smaller restaurant
while someone else buys the excess acreage and does the construction,
or do they have a piece of the action in
terms of the construction as well?
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Meaning you know what, I don't know the specifics of
that of that that information or those details, but I
would imagine that, you know, if the property around there
is sold that land, then the Wang family will be
doing pretty well for themselves.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Oh, I would think for generations to come that if
it's seventy five years, that takes a pretty easy map there.
It takes back to I guess nineteen fifty would have
been when the cow when the Kowloon opened. Will there
be obviously at some point the big kowloon will come
down and at some other point the new kowloon will open.
(08:35):
Is there going to be a period of time when
there's no restaurant on that property or have they worked
it out so that they will build a new restaurant
and have it opened before or when the current kowloon closes.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
So they say that the kowloon will remain open for
in its capacity, you know, as much as it can
when they do close it for obviously for construction purposes,
there will be a temporary space during that period where
they will remain open. And so yeah, but we're not
going to be seeing these big changes for I would
say several years or at least a couple of years,
(09:15):
just because the architects said that just for one building
alone it will take about fourteen months, and so they
decide to do one building at a time, then you know,
you're looking at over two years. If they do it
you know, congruently, right next to right, you know, side
by side, then you know, then a little bit more
than a year. But yeah, there will be in theory
a kowloon, a version, a type of kowloon available during
(09:38):
that construction period.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Well, James, I'll tell you it's an interesting story. It
has been a restaurant, as you know now, it's been
around legendary restaurant, but seems like everything has a time
to to go away. Sadly, they're even great restaurants, none
of them last forever. So if you like the kow Loon,
(10:02):
I say this to my listeners, take advantage of it
while it is still here in its current capacity. James Rojas,
thank you so much for all you do and I
appreciate you spending time with us tonight.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Dann, thank you very welcome.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
When we come back and talk about a one hundred
innings of baseball this Saturday and Sunday Tomorrow the eleventh
and Sunday the twelfth at adams Field and Quinsy raising
money for ALS Research to benefit the Angel Fund for
ALS Research. Is going to be talking with Walter Benson.
He's the organizer of this event, he's author set ahead Umpire,
(10:38):
and he lives with ALS. This is a story we've
done in prior years and it's always great at this
time of year to realize there's still some baseball to
be played before everyone puts the bats and gloves away
for the winter. We'll be back with Walter Benston on
Nightside right after this quick commercial break.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
It's night Side with Dan Ray, Boston's news radio Boy.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
We're here to tell you about some baseball. And we're
not talking about the Red Sox. They're done. We're not
talking about the Yankees, they're done too. But we're talking
about the twenty second annual one hundred Innings of Baseball
to raise money for ALS research to benefit the Angel
Fund with us as Walter Benston, he's the organizer of
the event. He's the head umpire. He also lives with ALS. Walter,
(11:24):
we've done this before. I think we've done this now.
I believe at least one year previously. This is a
great event. You go from morning through night. I mean,
this is you got a lot of baseball going on here.
Six hundred outs, one hundred innings.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
Well that's right, Dan, it's a great event. Started twenty
two years ago and we'll started at nine am tomorrow.
And for those baseball fans out there, the quivlent of
playing eleven back to back to back games and you're
right after than ninety ninth an the end last year,
(12:02):
we were tired going into the one hunderds and they
asked me if we were going to play extras and
I kind of said, I hope some of the scores.
So it's a long way. But the guys that hung
in there, some of the players. I believe there's nine
players that have played every of every game for twenty
(12:23):
two years. So it's a great event.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Now. I know that in some of the years past
you've had some celebrity participants. I know that there have been,
and if I'm wrong, feel free to correct me. But
I seem to remember that you had occasionally a former
Red Sox player or two to comman who would play
and participate. What's what does the lineup look like this year?
(12:48):
Do you have any celebrities who are participating?
Speaker 4 (12:52):
Well right now, no, but ever know there was by
me I think were six or seven years ago. The
game was probably in the fifteen ten and I have
my seat behind home plate right behind the backstop and
now walks out of the park a lot. A gentleman,
tall letty pitcher named space Nan bo Lee who just
(13:17):
showed up, heard about the game and asked if he
could throw at you in so we did and new Maremonia.
It was a shortstop plan in that game too, So
occasionally guys will just show up and they hear about
the game and participate.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
That's great. Whose idea was this originally? Will you? Were you?
The original organizer of the event now passed.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Down, No, it's been passed down. The original people were
Brett Rudy and Mike Limbo, and they came up with
the idea in two thousand and three. After the season,
I signed up priors for most of the men's things
in the Greater Boston area and their suspenses were so
to get higher and higher. They said, let's have a
(14:03):
crazy event and maybe combine it with any charity at
the time. Shortly after that, the Red Sox landed Kurt
Chilling and Kurt Kids. Free of Us was formed in
two thousand and three and they kind of combined forces
and they started that. For the first two years, I
(14:26):
was not involved because I was still working as an
umbiar at that time, and then I made the game personally.
My last game that I have parted in two thousand
and six, so I've been involved in the last twenty
straight years. Now.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
I know there are people listening to us right now
who probably are hearing about this for the first time,
so let's emphasize it's Adams Field in Quinsy. You're going
to raise my als. I assume everybody is welcome to
come and sit and watch, and maybe they passed a hat.
What about people who would like to play? Do you
(15:02):
have the rosters filled out or do people show up.
I'm sure that you can put somebody in the game
and then take them out or whatever. I'm love to
know what the scorecard looks like at the end of
the game, but we'll leave that all the way. Today.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
We do use a full scorebook for each team. They
think what happens is we have probably seventy five percent
of the players or repeat players or whether it's over
decades or the last few years, and it's just kind
of word of math now. And there's about roughly thirty
(15:39):
five to forty players on these team, and they register online.
They should they have seventy five dollars registracy and they
can't play for three hours three hour segments from nine
to twelve, twelve to three, et cetera. Right up until
the approximate thirty hours is the time it used to play.
(16:02):
And again, guys register and the lineup cards I would
say that at most there's probably twenty on each side
in each dugout. And of course when you get to
the wee hours in the morning, two, three, four am,
it gets a little squarest. But we will want to
make sure the teachers are throwing strikes and the game
(16:24):
he's moving along.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Okay, And most of your pitchers, they're not just lobbing
the ball up there there.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Oh, no, they are there. I would say it's equivalent
to a good to high school varsity gamers. Most of
the players now in the Meddlings are collegiate two or
D three players, and you know in case that you'll
get a ring or in the air, but most of
the time it's certainly for fun.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
That's great. And you start at nine o'clock on Saturday.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
And all morning at nine am, and we go straight
through and you.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Probably end up I'm doing the math here, but I'm
assuming that means you end up about three o'clock on
Sunday afternoon.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
That's correct. And the guys are and we're one of
the two women that play this well. We have a
couple of women who have played all one hundred in
music and that remarkable feet this wall, so as to
say it, the shortest tame ever is about twenty eight
and a half hours, and the longest game was about
(17:31):
thirty one and a half hours, and that's when the
pitchers had trouble throwing strikes. And we want to make
sure that if you say you pitch, you can get
the ball over the plate, because you want to keep moving.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Absolutely well, Walter, thanks very much. The people at this
point obviously too late to register, but if you want
to play, bring a credit card or a check book,
make a donation, and get ready for them to call
your number tomorrow morning, nine o'clock at Adams Field. Thanks
very much, Walter. Best of luck with the research for ALS.
