March 22, 2025 • 43 mins
Dan thinks the Pittsburgh Steelers need to have some pride and move on from Aaron Rodgers already. And he reminds us that just because North Carolina won their play-in game it doesn’t prove they deserved to make the tournament. Basketball Hall of Famer Chris Webber shares the untold story behind the Fab Five's black socks, and explains why he spent $50k on car speakers. And 2024 NL Rookie of the Year, Paul Skenes discusses becoming named a cover athlete on MLB The Show, and creates his ultimate pitcher repertoire.
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):
You are listening to the Dan Patrick Show on Fox
Sports Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
The Minnesota Vikings are not pursuing Aaron Rodgers.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
It's official.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
There are two reports the Vikings are not pursuing Aaron Rodgers.
I don't know if the Steelers still are. I don't
know if the Giants are. I don't know if Rogers
is pursuing the Giants. Is he pursuing the Steelers. We
tried to kick the tires on this Viking situation, and
I wondered.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
I was skeptical, but I thought, Okay, if.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
The Vikings are interested in him and JJ McCarthy's not
ready to play, okay, then I would take it. I
would take a chance on Aaron Rodgers for one year.
JJ McCarthy is your future. You trade it up to
get him at number ten in the draft last year.
But I just didn't know. It felt like maybe Rogers
was interested. I just didn't know if it was reciprocated,
(00:54):
and maybe internally the Vikings were saying, hey, what about this?
Speaker 3 (00:59):
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Maybe you talk to JJ McCarthy, maybe you get an
update on his recovery time, and then you finally come
to the realization we're good now.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
I do think they made.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
A mistake in letting Daniel Jones go because I'd like
to have a little bit of experience there as a backup.
Sam Darnold was going to cost you more. I got that,
But Daniel Jones, I think you could have kept him
there and he would have been maybe okay as a backup.
But you're getting somebody who is going to be basically
(01:35):
a rookie in playing, but coming off knee surgery, and
there's going to be an adjustment period. This is a
team that was a playoff team, had aspirations of going
to the super Bowl. But now if you're Aaron Rodgers,
does Aaron Rodgers want to stay in New York? If
you wanted to go to the Steelers, you probably would
(01:55):
have gone to the Steelers. I don't know if that's
a great fit. It it's just because it's you know,
if he goes into Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh is the star. He
went to the Jets and they're like, what do you want?
Do whatever you want? You want to change the Colors.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
I don't care. They were desperate.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
The Steelers aren't desperate, but it feels like you go
in there, that's Mike Tomlin you're dealing with, You're dealing
with t J. Watt, Mika Fitzpatrick. Cam Hayward had something
to say he's the Steeler defensive lineman on the Not
Just Football podcast on what would your recruiting pitch be
(02:35):
to Aaron Rodgers to join the Steelers.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
I ain't doing that or darkness, darkness, treat, retreat. I
don't mean any of that crap, like either you want
to be a Pittsburgh Steeler or you don't. That's that's simple.
That's the pitch. If you want me to recruit, that's
the recruit pitch. You know, Pittsburgh Steelers. If you want
to be part of it, so be it. If you don't,
no skin on my back exactly.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
That's what I've been saying. You're the Pittsburgh Steelers. Don't
lower yourself. Oh Aaron, could you please come here?
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Move on?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
You should have kept justin Fields. At least that gave
you a bridge quarterback for the next two years. Maybe
he develops into something. Now, what do you have? Mason Rudolph? Okay,
are you gonna bring Russ back? If it's true that
Russ and Arthur Smith, the offensive coordinator, didn't get along
at the end of the season, or maybe he didn't
see eye to eye. But you're the Steelers, now, I
(03:31):
get it. The Giants, they are going to have to
beg to get Aaron Rodgers. The Giants who would have
thought one of the blue bloods, and you're waiting to
find out what Aaron Rodgers, Please come and play for
our team. Feels like the Giants are taking Shadoor Sanders.
I don't have any information on that other than it
feels like Shadoor has thought all along that's where he
(03:54):
was going. Now, can you bring in somebody? Do you
bring in Aaron Rodgers and let Shador Sanders sit a year?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Maybe?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
But the once proud New York Football Giants they're waiting
for Aaron Rodgers.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
And if you're the.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Steelers, move on, move on. You might not have somebody
as good as Aaron Rodgers, or the ceiling might not
be as high, but move on, the Steelers. You don't
do this, please, And then Russell Wilson, I still think
Kirk Cousins plays a role in this somewhere, at some point, somehow.
(04:32):
Now the Falcons, you know, they have him, they're paying him,
they want him to be their backup and it feels
like every team needs a you know, a good backup.
If you're going to be a playoff team, you've got
to have a good backup. Chances are your quarterback's going
to get inged up a little bit at some point
somewhere down the line. Michael Pennix Junior, the third has
been banged up in his career, early in his career
(04:54):
when he was in Indiana. So the quarterback in carousel,
I don't know if it's stopped or but it doesn't
seem like it's going at the same speed that we
thought it was going to. I thought Aaron Rodgers would
make a decision by last Friday, but he's Aaron Rodgers.
Maybe he waits. Maybe you wait until after the draft.
(05:15):
And this is what I wondered with some of these teams.
You're gonna get a quarterback. You might get a quarterback.
If you don't get your quarterback, then things change a
little bit. Then all of a sudden, maybe there's more
people interested in Russell Wilson, Maybe there's more people interested
in Kirk Cousins. Maybe he becomes more valuable in it
as a trade possibility. There's always the chance that Aaron
(05:39):
Rodgers just says I'm done and this came out. I'd
love to give maybe it was Dyna Rassini. I'd love
to give the credit to the person. But it felt
like there is that option on the table, and that
seems obvious at his age, what he went through with
the Jets. But then we always come back to the phone. Well,
(06:00):
you don't want to go out this way? How do
you think Aaron Rodgers is going to go out? Probably
not on a high note unless he goes to the Vikings.
You can't all be John Elway. And if you're going
to go to the Giants, how do you think you're
going to go out? This isn't Travis Kelsey who played
in the Super Bowl. Hey, I want to come back, Okay,
(06:24):
Aaron Rodgers does he want to play?
Speaker 3 (06:26):
I don't know. Does he know?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
But if I'm the Steelers, I make you an offer
and you don't want to come we're the Steelers, then
I say all right, we move on. Were the Vikings
ever really interested in him? Was he more interested in them?
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Now?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
There are reports that he loves New York wants to
stay in the New York area if he's going to play.
Whether that's true or not, but he would go from
one locker room to the other locker.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Room in the same building, from the Jets to the Giants.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
But that's the updated news with Aaron Rodgers holding us
all hostage. Not much longer though, right eight seven seven
three DP show email address DP Atdanpatrick dot com Twitter
handle a TP show. Watched basketball last night and I
was curious just how good North Carolina was going to be.
(07:21):
And this doesn't This doesn't prove really anything.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
I know.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
This is where Tarhel fans will say, oh, are you
going to apologize today? No, for what I didn't think.
You deserve to be in the tournament. It's not the
end of the world.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
It's okay.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
If you're really honest about your team, you probably would
say you didn't deserve to be.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
In the tournament.
Speaker 5 (07:43):
But you take it.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Okay, Fine, you beat San Diego State. Great, maybe you
make a run. We've seen teams in the first four
end up in the final four and you know they
they're on a mission. Here Alabama State at the buzzer
gets by Saint Francis Penncil. Not a great couple of
days for West Virginia Basket. West Virginia doesn't get in
(08:09):
the tournament, thought they deserved to get in over North Carolina,
and then to make matters worse, they lost their basketball coach.
He went to Indiana. Darien Davrees. I don't know if
he would have gone to Indiana had West Virginia made
the tournament. After they get bounced, you you eventually go
to Indiana. I'm not sure. But Mike Woodson, who got
(08:33):
Indiana to the doorstep of making the tournament, got fired.
Darien Devrees, who was kind of the I think the
guy after the guy to clean up Bob Huggins mess
at West Virginia, but he goes from West Virginia. I
don't know if the governor holds a press conference and
has anything to say today about losing their basketball coach.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Yes, your alma manor yeah.
Speaker 6 (08:55):
I think the big part was Bob Huggins. This is
kind of after I think Darren Derees. He was, like
you said, kind of the guy after the guy.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yeah, and now going to Indiana. Steve Alford never got
a shot. Now Steve's at Nevada, and I thought that
that was one of those that was always going to
be inevitable, and then all of a sudden it wasn't.
Speaker 7 (09:21):
Yes, Marvin, looking back on history, don't you think that's
a bad idea? You saw Patrick Ewing at Georgetown and
Chris mall And at Saint John's an it's going okay
for Penny Hardaway at Memphis, But isn't it tough to
be the greatest player in the hit not one of
the greatest players in the history of a program going
back to be the head coach.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Like Clyde Drexler at Houston.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
You can't hire somebody without the thought that you may
have to fire them. And with you know, Chris Mallin
at Saint John's, Patrick Ewing at George like, these are
your all timers, and of course it has to be
awkward when you come back. You know, there's there's a
Hall of Fame ceremony alumni w and yeah, you're introducing
(10:03):
Chris Mallin or Patrick Ewing and everybody's thinking the same thing.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
The school fired them, yes, Martin.
Speaker 7 (10:09):
And it's hard because those two are easily the greatest
players in the history of that program, so everyone's looking
for them. Steve Alford, I'm not sure if he's the great.
I don't know much about Indiana basketball, so I don't
know who the greatest player is that ever went there,
but it's got to be difficult if you come back
after getting fired.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
But this was a guy who played for Bob Knight.
He said local, he's an Indiana kid. You won a
national title with him. I just and I think Dan Dakisch,
who played at Indiana radio hostel join us tomorrow and
I can ask him more about this. But it just
felt like Steve Alford wasn't considered for that job. You know,
(10:47):
he had UCLA at Iowa Nevada, but Indiana now has
West Virginia's head coach. All Right, see what's poll question today?
