June 24, 2020 • 51 mins
Jason Smith and MIke Harmon react to the news of baseball coming back! Jason and Mike debate NASCAR's response to the Bubba Wallace story. Long time MLB Insider Seth Everett joins the guys to explain why people should tamper their excitement for the MLB season. Plus, who are the teams to look out for in this MLB sprint?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to the best of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmen podcast. Be sure to catch us
live every weeknight from ten pm to two a m.
Eastern seven to eleven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio.
Find your local station for The Jason Smith Show with
Mike Harmon at Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream
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by searching f s R. This is the best of
(00:22):
The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon on Fox Sports Radio.
Greetings and welcome inside the Jason Smith Show with my
bis friend Mike Harmon, live from the Geico Studios, where
we are just gonna get into it and begin because
right now, the New York Mets have the seventh best
(00:44):
odds to win the World Series. This is very very exciting,
Mike Harmon, very very excited about this joining this now. Yeah,
as of right now, I mean we haven't seen the
adjustment for the Colorado Rockies just yet. But but for
you at an exciting moment, uh, I know you're gonna
quickly drive to the desert to get some action. Oh, metsio,
(01:07):
I'm like, get listen with the news that baseball is back,
the agreement has been agreed upon. The Union in Baseball
have cleared their final hurdles to restart the MLB season.
We now know everything that's going to happen. And now
that we know everything, of course, the coronavirus is saying, hey,
don't forget don't forget about us. Because on the heels
(01:28):
of the big announcement today, we find out that a
couple of Colorado Rocky players, including Charlie Blackman, test positive
for COVID nineteen. Bob Nightingale had that story, So we get,
we get major League Baseball is coming back, and COVID
nineteen says we hang on a second. I got something
to say about this, but as it is, it's the
best We've been telling you. The best way to deal
(01:49):
with everything going on with sports returning the best thing,
because I understand it's all boy. We get this great news,
and now we're still wondering the other shoe was gonna drop.
What's gonna happen? Now the Nuggets in Nicola Yokich is
test positive for coronavirus and he's got to come back
to the United States and what does this mean for him?
And when the Nuggets want to restart, We're seeing Phillies players.
They've had now what eleven people in the organization the
(02:12):
last couple of days test positive for COVID nine. Team,
think about it this way. Forget about that for a second,
and just go by the philosophy we told you about
last week. We get what we get and we don't
get upset. You learned it in kindergarten. My daughter learned
in kindergarten. Harmon, your kids learned in kindergarten. You get
what you get, you don't get upset. Can really well,
(02:34):
you went to a bad kindergarten, then well you went
Survival of the Fittest in Chicago. They you guys gotta
make sure you're not starting fights and shoving people in
lockers in between periods. Okay, otherwise you're gonna wind up
getting the needle. I was the city of big shoulders.
I had big shoulders. I used them. What do you
(02:57):
want me to say? Instead of math, we're gonna talk
about the five stages of making deep dish pizza. Okay,
number what put your pens away? You gotta notice off
the top of your little heads. Okay, number one? Cheese?
Number two? More cheese? What was that over there? What's
number one, I'll get out, go to Principle's office. You
know what I think, ever since I was tied to
a chair in kindergarten, my world view has changed. I
(03:20):
really think that was the end of it. The first
person to not agree with sausage being in this deep
dish pizza. You're gonna have to transfer schools, all right,
we don't. We don't have anything for you here at
this school. You have to go someplace else and learn. Okay,
that's what we have. That is a pretty good rule
to follow, my friend. And if anybody and I got
one more, and if anybody thinks that you could just
(03:42):
take a piece of pizza down to the subway and
think a rat isn't gonna take it from you, that
rat will come up and take it from you. They
are coming, I know it, maybe years from now, but
there is a rat apocalypse brewing, and it will come in.
The first thing they're gonna do is take pizza. Then
you're gonna see cockroaches smoking cigarettes. Then you're gonna see
bigger rats taking bigger pieces of pizza. And then they're
(04:03):
gonna start taking children down below the subway, and these
kids are gonna be raised by the Rats, and it's
gonna look like dances with wolves, except when rats. And
then he's gonna come up and they're gonna lead a
big revolution against us, and it's gonna be our fault. Hey,
don't you think they haven't been been enjoying all this stuff?
The murder hornets and all these different things happened in
the rats have been able to operate and the lat
(04:25):
secrecy away from the rest of the world. The rats
are in complete secrecy, but they haven't been fed very well. Right,
if people weren't going to work and we didn't have
the carts and the bodega is really doing brisk business. Well, well,
they also have to have, you know, the the New
York Rats have to if there's gonna be a real
big rat apocalypse, the New York and Chicago Rats have
(04:45):
to team up together. So they're gonna have to send
some emissaries from Chicago to New York. Maybe they meet
in the middle Maybee, you know, may somewhere in Pennsylvania
and trying to figure out who the guy is. That's
Nick Fury trying to get them all together. Right, right,
it's a big rat that looks like the rats got
the patch out of time. He's got the Ipatchuh, so
I patched a leather coat. While the Rats are contemplating
(05:08):
taking over the world, we are going to have Major
League Baseball as the MLB p A and the owners
have cleared everything. Here's what the season is gonna look like.
Sixty regular season games starting around July. So that's gonna
beginning of the season. Set to set two debut the
week before. Uh. The NBA starts training camp will start
(05:30):
July one, right, so spring training summer training they're calling
a training camp now. It starts on July one. The
trade deadline will be August thirty one, so we're gonna
start play about a month and a half. Oh, let's
make some trades. It's not working for me and we're
fifteen and fifteen. Let's make some deals. Uh. There will
be a universal designated hitter for this year only, and
(05:51):
extra inning games in order to shave innings and miles
off of arms so games don't go too late, because look,
we're playing a lot of games and trying to jam
them in a short amount of time. All extra inning
games will start with a runner on second base. So
this is how it's going to go. When baseball begins
and I know that we hit the story and and
(06:12):
coronavirus COVID nineteen is up. It's it's reared its head
in the past week in many different ways. But just
if you think about sports that way, whatever we get
as a bonus. Right, we went into when when coronavirus
that we thought, how are we going to play sports
at all? Right? How are sports ever gonna play? And
we had no idea how this was gonna work, and
could people even stand next to each other? And what
(06:32):
kind of virus is it? Is it ever gonna be airborne? What? What?
What kind of dealer we at? We're not going to
have sports? Right? It was in the beginning, it was
it was It was many people saying, I don't think
we're gonna have sports. And this wasn't being doom and gloom.
This was saying, hey, we're in the middle of a pandemic.
We know nothing about what is going to happen. Well,
what have we gotten so far? Well, UFC has come
back and they've been able to come back and and
(06:53):
keep coronavirus at bay enough to keep going. We have
had NASCAR come back and address me. We'll have way
more on NASCAR about fifteen. That's uh, Nascar has been
able to come back, and as far as the product
on on the track, it's been very it's done very well,
and the sport has done. Ratings have been really good.
Golf has come back, and golf has done Okay. We've
had one positive test for coronavirus, but being the solitary sport,
(07:14):
golf is as long as everybody is asymptomatic, it's tested,
golf is going to continue. So already we've gotten more
than we thought we were gonna get in the beginning.
And now is it's it's go time for baseball and
for the National Basketball Association. You're gonna have players report
in one week. One week from tomorrow is the beginning
of spring training or summer training. So it's not like, well,
(07:35):
we're looking at this in the abstract anymore. We're looking
at as this is how it's going to go. And
every day we have baseball, even when there's no games,
that's a good day. Every day we have NBA, even
when there's no games or there's practice going, that's a
good day. And as long as we can get, you know,
we put as many of those days together as possible.