(18:04):
A great organization, the Angel Fund ALS research. Nothing nothing better.
This is one of those diseases that all of us
need to battle as best we can. And I know
that you guys have battled it for years now, and
so just hang in there.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
Okay, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
All right, Walter Benson, the organizer of the event, the
head umpire. He also lives with ALS. When we get back,
we'll talk a little more baseball with Tim Healey and
the Boston Globe. Former Red Sox left fielder Mike Greenwell
passed yesterday of cancer, only sixty two years of age.
The Gator. It was a great outfielder for the Red Sox,
(18:45):
maybe not a Hall of Famer, but an All Star,
played in the World Series, and someone who went on
and had a post playing career in politics down in
his native Lee County, Florida. We'll get to all of
that with Tim Healey coming back on night Side.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Well sad news in the Red Sox Baseball world. Yesterday
the passing unexpected passing of Mike Greenwell at the age
of sixty two with us as Tim Healey, Boston Globe
Sports reporter. This one came as a surprise, though. I
guess Mike Greenwell had announced to the world just a
few months ago that he was suffering was a thyroid
cancer that he was diagnosed with.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
Tim, Yeah, he had. He had revealed in August that
it was midllary thyroid cancer. But nobody, at least in
Boss and those who you know knew him or were
in some amount of touch with him, nobody really realized
how serious it was, apparently, and you know that's that's
certainly Mike Greenwell's right, of course, you know, people value
(19:54):
their privacy, but it definitely was one that came as
a shock to a lot of those who knew him
now and knew him back in the day.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Well, he was a good player, I mean, he was
an All Star for a couple of seasons, and Red
Sox fans remember him, you know, Mike Greenwall Greenwall playing
left field and uh and being spending some time out
by the Green Monster. So he's aptly named. But this
was a guy that grew up in Fort Myers, Florida,
(20:25):
before the Red Sox had had moved there. I think
he had maybe some spring trainings early on in his
career over in winter Haven, but lived in Fort Myers,
and eventually, I guess was appointed to the League county,
which is the county in Florida, the big county government
down there, to the to the county commissioners, and then
ran for election and it was a politician down there
(20:48):
at the end. What's been the reaction of his teammates,
I mean, this has to be a shock to you know,
he there was he played with Clemens, he played with
I saw Rich Gedman interviewed yesterday Sparks some you know,
Dwight Evans, Brady Anderson, Jim Rice, Bob Stanley, those are
names that all of us were Red Sox fans. Bruce
(21:10):
Hurst who you remember. Those were pretty good teams. Actually
they didn't win a World Series until two thousand and four,
long after Greenwell had retired. But it's a shock when
someone that young and who you remember as being such
an interesting guy and by all accounts a really decent
(21:30):
guy passes on at the age of sixty two. It
was a shock when I heard it. I'm sure it
was a shock to a lot of Red Sox fans
that I keep saying, nobody gets out of this place alive.
But you figure a guy like Mike Greenwell, he was
a runner up for the MVP. What do you was
(21:51):
it an eighty eight?
Speaker 4 (21:54):
Eighty eight?
Speaker 5 (21:55):
Yeah, you finished second behind Jose Canseco, who of course
later ondmitted to using steroids during that season and others.
So really, Mike Greenwall got robbed that year.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
I think. I think Konseko became a teammate later on
before he retired. So the small baseball world, I heard
one story yesterday that he was a bit of a
prankster and at some point he got his nickname. And
if you know this story, great, I just heard about it,
and I don't know it that he was able to
(22:28):
capture a small alligator and put it in the locker
of one of his teammates down in Florida, much to
the horror of the teammate when he opened the locker.
Do you know about that story at all?
Speaker 5 (22:41):
Unfortunately I don't. I wish I knew that story. That
sounds tremendous, but it was so funny to talk to
folks who knew him decades later and they still just
casually referred to him as Gator, which was his nickname.
Of course, unclear whether that stems from that one occasion
wrestling the alligator or if it was maybe more generally
(23:03):
a nod to his Florida roots.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yeah, I don't think it was a big alligator, because
if he's sucking, I understand he is. The player who
he played the practical joke on was Ellis Brooks was
a pretty good friend of his, and uh and an
outfielder as well with the Red Sox, and I guess
he put it in Burke's locker and he taped the
I mean it was big enough, but it wasn't you
(23:28):
know at Fort Gator that he was walking around with there,
And there's a legend has it that he taped the
Gator's mouth shut. So no harm, no foul, but it
certainly left the depression on. I think it was Ellis Burks,
who he's a good friend with. But it's a sort
of practical jokes that you know, players play on one
(23:49):
one one another. I guess that that solidified if if
the nickname Gator had had applied before, that solidified the nickname,
and if not, maybe that's how he got the nickname.
But those were good, Those were kind of interesting Red
Sox game teams. He was a teammate of Evans and
(24:10):
Rice and Wade Boggs, and those are those are good teams.
Never won a World Series, but provided you know, you
always knew in April that the teams that get that
Mike Greenwell played on had the possibility of going forward,
you know, going deep into into October as the Red
(24:32):
Sox now for the first time in four years. Did
have you had a chance to talk to any of
his teammates in the last couple of.
Speaker 5 (24:38):
Days, heard from some of them, yes, most of them.
You would you know, rattle off their names earlier. It
was striking you mentioned you mentioned him being a prankster.
It was striking to me to see what his teammates
had said about him, because aside from the hitting and
the playing left field in front of the green Monster
and all that stuff, all of them talked about how
(25:01):
how often he was laughing, how funny he was, how
good of a guy he was, how much fun he
was to be around. And I'll tell you from covering baseball,
not all big leaguers are fun to be around. Some
of them are surly guys who do you know, who
don't necessarily have a lot of friends in the clubhouse,
in the locker room. But Mike Greenwell certainly was one
(25:23):
of those guys who did have a lot of friends.
So it seems like people enjoyed being around him. I
did not cover him, but I understand he also liked
to chat with the media quite a bit, which also
is not you know, something players bat one thousand done.