Speaker 6 (10:57):
I was gonna go with most sure thing in in
the tournament.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Okay, Well, by the way, a sure thing the Dodgers won.
They just beat the Cubs and get a load of
Roki Sisaki. If you get a chance to watch him
pitch his first three pitches hyundi, hundi, hundi, and then
his next pitch was ninety nine. Then he had a
(11:21):
splitter at eighty two. Sh he It feels like he
either strikes you out or walks you. But you want
to talk about some electric stuff. They may not need
Otani to pitch this year. Imagine if you're in the
Nation League West and you're like, damn, we're already two
games behind the Dodgers because nobody else has played except
(11:43):
for the Dodgers and the Cubs. But they ended up
winning Otani Homward in the game. This is just business
as usual. But Sisaki has I'm trying to think, who
reminds me of Yeah, Pong Nuk.
Speaker 8 (11:59):
Lush well, a little three innings, one hit, one in run,
five walks in three k Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
But as far as man, he's got some stuff. But
they ended up beating the Cubs, you know, and you
get sometimes you'll get that Japanese player who might be
twenty six or twenty seven each row. I think was
twenty six twenty seven when he came over. Uh, Susaki's
twenty three. But that's that pipeline. They spent the money,
They outspent everybody for him, and they you know, their
(12:31):
pitching staff was decimated last year with injuries. And I mean,
you have Clayton Kershaw as a luxury. He could be
he could be your pitching coach at thirty five million
dollars a year. May not need him that much, but
I don't think the offense is going to be as good,
but they're still going to be the overwhelming favorite to
win the World Series. In fact, according to DraftKings, the
(12:54):
Dodgers are plus two to ninety the second favorite. The
Braves are plus seven fifty, the Yanks he's plus eight fifty.
Then it's the Phillies, and then the Mets at plus
twelve hundred.
Speaker 8 (13:05):
Yes, pum the bas is where there's two men on
for Otani and they intentionally walked Otani.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Not a good reaction from the local crowd. No.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live.
Speaker 9 (13:24):
Hey Steve Covino and I'm Rich David and together we're
Covino and Rich on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 10 (13:30):
You could catch us weekdays from five to seven pm
Eastern two to four Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and
of course the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 9 (13:37):
Why should you listen to Covino and Rich.
Speaker 10 (13:39):
We talk about everything life, sports, relationships.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
What's going on in the world.
Speaker 9 (13:43):
We have a lot of fun talking about the stories
behind the stories in the world of sports and pop
culture stories that well other shows don't seem to have
the time to discuss.
Speaker 10 (13:52):
And the fact that we've been friends for the last
twenty years and still work together. I mean that says
something right. So check us out.
Speaker 9 (13:57):
We like to get you involved too, take your phone calls,
chop it up. As they say, I'd say, the most
interactive show on Fox Sports Radio, maybe the most interactive
show on planetar. Be sure to check out Cavino and
Rich live on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app
from five to seven pm Eastern two to four Pacific,
And if you miss any of the live show, just
search Covin on Rich wherever you get your podcast, and
of course on social media.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
That's Covino and Rich.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
He's Chris Webber, Hall of Famer, five time All Star,
former number one overall pick by the Magic back in
nineteen ninety three. See Webb joining us who came up
with the idea for the Black Socks with Michigan.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Do you remember I do?
Speaker 11 (14:36):
I do, Ray Jackson.
Speaker 12 (14:39):
I had to interview them from my book Shameless Plug,
but I had forgotten. So we were playing in Texas,
were playing against Rice University, and you know they when
you played with your teammates. Whenever you have a teammate
that's from somewhere, when you go to their home, you
want to show out. And so we knew we were
gonna want to play well for Ray and Jimmy and
Ray though he wanted to transfer, and Red had been
(15:05):
talking about transferring to me for the whole summer. For
the whole year. He felt that he was kind of
left out, that he was escapego the coach. He was
kind of tired of coach staying on him for a
long time. So he and his friends decided to go
to the mall. He bought a few different colored pair
of socks and he was gonna wear them in protest.
(15:25):
But he comes to the room, and you know how
it is with your friends. He comes to the room,
I'm sleep. He comes back at Jawana's like what is this?
Speaker 11 (15:31):
I love it.
Speaker 12 (15:31):
We're gonna wear those black socks. And Jalen's like, oh,
let's go to the mall. So, Jayleen, Jimmy they ran
to the mall, brought me a pair of black socks,
and so raised frustration and protests turned into brothers saying, man's.
Speaker 11 (15:44):
Shut up, we love you. We're all gonna wear the
black socks.
Speaker 12 (15:46):
And that's a whole nother story because we get in
trouble for wearing the black socks for not including the
rest of our teammates. So we have the black socks on,
we're excited, we have our sweatpants on. We usually don't
warm up with our sweatpants and warm up, you know,
usually take them off in the shorts. We kept him
on and we all get in the starter circle and
(16:07):
coaches looking like what the hell, you know, because it
was pretty obvious then and then after the game coach
was fine, we went it. But after the game he
called me to the side and said, come on, man,
you know I was old. I'm the oldest of five kids.
And he was like, would you do that with with
you know, family members. He's like, no, we don't do
that here. Everybody else to wear black sox. So he
didn't understand how excited we were that Really what he
(16:29):
was telling us is, yeah, y'all can wear them, but
everyone can wear them. But Ray Jackson was the Ray
Jackson was the start of that. He picked those socks.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
What about the baggy shorts. I know Jordan wore baggy shorts,
but you guys went Baggier.
Speaker 12 (16:43):
Yeah, you know it was Illinois and UNLB have really
nice shorts Syracuse. You know, all the guys like Derek
Coleman or Anderson Hunt. They would bring us their shorts
in the summer and give us a pair of shorts.
That was like gifting the guy a car to wear
some official, you know short. Back then there was no
fanatics and you know, no pramatic pess. You could just
(17:05):
get them things like that. And so really what it
was a funny story. The day we get to get
our uniforms, we're all super excited. You know, that's a
moment we get to look at your uniform, put it on.
But thanks to Chip Armor and Eric Riley and all
of the old heads, because they wanted just regular shorts
and we were searching for that extra two inches in
(17:26):
the cross in the scene. So we were able to
trade with upper classmen who didn't get it yet. And
then coach eventually he and Coach Dutcher of San Diego
State now Heim Coach Dutcher eventually ordered us some longer shorts.
So we were just complaining the whole time about you know,
our shorts, you know the term then we didn't want
Stockton's and we didn't want to get catch a yeast infection.
(17:48):
That practice for a teammate and tight draws on. So
you know, coach, he was cool. We had some tough
practices for it. That's how we got to earn black
socks and everything. You have to have tough practices, but
we earned it.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
And Alls, well, we were talking about the great nickname,
so he had fab five Fi Slama Jam and was great,
Hoya Paranoia. Don't know if there's a Running Rebels. Don't
know if there are any other team nickname that kind
of belongs in that group.
Speaker 11 (18:19):
Man, that's good.
Speaker 12 (18:20):
I wish I had a time to think about that one,
because that's gonna be on my mind. I really loved
the Running Rebels. I mean to me, it said at all.
Even they're Moniker with kind of the Yosemite Sam type character.
You know, I'm in the I think them in Oklahoma
get got to carry a gun around there at those times.
Speaker 11 (18:38):
But yeah, I don't you know.
Speaker 12 (18:40):
I've always said the greatest personal nickname to me is
the great one, and then you can go from there.
But for the teams, I think it have to be made.
Running Rebels back there.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Were you aware of Georgetown with you wing.
Speaker 11 (18:54):
Are you serious?
Speaker 12 (18:55):
Yes?
Speaker 11 (18:56):
Back home, man, I'm with you.
Speaker 12 (18:57):
I'm a big sports fan, so yeah, and you gotta
remember this well, it was really smart and then talking
to Sonny but Carrol for my book, he was a
really good guy. But they sluck into our minds early.
So when you talk about Georgetown, yes, do I love
John Thompson, Yes?
Speaker 11 (19:15):
Do I love.
Speaker 12 (19:16):
Zoe and all the big fellas they had Ewing and
went Tumble, Yes, But what really started my love for
him was the blue and Great Nikes. It was the
blue and gray Starter jacket. And I don't think then
really people remember what an influenced Starter had in our
kind of in our life because you kind of got
to be a pro before you were a pro and
(19:37):
wear what you wanted to wear. So yeah, for me
it was it was a really good time of fashion
and where we won. But it all started with which
you could wear on the street. And that's why I
really loved Georgetown because of how cool they were even
before I got to see them on the floor.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Yeah, what I was meaning is growing up, you know,
because Ewing and Hoy you know, Hoya paranoia was in
the eighties and I curious if you were old enough
to get gear, if you wanted to get gear from
Georgetown or there was some other school, because I think
you looked at Duke, didn't you. If you didn't go
to Michigan, it was either Michigan State or Duke.
Speaker 12 (20:13):
Yes, yes, and so Patrick you and it is a
little older than me, and I didn't get Georgetown gear,
but you would always see all the cool guys in
the neighborhood wearing it. I remember his interview with my father,
you know, telling me where Patrick gear was from. And
I remember my mother telling me how smart you had
to be to go to Georgetown. So I really remember
(20:34):
those conversations more so than watching Pat play. But coach
Carrill rest in Peace, who was a close close mentor
of mine when I got into pros, I heard so
many great stories about that Princeton Georgetown game, but those
were much later, So no, I didn't really get to
see that because I was going to Duke. I was
going to Michigan State to be like Steve Smith going
(20:54):
to Duke to play with Grant Hill or you know,
luckily went to Michigan to play with Juwan j Range, Jim.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
The toughest guy you ever faced in college.