Don't worry about finishing this season. Can we play or
can we start? As long as we know we're gonna start,
(07:57):
we're gonna get sports, enjoy it for as law long
as we can. Because I'll tell you this in my car,
but I guarant damn to you this is that these
sports coming back are gonna do everything possible humanly possible
to play out an entire season. I mean, it may
get to a point where boy, COVID nineteen is too much,
but they are going to do everything in their power
(08:18):
and then some to try to play this season. You
know you're gonna be some positive coronavirus tests. We're gonna
isolate right away. We're gonna see if they're asymptomatic. We're
gonna we're gonna protect the players. We're gonna do everything.
They will do everything they can. They may not get
everything right. In fact, they don't expect them to get
everything right, because you're dealing with something that there is
no chart for. But they're gonna do everything they can
to play all the rest of this year in sports,
(08:39):
whether it's NBA, major League baseball, when the NFL, college
football comes back. So if you concentrate on those things
and know, hey, let's be positive about this. That's something
that you know, we can enjoy this. We can enjoy
it for as long as it is. And if something
happens and it has to stop, all right, then what's next.
You know, we've we've we've gone this long. We've gone
four months so far without having team sports, and I
(09:01):
think fans have been doing okay, and now we're going
to get them back. Whatever we get is gonna be
a bonus. We're gonna if you think about enjoying it
and think and that's the way, that's the mental attitude
you have towards it, You're gonna have a great time
love and sports when they come back. Trust me on it. Well,
it's like anything. You you adapt to the situation, take
in new information, and adjust accordingly. And we've had several
(09:23):
months to work with this at individual businesses. And you know,
I'm on record for for many a month, you know,
raising my hand as to why some businesses were more
equal than others. Uh, the quote essentials among us. Yes,
it comes back to lobbying and politics and dollars and cents.
But when it's all said and done, everybody's trying to
(09:44):
figure out the new norm of doing business until we
can go back to normal. Right. That's that's it, and
there's some control on this. It's never going to zero.
So anybody that was trying to claim that suddenly there
was gonna be the giant than o snap and this
was going to disappear, Uh, not gonna happen. So what
(10:05):
do you do? You adapt and try to put in
best practices and take care of business. You mentioned all
the sports as they're working, right. NASCAR even had people
at the stadium this past at the Speedway this past weekend.
Right again. We'll get into deeper NASCAR stuff in a
in a bit, but the reality is you're you're finding
a way and for players, I get there's some trepidation.
(10:28):
For the different management groups, the commissioners, there's a lot
of handwringing as they try to figure this all out.
And you go into best practices, right. I have so
many people that asks like, all right, what'd you get
on a plane right now? I'm like, you, kid me,
I bet you they're spotless. I think there might not
be a better place to be than on a plane
right now with all the different checks and balances and expectations, right,
(10:52):
they're limiting capacity on on most planes, you get a
middle middle seat that isn't isn't filled by somebody. Think
about that. Think about that, Smith. You could go on
a trip right now and someone isn't shoving themselves into
that middle seat and arm wrestling you for that armrest.
It's a beautiful thing, but you go, you go through,
(11:12):
and we've all made choices. We've all had to make
choices of what we're comfortable with, and some players may
still opt out. We had a couple in the in
the NBA um make that announcement yesterday. I'm sure for
baseball there maybe a few players that decide, you know,
whether it's an imminent birth of a child or one
that just came into the world, that maybe they decide
(11:34):
this isn't for them and and they'll adapt accordingly. We're
talking about sixty players get to go to the spring
training camp, so you have, you know, critical massive guys
at the ready. Some teams are thinking about having a
taxi squad practicing somewhere else. I mean, they're gonna get innovative.
Right now is the time for innovation and change. Just
like you're adding rules to the game, you're also you know,
(11:55):
gonna try to be very deft on your on your
feet right and and be very uh nimble as it were,
to try to figure out, all right, we need to pivot.
This wasn't working. How do we make it better? And
Major League Baseball is reserving the right to move teams
to neutral sites for health and safety if need be,
(12:15):
so they're trying to put as many checks and balances
that they can in and remembering every day we get
up and get moving, we're assuming a risk, even if
it's just the lego that you stepped on that Zoe
left in the hallway. We all assume some sort of
risk going out and down, uh and into our lives.
And that's the thing for baseball too. And remember it's
(12:37):
not all about just the millionaires and billionaires. Lots of
other people make their livings based on these games being
played in the neighborhoods, in and around stadium, the televising
of them, and so on and so forth. So Uh,
it's it's industry on a large level, uh, and a
lot of people that are relying on its return. Twitter out,
(12:58):
how about a fresca. Mike gets swollen in The Jason
Smith Show with Mike Carmen live from the Geico Studios,
and that's the you know, you hit on the one
thing we need now from baseball. It's all right, this
is a great day. And yes, there there's gonna be questions, right,
what's the relationship going to be like with players and
and and the teams after all of this going on?
But what we need now we haven't gotten. And and
(13:19):
quite frankly, I'm surprised we haven't gotten anything on this
even to distract us from the labor issue. Is that Okay,
what's Baseball's plan now for COVID nineteen. What's their plan
when players test positive? How are they going to be
taken out put in isolation? What is it going to be.
What's gonna be the plan for players in their home parks,
because everybody's gonna get to play in their home park,
and they're gonna have spring training or you know, summer
training in their home cities. That's the next part that
(13:42):
we need kind of soon. Like I would say, okay,
you want twenty four hours to say, hey, let's take
a victory lap in Baseball is back, But we kind
of need that. And I'm really surprised, Mike that we
haven't gotten in now because you think Baseball would have
this part button down going. Okay, listen, we'll figure out
the labor part of it, but we can at least
do the safety. We can agree on that, and we
haven't really gotten any of that yet. And even if
(14:03):
they wanted to do it just to distract us from
the ridiculous labor stuff that was going back and forth,
you think we'd have some of the Hey, here's what
Baseball is planning to try to be safe for COVID nineteen.
But I kind of need that tomorrow. You know, It's like, Okay,
they've set on it. Next week is coming, no matter what.
But what what? What? What are the big plans? Because
I know a lot of players are already going, hey, great,
(14:24):
we're happy. What's next? What do we know about this plan?