And it was just so interesting to, you know, hearing
people reflect on his career and all of his accomplishments.
(25:44):
You mentioned playing on good teams. He did, he you know,
he was starting to work his way in in eighty
six when they went to the World Series, and then
he was right in the middle of everything when they
won the Al East in eighty eight, in ninety and
in ninety five hit for the cycle and inside the
Park Grand Slam. I think my favorite factoid was that
(26:07):
in September of ninety six, which wound up being his
last month in the major leagues, he had a game
where he drove in every run in a nine to
eight win over the Mariners, which is pretty incredible no
matter the stage of the career you're at, especially so
if you're at the very end.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah, well, I've heard of games where, you know, three
to one or something like that, where some guy drove
in all three runs or hit a grand Slam, drove
in all four but a nine to eighth grade game.
I read that. I think it was in your uticle
in the Globe, and that is astonishing because you it
just statistically seems highly unlikely that all nine runs in
(26:49):
a nine away game would be driven in by by
the same guy. I saw Rich Gadam, who's a great guy,
interviewed I think it was on Channel four yesterday, and
you know, you just you realize that you know, these
are the guys that when you were a kid. You know,
all of us grew up at different ages. They're like
(27:10):
forever young. Because the image you have of Blake Greenwell
is you know, running around the bases or making a
pretty good defensive outfielder. And at sixty two, nobody should
be passing away at sixty two. I mean, you know
you liked them. Yeah, you'd like to think of my
understanding that he had two children and he leaves his
wife as well. And there was one article today that
(27:32):
seemed to suggest to me that he passed away. And
again it was an article that I read. I think
there was a release that said that he passed away
at one of the major hospitals here in Boston, which
would make sense because I'm sure he had plenty of
friends in the medical community and if he was really,
you know, dealing with the serious illness, you would want
(27:53):
to be in the best hospitals that you could find.
But again, a great career blessed with a lot of
athletic talent. You know, so many of us, you know,
you grew up as a kid boy, If I could
only play in the major leagues, that would make your
life complete. Well, for him. His life was pretty complete
with a wife who I guess they were friends since
(28:16):
the eighth grade. They had two children together, and he
went on and was a successful businessman and in his
post baseball career, so lived a full life. He jammed
a lot into those sixty two years. And tonight we
remember Mike Greenwell. I really appreciate you taking the time,
(28:36):
Tim to talk with us tonight because it's something that
most of my audience, you wouldn't have to. Very few
people who were baseball fans here in Boston would not
know the name Mike Greenwell. And morning his passing tonight.
Thank you so much, Timing. Thank you.
Speaker 5 (28:56):
I am honored to and I know he is very
fondly remembered by a Sox fans and all Bostonians. So
it's uh, you know, he lived the heck of a life.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Sure did, Sure did, got a lot in those sixty
two years. Thanks again, Tim, we'll talk soon. Appreciate it
very much.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Okay, the big story this weekend, towards the end of
the weekend is going to be a Boston's a nor'easter.
Now north easters we normally think of as with snow.
There won't be any snow, but there's gonna be a
lot of weather, and we're going to talk with an
accurate weather meteorologist, Mike Benz, who's been a guest on
the Matt Benz, who's been on this program before, and
(29:35):
we will get from him an hour by hour breakdown
because this is gonna, I guess, hit the south side
of New England first and then move up through Connecticut,
Rhode Island, and into Massachusetts before it heads out to sea.
But it's gonna be with us a while. It's gonna
have an impact. We'll break it down so it won't
have any adverse impact on your weekend plan. Stay with
(29:59):
us here on Nightside.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's
news radio.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Well, I guess a big one's coming in this weekend
in Northeastern Wind is going to blow strong wind, gust,
heavy rain for what is the last holiday weekend of
I guess the summer if you want to think of
it still as an extended summer with us as Matt
Benzacu weather meteorologist. Matt. For some reason, there seems to
(30:29):
be some unanimity amongst you meteorologists that this is going
to be quite the storm. What's going on?
Speaker 6 (30:36):
Oh, we were looking at this storm that is currently
trying to get itself together off the Carolina coast. And
what kind of makes this one unique for maybe what
we see with other nor'easters is this is more tropical
in nature. I typically when we talk about a nor'easter,
it's something that came from Canada or something from the
western US. That's not quite the case in this storm's
life cycle. How we actually have some tropical energy coming
(30:57):
up from Cuba forming off the Carolina coast, almost a
tropical storm, but it's not quite there. So instead we
get a tropical rainstorm that seems like a nor'easter and
kind of the same impacts as well. And that's what
we'll be heading our direction later this weekend and early
next week. So not a hurricane, Yeah, not a hurricane.
It's not fully we talk about. A hurricane is like
(31:20):
a big heat pump. It relies on thunderstorms to create
uptrafts and eventually you get the spinning motion in the
atmosphere to get that big circulation. This is just a
big area of low pressure that's going to be feeding
off the Gulf Stream and has a lot of tropical
moisture with it. But yeah, not quite a hurricane, not
truly a tropical storm. But it's certainly a large storm nonetheless.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
So let's break it down in terms of it's going
to hit. I assume the South coast or Rhode Island, Connecticut,
and the Cape first, correct.
Speaker 6 (31:50):
Yeah, And that's where the at least at this point,
that's where our highest confidence is where the worst impacts
of the storm is going to occur. You hear the
throw on the models that we look at, the American
model versus the European model, and both of those models
would suggest the South coast, Cape and islands would be
the primary area to get hit. And then there's some
(32:12):
differences with just how far north those impacts make it
as we head into early next week.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Okay, so we're talking about if you want to refer
to it as landfall. They're pushing it back. It was
originally sometime on Sunday, and now they seem to be
saying it will be late Sunday, maybe Sunday night when
it starts blowing.
Speaker 6 (32:32):
Yeah, And I think what you'll see, at least here
in Boston, the winds are going to pick up through
the day on Sunday, breezy for a good chunk of
the day, then turning windy late in the day, maybe
some rain working its way north as we had through
the afternoon and evening again the main impacts hitting area
south of town here first at South Coast Cape and Islands,
and then as we head into Sunday night and Monday,
that's when you start to see that moisture feeding Northwood,
(32:54):
and that's where modeling begins to split with the storm.
Do we get the sluga moisture and wind coming in
Sunday night like what the American model would be showing,
or the European model which would suggest more moisture coming
in here during the day or even late in the
day on Monday. So there is still some discrepancy where
that heaviest rain will push into the region and just
again how far north it will push, But it does
(33:15):
look like at least the winds will be the primary
concern initially, those again picking up through Sunday afternoon, really
starting to crank up heading into Sunday night and through
the day on Monday.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Now, is this going to hook out of here and
will Maine in New Hampshire and Vermont it'll just be
a relatively normal rainstorm, or will it continue with the
same ferocity on up into Canada but still impacting the
northern part of New England.