Speaker 12 (21:11):
Christian Ladner is the best, one of the best college
players of all time. I think of great college players,
I think of Kareem Walton. Uh, of course there are
a lot of others that are mixed in that have
one or two great years, but uh, it was it
was by far, by far, Christian Laightner for me, because
(21:34):
sorry Christian Layner, and big Dalton Robinson, because those two,
Glenn Robinson, those two were the first big guys that
can put it on the floor, that could dribble, that
could pump fake, that could get you in foul trouble,
that played outside the game. You know, when you look
at the evolution of the game, we grew up when
big guys weren't supposed to handle it. And so Layton
being able to shoot three of these Laton being able
(21:54):
to just do all the stuff that he did from
a freshman all the way to a senior, I would
definitely say, in my time, I think he was the
toughest for me to play play against.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Do you ever have a conversation with him about that
rivalry and games you guys played against each other?
Speaker 12 (22:11):
No, no, no, but it's it's it's overdue it's it's
long overdue. We should have a beer over because I
think I've told you this before. My best one of
my best college visits, if I had, you know, eight
or nine of them, was definitely at Duke and Uh.
And later there was my host, so I was very
familiar with him when we played. That's why we talked
(22:31):
so much junk to each other.
Speaker 11 (22:33):
Uh.
Speaker 12 (22:34):
And you know he knew my admiration. But the more
admiration I have for you, the more to try to
kill you anyway. And I think that's the same with him.
But now we haven't talked about it, but you know,
it'd be fun, fun, fun to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
It would be it'd be a fun podcast where it's
just you two talking about that time. Because you had Duke,
the establishment, you guys, you know, freshman and UH going
toe to toe with them. Well, you probably had people
who liked you because they hate hated Duke so much.
Speaker 5 (23:04):
They did.
Speaker 12 (23:05):
And also I have people that were mad at me
because I didn't hate Duke. I mean, I hate him
because I wanted to beat him, but all of the
other talk and this that I didn't get into it
because I hated him enough just from basketball and I
went to visit there, and I wanted to be part
of you know, of that team. But you know, Coach
K is such a special guy. And you know, when
(23:25):
I think about and again keep saying to the book,
by God's grace, when I think about Coach K coming
to my house and recruiting me, he was an enemy territory. Actually,
my friends were screaming one O three seventy three. One
O three seventy three. That was the score that they
lost against UNLV, And people are outside chanting as while
(23:46):
he's walking in my house and all he does is
turn around on the fortune of justice ring and everybody's
like and so when I saw Coach K's toughness, you know,
in the hood, and how he was and you know,
respectful affairs and all that, he's always been one of
my favorite coaches in the game as well.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Okay, wait a minute, your boys are outside Coach K's
walking into your house and they're mocking him of getting
blown out by thirty by UNLV.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 12 (24:13):
Dan, I actually got to send this to you because
I interviewed my guys on the porch that he walked
in and they were saying it. Because my father was
like don't tell anybody, you know, Coach K's coming, and
so the whole neighborhood dude. And so he gets out
of the car and they are just booming. But when
he walked back out, people are like, yeah, coach, you know,
you know, good job. So he earned our respect. But yeah,
(24:34):
coach Coach K was tough. It's not just it's not
just an act. You know, he's a he's a good
guy in touchs at herd and so he's always had
my respect. He is overmind me a lot of each
other too, and I consider coaches a very close friend.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Chris Weber, the Hall of Famer member of the Fab five,
more concerned about transfer portal or ni L in the
future for the sport.
Speaker 12 (24:57):
Can you separate him and there be onee out the other?
You know, I'm you know, I'm very happy that. You know,
any time you're in the beginning of any new system,
it's going to be terrible and you're gonna have to
figure it out. So I can't wait until the playing
field levels and we figure it out. But I think
(25:18):
coaches are getting a taste of their medicine. You want
to leave your guys and coach and leave well some
guys are going to leave you mentally late in the
season when you decide that. But also I hope that
players start to understand that the same love and passion
should be there, but even more than ever, you made
a commitment now, and I've talked to a lot of
(25:40):
young players and I don't know, I talked to a
lot of young players, and we are working through understanding
that you're getting paid for this commitment.
Speaker 11 (25:50):
Now, so you have no excuse.
Speaker 12 (25:52):
But you still need to come with the same energy
and inno sense of passion that you would have played with.
And how do you figure that out out? And I
think some guys are figuring out. I also think some
players are looking mid season saying, well, I could I'm
averaging eight, I can go average ten here next year
in a crazy, unsubstantiated situation, and then they go into
(26:15):
the transfer portalando one picks them up.
Speaker 11 (26:17):
So you know, it's a it's a it's a difficult
time right now.
Speaker 12 (26:21):
And I think everyone from coaches players are all kind
of getting used to seeing like how is this gonna
gonna level out? But that needs to be more discussion
and hopefully more leveling of the playing field, so everyone
can get comfortable.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Yeah, I'm wondering about that that if you get money
when you're in college, does that help you when you
go to the pros and get money, because a lot
of times you go into the pros and you go
crazy because you haven't had this kind of money and
you buy stupid things.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Did you do that?
Speaker 12 (26:50):
Yeah? Every every every everybody, everybody, Yeah yeah, yeah, everybody's
done that. And I thought it was sports until I
talked to a lot of my friends in VC and others,
and I found out it'saw people that do that. But
I definitely, uh, you know, it was one of those guys.
But you're going to do that, I think too with guys.
Let's take a guy like the Big Fella from Kansas Fixer.
(27:14):
He was he was at Michigan.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Uh, And.
Speaker 12 (27:22):
I say this, it was he's a really good guy
and he plays with passion. He's so hard he wanted
to stay at Michigan and he's going, I'm not playing
for now. I think he's a pro, So I'm not
having that conversation.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
He's a pro.
Speaker 11 (27:37):
He's a posy pro. But that was the.
Speaker 12 (27:39):
Conversation, and the conversation asked to me, who was someone
that never been in that position.
Speaker 11 (27:44):
What would you do?
Speaker 3 (27:45):
You know?
Speaker 11 (27:46):
Because my thing was you can stay here for legacy.
Speaker 12 (27:48):
You being in Michigan four years of having records and numbers,
do you you know what that's light when you get
older to be able to come back to Michigan and
say that you're a part of it.
Speaker 11 (27:56):
This is a wonderful university. And I think that.
Speaker 12 (28:00):
I think that that factor has been taking out of
the decision making because guys are saying, you know what,
I might not make propose, I might not have the
luxury of getting a paycheck and buying something stupid. I
need to make as much as I can now prepare
for a professional career overseas or in coaching. So I
think guys are battling with a lot of different decisions
that really are they're struggling with that they don't want
(28:22):
to have. I was talking with Deon Sanders for a
show I'm doing, and he was telling me that the
parents were more of a problem with the portal and
with NIL than the students, because the students haven't lived
life enough to kind of be that greedy yet or
order to just not put team first. And so again
(28:44):
I think it's a lot of different situations. You know,
guys are getting taxed off the nil and didn't know
they were getting taxed, and parents for you. So it's
it's just so much going on that that hopefully again
the dust yoursells.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
What's the craziest thing that you spent money on early?
Speaker 11 (29:05):
I mean, I'm.
Speaker 12 (29:08):
You know, I was smart to begin it because I
wanted to get my parents everything so and I had
a big family.
Speaker 11 (29:13):
But for me, I mean, you know, the day you know,
I got.
Speaker 12 (29:16):
Drafted, it was I have a chapter in my book
called Gators for Everybody. So gators are you know, are
a shoe? Now I look at this so damn stupid,
but gators are a shot. And back then it was
big block gators and you know from guys in the hood,
the preachers, anybody had gators.
Speaker 11 (29:33):
And so what did I do?
Speaker 12 (29:34):
I went and bought gators for everyone in my neighborhood.
I mean, even if they didn't have a suit. Hey,
Rochi had some gators and take this or you know,
oh man, I took friends to restaurants you know that
we had never been to. So I got a little
across the street from me, Bookie rest of Peace. Uh,
just stupid stuff. You go to restaurants, you pork and
(29:55):
coche and hot sauce, and you say that guy here,
I'll give you five thousand dollars if you eat it,
and you're happy because you were gonna give them something anyway.
Speaker 11 (30:02):
But you know your friends, you have to bust them up.
Speaker 12 (30:04):
And so you know, I've done a lot more worse things,
I'm sure in other areas of life. But I remember
when I first got it, was that. Oh, one of
one of the most fun things I did the probably
was stupid.
Speaker 11 (30:15):
I went to a music place.
Speaker 12 (30:17):
I had a truck of white suburban when they first
came out, and I asked him to give me the
loudest sounds in the world, and the guy laughed, and
I immediately walked out and went down the street and
asked the guy for the loudest sounds in the world.
He was like, I could do that, and so I
took out every seat besides the front two seats I
had sixteen twelve, fourteen age.
Speaker 11 (30:37):
I'm crazy, and I used to just love driving down.
Speaker 12 (30:40):
The street making alarms go off or breaking my window
in the back, and so I think that's pretty stupid
to you know, cut you know, fifty thousand dollars forty
thousand dollars worth of sounds in your truck and only one.
Speaker 11 (30:51):
Person could fit in and you can't even put your
lugga jambler.
Speaker 12 (30:53):
It was a good time.
Speaker 11 (30:54):
So it was a good time.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, but here's your dad who worked factory for all
of those years.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Do you ever say, what are you doing?
Speaker 4 (31:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 12 (31:02):
You know, yeah, yeah, but the storytime LIKEE keep going?
I know, sure, I don't want to keep going with the.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Why do you bought him a Cadillac? Right?
Speaker 11 (31:11):
But that was the best thing.
Speaker 12 (31:12):
I told him Magic was coming to the house, and
I went to the and he loves magic. I went
to the car dealership and Cadillac, and people started cheering
when I went in because they knew my father had worked.
Speaker 11 (31:22):
For GM for you know, many many years, and I
bought him a Cadillac.
Speaker 12 (31:26):
I had to cut the grass meticulously now and you
never got to play football on my grass or anything.