So you know, both of the players still don't know
exactly what Major League Baseball wants and the fans the meeting, no,
none of us know either. Yeah, the representatives agreed to it,
so we know that they've come to that understanding. Whatever
that laundry list is out of that original sixty seven
page document that we heard about so famously, a couple
(14:46):
of weeks ago. I suspect in the next twenty four hours,
we get that nailed down, right, make sure that you
know you've buttoned it up. You've taken out any of
the extraneous details that you've clarified, any points that might
have been great talking points in the meetings, right, the
zoom meetings or the face to face meetings or whatever
(15:09):
you did to get to those agreements. Uh, you now
have to put those out in a little more extensive way, right,
so there's no ambiguity about it. So I would suspect
in the next we get more of that, the players,
uh will get to Twitter and Instagram and anything they
take exception too, will know about it tomorrow. But in
(15:30):
the interim, I think right now everybody's just exhiling, saying, okay,
we avoided another catastrophe for the moment, because remember that
we were still waiting on grievances and all sorts of
legal ease to start flowing down and say yeah, yeah, yeah, fine,
force us here. We'll see in hell. Uh, and now
we're gonna drag this into court for months and years
at a time and fight you which look, they could
(15:53):
still I guess technically go through that those groups if
they wanted to to really make this messy. But you know,
in terms of the details, I suspect give it two
one of our four or five trusted baseball insiders that
have had us all the way through will be the
ones to get their first their hands on it first. Uh,
(16:13):
and then we'll move forward. But uh, you know it's
a great thing. They need to know. Well, we need
to know you got your act together on it, right,
It's not just this and now okay, now we'll work
on the health part. Whoa, whoa, whoa, come on, come on,
come on, what do you mean now, we're gonna just
show us, But you haven't. You haven't showed us that
you had your act together. Now, you know, show us
a little bit more that you've got everything going on,
and we're gonna proceed like we should, like the other
sports are trying to proceed to come back. Well, I
(16:35):
would say this though, the fact that they agreed on it, right,
and that's the report we're getting, is that they agreed
on the health protocols means that they weren't operating in
a vacuum on the cash side, right. That might have
been the only part that was leaking to us, because
let's face it, that that was deciding whether we played
not how right, So the the how is the details there.
(16:58):
I mean, you're excited about because you want to see how,
you know, the sausages getting made here. I think most
people are just like, screw this, just give me baseball.
I don't get him at a bubble, Put him actually
in bubbles. Get some you know, bubble gum around them.
Whatever it takes. Let's just get back on the field
so I can bet, so I can play fantasy baseball,
(17:18):
and that I can have a few moments where I
can justify eating a lot of hot dogs. Be sure
to catch live editions of The Jason Smith Show with
Mike harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific
on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app.
So last night, when we finished talking about the NASCAR
race Bubba Wallace finding a noose in his garage this
(17:41):
weekend at Talladega, the sport basically stopped. They had an
investigation that was coming. This is something that obviously cannot
be tolerated. NASCAR Step Together had the hashtag I Stand
with Bubba trended all day yesterday during the race and
the picture of Bubba Wallace with all the dry was
behind him in solidarity showing everybody there's no places in
(18:03):
NASCAR was fantastic. And then we talked last night said Okay,
this can't be the end of it. We gotta find
out who did this now, who can possibly have done this? Right?
As we talked about it, right, we we left it
in the terms of allegations of a news being found,
and well as we would come to find out, using
the allegedly as we we've used on the show at
(18:26):
times for things of this nature of uncertainty, well, it
was the appropriate term. NASCAR in the FBI finished their
investigation today and I don't think anybody was expecting for
what they found out. Basically, it shakes down like this.
It was not a news that was made and put
in Bubba Wallace's garage. It was a pull down for
(18:47):
a for the garage that Bubba Wallace was assigned a
week ago. That was fashion in the way of a
news to grab onto it and think about grabbing onto
a handle and pulling it down. Now, is that the
best way? Yeah? Is that the best way to to
handle up? No, it's not, because you can still see
the news this was put up in October of Bubba Wallace,
was a sign that garage last week. Uh, as you know,
(19:10):
there hasn't been races, so yeah, here we are showing
up and this is what's going on. A person on
the team walked in, saw the noos, told people right
away this is what's going on. NASCAR found it and
then this is what started the investigation. But Bubba Wallace
was not victim of a hate crime. This was not
done by somebody who put this in, not by somebody
who done uh did this because they knew Bubba Wallace
(19:32):
was gonna get that garage because again he was assigned
it a week ago. Could you really get out there
and say, well, maybe somebody knew that the pulled down
was in the shape of the news and they gave
Bubba Wallace that. Okay, now you're you're kind of reaching
and stretching for it. But this is what the final
result is is that this is not a hate crime.
All of this that went on, Uh, there's nobody going
(19:52):
to prison for it. This was not made in a noose.
This was not made to have a statement on the
Confederate flag or any of it. Now, I think you
and I and basically everybody else who has talked about
this story for the past twenty four hours ago. Oh wow,
I I I really can't believe that this is how
it turned out. And a lot of the first reactions
(20:14):
to this coming from online and people saying, oh, see,
we talk. You should have looked into it. The should
have been something looked at more. I had questions about
it anyway. Why were there no pictures of it? Well,
you're not gonna put a really gonna put a picture
of noose up and say this is what was I mean,
come on, uh so, look, do I feel embarrassed? Of
course I do, you know, but it was this was
a story that didn't turn out to be what it
was reported as being. But in the end, what is
(20:37):
your response going to be when NASCAR reports they found
a noose in the garage? I mean, what, what? What?
What are we gonna say, Well, let's wait and see
if it's really a new NASCAR is reporting there's a
news found. Okay, I mean seriously, what what? What do
you think the reaction of anybody is going to be
when this story comes out. It's a very big topic.
It's a very big story when you consider everything that's
been going on in our country race relations wise, We've
(20:59):
had ackman being hung across the country that uh, that
look like suicides. But there's gonna be investigations into these.
So it's a it's a real tenuous time right now
in America. So when you hear a report that NASCAR
says a news was found, how are you gonna react
to it. You're gonna talk about it. We're gonna say,
of course, this can't be something that happens. It's not
something that that that should pass Mustard, whoever did it
(21:21):
should face consequences for of course, that's what should happen now. Honestly,
this is on NASCAR to do a little bit more
digging before they said, hey, this is what we found.
But I completely get where things got out of control,
and this is where the story was because clearly it
was a noose. And if you're someone who was walking
into that garage and it's Bubba Wallace's team and it's
his garage, and the first you look you see something
(21:43):
that looks like a noose hanging from the garage, what
are you gonna say, Hey, dude, there's a news hanging
from the top of this garage. Everybody looks at it
sees as Wow, that's a noose. What are you gonna say, Well,
it's just a handle it no it, it looks like
a noose. That's that's gonna be the story. And that's
what we've been dealing with for the past twenty four
r It's like I said, is it embarrassing? Yeah? Do
I feel oh man, this story wasn't what we thought
(22:04):
it was. Yeah. But in the end, of course, this
is what our response is going to be when this
is something that's reported. This wasn't a story that anybody
reached for. This wasn't something that well, maybe this is
what NASCAR. We had statements from NASCAR, we had talks
of investigations. That's just how it's going to go. So
I I get where this happened. I get where this went.
(22:24):
And you know, honestly, Mike, if this was the result
that NASCAR comes together the way they did and Bubba
Wallace is is showing unity with all the other drivers
uh in NASCAR, and NASCAR says we're not gonna stand
for racism. Okay, I mean, that's that's a that's a
great ending for this story. I mean, and now it
turns out there. There wasn't even a hate crime, and
(22:44):
we had NASCAR is able to unite on it and
do the right thing and say we're not gonna stand
for racism when racism is rampant in our society now
and talks about it and protests and everything else is
being you know, thrown up there, and we have to
be able to respond to it, you know, to be
able to say, hey, we're all together on it. Said
oh wait, okay, it wasn't a hate crime. I'm actually
happy it wasn't a hate crime. I'm actually happy there's
(23:04):
not somebody out there that was so upset about what
was going on they're gonna put a NUIs and Bubba
Wallace's garage. And so the result was NASCAR looks united. Okay,
I am okay with the results of this. Even though
the story was what was reported wrong. We talked about it,
and obviously the facts were different than than what we
talked about. But in the end, NASCAR came together. So
(23:25):
that's something that I check off and say, that's a positive.