Speaker 6 (33:41):
You know, it looks like this is one where it
and it's kind of unique from a nor'eastern standpoint, or
even a tropical rainstorm standpoint, wherein most storms you would
expect it to continue to hook northward. That's not the
case with this storm, where it actually stalls out a
bit off the coast here for Monday, before then moving
basically due east. We have Tropical Storm Jerry, which is
(34:04):
down in the western Atlantic. May provide a window for
this system to move east, kind of like what we
saw earlier on this fall with some of the storms
that were moving off of the southeast coast with Gabriel
and Umberto and Imelda. Those are the storms that kind
of danced off the southeast coast before Umberto pulled Emalda out.
To see I could be a similar situation here where
(34:26):
Jerry comes up, never really makes any threat to land,
but actually helps to tug this storm out to sea
early next week.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Now, most of these storms at this time of year,
and I watched them fairly closely on the weather forecast.
They all sort of seemed to start off the coast,
the east coast of Africa. How long has this storm
been percolating out there? It says it take a week
or two to really rev up before it gets this
far north.
Speaker 6 (34:54):
Yeah, if it had come out. This is actually not
a storm that came off of Africa. Jerry is a
good exampmple of that, where it was a tropical wave
that came off of Africa. And typically a storm like
that can take a week to week and a half
before you really see it fully mature and then start
to make that northward turn. This is more of a
what we call home grown. We had a stall frontel
(35:14):
boundary that was across Florida, the Florida Straits, and down
across Cuba. And sometimes that's enough of what helps to
create an area of low pressure that generally migrates northward.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
And that's what this storm is.
Speaker 6 (35:26):
It was kind of more of a home grown type
of a system as opposed to those African waves that
you hear of that quite often this time of the
year are the ones that are creating hurricanes that you
talk about so much.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Now I know the hurricane season technically goes from June
first to November thirtieth. We're now three quarters of the
way through the hurricane season. To the best of my knowledge,
we haven't had a hurricane at all here in Massachusetts.
Can we begin to breathe, even with this storm this weekend,
breathe a little more easily whatever the hurricane season starts,
(36:01):
we hear all of these forecasts of this could be
the worst, you know, in so many years. Can we
start to breathe a little easier at this point? Are
we still open and subject to the possible or arrival
of a hurricane in late October November?
Speaker 6 (36:15):
You know, what I would love to see is to
make that more of a guarantee that we're not going
to see anything as a good cold front that pushes
out over the Atlantic and helps to cool the water
tempters down, not just locally, but we're looking at areas
just south along Island, and of course the Gulf Stream,
which is still boiling hot right now, at least compared
to average, and that's what really is a fuel at
(36:36):
this point for these storms. So until we can get
those water tempters down just a bit more, and again
not so much off of our coastline here, but south
along Island is really the area where we need to
cool it down.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
All right, so we'll keep our fingers crossed. Matt Ben's
thanks very much. It gave us a really good meteorological
lesson here and also all the information I think most
of us need to figure out where we want to
be in where we don't want to be later on
this weekend. Thanks so much, Matt. You do a great job.
Thank you so much. Matt. Thanks for having me absolutely
of ACU weather. When we get back, we're going to
(37:08):
talk about two great organizations that provide care packages for
American soldiers service personnel overseas, and complications in their efforts
that are being that no one really understands where it's
coming from, but it looks like it's the United Nations
Agency in Switzerland, which is going to impact our ability
(37:32):
as individuals, friends, parents, etcetera, to send care packages to
American service personnel overseas. We will explain it all coming
back right after the nine o'clock news here on Night
Side
It's night with Dan Ray. I'm going easy Bondon's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
The weekend looks like it might be pretty good. Certainly
Tomorrow looks like a good day and most of Sunday.
But Sunday night, Monday, well it's better on Sunday night
and Monday than it is on Saturday and Sunday. MO
name is Dan Ray. We are here for you for
the next four hours, just about. We'll get you all
the way until technically the weekend. I'm still working and
(00:28):
you were still listening tonight's side. Thank you very much.
My name is Dan Ray. Rob Brooks is back in
the control room. We have an interesting program tonight, as
I think we always do, but that's for you to
decide in the long run, that is for sure. We're
going to talk tonight at nine o'clock with two individuals
(00:49):
who are really amazing women, Wendy Roka and Kelly Conroy.
Both of them are involved in programs that send care
packages to the US troops overseas and w did you
know it? There's a United Nations agency which I had
never heard of, which is now going to make it
(01:09):
more difficult for Americans to send these care packages. This
sort of supplies toiletries, Ke and D's, Oh Chapsticks and
things like that to the troops overseas, the little things
that make life a little easier for people who are
not very close to like Walgreens or a CBS if
(01:30):
you get my drift. While they're somewhere overseas, we'll talk
to them, and then we will talk tonight about the
Nobel Peace Prize, which President Donald Trump did not receive.
Today we'll get into all of that, and then later
on tonight during the twentieth hour, I'm going to ask
you to tell us what is the farthest place you
have ever traveled to or what is the father's place
(01:54):
in the world has to be in the world. By
the way, don't tell me you want to go to
the moon of Mars, although some if you might, if
you're young enough. What is the farthest place you'd like
to travel? So with that said, that kind of sets
up the show for you. Hope you'll stay with us
for the entireday of the evening and we'll get you
all the way until virtually Saturday morning. We have four
(02:15):
guests tonight in the eight o'clock hour, as we always do,
we're going to talk about the passing of former Red
Sox outfielder Mike Greenwell, going to talk about ironically a
one hundred inning baseball game which would be played this
weekend in Quinsy on Saturday and Sunday. They will get
that game in and of course we will have a
(02:37):
ACCU weather meteorologist to really break down the weekend for you.
But first we are going to talk about the Kowloon
restaurant in Saugus and James Rohja Rojas WBZ NewsRadio reporter
has been covering this story. James, welcome back to Night's Side.
I guess yeah, well, thank you for sticking around later
(02:59):
on a Friday evening. I suspect that you know a
lot more about this subject than I do, because you
covered the story. I'm sure at some point I must
have I'm not a north Shore guy. I must have
dined at the kow Loon, but I don't have a
specific recall of that event. I've only driven by it
(03:21):
probably a thousand times in my life. Uh, and everybody
knows where it is in Saugas. So what's the deal?