I drive the car on the grass, did it? My
father comes out at six and us it's about seven
in the morning. And that was one of the more
special moments of my life. Getting yelled at while throwing
the keys to my father while he was driving off
telling me to make sure I take care of the grass.
(31:47):
Is was a pretty cool moment.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Oh, always great. Thank you for storytelling toime.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Chris. We appreciate your time as always.
Speaker 11 (31:55):
Thanks, Dan, appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
He is Chris Webber. He is a Hall of Famer
and number one overall pick by the Magic back in
nineteen ninety three. A lot of fun. I always appreciate
conversations with him. Mark, we'll take a break. More of
your phone calls coming up back after this.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Be sure to catch the live edition of The Dan
Patrick Show weekdays at nine am Eastern six am Pacific
on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Paul Schemes he is one of three MLB The show
twenty five cover athletes. This is the twentieth anniversary honoring
two decades of baseball history. Elie Delacruz and Gunner Henderson
are on the cover as well the Pirates Rookie of
the Year joining us on the program. What did you
learn from your rookie year or what do you wish
(32:44):
that you had known in your rookie year or when
you were in the college minor leagues coming up to
the Pirates.
Speaker 13 (32:53):
Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing I learned from getting
to the big leagues is that the game is a
lot more similar than I thought in terms of the
actual the baseball, you know play everything uh that's added
on makes it a lot harder. So traveling across country.
We had a couple of cross country flights last year.
(33:13):
Our travel within the division is pretty good, you know,
our hour long or less than an hour long flights, uh,
for the most part within our division. But still, I mean,
you got the media in the in the locker room
every day.
Speaker 5 (33:28):
The food is different.
Speaker 13 (33:29):
It's it's better, but there's more of it, so it's
easy to you know, overindulge just a lot, a lot
of little stuff like that that makes it, uh, just
makes it makes it different and probably makes it a
little bit harder.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
What's the strangest thing you've thought of while you were
on the mound?
Speaker 13 (33:50):
Man, probably like doing math problems or something like that.
I don't know if you've ever seen uh, I think
it was Major league or Major League two. The catcher
is is, you know, learning to get over the yips,
and he like memorizes a playboard magazine or something like that,
And I do that with math problems rather than you know,
(34:13):
playboard magazines.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
But how does that help you?
Speaker 13 (34:18):
I mean, because it's it's very so it's very easy
to like focus too hard and try to execute a pitch,
you know, and then you just completely sail it or
like pull a slider or sail a heat or something
like that. So like having your mind not you know,
solely focused on on that pitch, it like a little
(34:41):
bit of distraction is sometimes a good thing.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Give me the guy that you keep an eye on
in the on deck circle that you know he's coming
to the plate.
Speaker 13 (34:54):
It's probably one per team. Usually it's like the three
hitter or something like that. Maybe it's to a team,
it's because we kind of like bucket hitters a little
bit to where we can pitch them similarly to get
them out. But there's always like one guy in the
lineup that's like, hey, this guy doesn't beat us. So
(35:16):
I mean it's the one Soto's the day, Ellie Daala Cruz,
Cody Balondrew, those types of guys.
Speaker 5 (35:23):
They I mean, you know they're coming up.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
What do you do when you disagree with your catcher?
Speaker 5 (35:30):
Just shake?
Speaker 13 (35:31):
I wear a pitch com too, and and I'll I'll
punch it in sometimes, but yeah, just shake.
Speaker 5 (35:37):
They're no, there are no hard feelings.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
There, but you have final say yeah.
Speaker 13 (35:42):
I mean if if I my my experience is generally,
if I throw a pitch that I don't wholly believe in, uh,
it doesn't end well. So I have to, you know,
throw pitches that I believe in out there with you know,
full conviction, and then it generally ends ends pretty well.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
But when you give up a big hit or a
home run in college, it's one thing. But when you
have thousands and thousands of people and you know it's
going to end up on Sports Center, Like, how do
you process that differently? If you can then when you
were in college and you gave up a home run?
Speaker 13 (36:15):
Yeah, honestly. And I think this is probably more of
a change for me. But I think I took it, like,
took it harder, took it, took it more personally when
I was in college than I do now. And I
think there are probably a couple of reasons for that.
I've I think I've matured grown up a little bit.
But also, uh, we get to do it more often
(36:37):
now in college. It's like, you know, the sec is
the biggest thing in the world and nothing else matters,
Like that's that's the that's what.
Speaker 5 (36:44):
They feed you, right.
Speaker 13 (36:45):
So when I give up a home run at Ole
Miss and the beer's flying everywhere, like, it feels like
the end of the world a little bit more than
it does now. When I give up a home run
in you know, Dodger Stadium or something like that, it's
just and I think I think part of that's because
it's it's so routine, you know, But I think a
lot of it's because I have just like grown up too.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Talking to Paul's schemes and he's one of three MLB
the show twenty five cover athletes. You've got Gunner Henderson
and Ellie Dela Cruz. Tell us about the honor. How
did you find out?
Speaker 13 (37:19):
Yeah, I can't remember exactly when I found out. There's
something that I think, you know, we were in the
talks for for I don't know, probably the last summer,
last September around there kind of blends together when we're
in season. But it was cool when I, you know,
found out that it's you know, no kidding happening. I mean,
(37:44):
definitely some satisfaction there is. It's it's pretty cool. I've
you know, grown up seeing you know, the cover athletes
of the show and seeing the game. It's been a
huge part of a lot of people's childhood. I think,
as like the game that they want to play when
they when they get to play video games.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
So what else are you a gamer of?
Speaker 12 (38:09):
I'm not.
Speaker 5 (38:09):
I'm not really a gamer at all. Really, Okay, so yeah.
Speaker 13 (38:13):
So the only time I would play the show because
I never had a PlayStation or Xbox or anything. Uh,
And the only time i would play the show is
when I like went to you know, my my buddy's
house or something like that and they had it. But
I've always been terrible at it. And if I'm the
kind of person like, if I'm not good at something,
I just want I'll just stop doing it. Yeah, I'm
(38:33):
the I'm gonna take my ball and go home type
of guy.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
How territorial are you when it comes to the SEC,
whether it's football fourteen schools are in the NCAA tournament
the baseball with the SEC? Are you annoying to be
around when it's conversations about the SEC?
Speaker 13 (38:51):
Now, because I'm a I'm a baseball guy first, football,
I could kind of care less about I mean, I'm
a true beaver that because I'm an SEC guy. But
I'm a Mountain West guy too, and I'm a true
believer that the Mountain West just breeds winners. So probably
more territory about the Mountain West because it's not a
(39:11):
you know, people don't people don't know about the Mountain West.
But that's where that's where champions are made. I believe that.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Okay, But you're in Pittsburgh. They love their football there.
Do you go to games you care about? Do you
go to games?
Speaker 4 (39:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 13 (39:26):
But I mean because I look at college baseball and
call and uh and pro baseball is two different sports.
I I I never played football. I don't understand what's
going on out there. I know that you're supposed to
move the ball down the field, but I viewed college
football and pro football is two different sports too. So
I've gone to a Steelers game. It was it was
(39:47):
really cool. I want to go back. I'm a Steelers fan,
you know now bleed black and gold.
Speaker 5 (39:56):
So uh, but yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
I don't.
Speaker 5 (39:58):
They're fun that the games are to go to.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
Are you gonna be okay with the automatic strike zone?
Speaker 12 (40:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 13 (40:06):
Hey, it's not in there. This year, So I'm happy
with that. I haven't I haven't challenged anything this spring.
It's not going to be in there this year when
it comes it comes. I like the human aspect of
the game because I think that, you know, there are
games where the umpire zone is big and there are
games where the umpire zone is small. Obviously catchers. You
(40:30):
bring in the automatic strike zone, then it completely devalues framing,
which you know, effectively eliminates the catching position. So I
have mixed feelings towards it. I do like the human
aspect of the game, but there's definitely something to be
said about, you know, being objective with the strike zone.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Yeah, but when you're at the plate and all of
a sudden there's a you know, a star pitcher and
he gets a call, you're okay with that and it's
not a strike, but because of who he is, Justin
Verlander is going to get that call.
Speaker 5 (41:05):
Yeah. I mean I prefer it that way. I don't
have to hit anymore.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
Do you want to hit?
Speaker 5 (41:12):
Uh?
Speaker 13 (41:14):
No, maybe BP occasionally, but I don't want to face
Justin Berlander. I don't want to face anything. These other guys,
they're too they're too uh they're.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Too good if you were building the perfect picture. So
you gave me fastball, slider, curveball, change up. Who's using
your fastball?
Speaker 13 (41:37):
Yeah, I'd like to thank all four of those are
you know mine, but uh, let's just.
Speaker 3 (41:43):
Not the taste. I'm glad you that way.
Speaker 13 (41:48):
Yeah, I mean because you can't use my fastball with
like because I would say, like my fastball and Clayton
Kershaw's curveball or something like that, but like we're the
exact opposite pitchers. Basically, I'd like to thank my fastball
Kershaw's curveball for sure, just to straight up and down curveball,
(42:11):
change up, Scooble, those are two lefties. Slider man, there's
so many good ones. I think a nice like for
for me, like a downer, a downer slider, like a
(42:32):
to Grom, like a shorter downer slider, because that's something
I don't have.
Speaker 5 (42:37):
But there's I mean, strider's slider.
Speaker 13 (42:39):
There's so many, so many ways, so many different ways
to have a good slider, though so specifically a slider.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
But it's amazing that these guys can hit this stuff.
I mean, hitting a.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
Baseball is the hardest thing to do, and they are
guys that are hitting one hundred miles an hour and
it's like, so what.