We all know NASCAR stood up for the right things,
standing up for their drivers and everybody else that's involved
in the sport, and that was good. That part of
it was good. Now, as we talked about last night,
I mean there was a lot of questions that we
were deep into a Monday night race is done, everything
has been done, uh, and then the investigation should have
(23:46):
been pretty fast. It seemed if if this was something
you know, that heinous in a in a short period
of time, right, FBI agents descend NASCAR's got cameras everywhere
in all of these garages, that in theory, this should
have been done and done. You know, you go back
to NASCAR's initial statement, you know, fiery is the the
(24:10):
nice way to put it, you know, where they go
Sunday night that we were made aware the noose was
found in the garage. To Doll of the forty three team,
we're angry and outraged and cannot stay strongly enough. How
seriously we take this heinous act unquote talk about the investigation,
et cetera, and eliminating. Well, now, now we have to
go through protocols as nobody ever used one of those
(24:30):
to close garages and NASCAR, right, but before this becomes
a big thing, right, going back to Sunday night, that
that's and obviously the drivers together and the statement made
Bubba wall is going out and still perpetuating to a
degree on the view and other places that there there
(24:51):
was an act that took place when I mean, we
still don't know what the final results are as exactly
how this came to be and where of this is commonplace,
So that's something NASCAR will have to address in the process.
But there was no internal Yeah. No, we've been using
those kind of things to shut doors. You know, they're heavy.
We gotta get some leverage so we pull it down.
(25:13):
Or it's just a question that that we asked a
bit yesterday and we asked now, right of of the
these kind of processes in terms of how how much
you did kind of talk it out before issuing this
statement and jumping to that end. Well, and I know
it's I know it's a volatile time and you want
(25:33):
to you want to act swiftly. But remember a lot
of folks don't ever get the oh, by the way,
this is what finished. They only get the start of
the story. And and for right, for a lot of people,
no matter what the results of this are, they're gonna
think that there was a news put in Bubba Wallace's garage.
No matter what the truth is that comes out and
(25:55):
that's the dangerous thing in this entire process. Well, yeah,
I mean you can always you could always try to
rationalize something to yourself, even though it's the probability of
something being that way is so small, but you can
you can do it in your mind. You can rationalize
that and say that's what's going on. I think, you
know this is pretty clear. Look, the FBI put out
a statement, NASCAR put out a statement. You know, this
(26:17):
is one of those cut through the clutter things where
we could say, okay, so it wasn't a news Okay,
I you know, I get it now. Uh. The thing
is is is that there's gonna be a lot of
pushes to why was this? Why did this run out
of control? As this was a noose put in Bubba
Wallace's garage The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon And
you know what I think I think about it like
(26:38):
this is that do you remember a few years ago
there was that controversy. I think it was I want
to say it was Vanity Fair. It was one of
the one of the Glamor magazines and it had Lebron
James and I think Giselle Bunch in on the cover,
and the picture on the cover was Lebron with his
arm around Gazelle Bunch and who was in a really
you know, slinky dress, and he's dribbling a basketball and
(27:00):
Lebron's got a uh, you know, a fierce look on
his face. And I remember when that came out, that
story hit and I'm looking at it on Twitter and
I see, you know, look at this cover looks so racist.
It's like they're telling you that Lebron is King Kong
and Jaell bunching his Faye Ray and here's you know,
you're making that. You're making this incredibly racist comparison. And
(27:21):
I looked at that, and so I said, wow, I
gotta look at this now. I knew the story before
I looked at the photo, and I looked at the
picture and I could say to myself, well, I don't
know if I don't think that was the intent, But
now that I'm looking at it, that's all I can see, right,
Because I was told before this, look at this, and
that's clearly I could see it and go, oh, yeah,
maybe this should have been thought a little bit differently, right.
(27:42):
And there was that controversy if you walk into that
garage and the first person who goes in and sees
and it's it's fashioned like a noose. It's not like
it's just a pulley that was people misplaced. Now, this
was done like a noose to keep the door being
able to pull down. If you walk in there and
see it and say that's a noose, okay, let me
go in and look, there's a newise and Bubba Wallace's garage.
(28:04):
If you walked in and looked up, you would say, oh, yeah, wow,
someone put a noose in the garage on the handle
on the door. That's what you would see. And and
so I understand completely how this got to that point.
In further, because if you're if you hear there's a
news in the garage, one person's got to see it,
then tells a couple of people. They go, and then
that's all you can see. I'm sure if we all
saw it now we go, oh yeah, there's a news
hanging from the garage. That that's what it looks like,
(28:25):
but it really isn't. Because we went through the FBI's deliberations,
their investigation, they figured everything out in conjunction. But they're
able to go back and find out that I'm sitting
there from October fourth. But they don't know. But they
who put this up there, I don't know. I mean, look,
nobody knew when it went up. And when did that
go up there? I don't know. I don't know. And
a story like that, you know, is going to get
(28:46):
out of control fast, all right. This is NASCAR has
already been hot button with with the Confederate flag being
dropped and fans outside still wanting to waive the Confederate flags.
So they've been dealing with a lot of you know,
gasoline on the fire, you know, the pat well, but
then but then they added they added another tanker with
their statement. But the problem but I think that is
(29:06):
as much as you might have had something flaming, you
didn't need to go. And I mean you just dumped
an entire truck on top by yeah, okay, outrage and
this heinous act and everything and not hey it we're
investigating this report. Yeah, but you know, just to think
about this though, Mike, I mean, I hear what you're
saying that there was there was time to say, hey,
we're we're investing, But think about the times we're in
(29:28):
right now. What would have happened if NASCAR, who was
under fire for race anyway, and now they've finally done
the right thing and we're banning the Confederate flag because
as much as it stood for gallantry and what some
people in the South say, like what it stood for
for other three for racism and slavery. You know, we
had to get rid of that. What would it have
looked like if NASCAR statement was, ah, we heard it
(29:50):
was a noose. We don't know what it is. We're
kind of looking into it right now. Can you imagine
what that forty eight hours is gonna be for NASCAR?
And as you said, there's gonna be people who say that, oh,
you know that they're always gonna think there's a news
and Bubba Wallace's garage. If NASCAR had that strategy of
we're just gonna wait and see, it doesn't matter if
they get proven right on Tuesday. What matters is their
(30:11):
first reaction was, we don't know that this is a news.
How can you say it's not a news, it's a news,
it's in a black driver's garage. I mean, I I
completely get why NASCAR went with because can you imagine,
like I said, can you imagine the blowback if that
was what they said. They couldn't say that even if
they But on the other side, you just stoked the
fears and incited that that visceral reaction on the other side.
(30:34):
I mean, I don't know that there's a wind situation
for NASCAR in this, but as you go through the
events of the last forty eight hours, I just asked,
really just the procedural question. Have we never seen these
in garages before? And that's something that everybody on a
NASCAR pit crew should be jumping to Twitter one way
(30:56):
or the other, or social media or however it's gonna
come out to say, all right, those are commonplace where
they're not. Well, Bubba Wallace went on CNN and said
that in all his time in NASCAR, he's never seen
anything that looked like what was hanging in his garage
because that's a noose. Now, whether that was done as
you know, for whatever reason, or hey, I know how
to make a pulley on this. I'm gonna make it
(31:17):
like a noose, and that's what's gonna be the big
pulley that that keeps this thing. I'm just worried about,
you know, putting a handle on this garage. I mean, obviously,
like I said in the beginning, that's something that could
be thought of a little bit better. But you know,
I I don't think this was pretty commonplace because I
think if it was, we would have heard something like
that before now. So it could be just a bad
idea from someone who tried to make a not in
(31:38):
a rope and and and didn't do it the right
way and obviously didn't a way that caused this controversy.