They are downsizing but also kind of selling a lot
of property off, which I guess has real that land
has a lot of value, So the the family will
keep a restaurant, not the same size, but they're gonna
(03:44):
They're gonna be pretty wealthy, it sounds to me. With
their plans here to develop some of the property here
us go on.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
It's a bit of a bittersweet cand of scenario for sure.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Bittersweet for who, for the for the owners or for
the for the patrons.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
I think a little bit for both for sure. But yeah,
this is there, they're not a few years ago there
were talks about the Wank family who owned the Kowloon,
of closing the doors for good entirely. But over the
past several years there's more discussions and more developments, and
so they decided to go with a more of a
downsizing approach as opposed to a full closure. So, you know,
(04:25):
bittersweet as in like it's bitter that the Kowloon as
it is right now will not remain, but sweet in
it that though there will be more development around there,
there will be a smaller version of the Kowloon that
will see a significant less amount of customers, but it
will so be open for outdoor indoor seating and even
(04:46):
a drive through. But yeah, the Wang family. They say
that they're not ready to throw in the towel just yet,
but you know, want to pull back a little bit
and line the line the workload.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Now, the family has owned this restaurant, I guess for decades.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Right, yeah, seventy five years. The Kowloon has been there
off of Root one, and yeah, it's just been a
staple for the community. And I was actually over there
this past week and talking to folks nearby, and you know,
people are mixed. Of course, there are those who say
that they hate to see any form of the Kowloon
going away or at least the very least changing, especially
(05:22):
the iconic facade of it. Right now, others say, you
know what, you know, times are changing, and they're okay
with things changing. And among the plans for this big
change include the construction of two six story buildings which
will be used for both apartment units and commercial space,
(05:43):
So around two hundred apartment units would be created and
a lot of commercial space for what was considered high
end stores. But in the midst of that, there will
also be a Kowloon again, smaller but there, hopefully with
the same amount of food selection on the menu.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Now, you know, because you've done this with me before.
I sometimes will ask my questions that come to mind.
We don't script questions here on Nightside. How big is
the property up there? Do you know what the acreage
is for the property, because obviously you got the restaurant
and you got a huge parking area.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Yeah, at the top of my head, I don't know
the square footage, but I do know that they seat
currently they can seat around twelve hundred customers, So twelve
hundred space for twelve hundred customers in one spot. That's
gonna be reduced to around two hundred customers. But yeah,
it's a good amount of space. And so they definitely
do have the land in order to again build these
(06:42):
two individual buildings six stories high each, and the developers,
the architects, they presented their plans recently to the Saugust
Planning Board and so right now it's up for review,
still needs to get the green light. But I would
find it hard to imagine in not getting getting the
go to go ahead and do this, because of course,
(07:04):
you know, people are always saying there needs to be
more housing options, more housing developments in Massachusetts, and so this,
you know, seems like a logical place to put in
where you.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Got the MBTA Communities Housing Act that is impacting a
lot of cities and towns in eastern Massachusetts. I think
one hundred and seventy seven of them. And I assume
that the SELECTMENTO whoever runs Saugus will see this as
a great opportunity to comply with that MBTA Housing Act
(07:36):
in a way that doesn't really impact the neighborhoods of Saugus.
Is there a separate developer if you know they selling
the property and just going to run a smaller restaurant
while someone else buys the excess acreage and does the construction,
or do they have a piece of the action in
terms of the construction as well?
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Meaning you know what, I don't know the specifics of
that of that that information or those details, but I
would imagine that, you know, if the property around there
is sold that land, then the Wang family will be
doing pretty well for themselves.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Oh, I would think for generations to come that if
it's seventy five years, that takes a pretty easy map there.
It takes back to I guess nineteen fifty would have
been when the cow when the Kowloon opened. Will there
be obviously at some point the big kowloon will come
down and at some other point the new kowloon will open.
(08:35):
Is there going to be a period of time when
there's no restaurant on that property or have they worked
it out so that they will build a new restaurant
and have it opened before or when the current kowloon closes.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
So they say that the kowloon will remain open for
in its capacity, you know, as much as it can
when they do close it for obviously for construction purposes,
there will be a temporary space during that period where
they will remain open. And so yeah, but we're not
going to be seeing these big changes for I would
say several years or at least a couple of years,
(09:15):
just because the architects said that just for one building
alone it will take about fourteen months, and so they
decide to do one building at a time, then you know,
you're looking at over two years. If they do it
you know, congruently, right next to right, you know, side
by side, then you know, then a little bit more
than a year. But yeah, there will be in theory
a kowloon, a version, a type of kowloon available during
(09:38):
that construction period.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Well, James, I'll tell you it's an interesting story. It
has been a restaurant, as you know now, it's been
around legendary restaurant, but seems like everything has a time
to to go away. Sadly, they're even great restaurants, none
of them last forever. So if you like the kow Loon,
(10:02):
I say this to my listeners, take advantage of it
while it is still here in its current capacity. James Rojas,
thank you so much for all you do and I
appreciate you spending time with us tonight.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Dann, thank you very welcome.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
When we come back and talk about a one hundred
innings of baseball this Saturday and Sunday Tomorrow the eleventh
and Sunday the twelfth at adams Field and Quinsy raising
money for ALS Research to benefit the Angel Fund for
ALS Research. Is going to be talking with Walter Benson.
He's the organizer of this event, he's author set ahead Umpire,
(10:38):
and he lives with ALS. This is a story we've
done in prior years and it's always great at this
time of year to realize there's still some baseball to
be played before everyone puts the bats and gloves away
for the winter. We'll be back with Walter Benston on
Nightside right after this quick commercial break.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
It's night Side with Dan Ray, Boston's news radio Boy.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
We're here to tell you about some baseball. And we're
not talking about the Red Sox. They're done. We're not
talking about the Yankees, they're done too. But we're talking
about the twenty second annual one hundred Innings of Baseball
to raise money for ALS research to benefit the Angel
Fund with us as Walter Benston, he's the organizer of
the event. He's the head umpire. He also lives with ALS. Walter,
(11:24):
we've done this before. I think we've done this now.
I believe at least one year previously. This is a
great event. You go from morning through night. I mean,
this is you got a lot of baseball going on here.
Six hundred outs, one hundred innings.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
Well that's right, Dan, it's a great event. Started twenty
two years ago and we'll started at nine am tomorrow.
And for those baseball fans out there, the quivlent of
playing eleven back to back to back games and you're
right after than ninety ninth an the end last year,
(12:02):
we were tired going into the one hunderds and they
asked me if we were going to play extras and
I kind of said, I hope some of the scores.
So it's a long way. But the guys that hung
in there, some of the players. I believe there's nine
players that have played every of every game for twenty
(12:23):
two years. So it's a great event.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Now. I know that in some of the years past
you've had some celebrity participants. I know that there have been,
and if I'm wrong, feel free to correct me. But
I seem to remember that you had occasionally a former
Red Sox player or two to comman who would play
and participate. What's what does the lineup look like this year?