Speaker 13 (43:01):
Yeah, I don't know how they do it. I'll let
them do it. That's why I'm not going to try
to try to get back in the box.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Congratulations Opening Day, Congratulations on MLB the show. That's the
cover with Elie Dela Cruz, Gunner Henderson, and this is
honoring the twentieth anniversary of that. Great to talk to
you again, Paul. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 5 (43:25):
Yeah, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
Paul Schemes
You are listening to the Dan Patrick Show on Fox
Sports Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
The Minnesota Vikings are not pursuing Aaron Rodgers.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
It's official.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
There are two reports the Vikings are not pursuing Aaron Rodgers.
I don't know if the Steelers still are. I don't
know if the Giants are. I don't know if Rogers
is pursuing the Giants. Is he pursuing the Steelers. We
tried to kick the tires on this Viking situation, and
I wondered.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
I was skeptical, but I thought, Okay, if.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
The Vikings are interested in him and JJ McCarthy's not
ready to play, okay, then I would take it. I
would take a chance on Aaron Rodgers for one year.
JJ McCarthy is your future. You trade it up to
get him at number ten in the draft last year.
But I just didn't know. It felt like maybe Rogers
was interested. I just didn't know if it was reciprocated,
(00:54):
and maybe internally the Vikings were saying, hey, what about this?
Speaker 3 (00:59):
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Maybe you talk to JJ McCarthy, maybe you get an
update on his recovery time, and then you finally come
to the realization we're good now.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
I do think they made.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
A mistake in letting Daniel Jones go because I'd like
to have a little bit of experience there as a backup.
Sam Darnold was going to cost you more. I got that,
But Daniel Jones, I think you could have kept him
there and he would have been maybe okay as a backup.
But you're getting somebody who is going to be basically
(01:35):
a rookie in playing, but coming off knee surgery, and
there's going to be an adjustment period. This is a
team that was a playoff team, had aspirations of going
to the super Bowl. But now if you're Aaron Rodgers,
does Aaron Rodgers want to stay in New York? If
you wanted to go to the Steelers, you probably would
(01:55):
have gone to the Steelers. I don't know if that's
a great fit. It it's just because it's you know,
if he goes into Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh is the star. He
went to the Jets and they're like, what do you want?
Do whatever you want? You want to change the Colors.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
I don't care. They were desperate.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
The Steelers aren't desperate, but it feels like you go
in there, that's Mike Tomlin you're dealing with, You're dealing
with t J. Watt, Mika Fitzpatrick. Cam Hayward had something
to say he's the Steeler defensive lineman on the Not
Just Football podcast on what would your recruiting pitch be
(02:35):
to Aaron Rodgers to join the Steelers.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
I ain't doing that or darkness, darkness, treat, retreat. I
don't mean any of that crap, like either you want
to be a Pittsburgh Steeler or you don't. That's that's simple.
That's the pitch. If you want me to recruit, that's
the recruit pitch. You know, Pittsburgh Steelers. If you want
to be part of it, so be it. If you don't,
no skin on my back exactly.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
That's what I've been saying. You're the Pittsburgh Steelers. Don't
lower yourself. Oh Aaron, could you please come here?
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Move on?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
You should have kept justin Fields. At least that gave
you a bridge quarterback for the next two years. Maybe
he develops into something. Now, what do you have? Mason Rudolph? Okay,
are you gonna bring Russ back? If it's true that
Russ and Arthur Smith, the offensive coordinator, didn't get along
at the end of the season, or maybe he didn't
see eye to eye. But you're the Steelers, now, I
(03:31):
get it. The Giants, they are going to have to
beg to get Aaron Rodgers. The Giants who would have
thought one of the blue bloods, and you're waiting to
find out what Aaron Rodgers, Please come and play for
our team. Feels like the Giants are taking Shadoor Sanders.
I don't have any information on that other than it
feels like Shadoor has thought all along that's where he
(03:54):
was going. Now, can you bring in somebody? Do you
bring in Aaron Rodgers and let Shador Sanders sit a year?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Maybe?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
But the once proud New York Football Giants they're waiting
for Aaron Rodgers.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
And if you're the.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Steelers, move on, move on. You might not have somebody
as good as Aaron Rodgers, or the ceiling might not
be as high, but move on, the Steelers. You don't
do this, please, And then Russell Wilson, I still think
Kirk Cousins plays a role in this somewhere, at some point, somehow.
(04:32):
Now the Falcons, you know, they have him, they're paying him,
they want him to be their backup and it feels
like every team needs a you know, a good backup.
If you're going to be a playoff team, you've got
to have a good backup. Chances are your quarterback's going
to get inged up a little bit at some point
somewhere down the line. Michael Pennix Junior, the third has
been banged up in his career, early in his career
(04:54):
when he was in Indiana. So the quarterback in carousel,
I don't know if it's stopped or but it doesn't
seem like it's going at the same speed that we
thought it was going to. I thought Aaron Rodgers would
make a decision by last Friday, but he's Aaron Rodgers.
Maybe he waits. Maybe you wait until after the draft.
(05:15):
And this is what I wondered with some of these teams.
You're gonna get a quarterback. You might get a quarterback.
If you don't get your quarterback, then things change a
little bit. Then all of a sudden, maybe there's more
people interested in Russell Wilson, Maybe there's more people interested
in Kirk Cousins. Maybe he becomes more valuable in it
as a trade possibility. There's always the chance that Aaron
(05:39):
Rodgers just says I'm done and this came out. I'd
love to give maybe it was Dyna Rassini. I'd love
to give the credit to the person. But it felt
like there is that option on the table, and that
seems obvious at his age, what he went through with
the Jets. But then we always come back to the phone. Well,
(06:00):
you don't want to go out this way? How do
you think Aaron Rodgers is going to go out? Probably
not on a high note unless he goes to the Vikings.
You can't all be John Elway. And if you're going
to go to the Giants, how do you think you're
going to go out? This isn't Travis Kelsey who played
in the Super Bowl. Hey, I want to come back, Okay,
(06:24):
Aaron Rodgers does he want to play?
Speaker 3 (06:26):
I don't know. Does he know?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
But if I'm the Steelers, I make you an offer
and you don't want to come we're the Steelers, then
I say all right, we move on. Were the Vikings
ever really interested in him? Was he more interested in them?
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Now?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
There are reports that he loves New York wants to
stay in the New York area if he's going to play.
Whether that's true or not, but he would go from
one locker room to the other locker.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Room in the same building, from the Jets to the Giants.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
But that's the updated news with Aaron Rodgers holding us
all hostage. Not much longer though, right eight seven seven
three DP show email address DP Atdanpatrick dot com Twitter
handle a TP show. Watched basketball last night and I
was curious just how good North Carolina was going to be.
(07:21):
And this doesn't This doesn't prove really anything.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
I know.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
This is where Tarhel fans will say, oh, are you
going to apologize today? No, for what I didn't think.
You deserve to be in the tournament. It's not the
end of the world.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
It's okay.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
If you're really honest about your team, you probably would
say you didn't deserve to be.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
In the tournament.
Speaker 5 (07:43):
But you take it.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Okay, Fine, you beat San Diego State. Great, maybe you
make a run. We've seen teams in the first four
end up in the final four and you know they
they're on a mission. Here Alabama State at the buzzer
gets by Saint Francis Penncil. Not a great couple of
days for West Virginia Basket. West Virginia doesn't get in
(08:09):
the tournament, thought they deserved to get in over North Carolina,
and then to make matters worse, they lost their basketball coach.
He went to Indiana. Darien Davrees. I don't know if
he would have gone to Indiana had West Virginia made
the tournament. After they get bounced, you you eventually go
to Indiana. I'm not sure. But Mike Woodson, who got
(08:33):
Indiana to the doorstep of making the tournament, got fired.
Darien Devrees, who was kind of the I think the
guy after the guy to clean up Bob Huggins mess
at West Virginia, but he goes from West Virginia. I
don't know if the governor holds a press conference and
has anything to say today about losing their basketball coach.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Yes, your alma manor yeah.
Speaker 6 (08:55):
I think the big part was Bob Huggins. This is
kind of after I think Darren Derees. He was, like
you said, kind of the guy after the guy.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yeah, and now going to Indiana. Steve Alford never got
a shot. Now Steve's at Nevada, and I thought that
that was one of those that was always going to
be inevitable, and then all of a sudden it wasn't.
Speaker 7 (09:21):
Yes, Marvin, looking back on history, don't you think that's
a bad idea? You saw Patrick Ewing at Georgetown and
Chris mall And at Saint John's an it's going okay
for Penny Hardaway at Memphis, But isn't it tough to
be the greatest player in the hit not one of
the greatest players in the history of a program going
back to be the head coach.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Like Clyde Drexler at Houston.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
You can't hire somebody without the thought that you may
have to fire them. And with you know, Chris Mallin
at Saint John's, Patrick Ewing at George like, these are
your all timers, and of course it has to be
awkward when you come back. You know, there's there's a
Hall of Fame ceremony alumni w and yeah, you're introducing
(10:03):
Chris Mallin or Patrick Ewing and everybody's thinking the same thing.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
The school fired them, yes, Martin.
Speaker 7 (10:09):
And it's hard because those two are easily the greatest
players in the history of that program, so everyone's looking
for them. Steve Alford, I'm not sure if he's the great.
I don't know much about Indiana basketball, so I don't
know who the greatest player is that ever went there,
but it's got to be difficult if you come back
after getting fired.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
But this was a guy who played for Bob Knight.
He said local, he's an Indiana kid. You won a
national title with him. I just and I think Dan Dakisch,
who played at Indiana radio hostel join us tomorrow and
I can ask him more about this. But it just
felt like Steve Alford wasn't considered for that job. You know,
(10:47):
he had UCLA at Iowa Nevada, but Indiana now has
West Virginia's head coach. All Right, see what's poll question today?
Speaker 6 (10:57):
I was gonna go with most sure thing in in
the tournament.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Okay, Well, by the way, a sure thing the Dodgers won.