I mean, that's what I'm waiting to see, you know
who actress conference, full transparency, who actually who actually put
it up and why did they do it that way?
But the rest of it, I get how the story
got to where we are with it. I mean, I
don't know that there was anything NASCAR could have done differently,
(31:58):
you know, And I always look back at say, right,
what happened? How can we do it? What could they
have done? How can we do? Can you do this
with the jets? If we had done this in the
first quarter, we could have wanted to have done this
and this if we had fired at him, tis sure,
if we had made Greg Williams the head coach, could
we have won this day? You know? I do stuff,
But here you know, after this story broke, I'm going
back and forth going I don't know what NASCAR could
(32:18):
have done. I really don't know how they could have
done to to tamp this down. Uh more, Because even
if you don't report it and you figure it out, well,
why are you keeping this a secret? You found a news,
it's a secret if people have to know about this.
I don't know that there was anything they could have
done and it would have ended the way it did anyway.
For for today with this, I mean, I'm glad, glad
we found out the truth, that's number one thing. But
I just don't know what they could have done. Wow.
(32:39):
But even if there's no FBI charges, they still have
to explain that the rest of the procedurals as we go.
So it'll be curious to see the transparency of NASCAR
going forward. Be sure to catch live editions of The
Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern,
seven pm Pacific. Joining us Now on the Hotline. For
more on this longtime baseball insider, check them out in
(33:03):
his Sports with Friends podcast, The Hall of Justice Podcast.
It is Seth Effort, Seth, what's happening? My friend? How
are you guys? Are you guys as giddy as some
of the people I'm seeing on social media? My goodness,
Oh what what's w Are you gonna be a hater tonight?
But are you telling me they reached an agreement? What
they reached an agreement on that they're all going to
(33:24):
try to stay healthy. That's the agreement. Hey, listen there
you well, let's figure that out to one of the
darkest days for the sport. And people were like, because
we got at least we're gonna try now, but no,
but a new day yesterday. But it's an old day now.
Ian Anderson said it so well, listen, I see where
I see where you're going, Debbie Downer, because you know,
(33:44):
seeing you on Twitter, I get that it's one of
those days for you where it's heard the enthusiasm. Really,
That's all I'm saying is calm down. This was a
dark time. This is something that the owners tried to
pull on the players. The owners are a bunch of liars.
And the fact that they're doing this season in home
ballparks and not in a quarantine situation with no restrictions
(34:07):
by the way, these players can come and go as
they please. Um, good luck, let's let's rock and roll. Wow.
I was gonna say, just so, I was gonna say,
how excited you're gonna because I'm gonna tell you how
into Batman versus Superman. My daughter has been the past
couple of weeks. Oh, that's great. It's a great film. Dark,
it's a dark film, but I think it's great. Did
(34:31):
your daughter know that they're both their first name their
mom's first names are Martha. Yeah, well she found that
out in the middle. Yeah, that's a big plot point. Actually,
you know, I mean spoiler. I made you know. The
one thing I made sure to tell her is thatte listen,
you're gonna hear Daddy talk about a lot of actors
and actresses in the next few years, and who he
likes and who he doesn't. I said, here's one thing
I'm coming around a little bit on Henry Cavill. He's
(34:53):
still very boring, I said, But you watch watch every
Amy Adams movie you possibly can see. She acts exactly
the same in every scene, whether she is getting thrown
from the building or for the Hall of Justice. I
love this. Every week you've been distining. It's great. She
acts exactly the same. She gets dropped, she's falling to
her death, gets caught, put on the ground. I'm good,
(35:15):
I'm good. What's what's next? What's next? Okay? That that's great? Okay,
I mean, but yes, I gave you a little bit
of happy. It's now you gotta be happy for baseball
a bit. You gotta give me a little bit of
baseball happiness. Well, here's here's the thing. Charlie Blackman tested
positives today. No one's talking about that. And I'm not
talking just about positive tests, because yes, if you're positive
and asymptomatic, you get the antibodies. That's a good thing.
(35:38):
There's a lot of positives about this, and yes, sports
is a great thing for people who are still stuck
at home quarantined, especially older people who are dealing with
anxiety other forms of mental illness. There's a lot of
positives here. Don't get me wrong. What I'm saying is
the plan is very hotchpotch, and it's very awkward in
(36:00):
that the owners tried to negotiate with the players and
said that they were hemorrhaging money, but for six years
they had record revenues, and I just I don't understand
how anybody could do that, plus one thousand minor leaguers
were released, So yeah, we have a season. The Blue
Jays still don't know where they're playing yet. That's that's
(36:20):
one of the things, because you can't go into Canada
without isolating for fourteen days. So the Blue Jays may
play in Dunedin, but I don't know. This is my
favorite story of the week since I've last spoken to
you guys. The Phillies closed their facility when eight play
eight people, five players and three executives or three staff
members UH tested positive. And so the Phillies closed their thing,
(36:44):
and the Blue Jays, less than a half an hour
after they saw it on Twitter, closed their facility. Not
because the positive tests. It's because they knew they were
at the same bar. No, Like, this is what I'm saying, Like,
there is gonna be socialization, fraternization, this is what's gonna happen.
The Phillies and the Blue Jays didn't need it. In
(37:06):
clear Water are right next to each other, They're like
twenty minutes away. And a bunch of guys who were
working out from the Blue Jays and they came out
to meet up with the Phillies and what happened. Both
facilities closed in a second. And all I'm saying is
what happened. People in the Northeast are spoiled because you know,
the Mets, your beloved Mets, will play, the Phillies a bunch,
(37:27):
the Yankees a bunch, the Nationals a bust, and they're
gonna be on buses for the most part. What are
the Colorado Rockies doing? What are the Seattle Mariners doing?
And if if people tell me that it's chartered planes,
I know who charters them. Those are Airlines, Delta Services,
half of Major League Baseball, and so are they keeping
those planes clean? What's the plan? And again, in the
(37:50):
NBA they don't have that problem. In the NHL they
don't have that problem. And I'm not rooting for one
sport over another, but don't you agree that the NBA
and the NHL plans just sounds smarter. Well, yeah, because
we haven't heard anything from the Major League Baseball yet. Said,
and this was my point that I was going to
tee you up on until you just took it from me.
(38:10):
What's that? Yeah, Well, tonight should be a big night.
Let's sell let's celebrate base But why did you say
that name, and then Amy Adams comes in. Oh, it's
because it's just like I said, anyway, in an instant,
it doesn't a gnat flying by my face can do that. Uh.
(38:32):
But but my point is that tonight should be a
big night. But tomorrow we really do kind of need
a plan because there's been nothing up until this point.
And that's the easy stuff was, let's figure out what
we're gonna do as far as keeping everybody safe, even
if it was just set some stuff that would distract
you from the labor crap that was going on. All right,
you know, we didn't have a great day labor wise,
he at least protection wise. This is what we're looking at.
(38:55):
This is where but the labor should never been public.
The fact that the owners were crying poverty was a
joke to me, and that was wrong. And some of
the players could have kept their mouth shut too. Uh.