(12:48):
Do you have any celebrities who are participating?
Speaker 4 (12:52):
Well right now, no, but ever know there was by
me I think were six or seven years ago. The
game was probably in the fifteen ten and I have
my seat behind home plate right behind the backstop and
now walks out of the park a lot. A gentleman,
tall letty pitcher named space Nan bo Lee who just
(13:17):
showed up, heard about the game and asked if he
could throw at you in so we did and new Maremonia.
It was a shortstop plan in that game too, So
occasionally guys will just show up and they hear about
the game and participate.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
That's great. Whose idea was this originally? Will you? Were you?
The original organizer of the event now passed.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Down, No, it's been passed down. The original people were
Brett Rudy and Mike Limbo, and they came up with
the idea in two thousand and three. After the season,
I signed up priors for most of the men's things
in the Greater Boston area and their suspenses were so
to get higher and higher. They said, let's have a
(14:03):
crazy event and maybe combine it with any charity at
the time. Shortly after that, the Red Sox landed Kurt
Chilling and Kurt Kids. Free of Us was formed in
two thousand and three and they kind of combined forces
and they started that. For the first two years, I
(14:26):
was not involved because I was still working as an
umbiar at that time, and then I made the game personally.
My last game that I have parted in two thousand
and six, so I've been involved in the last twenty
straight years. Now.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
I know there are people listening to us right now
who probably are hearing about this for the first time,
so let's emphasize it's Adams Field in Quinsy. You're going
to raise my als. I assume everybody is welcome to
come and sit and watch, and maybe they passed a hat.
What about people who would like to play? Do you
(15:02):
have the rosters filled out or do people show up.
I'm sure that you can put somebody in the game
and then take them out or whatever. I'm love to
know what the scorecard looks like at the end of
the game, but we'll leave that all the way. Today.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
We do use a full scorebook for each team. They
think what happens is we have probably seventy five percent
of the players or repeat players or whether it's over
decades or the last few years, and it's just kind
of word of math now. And there's about roughly thirty
(15:39):
five to forty players on these team, and they register online.
They should they have seventy five dollars registracy and they
can't play for three hours three hour segments from nine
to twelve, twelve to three, et cetera. Right up until
the approximate thirty hours is the time it used to play.
(16:02):
And again, guys register and the lineup cards I would
say that at most there's probably twenty on each side
in each dugout. And of course when you get to
the wee hours in the morning, two, three, four am,
it gets a little squarest. But we will want to
make sure the teachers are throwing strikes and the game
(16:24):
he's moving along.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Okay, And most of your pitchers, they're not just lobbing
the ball up there there.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Oh, no, they are there. I would say it's equivalent
to a good to high school varsity gamers. Most of
the players now in the Meddlings are collegiate two or
D three players, and you know in case that you'll
get a ring or in the air, but most of
the time it's certainly for fun.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
That's great. And you start at nine o'clock on Saturday.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
And all morning at nine am, and we go straight
through and you.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Probably end up I'm doing the math here, but I'm
assuming that means you end up about three o'clock on
Sunday afternoon.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
That's correct. And the guys are and we're one of
the two women that play this well. We have a
couple of women who have played all one hundred in
music and that remarkable feet this wall, so as to
say it, the shortest tame ever is about twenty eight
and a half hours, and the longest game was about
(17:31):
thirty one and a half hours, and that's when the
pitchers had trouble throwing strikes. And we want to make
sure that if you say you pitch, you can get
the ball over the plate, because you want to keep moving.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Absolutely well, Walter, thanks very much. The people at this
point obviously too late to register, but if you want
to play, bring a credit card or a check book,
make a donation, and get ready for them to call
your number tomorrow morning, nine o'clock at Adams Field. Thanks
very much, Walter. Best of luck with the research for ALS.
(18:04):
A great organization, the Angel Fund ALS research. Nothing nothing better.
This is one of those diseases that all of us
need to battle as best we can. And I know
that you guys have battled it for years now, and
so just hang in there.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
Okay, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
All right, Walter Benson, the organizer of the event, the
head umpire. He also lives with ALS. When we get back,
we'll talk a little more baseball with Tim Healey and
the Boston Globe. Former Red Sox left fielder Mike Greenwell
passed yesterday of cancer, only sixty two years of age.
The Gator. It was a great outfielder for the Red Sox,
(18:45):
maybe not a Hall of Famer, but an All Star,
played in the World Series, and someone who went on
and had a post playing career in politics down in
his native Lee County, Florida. We'll get to all of
that with Tim Healey coming back on night Side.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Well sad news in the Red Sox Baseball world. Yesterday
the passing unexpected passing of Mike Greenwell at the age
of sixty two with us as Tim Healey, Boston Globe
Sports reporter. This one came as a surprise, though. I
guess Mike Greenwell had announced to the world just a
few months ago that he was suffering was a thyroid
cancer that he was diagnosed with.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
Tim, Yeah, he had. He had revealed in August that
it was midllary thyroid cancer. But nobody, at least in
Boss and those who you know knew him or were
in some amount of touch with him, nobody really realized
how serious it was, apparently, and you know that's that's
certainly Mike Greenwell's right, of course, you know, people value
(19:54):
their privacy, but it definitely was one that came as
a shock to a lot of those who knew him
now and knew him back in the day.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Well, he was a good player, I mean, he was
an All Star for a couple of seasons, and Red
Sox fans remember him, you know, Mike Greenwall Greenwall playing
left field and uh and being spending some time out
by the Green Monster. So he's aptly named. But this
was a guy that grew up in Fort Myers, Florida,
(20:25):
before the Red Sox had had moved there. I think
he had maybe some spring trainings early on in his
career over in winter Haven, but lived in Fort Myers,
and eventually, I guess was appointed to the League county,
which is the county in Florida, the big county government
down there, to the to the county commissioners, and then
ran for election and it was a politician down there
(20:48):
at the end. What's been the reaction of his teammates,
I mean, this has to be a shock to you know,
he there was he played with Clemens, he played with
I saw Rich Gedman interviewed yesterday Sparks some you know,
Dwight Evans, Brady Anderson, Jim Rice, Bob Stanley, those are
names that all of us were Red Sox fans. Bruce
(21:10):
Hurst who you remember. Those were pretty good teams. Actually
they didn't win a World Series until two thousand and four,
long after Greenwell had retired. But it's a shock when
someone that young and who you remember as being such
an interesting guy and by all accounts a really decent
(21:30):
guy passes on at the age of sixty two. It
was a shock when I heard it. I'm sure it
was a shock to a lot of Red Sox fans
that I keep saying, nobody gets out of this place alive.
But you figure a guy like Mike Greenwell, he was
a runner up for the MVP. What do you was
(21:51):
it an eighty eight?