They just beat the Cubs and get a load of
Roki Sisaki. If you get a chance to watch him
pitch his first three pitches hyundi, hundi, hundi, and then
his next pitch was ninety nine. Then he had a
(11:21):
splitter at eighty two. Sh he It feels like he
either strikes you out or walks you. But you want
to talk about some electric stuff. They may not need
Otani to pitch this year. Imagine if you're in the
Nation League West and you're like, damn, we're already two
games behind the Dodgers because nobody else has played except
(11:43):
for the Dodgers and the Cubs. But they ended up
winning Otani Homward in the game. This is just business
as usual. But Sisaki has I'm trying to think, who
reminds me of Yeah, Pong Nuk.
Speaker 8 (11:59):
Lush well, a little three innings, one hit, one in run,
five walks in three k Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
But as far as man, he's got some stuff. But
they ended up beating the Cubs, you know, and you
get sometimes you'll get that Japanese player who might be
twenty six or twenty seven each row. I think was
twenty six twenty seven when he came over. Uh, Susaki's
twenty three. But that's that pipeline. They spent the money,
They outspent everybody for him, and they you know, their
(12:31):
pitching staff was decimated last year with injuries. And I mean,
you have Clayton Kershaw as a luxury. He could be
he could be your pitching coach at thirty five million
dollars a year. May not need him that much, but
I don't think the offense is going to be as good,
but they're still going to be the overwhelming favorite to
win the World Series. In fact, according to DraftKings, the
(12:54):
Dodgers are plus two to ninety the second favorite. The
Braves are plus seven fifty, the Yanks he's plus eight fifty.
Then it's the Phillies, and then the Mets at plus
twelve hundred.
Speaker 8 (13:05):
Yes, pum the bas is where there's two men on
for Otani and they intentionally walked Otani.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Not a good reaction from the local crowd. No.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live.
Speaker 9 (13:24):
Hey Steve Covino and I'm Rich David and together we're
Covino and Rich on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 10 (13:30):
You could catch us weekdays from five to seven pm
Eastern two to four Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and
of course the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 9 (13:37):
Why should you listen to Covino and Rich.
Speaker 10 (13:39):
We talk about everything life, sports, relationships.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
What's going on in the world.
Speaker 9 (13:43):
We have a lot of fun talking about the stories
behind the stories in the world of sports and pop
culture stories that well other shows don't seem to have
the time to discuss.
Speaker 10 (13:52):
And the fact that we've been friends for the last
twenty years and still work together. I mean that says
something right. So check us out.
Speaker 9 (13:57):
We like to get you involved too, take your phone calls,
chop it up. As they say, I'd say, the most
interactive show on Fox Sports Radio, maybe the most interactive
show on planetar. Be sure to check out Cavino and
Rich live on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app
from five to seven pm Eastern two to four Pacific,
And if you miss any of the live show, just
search Covin on Rich wherever you get your podcast, and
of course on social media.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
That's Covino and Rich.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
He's Chris Webber, Hall of Famer, five time All Star,
former number one overall pick by the Magic back in
nineteen ninety three. See Webb joining us who came up
with the idea for the Black Socks with Michigan.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Do you remember I do?
Speaker 11 (14:36):
I do, Ray Jackson.
Speaker 12 (14:39):
I had to interview them from my book Shameless Plug,
but I had forgotten. So we were playing in Texas,
were playing against Rice University, and you know they when
you played with your teammates. Whenever you have a teammate
that's from somewhere, when you go to their home, you
want to show out. And so we knew we were
gonna want to play well for Ray and Jimmy and
Ray though he wanted to transfer, and Red had been
(15:05):
talking about transferring to me for the whole summer. For
the whole year. He felt that he was kind of
left out, that he was escapego the coach. He was
kind of tired of coach staying on him for a
long time. So he and his friends decided to go
to the mall. He bought a few different colored pair
of socks and he was gonna wear them in protest.
(15:25):
But he comes to the room, and you know how
it is with your friends. He comes to the room,
I'm sleep. He comes back at Jawana's like what is this?
Speaker 11 (15:31):
I love it.
Speaker 12 (15:31):
We're gonna wear those black socks. And Jalen's like, oh,
let's go to the mall. So, Jayleen, Jimmy they ran
to the mall, brought me a pair of black socks,
and so raised frustration and protests turned into brothers saying, man's.
Speaker 11 (15:44):
Shut up, we love you. We're all gonna wear the
black socks.
Speaker 12 (15:46):
And that's a whole nother story because we get in
trouble for wearing the black socks for not including the
rest of our teammates. So we have the black socks on,
we're excited, we have our sweatpants on. We usually don't
warm up with our sweatpants and warm up, you know,
usually take them off in the shorts. We kept him
on and we all get in the starter circle and
(16:07):
coaches looking like what the hell, you know, because it
was pretty obvious then and then after the game coach
was fine, we went it. But after the game he
called me to the side and said, come on, man,
you know I was old. I'm the oldest of five kids.
And he was like, would you do that with with
you know, family members. He's like, no, we don't do
that here. Everybody else to wear black sox. So he
didn't understand how excited we were that Really what he
(16:29):
was telling us is, yeah, y'all can wear them, but
everyone can wear them. But Ray Jackson was the Ray
Jackson was the start of that. He picked those socks.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
What about the baggy shorts. I know Jordan wore baggy shorts,
but you guys went Baggier.
Speaker 12 (16:43):
Yeah, you know it was Illinois and UNLB have really
nice shorts Syracuse. You know, all the guys like Derek
Coleman or Anderson Hunt. They would bring us their shorts
in the summer and give us a pair of shorts.
That was like gifting the guy a car to wear
some official, you know short. Back then there was no
fanatics and you know, no pramatic pess. You could just
(17:05):
get them things like that. And so really what it
was a funny story. The day we get to get
our uniforms, we're all super excited. You know, that's a
moment we get to look at your uniform, put it on.
But thanks to Chip Armor and Eric Riley and all
of the old heads, because they wanted just regular shorts
and we were searching for that extra two inches in
(17:26):
the cross in the scene. So we were able to
trade with upper classmen who didn't get it yet. And
then coach eventually he and Coach Dutcher of San Diego
State now Heim Coach Dutcher eventually ordered us some longer shorts.
So we were just complaining the whole time about you know,
our shorts, you know the term then we didn't want
Stockton's and we didn't want to get catch a yeast infection.
(17:48):
That practice for a teammate and tight draws on. So
you know, coach, he was cool. We had some tough
practices for it. That's how we got to earn black
socks and everything. You have to have tough practices, but
we earned it.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
And Alls, well, we were talking about the great nickname,
so he had fab five Fi Slama Jam and was great,
Hoya Paranoia. Don't know if there's a Running Rebels. Don't
know if there are any other team nickname that kind
of belongs in that group.
Speaker 11 (18:19):
Man, that's good.
Speaker 12 (18:20):
I wish I had a time to think about that one,
because that's gonna be on my mind. I really loved
the Running Rebels. I mean to me, it said at all.
Even they're Moniker with kind of the Yosemite Sam type character.
You know, I'm in the I think them in Oklahoma
get got to carry a gun around there at those times.
Speaker 11 (18:38):
But yeah, I don't you know.
Speaker 12 (18:40):
I've always said the greatest personal nickname to me is
the great one, and then you can go from there.
But for the teams, I think it have to be made.
Running Rebels back there.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Were you aware of Georgetown with you wing.
Speaker 11 (18:54):
Are you serious?
Speaker 12 (18:55):
Yes?
Speaker 11 (18:56):
Back home, man, I'm with you.
Speaker 12 (18:57):
I'm a big sports fan, so yeah, and you gotta
remember this well, it was really smart and then talking
to Sonny but Carrol for my book, he was a
really good guy. But they sluck into our minds early.
So when you talk about Georgetown, yes, do I love
John Thompson, Yes?
Speaker 11 (19:15):
Do I love.
Speaker 12 (19:16):
Zoe and all the big fellas they had Ewing and
went Tumble, Yes, But what really started my love for
him was the blue and Great Nikes. It was the
blue and gray Starter jacket. And I don't think then
really people remember what an influenced Starter had in our
kind of in our life because you kind of got
to be a pro before you were a pro and
(19:37):
wear what you wanted to wear. So yeah, for me
it was it was a really good time of fashion
and where we won. But it all started with which
you could wear on the street. And that's why I
really loved Georgetown because of how cool they were even
before I got to see them on the floor.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Yeah, what I was meaning is growing up, you know,
because Ewing and Hoy you know, Hoya paranoia was in
the eighties and I curious if you were old enough
to get gear, if you wanted to get gear from
Georgetown or there was some other school, because I think
you looked at Duke, didn't you. If you didn't go
to Michigan, it was either Michigan State or Duke.
Speaker 12 (20:13):
Yes, yes, and so Patrick you and it is a
little older than me, and I didn't get Georgetown gear,
but you would always see all the cool guys in
the neighborhood wearing it. I remember his interview with my father,
you know, telling me where Patrick gear was from. And
I remember my mother telling me how smart you had
to be to go to Georgetown. So I really remember
(20:34):
those conversations more so than watching Pat play. But coach
Carrill rest in Peace, who was a close close mentor
of mine when I got into pros, I heard so
many great stories about that Princeton Georgetown game, but those
were much later, So no, I didn't really get to
see that because I was going to Duke. I was
going to Michigan State to be like Steve Smith going
(20:54):
to Duke to play with Grant Hill or you know,
luckily went to Michigan to play with Juwan j Range, Jim.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
The toughest guy you ever faced in college.
Speaker 12 (21:11):
Christian Ladner is the best, one of the best college
players of all time. I think of great college players,
I think of Kareem Walton. Uh, of course there are
a lot of others that are mixed in that have
one or two great years, but uh, it was it
was by far, by far, Christian Laightner for me, because
(21:34):
sorry Christian Layner, and big Dalton Robinson, because those two,
Glenn Robinson, those two were the first big guys that
can put it on the floor, that could dribble, that
could pump fake, that could get you in foul trouble,
that played outside the game. You know, when you look
at the evolution of the game, we grew up when
big guys weren't supposed to handle it. And so Layton
being able to shoot three of these Laton being able
(21:54):
to just do all the stuff that he did from
a freshman all the way to a senior, I would
definitely say, in my time, I think he was the
toughest for me to play play against.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Do you ever have a conversation with him about that
rivalry and games you guys played against each other?