This whole argument was not because the March agreement wasn't
a good one. The March six agreement says for every
(39:17):
game you play, you get your salary, and the owners
said that's so good, So they made the agreement. And
the union didn't write the agreement. The league did, and
the league came out and tried to change it. So
all of this is on the owners. None of this,
to me is on the players. The players, what I
hope they're doing is they're taking this opportunity to entertain us,
(39:37):
to put on a show. Make this about the play
on the field. Please make the play interesting, and please
make contact when you have two strikes. But the thing
that I'm also looking at. But the thing is that
I'm also looking at is I just hope that they
look at this opportunity and say, we have a chance
to do something that is very difficult in a pandemic,
(40:00):
which is we can entertain a lot of people. So
don't blow it by going out carousing with each other
when you're when you're you know, in these road cities,
and especially the western the western part of the country,
because that's all airplanes. You know, Chicago is gonna be
able to drive to play the White Sox, the Brewers.
That's bus trips. But there's very few of those. And
(40:22):
I just think that for those teams that are gonna
be traveling all over the place, all I want is
all the managers, the pitching coaches, the third base coaches,
all the front office executives, everybody who's essential to be
there that's over fifties, sixty and seventy. I just hope
they're safe. Seth Everett our guest here Fox Sports Radio
(40:42):
The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon company from the
Geico Mobile, Geico Studios. Seth longtime baseball insider, the proud
host owner of the Sports with Friends and a Hall
of Justice podcasts. You can find them on Twitter at
Seth Underscore Everett. For that, Seth, I've always been surprised
during this process that we didn't have leaks of actual
documents other than the fight over what was agreed to
(41:06):
at the end of March. Where where was the actual
You know, hey, I've got the Stone tablets to show you,
just so you can stop blaming us. Oh. I was
on Twitch and I was holding up a piece of
paper showing the Cubs. Guy said, called it a ledger.
It's a ledger. I said, no, No, it's probably on
Microsoft Excel. I just think their numbers are on an
Excel file. They could send that to the whole league
(41:28):
in two seconds. Um. But they were screaming that their
numbers are abhorrent and that they're hemorrhaging money. And yes,
if you look at it in an isolated line, this
has not been a good year for anybody. But I
don't think any bar owner that's been struggling to keep
their bar open it cares aboutne For a Major League
(41:48):
Baseball team that had record revenues, they could take and
this is a fact they could take for for pro
rated sixty games. Take the money from NLB Advanced Media
of the last six seasons alone, and that could pay
all the players. So paying the players was never a problem.
What they should have been focusing on is how can
(42:10):
we do this safely? And is this the right time
to be doing this or would it have been better
to go to Florida and Arizona in the fall September, October,
November and play in somewhat of an isolated bubble. We
don't know what's happening with football. We all expect it,
but we're hopeful, and you know, everything's fluid in both
(42:31):
college and and pro football. But the end beating of
the NHL their system they're separating in half by every
ten days because it goes from twenty two to sixteen
to eight to four to two, and so the risk
gets minimized. That's not what baseball is. Baseball just keeps
going and they're going to try to do as much
as they can. And all I'm saying is, if the
(42:53):
players can show me that they are going to take
this very, very seriously, I'd have a lot more enthusiasm.
Seth Evertar guest here Fox Sports Radio, Jason Smith, Mike Harmon. Now,
the thing is with this, Seth is, baseball is made
two of all the team sports, it's the most social
distance friendly, the most COVID nineteen friendly. So I don't
(43:15):
think you're gonna have as much they catch it. Well,
the catchers do what you're saying, No, listen, I think
I think all the batters should have to wear masks
when they bat catcher should wear masks, and the home
plate umpire has to wear a mask. Everything else. If
you want to say, should get those chess protectors back
for this year. Yeah, he's gonna umpire from fifty like
(43:36):
it's a like it's a youth game. He's gonna umpire
from behind the mound down and says we're gonna try
a robot because they can't get COVID, And here it
is the robot umpires. Bring them on. Look at this
way question up trending on Twitter. Hang on, I'm seeing
quest that, Uh so I get So. I think once
they can start, we're going to have baseball because the
(43:59):
the the likelihood of transmitting COVID during a baseball game,
as long as you're social distancing during the the in
between innings, is gonna be much less than a physical
game like the NBA or the NHL and National Football legue.
So I think once they get there, I think everything
is gonna wind up going okay. I hope that's going
to make the players get more into it because it's
(44:20):
gonna be a little bit of time for NBA players
are always gonna wonder. I gotta get tested right after
the game because I was just you know, down low,
you know, banging against these guys for forty eight minutes.
You know, MLB players may not be as skittish. So
I think as long as this does start, then Major
League Baseball has the potential for it for this to
take off. As long as it's taken care of going
(44:40):
up to it basketball, I think it's gonna be battle
all the way through it. Go ahead, as you said,
I emailed my friend at the players Associates, and I
have more friends at the Union right now than I
do at the league. That has changed in the last
six months. I said, because when Trevor Ariza came out,
and again he has all the right in the world
to not want to play, but his situation if there
(45:02):
wasn't COVID nine team would be a very different story.
And so what I would say is just say you
have concerns. Don't tell anybody your personal life story. And
so I said to the union next day, for all
the players that don't want to play, could they just
come up with a standard Derek Jeter style line of
it's just too risky, Just say that. Don't tell me
(45:25):
your reasons why don't. I don't want to know. I
don't want to have any inkling about your personal life
on why you don't want to play. Just tell me
it's too risky, because saying that you're an impending free
agent might not fly for these baseball players. The basketball
may get away with it baseball or not. You can
folem on Twitter at seth underscore Everett. That's at seth
(45:47):
underscore Everett. Make sure you hashtag all your questions to
him with Martha Hall of Justice podcast, Sports with Friends Podcast.
Why don't you I'm gonna stop trying to kill you
because you said that name? Um as always, buddy, we
appreciate it, my friend. We'll talk to you next week.
You got it. Let's talk in the Dodgers press box.
Let's go there. Well, let's talk on. When do we
(46:08):
get on Houl of Justice podcast. Welcome Now, I'll tell
you what you're welcome to come on this month? All right,
very good? Right now, you gott tell me what we're
gonna talk about, and then so I can have I
can have good hot tap. There'll be a certain scene
in a very overrated movie that will be coming up.
All right, very good? Oh men in black when Bernard
Gilki misses the flyball because it's a Mets game. No,
(46:28):
but Kevin Smith did say when I told him about
my relationship with the Mets, Kevin Smith did say, I
was the only guy in Avengers endgame rooting for Thanos.
I was there with you. Let's see if buddy have fun.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven
(46:51):
pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart
radio app. Who's going to have an advantage going into
this sixty game season. Who's gonna be the teams that
have the advantage. I'll tell you exactly who they are,
because it's gonna be just like the NBA. There are
gonna be teams that show up and just say, we
don't really want to play. I I want to stay healthy,
(47:12):
I don't want to get COVID nineteen. I'm gonna show up.
I'm gonna play for a couple of months and then
we're done, and then we're going home. And I'm not
going to buy in emotionally and physically. And that's how
it's gonna go. And there's gonna be many teams to
do that. But the teams that are gonna win are
gonna be the teams that show up and buy in
right away and play without fear and and play like
(47:33):
this is sixty games of the season and everybody's got
a chance to win the World Series. That's who's going
to win it. It It may not be the best team,
because that's that's the thing in baseball. The best teams
don't always win. The best teams get in. The hottest
teams wind up winning that's how it goes in in
in baseball, and you can have a team show up
that may not be that talented, but you know what,
damn it, we are gonna put our pedal to the
(47:55):
floor here and see what we can do for sixty games.