Speaker 4 (21:54):
Eighty eight?
Speaker 5 (21:55):
Yeah, you finished second behind Jose Canseco, who of course
later ondmitted to using steroids during that season and others.
So really, Mike Greenwall got robbed that year.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
I think. I think Konseko became a teammate later on
before he retired. So the small baseball world, I heard
one story yesterday that he was a bit of a
prankster and at some point he got his nickname. And
if you know this story, great, I just heard about it,
and I don't know it that he was able to
(22:28):
capture a small alligator and put it in the locker
of one of his teammates down in Florida, much to
the horror of the teammate when he opened the locker.
Do you know about that story at all?
Speaker 5 (22:41):
Unfortunately I don't. I wish I knew that story. That
sounds tremendous, but it was so funny to talk to
folks who knew him decades later and they still just
casually referred to him as Gator, which was his nickname.
Of course, unclear whether that stems from that one occasion
wrestling the alligator or if it was maybe more generally
(23:03):
a nod to his Florida roots.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yeah, I don't think it was a big alligator, because
if he's sucking, I understand he is. The player who
he played the practical joke on was Ellis Brooks was
a pretty good friend of his, and uh and an
outfielder as well with the Red Sox, and I guess
he put it in Burke's locker and he taped the
I mean it was big enough, but it wasn't you
(23:28):
know at Fort Gator that he was walking around with there,
And there's a legend has it that he taped the
Gator's mouth shut. So no harm, no foul, but it
certainly left the depression on. I think it was Ellis Burks,
who he's a good friend with. But it's a sort
of practical jokes that you know, players play on one
(23:49):
one one another. I guess that that solidified if if
the nickname Gator had had applied before, that solidified the nickname,
and if not, maybe that's how he got the nickname.
But those were good, Those were kind of interesting Red
Sox game teams. He was a teammate of Evans and
(24:10):
Rice and Wade Boggs, and those are those are good teams.
Never won a World Series, but provided you know, you
always knew in April that the teams that get that
Mike Greenwell played on had the possibility of going forward,
you know, going deep into into October as the Red
(24:32):
Sox now for the first time in four years. Did
have you had a chance to talk to any of
his teammates in the last couple of.
Speaker 5 (24:38):
Days, heard from some of them, yes, most of them.
You would you know, rattle off their names earlier. It
was striking you mentioned you mentioned him being a prankster.
It was striking to me to see what his teammates
had said about him, because aside from the hitting and
the playing left field in front of the green Monster
and all that stuff, all of them talked about how
(25:01):
how often he was laughing, how funny he was, how
good of a guy he was, how much fun he
was to be around. And I'll tell you from covering baseball,
not all big leaguers are fun to be around. Some
of them are surly guys who do you know, who
don't necessarily have a lot of friends in the clubhouse,
in the locker room. But Mike Greenwell certainly was one
(25:23):
of those guys who did have a lot of friends.
So it seems like people enjoyed being around him. I
did not cover him, but I understand he also liked
to chat with the media quite a bit, which also
is not you know, something players bat one thousand done.
And it was just so interesting to, you know, hearing
people reflect on his career and all of his accomplishments.
(25:44):
You mentioned playing on good teams. He did, he you know,
he was starting to work his way in in eighty
six when they went to the World Series, and then
he was right in the middle of everything when they
won the Al East in eighty eight, in ninety and
in ninety five hit for the cycle and inside the
Park Grand Slam. I think my favorite factoid was that
(26:07):
in September of ninety six, which wound up being his
last month in the major leagues, he had a game
where he drove in every run in a nine to
eight win over the Mariners, which is pretty incredible no
matter the stage of the career you're at, especially so
if you're at the very end.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah, well, I've heard of games where, you know, three
to one or something like that, where some guy drove
in all three runs or hit a grand Slam, drove
in all four but a nine to eighth grade game.
I read that. I think it was in your uticle
in the Globe, and that is astonishing because you it
just statistically seems highly unlikely that all nine runs in
(26:49):
a nine away game would be driven in by by
the same guy. I saw Rich Gadam, who's a great guy,
interviewed I think it was on Channel four yesterday, and
you know, you just you realize that you know, these
are the guys that when you were a kid. You know,
all of us grew up at different ages. They're like
(27:10):
forever young. Because the image you have of Blake Greenwell
is you know, running around the bases or making a
pretty good defensive outfielder. And at sixty two, nobody should
be passing away at sixty two. I mean, you know
you liked them. Yeah, you'd like to think of my
understanding that he had two children and he leaves his
wife as well. And there was one article today that
(27:32):
seemed to suggest to me that he passed away. And
again it was an article that I read. I think
there was a release that said that he passed away
at one of the major hospitals here in Boston, which
would make sense because I'm sure he had plenty of
friends in the medical community and if he was really,
you know, dealing with the serious illness, you would want
(27:53):
to be in the best hospitals that you could find.
But again, a great career blessed with a lot of
athletic talent. You know, so many of us, you know,
you grew up as a kid boy, If I could
only play in the major leagues, that would make your
life complete. Well, for him. His life was pretty complete
with a wife who I guess they were friends since
(28:16):
the eighth grade. They had two children together, and he
went on and was a successful businessman and in his
post baseball career, so lived a full life. He jammed
a lot into those sixty two years. And tonight we
remember Mike Greenwell. I really appreciate you taking the time,
(28:36):
Tim to talk with us tonight because it's something that
most of my audience, you wouldn't have to. Very few
people who were baseball fans here in Boston would not
know the name Mike Greenwell. And morning his passing tonight.
Thank you so much, Timing. Thank you.
Speaker 5 (28:56):
I am honored to and I know he is very
fondly remembered by a Sox fans and all Bostonians. So
it's uh, you know, he lived the heck of a life.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Sure did, Sure did, got a lot in those sixty
two years. Thanks again, Tim, we'll talk soon. Appreciate it
very much.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Okay, the big story this weekend, towards the end of
the weekend is going to be a Boston's a nor'easter.
Now north easters we normally think of as with snow.
There won't be any snow, but there's gonna be a
lot of weather, and we're going to talk with an
accurate weather meteorologist, Mike Benz, who's been a guest on
the Matt Benz, who's been on this program before, and
(29:35):
we will get from him an hour by hour breakdown
because this is gonna, I guess, hit the south side
of New England first and then move up through Connecticut,
Rhode Island, and into Massachusetts before it heads out to sea.
But it's gonna be with us a while. It's gonna
have an impact. We'll break it down so it won't
have any adverse impact on your weekend plan. Stay with
(29:59):
us here on Nightside.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's
news radio.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Well, I guess a big one's coming in this weekend
in Northeastern Wind is going to blow strong wind, gust,
heavy rain for what is the last holiday weekend of
I guess the summer if you want to think of
it still as an extended summer with us as Matt
Benzacu weather meteorologist. Matt. For some reason, there seems to
(30:29):
be some unanimity amongst you meteorologists that this is going
to be quite the storm. What's going on?