Speaker 12 (22:11):
No, no, no, but it's it's it's overdue it's it's
long overdue. We should have a beer over because I
think I've told you this before. My best one of
my best college visits, if I had, you know, eight
or nine of them, was definitely at Duke and Uh.
And later there was my host, so I was very
familiar with him when we played. That's why we talked
(22:31):
so much junk to each other.
Speaker 11 (22:33):
Uh.
Speaker 12 (22:34):
And you know he knew my admiration. But the more
admiration I have for you, the more to try to
kill you anyway. And I think that's the same with him.
But now we haven't talked about it, but you know,
it'd be fun, fun, fun to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
It would be it'd be a fun podcast where it's
just you two talking about that time. Because you had Duke,
the establishment, you guys, you know, freshman and UH going
toe to toe with them. Well, you probably had people
who liked you because they hate hated Duke so much.
Speaker 5 (23:04):
They did.
Speaker 12 (23:05):
And also I have people that were mad at me
because I didn't hate Duke. I mean, I hate him
because I wanted to beat him, but all of the
other talk and this that I didn't get into it
because I hated him enough just from basketball and I
went to visit there, and I wanted to be part
of you know, of that team. But you know, Coach
K is such a special guy. And you know, when
(23:25):
I think about and again keep saying to the book,
by God's grace, when I think about Coach K coming
to my house and recruiting me, he was an enemy territory. Actually,
my friends were screaming one O three seventy three. One
O three seventy three. That was the score that they
lost against UNLV, And people are outside chanting as while
(23:46):
he's walking in my house and all he does is
turn around on the fortune of justice ring and everybody's
like and so when I saw Coach K's toughness, you know,
in the hood, and how he was and you know,
respectful affairs and all that, he's always been one of
my favorite coaches in the game as well.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Okay, wait a minute, your boys are outside Coach K's
walking into your house and they're mocking him of getting
blown out by thirty by UNLV.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 12 (24:13):
Dan, I actually got to send this to you because
I interviewed my guys on the porch that he walked
in and they were saying it. Because my father was
like don't tell anybody, you know, Coach K's coming, and
so the whole neighborhood dude. And so he gets out
of the car and they are just booming. But when
he walked back out, people are like, yeah, coach, you know,
you know, good job. So he earned our respect. But yeah,
(24:34):
coach Coach K was tough. It's not just it's not
just an act. You know, he's a he's a good
guy in touchs at herd and so he's always had
my respect. He is overmind me a lot of each
other too, and I consider coaches a very close friend.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Chris Weber, the Hall of Famer member of the Fab five,
more concerned about transfer portal or ni L in the
future for the sport.
Speaker 12 (24:57):
Can you separate him and there be onee out the other?
You know, I'm you know, I'm very happy that. You know,
any time you're in the beginning of any new system,
it's going to be terrible and you're gonna have to
figure it out. So I can't wait until the playing
field levels and we figure it out. But I think
(25:18):
coaches are getting a taste of their medicine. You want
to leave your guys and coach and leave well some
guys are going to leave you mentally late in the
season when you decide that. But also I hope that
players start to understand that the same love and passion
should be there, but even more than ever, you made
a commitment now, and I've talked to a lot of
(25:40):
young players and I don't know, I talked to a
lot of young players, and we are working through understanding
that you're getting paid for this commitment.
Speaker 11 (25:50):
Now, so you have no excuse.
Speaker 12 (25:52):
But you still need to come with the same energy
and inno sense of passion that you would have played with.
And how do you figure that out out? And I
think some guys are figuring out. I also think some
players are looking mid season saying, well, I could I'm
averaging eight, I can go average ten here next year
in a crazy, unsubstantiated situation, and then they go into
(26:15):
the transfer portalando one picks them up.
Speaker 11 (26:17):
So you know, it's a it's a it's a difficult
time right now.
Speaker 12 (26:21):
And I think everyone from coaches players are all kind
of getting used to seeing like how is this gonna
gonna level out? But that needs to be more discussion
and hopefully more leveling of the playing field, so everyone
can get comfortable.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Yeah, I'm wondering about that that if you get money
when you're in college, does that help you when you
go to the pros and get money, because a lot
of times you go into the pros and you go
crazy because you haven't had this kind of money and
you buy stupid things.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Did you do that?
Speaker 12 (26:50):
Yeah? Every every every everybody, everybody, Yeah yeah, yeah, everybody's
done that. And I thought it was sports until I
talked to a lot of my friends in VC and others,
and I found out it'saw people that do that. But
I definitely, uh, you know, it was one of those guys.
But you're going to do that, I think too with guys.
Let's take a guy like the Big Fella from Kansas Fixer.
(27:14):
He was he was at Michigan.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Uh, And.
Speaker 12 (27:22):
I say this, it was he's a really good guy
and he plays with passion. He's so hard he wanted
to stay at Michigan and he's going, I'm not playing
for now. I think he's a pro, So I'm not
having that conversation.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
He's a pro.
Speaker 11 (27:37):
He's a posy pro. But that was the.
Speaker 12 (27:39):
Conversation, and the conversation asked to me, who was someone
that never been in that position.
Speaker 11 (27:44):
What would you do?
Speaker 3 (27:45):
You know?
Speaker 11 (27:46):
Because my thing was you can stay here for legacy.
Speaker 12 (27:48):
You being in Michigan four years of having records and numbers,
do you you know what that's light when you get
older to be able to come back to Michigan and
say that you're a part of it.
Speaker 11 (27:56):
This is a wonderful university. And I think that.
Speaker 12 (28:00):
I think that that factor has been taking out of
the decision making because guys are saying, you know what,
I might not make propose, I might not have the
luxury of getting a paycheck and buying something stupid. I
need to make as much as I can now prepare
for a professional career overseas or in coaching. So I
think guys are battling with a lot of different decisions
that really are they're struggling with that they don't want
(28:22):
to have. I was talking with Deon Sanders for a
show I'm doing, and he was telling me that the
parents were more of a problem with the portal and
with NIL than the students, because the students haven't lived
life enough to kind of be that greedy yet or
order to just not put team first. And so again
(28:44):
I think it's a lot of different situations. You know,
guys are getting taxed off the nil and didn't know
they were getting taxed, and parents for you. So it's
it's just so much going on that that hopefully again
the dust yoursells.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
What's the craziest thing that you spent money on early?
Speaker 11 (29:05):
I mean, I'm.
Speaker 12 (29:08):
You know, I was smart to begin it because I
wanted to get my parents everything so and I had
a big family.
Speaker 11 (29:13):
But for me, I mean, you know, the day you know,
I got.
Speaker 12 (29:16):
Drafted, it was I have a chapter in my book
called Gators for Everybody. So gators are you know, are
a shoe? Now I look at this so damn stupid,
but gators are a shot. And back then it was
big block gators and you know from guys in the hood,
the preachers, anybody had gators.
Speaker 11 (29:33):
And so what did I do?
Speaker 12 (29:34):
I went and bought gators for everyone in my neighborhood.
I mean, even if they didn't have a suit. Hey,
Rochi had some gators and take this or you know,
oh man, I took friends to restaurants you know that
we had never been to. So I got a little
across the street from me, Bookie rest of Peace. Uh,
just stupid stuff. You go to restaurants, you pork and
(29:55):
coche and hot sauce, and you say that guy here,
I'll give you five thousand dollars if you eat it,
and you're happy because you were gonna give them something anyway.
Speaker 11 (30:02):
But you know your friends, you have to bust them up.
Speaker 12 (30:04):
And so you know, I've done a lot more worse things,
I'm sure in other areas of life. But I remember
when I first got it, was that. Oh, one of
one of the most fun things I did the probably
was stupid.
Speaker 11 (30:15):
I went to a music place.
Speaker 12 (30:17):
I had a truck of white suburban when they first
came out, and I asked him to give me the
loudest sounds in the world, and the guy laughed, and
I immediately walked out and went down the street and
asked the guy for the loudest sounds in the world.
He was like, I could do that, and so I
took out every seat besides the front two seats I
had sixteen twelve, fourteen age.
Speaker 11 (30:37):
I'm crazy, and I used to just love driving down.
Speaker 12 (30:40):
The street making alarms go off or breaking my window
in the back, and so I think that's pretty stupid
to you know, cut you know, fifty thousand dollars forty
thousand dollars worth of sounds in your truck and only one.
Speaker 11 (30:51):
Person could fit in and you can't even put your
lugga jambler.
Speaker 12 (30:53):
It was a good time.
Speaker 11 (30:54):
So it was a good time.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, but here's your dad who worked factory for all
of those years.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Do you ever say, what are you doing?
Speaker 4 (31:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 12 (31:02):
You know, yeah, yeah, but the storytime LIKEE keep going?
I know, sure, I don't want to keep going with the.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Why do you bought him a Cadillac? Right?
Speaker 11 (31:11):
But that was the best thing.
Speaker 12 (31:12):
I told him Magic was coming to the house, and
I went to the and he loves magic. I went
to the car dealership and Cadillac, and people started cheering
when I went in because they knew my father had worked.
Speaker 11 (31:22):
For GM for you know, many many years, and I
bought him a Cadillac.
Speaker 12 (31:26):
I had to cut the grass meticulously now and you
never got to play football on my grass or anything.
I drive the car on the grass, did it? My
father comes out at six and us it's about seven
in the morning. And that was one of the more
special moments of my life. Getting yelled at while throwing
the keys to my father while he was driving off
telling me to make sure I take care of the grass.
(31:47):
Is was a pretty cool moment.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Oh, always great. Thank you for storytelling toime.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Chris. We appreciate your time as always.