And maybe a team like the Padres gets a couple
of starting pitchers that who knew they were gonna be
able to pitch this well this early, and suddenly you
know they they Instead of a good start for the
Padres where they start out thirty eight and twenty two
and then they fade into being you know, seventy nine
and eighty two, uh, they wind up going thirty eight
twenty two and they're in the playoffs and something other
(48:17):
Podres are making noise because they bought in and they're
there to win. That's who's going to win. Those teams
that are there for that purpose, that can put everything
else out and say we're here to win, no matter
what it's gonna be, We're ready. And then the playoffs
come and obviously you know you were down to the
best teams from there, but you want to know if
the teams are gonna make the playoffs, are gonna move
on and it may not be the best, because even
(48:38):
the best teams may decide, yeah, we're not into it,
even though it's a window open for them to win
a championship. I don't know, because everybody feels differently. Everybody
feels differently about going to UH play this season, about
how they're gonna try to avoid COVID nineteen during it,
and you never know who what's gonna be. But this
is where if I'm a bottom feeder team, I can say,
you know what, this is our chance. This is this
(48:59):
is our chance right here, right now. We're never gonna
win a hundred sixty two games and and get to
the planet. We're not the padres Canna say we're not
gonna beat the Dodgers in a hundred sixty two games,
but could we maybe do it in sixty games? Let's go.
This is our chance. This is where all these bad
teams and I'm not putting the medicine because that's actually
at the seventh best odds to get to the World Series.
But all these bottom feeder teams can say, you know what,
(49:20):
why not? Why not? Why not these sixty games? And
if you have that mental edge, you're gonna win over
a more talented team. That is just they're going through
the motions, young guys hungry on on a dead sprint, right.
I mean that that's why you know what we're talking
before you you bring up a team like the White Sox,
not to go all Homer, but a lot of young
(49:40):
talent that over the course of a full season, right
because we know the minor leagues into the majors and
and how guys wear down going down the stretch, Well,
you don't have that here. Conversely, a team like the
Angels right where perhaps Albert poolh Hols is far more
effective for you in a six ste game season, then
(50:02):
you know the hundred sixty two because you don't have
that wear and tear over his body. And the final
numbers are always solid for pool Holes even as he's
getting older. But there are long stretches of where the
inactivity uh and the numbers dip well, and maybe Mike
Trout actually has some meaningful at bats. How great would
that be for baseball? Uh? As you roll through there
(50:25):
as well. So they're a team. I think that's interesting.
And then you got the Tampa Bay Rays? Why not
them this year? Right there? They're always an eighty eight
ninety two win team very quietly. They've got enough pitching
to make it make it interesting in prospects, just a
matter of whether they're ready. Yeah, and and why not.
I mean, like I said, sixty games is nothing. Sixty
(50:47):
games is absolutely nothing you are talking about. All we
gotta do is play somewhat well. And if we if
we start out good, hey, all right, we can ride
that momentum for a while. You get to the twenty
game mark and you're thinking playoffs already. You already thinking, boy,
how many more seed? How many more games? Like if
we start out fifteen and five, it's okay, you're thinking, oh,
we're we're eight games up on the final, on the
(51:09):
playoff spot right now? Where were this many games up?
How many more games do we? What's our magic number?
Gonna be twenty games and teams are gonna say, okay,
we're here. We're not. And that's also going to be
the point where some teams are gonna go, you know what,
I came. We gave it our our our best shot.
It's not working out for us. We started out eight
and twelve. I'm done. I'm ready to pack it in
and go home. So you have the players who are
(51:30):
gonna show up and and and and and really go
through the motions from the beginning. Then you're gonna have
many teams once you get twenty games in. Are gonna
be that way to perhaps you get a run there too.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern seven
pm Pacific,
Thanks for listening to the best of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmen podcast. Be sure to catch us
live every weeknight from ten pm to two a m.
Eastern seven to eleven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio.
Find your local station for The Jason Smith Show with
Mike Harmon at Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream
us live every night on the I Heart Radio app
by searching f s R. This is the best of
(00:22):
The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon on Fox Sports Radio.
Greetings and welcome inside the Jason Smith Show with my
bis friend Mike Harmon, live from the Geico Studios, where
we are just gonna get into it and begin because
right now, the New York Mets have the seventh best
(00:44):
odds to win the World Series. This is very very exciting,
Mike Harmon, very very excited about this joining this now. Yeah,
as of right now, I mean we haven't seen the
adjustment for the Colorado Rockies just yet. But but for
you at an exciting moment, uh, I know you're gonna
quickly drive to the desert to get some action. Oh, metsio,
(01:07):
I'm like, get listen with the news that baseball is back,
the agreement has been agreed upon. The Union in Baseball
have cleared their final hurdles to restart the MLB season.
We now know everything that's going to happen. And now
that we know everything, of course, the coronavirus is saying, hey,
don't forget don't forget about us. Because on the heels
(01:28):
of the big announcement today, we find out that a
couple of Colorado Rocky players, including Charlie Blackman, test positive
for COVID nineteen. Bob Nightingale had that story, So we get,
we get major League Baseball is coming back, and COVID
nineteen says we hang on a second. I got something
to say about this, but as it is, it's the
best We've been telling you. The best way to deal
(01:49):
with everything going on with sports returning the best thing,
because I understand it's all boy. We get this great news,
and now we're still wondering the other shoe was gonna drop.
What's gonna happen? Now the Nuggets in Nicola Yokich is
test positive for coronavirus and he's got to come back
to the United States and what does this mean for him?
And when the Nuggets want to restart, We're seeing Phillies players.
They've had now what eleven people in the organization the
(02:12):
last couple of days test positive for COVID nine. Team,
think about it this way. Forget about that for a second,
and just go by the philosophy we told you about
last week. We get what we get and we don't
get upset. You learned it in kindergarten. My daughter learned
in kindergarten. Harmon, your kids learned in kindergarten. You get
what you get, you don't get upset. Can really well,
(02:34):
you went to a bad kindergarten, then well you went
Survival of the Fittest in Chicago. They you guys gotta
make sure you're not starting fights and shoving people in
lockers in between periods. Okay, otherwise you're gonna wind up
getting the needle. I was the city of big shoulders.
I had big shoulders. I used them. What do you
(02:57):
want me to say? Instead of math, we're gonna talk
about the five stages of making deep dish pizza. Okay,
number what put your pens away? You gotta notice off
the top of your little heads. Okay, number one? Cheese?
Number two? More cheese? What was that over there? What's
number one, I'll get out, go to Principle's office. You
know what I think, ever since I was tied to
a chair in kindergarten, my world view has changed. I
(03:20):
really think that was the end of it. The first
person to not agree with sausage being in this deep
dish pizza. You're gonna have to transfer schools, all right,
we don't. We don't have anything for you here at
this school. You have to go someplace else and learn. Okay,
that's what we have. That is a pretty good rule
to follow, my friend. And if anybody and I got
one more, and if anybody thinks that you could just
(03:42):
take a piece of pizza down to the subway and
think a rat isn't gonna take it from you, that
rat will come up and take it from you. They
are coming, I know it, maybe years from now, but
there is a rat apocalypse brewing, and it will come in.
The first thing they're gonna do is take pizza. Then
you're gonna see cockroaches smoking cigarettes. Then you're gonna see
bigger rats taking bigger pieces of pizza. And then they're
(04:03):
gonna start taking children down below the subway, and these
kids are gonna be raised by the Rats, and it's
gonna look like dances with wolves, except when rats. And
then he's gonna come up and they're gonna lead a
big revolution against us, and it's gonna be our fault. Hey,
don't you think they haven't been been enjoying all this stuff?