Speaker 6 (30:36):
Oh, we were looking at this storm that is currently
trying to get itself together off the Carolina coast. And
what kind of makes this one unique for maybe what
we see with other nor'easters is this is more tropical
in nature. I typically when we talk about a nor'easter,
it's something that came from Canada or something from the
western US. That's not quite the case in this storm's
life cycle. How we actually have some tropical energy coming
(30:57):
up from Cuba forming off the Carolina coast, almost a
tropical storm, but it's not quite there. So instead we
get a tropical rainstorm that seems like a nor'easter and
kind of the same impacts as well. And that's what
we'll be heading our direction later this weekend and early
next week. So not a hurricane, Yeah, not a hurricane.
It's not fully we talk about. A hurricane is like
(31:20):
a big heat pump. It relies on thunderstorms to create
uptrafts and eventually you get the spinning motion in the
atmosphere to get that big circulation. This is just a
big area of low pressure that's going to be feeding
off the Gulf Stream and has a lot of tropical
moisture with it. But yeah, not quite a hurricane, not
truly a tropical storm. But it's certainly a large storm nonetheless.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
So let's break it down in terms of it's going
to hit. I assume the South coast or Rhode Island, Connecticut,
and the Cape first, correct.
Speaker 6 (31:50):
Yeah, And that's where the at least at this point,
that's where our highest confidence is where the worst impacts
of the storm is going to occur. You hear the
throw on the models that we look at, the American
model versus the European model, and both of those models
would suggest the South coast, Cape and islands would be
the primary area to get hit. And then there's some
(32:12):
differences with just how far north those impacts make it
as we head into early next week.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Okay, so we're talking about if you want to refer
to it as landfall. They're pushing it back. It was
originally sometime on Sunday, and now they seem to be
saying it will be late Sunday, maybe Sunday night when
it starts blowing.
Speaker 6 (32:32):
Yeah, And I think what you'll see, at least here
in Boston, the winds are going to pick up through
the day on Sunday, breezy for a good chunk of
the day, then turning windy late in the day, maybe
some rain working its way north as we had through
the afternoon and evening again the main impacts hitting area
south of town here first at South Coast Cape and Islands,
and then as we head into Sunday night and Monday,
that's when you start to see that moisture feeding Northwood,
(32:54):
and that's where modeling begins to split with the storm.
Do we get the sluga moisture and wind coming in
Sunday night like what the American model would be showing,
or the European model which would suggest more moisture coming
in here during the day or even late in the
day on Monday. So there is still some discrepancy where
that heaviest rain will push into the region and just
again how far north it will push, But it does
(33:15):
look like at least the winds will be the primary
concern initially, those again picking up through Sunday afternoon, really
starting to crank up heading into Sunday night and through
the day on Monday.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Now, is this going to hook out of here and
will Maine in New Hampshire and Vermont it'll just be
a relatively normal rainstorm, or will it continue with the
same ferocity on up into Canada but still impacting the
northern part of New England.
Speaker 6 (33:41):
You know, it looks like this is one where it
and it's kind of unique from a nor'eastern standpoint, or
even a tropical rainstorm standpoint, wherein most storms you would
expect it to continue to hook northward. That's not the
case with this storm, where it actually stalls out a
bit off the coast here for Monday, before then moving
basically due east. We have Tropical Storm Jerry, which is
(34:04):
down in the western Atlantic. May provide a window for
this system to move east, kind of like what we
saw earlier on this fall with some of the storms
that were moving off of the southeast coast with Gabriel
and Umberto and Imelda. Those are the storms that kind
of danced off the southeast coast before Umberto pulled Emalda out.
To see I could be a similar situation here where
(34:26):
Jerry comes up, never really makes any threat to land,
but actually helps to tug this storm out to sea
early next week.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Now, most of these storms at this time of year,
and I watched them fairly closely on the weather forecast.
They all sort of seemed to start off the coast,
the east coast of Africa. How long has this storm
been percolating out there? It says it take a week
or two to really rev up before it gets this
far north.
Speaker 6 (34:54):
Yeah, if it had come out. This is actually not
a storm that came off of Africa. Jerry is a
good exampmple of that, where it was a tropical wave
that came off of Africa. And typically a storm like
that can take a week to week and a half
before you really see it fully mature and then start
to make that northward turn. This is more of a
what we call home grown. We had a stall frontel
(35:14):
boundary that was across Florida, the Florida Straits, and down
across Cuba. And sometimes that's enough of what helps to
create an area of low pressure that generally migrates northward.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
And that's what this storm is.
Speaker 6 (35:26):
It was kind of more of a home grown type
of a system as opposed to those African waves that
you hear of that quite often this time of the
year are the ones that are creating hurricanes that you
talk about so much.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Now I know the hurricane season technically goes from June
first to November thirtieth. We're now three quarters of the
way through the hurricane season. To the best of my knowledge,
we haven't had a hurricane at all here in Massachusetts.
Can we begin to breathe, even with this storm this weekend,
breathe a little more easily whatever the hurricane season starts,
(36:01):
we hear all of these forecasts of this could be
the worst, you know, in so many years. Can we
start to breathe a little easier at this point? Are
we still open and subject to the possible or arrival
of a hurricane in late October November?
Speaker 6 (36:15):
You know, what I would love to see is to
make that more of a guarantee that we're not going
to see anything as a good cold front that pushes
out over the Atlantic and helps to cool the water
tempters down, not just locally, but we're looking at areas
just south along Island, and of course the Gulf Stream,
which is still boiling hot right now, at least compared
to average, and that's what really is a fuel at
(36:36):
this point for these storms. So until we can get
those water tempters down just a bit more, and again
not so much off of our coastline here, but south
along Island is really the area where we need to
cool it down.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
All right, so we'll keep our fingers crossed. Matt Ben's
thanks very much. It gave us a really good meteorological
lesson here and also all the information I think most
of us need to figure out where we want to
be in where we don't want to be later on
this weekend. Thanks so much, Matt. You do a great job.
Thank you so much. Matt. Thanks for having me absolutely
of ACU weather. When we get back, we're going to
(37:08):
talk about two great organizations that provide care packages for
American soldiers service personnel overseas, and complications in their efforts
that are being that no one really understands where it's
coming from, but it looks like it's the United Nations
Agency in Switzerland, which is going to impact our ability
(37:32):
as individuals, friends, parents, etcetera, to send care packages to
American service personnel overseas. We will explain it all coming
back right after the nine o'clock news here on Night
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