Speaker 11 (31:55):
Thanks, Dan, appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
He is Chris Webber. He is a Hall of Famer
and number one overall pick by the Magic back in
nineteen ninety three. A lot of fun. I always appreciate
conversations with him. Mark, we'll take a break. More of
your phone calls coming up back after this.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Be sure to catch the live edition of The Dan
Patrick Show weekdays at nine am Eastern six am Pacific
on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Paul Schemes he is one of three MLB The show
twenty five cover athletes. This is the twentieth anniversary honoring
two decades of baseball history. Elie Delacruz and Gunner Henderson
are on the cover as well the Pirates Rookie of
the Year joining us on the program. What did you
learn from your rookie year or what do you wish
(32:44):
that you had known in your rookie year or when
you were in the college minor leagues coming up to
the Pirates.
Speaker 13 (32:53):
Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing I learned from getting
to the big leagues is that the game is a
lot more similar than I thought in terms of the
actual the baseball, you know play everything uh that's added
on makes it a lot harder. So traveling across country.
We had a couple of cross country flights last year.
(33:13):
Our travel within the division is pretty good, you know,
our hour long or less than an hour long flights, uh,
for the most part within our division. But still, I mean,
you got the media in the in the locker room
every day.
Speaker 5 (33:28):
The food is different.
Speaker 13 (33:29):
It's it's better, but there's more of it, so it's
easy to you know, overindulge just a lot, a lot
of little stuff like that that makes it, uh, just
makes it makes it different and probably makes it a
little bit harder.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
What's the strangest thing you've thought of while you were
on the mound?
Speaker 13 (33:50):
Man, probably like doing math problems or something like that.
I don't know if you've ever seen uh, I think
it was Major league or Major League two. The catcher
is is, you know, learning to get over the yips,
and he like memorizes a playboard magazine or something like that,
And I do that with math problems rather than you know,
(34:13):
playboard magazines.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
But how does that help you?
Speaker 13 (34:18):
I mean, because it's it's very so it's very easy
to like focus too hard and try to execute a pitch,
you know, and then you just completely sail it or
like pull a slider or sail a heat or something
like that. So like having your mind not you know,
solely focused on on that pitch, it like a little
(34:41):
bit of distraction is sometimes a good thing.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Give me the guy that you keep an eye on
in the on deck circle that you know he's coming
to the plate.
Speaker 13 (34:54):
It's probably one per team. Usually it's like the three
hitter or something like that. Maybe it's to a team,
it's because we kind of like bucket hitters a little
bit to where we can pitch them similarly to get
them out. But there's always like one guy in the
lineup that's like, hey, this guy doesn't beat us. So
(35:16):
I mean it's the one Soto's the day, Ellie Daala Cruz,
Cody Balondrew, those types of guys.
Speaker 5 (35:23):
They I mean, you know they're coming up.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
What do you do when you disagree with your catcher?
Speaker 5 (35:30):
Just shake?
Speaker 13 (35:31):
I wear a pitch com too, and and I'll I'll
punch it in sometimes, but yeah, just shake.
Speaker 5 (35:37):
They're no, there are no hard feelings.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
There, but you have final say yeah.
Speaker 13 (35:42):
I mean if if I my my experience is generally,
if I throw a pitch that I don't wholly believe in, uh,
it doesn't end well. So I have to, you know,
throw pitches that I believe in out there with you know,
full conviction, and then it generally ends ends pretty well.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
But when you give up a big hit or a
home run in college, it's one thing. But when you
have thousands and thousands of people and you know it's
going to end up on Sports Center, Like, how do
you process that differently? If you can then when you
were in college and you gave up a home run?
Speaker 13 (36:15):
Yeah, honestly. And I think this is probably more of
a change for me. But I think I took it, like,
took it harder, took it, took it more personally when
I was in college than I do now. And I
think there are probably a couple of reasons for that.
I've I think I've matured grown up a little bit.
But also, uh, we get to do it more often
(36:37):
now in college. It's like, you know, the sec is
the biggest thing in the world and nothing else matters,
Like that's that's the that's what.
Speaker 5 (36:44):
They feed you, right.
Speaker 13 (36:45):
So when I give up a home run at Ole
Miss and the beer's flying everywhere, like, it feels like
the end of the world a little bit more than
it does now. When I give up a home run
in you know, Dodger Stadium or something like that, it's
just and I think I think part of that's because
it's it's so routine, you know, But I think a
lot of it's because I have just like grown up too.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Talking to Paul's schemes and he's one of three MLB
the show twenty five cover athletes. You've got Gunner Henderson
and Ellie Dela Cruz. Tell us about the honor. How
did you find out?
Speaker 13 (37:19):
Yeah, I can't remember exactly when I found out. There's
something that I think, you know, we were in the
talks for for I don't know, probably the last summer,
last September around there kind of blends together when we're
in season. But it was cool when I, you know,
found out that it's you know, no kidding happening. I mean,
(37:44):
definitely some satisfaction there is. It's it's pretty cool. I've
you know, grown up seeing you know, the cover athletes
of the show and seeing the game. It's been a
huge part of a lot of people's childhood. I think,
as like the game that they want to play when
they when they get to play video games.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
So what else are you a gamer of?
Speaker 12 (38:09):
I'm not.
Speaker 5 (38:09):
I'm not really a gamer at all. Really, Okay, so yeah.
Speaker 13 (38:13):
So the only time I would play the show because
I never had a PlayStation or Xbox or anything. Uh,
And the only time i would play the show is
when I like went to you know, my my buddy's
house or something like that and they had it. But
I've always been terrible at it. And if I'm the
kind of person like, if I'm not good at something,
I just want I'll just stop doing it. Yeah, I'm
(38:33):
the I'm gonna take my ball and go home type
of guy.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
How territorial are you when it comes to the SEC,
whether it's football fourteen schools are in the NCAA tournament
the baseball with the SEC? Are you annoying to be
around when it's conversations about the SEC?
Speaker 13 (38:51):
Now, because I'm a I'm a baseball guy first, football,
I could kind of care less about I mean, I'm
a true beaver that because I'm an SEC guy. But
I'm a Mountain West guy too, and I'm a true
believer that the Mountain West just breeds winners. So probably
more territory about the Mountain West because it's not a
(39:11):
you know, people don't people don't know about the Mountain West.
But that's where that's where champions are made. I believe that.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Okay, But you're in Pittsburgh. They love their football there.
Do you go to games you care about? Do you
go to games?
Speaker 4 (39:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 13 (39:26):
But I mean because I look at college baseball and
call and uh and pro baseball is two different sports.
I I I never played football. I don't understand what's
going on out there. I know that you're supposed to
move the ball down the field, but I viewed college
football and pro football is two different sports too. So
I've gone to a Steelers game. It was it was
(39:47):
really cool. I want to go back. I'm a Steelers fan,
you know now bleed black and gold.
Speaker 5 (39:56):
So uh, but yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
I don't.
Speaker 5 (39:58):
They're fun that the games are to go to.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
Are you gonna be okay with the automatic strike zone?
Speaker 12 (40:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 13 (40:06):
Hey, it's not in there. This year, So I'm happy
with that. I haven't I haven't challenged anything this spring.
It's not going to be in there this year when
it comes it comes. I like the human aspect of
the game because I think that, you know, there are
games where the umpire zone is big and there are
games where the umpire zone is small. Obviously catchers. You
(40:30):
bring in the automatic strike zone, then it completely devalues framing,
which you know, effectively eliminates the catching position. So I
have mixed feelings towards it. I do like the human
aspect of the game, but there's definitely something to be
said about, you know, being objective with the strike zone.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Yeah, but when you're at the plate and all of
a sudden there's a you know, a star pitcher and
he gets a call, you're okay with that and it's
not a strike, but because of who he is, Justin
Verlander is going to get that call.
Speaker 5 (41:05):
Yeah. I mean I prefer it that way. I don't
have to hit anymore.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
Do you want to hit?
Speaker 5 (41:12):
Uh?
Speaker 13 (41:14):
No, maybe BP occasionally, but I don't want to face
Justin Berlander. I don't want to face anything. These other guys,
they're too they're too uh they're.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Too good if you were building the perfect picture. So
you gave me fastball, slider, curveball, change up. Who's using
your fastball?
Speaker 13 (41:37):
Yeah, I'd like to thank all four of those are
you know mine, but uh, let's just.
Speaker 3 (41:43):
Not the taste. I'm glad you that way.
Speaker 13 (41:48):
Yeah, I mean because you can't use my fastball with
like because I would say, like my fastball and Clayton
Kershaw's curveball or something like that, but like we're the
exact opposite pitchers. Basically, I'd like to thank my fastball
Kershaw's curveball for sure, just to straight up and down curveball,
(42:11):
change up, Scooble, those are two lefties. Slider man, there's
so many good ones. I think a nice like for
for me, like a downer, a downer slider, like a
(42:32):
to Grom, like a shorter downer slider, because that's something
I don't have.
Speaker 5 (42:37):
But there's I mean, strider's slider.
Speaker 13 (42:39):
There's so many, so many ways, so many different ways
to have a good slider, though so specifically a slider.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
But it's amazing that these guys can hit this stuff.
I mean, hitting a.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
Baseball is the hardest thing to do, and they are
guys that are hitting one hundred miles an hour and
it's like, so what.
Speaker 13 (43:01):
Yeah, I don't know how they do it. I'll let
them do it. That's why I'm not going to try
to try to get back in the box.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Congratulations Opening Day, Congratulations on MLB the show. That's the
cover with Elie Dela Cruz, Gunner Henderson, and this is
honoring the twentieth anniversary of that. Great to talk to
you again, Paul. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 5 (43:25):
Yeah, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
Paul Schemes
Hosts And Creators
Todd "Fritzy" Fritz
Dan Patrick
Patrick "Seton" O'Connor
Paul Pabst
Marvin Prince
Popular Podcasts
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
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.