The murder hornets and all these different things happened in
the rats have been able to operate and the lat
(04:25):
secrecy away from the rest of the world. The rats
are in complete secrecy, but they haven't been fed very well. Right,
if people weren't going to work and we didn't have
the carts and the bodega is really doing brisk business. Well, well,
they also have to have, you know, the the New
York Rats have to if there's gonna be a real
big rat apocalypse, the New York and Chicago Rats have
(04:45):
to team up together. So they're gonna have to send
some emissaries from Chicago to New York. Maybe they meet
in the middle Maybee, you know, may somewhere in Pennsylvania
and trying to figure out who the guy is. That's
Nick Fury trying to get them all together. Right, right,
it's a big rat that looks like the rats got
the patch out of time. He's got the Ipatchuh, so
I patched a leather coat. While the Rats are contemplating
(05:08):
taking over the world, we are going to have Major
League Baseball as the MLB p A and the owners
have cleared everything. Here's what the season is gonna look like.
Sixty regular season games starting around July. So that's gonna
beginning of the season. Set to set two debut the
week before. Uh. The NBA starts training camp will start
(05:30):
July one, right, so spring training summer training they're calling
a training camp now. It starts on July one. The
trade deadline will be August thirty one, so we're gonna
start play about a month and a half. Oh, let's
make some trades. It's not working for me and we're
fifteen and fifteen. Let's make some deals. Uh. There will
be a universal designated hitter for this year only, and
(05:51):
extra inning games in order to shave innings and miles
off of arms so games don't go too late, because look,
we're playing a lot of games and trying to jam
them in a short amount of time. All extra inning
games will start with a runner on second base. So
this is how it's going to go. When baseball begins
and I know that we hit the story and and
(06:12):
coronavirus COVID nineteen is up. It's it's reared its head
in the past week in many different ways. But just
if you think about sports that way, whatever we get
as a bonus. Right, we went into when when coronavirus
that we thought, how are we going to play sports
at all? Right? How are sports ever gonna play? And
we had no idea how this was gonna work, and
could people even stand next to each other? And what
(06:32):
kind of virus is it? Is it ever gonna be airborne? What? What?
What kind of dealer we at? We're not going to
have sports? Right? It was in the beginning, it was
it was It was many people saying, I don't think
we're gonna have sports. And this wasn't being doom and gloom.
This was saying, hey, we're in the middle of a pandemic.
We know nothing about what is going to happen. Well,
what have we gotten so far? Well, UFC has come
back and they've been able to come back and and
(06:53):
keep coronavirus at bay enough to keep going. We have
had NASCAR come back and address me. We'll have way
more on NASCAR about fifteen. That's uh, Nascar has been
able to come back, and as far as the product
on on the track, it's been very it's done very well,
and the sport has done. Ratings have been really good.
Golf has come back, and golf has done Okay. We've
had one positive test for coronavirus, but being the solitary sport,
(07:14):
golf is as long as everybody is asymptomatic, it's tested,
golf is going to continue. So already we've gotten more
than we thought we were gonna get in the beginning.
And now is it's it's go time for baseball and
for the National Basketball Association. You're gonna have players report
in one week. One week from tomorrow is the beginning
of spring training or summer training. So it's not like, well,
(07:35):
we're looking at this in the abstract anymore. We're looking
at as this is how it's going to go. And
every day we have baseball, even when there's no games,
that's a good day. Every day we have NBA, even
when there's no games or there's practice going, that's a
good day. And as long as we can get, you know,
we put as many of those days together as possible.
Don't worry about finishing this season. Can we play or
can we start? As long as we know we're gonna start,
(07:57):
we're gonna get sports, enjoy it for as law long
as we can. Because I'll tell you this in my car,
but I guarant damn to you this is that these
sports coming back are gonna do everything possible humanly possible
to play out an entire season. I mean, it may
get to a point where boy, COVID nineteen is too much,
but they are going to do everything in their power
(08:18):
and then some to try to play this season. You
know you're gonna be some positive coronavirus tests. We're gonna
isolate right away. We're gonna see if they're asymptomatic. We're
gonna we're gonna protect the players. We're gonna do everything.
They will do everything they can. They may not get
everything right. In fact, they don't expect them to get
everything right, because you're dealing with something that there is
no chart for. But they're gonna do everything they can
to play all the rest of this year in sports,
(08:39):
whether it's NBA, major League baseball, when the NFL, college
football comes back. So if you concentrate on those things
and know, hey, let's be positive about this. That's something
that you know, we can enjoy this. We can enjoy
it for as long as it is. And if something
happens and it has to stop, all right, then what's next.
You know, we've we've we've gone this long. We've gone
four months so far without having team sports, and I
(09:01):
think fans have been doing okay, and now we're going
to get them back. Whatever we get is gonna be
a bonus. We're gonna if you think about enjoying it
and think and that's the way, that's the mental attitude
you have towards it, You're gonna have a great time
love and sports when they come back. Trust me on it. Well,
it's like anything. You you adapt to the situation, take
in new information, and adjust accordingly. And we've had several
(09:23):
months to work with this at individual businesses. And you know,
I'm on record for for many a month, you know,
raising my hand as to why some businesses were more
equal than others. Uh, the quote essentials among us. Yes,
it comes back to lobbying and politics and dollars and cents.
But when it's all said and done, everybody's trying to
(09:44):
figure out the new norm of doing business until we
can go back to normal. Right. That's that's it, and
there's some control on this. It's never going to zero.
So anybody that was trying to claim that suddenly there
was gonna be the giant than o snap and this
was going to disappear, Uh, not gonna happen. So what
(10:05):
do you do? You adapt and try to put in
best practices and take care of business. You mentioned all
the sports as they're working, right. NASCAR even had people
at the stadium this past at the Speedway this past weekend.
Right again. We'll get into deeper NASCAR stuff in a
in a bit, but the reality is you're you're finding
a way and for players, I get there's some trepidation.
(10:28):
For the different management groups, the commissioners, there's a lot
of handwringing as they try to figure this all out.
And you go into best practices, right. I have so
many people that asks like, all right, what'd you get
on a plane right now? I'm like, you, kid me,
I bet you they're spotless. I think there might not
be a better place to be than on a plane
right now with all the different checks and balances and expectations, right,
(10:52):
they're limiting capacity on on most planes, you get a
middle middle seat that isn't isn't filled by somebody. Think
about that. Think about that, Smith. You could go on
a trip right now and someone isn't shoving themselves into
that middle seat and arm wrestling you for that armrest.
It's a beautiful thing, but you go, you go through,
(11:12):
and we've all made choices. We've all had to make
choices of what we're comfortable with, and some players may
still opt out. We had a couple in the in
the NBA um make that announcement yesterday. I'm sure for
baseball there maybe a few players that decide, you know,
whether it's an imminent birth of a child or one
that just came into the world, that maybe they decide
(11:34):
this isn't for them and and they'll adapt accordingly. We're
talking about sixty players get to go to the spring
training camp, so you have, you know, critical massive guys
at the ready. Some teams are thinking about having a
taxi squad practicing somewhere else. I mean, they're gonna get innovative.
Right now is the time for innovation and change. Just
like you're adding rules to the game, you're also you know,
(11:55):
gonna try to be very deft on your on your
feet right and and be very uh nimble as it were,
to try to figure out, all right, we need to pivot.
This wasn't working. How do we make it better? And
Major League Baseball is reserving the right to move teams
to neutral sites for health and safety if need be,
(12:15):
so they're trying to put as many checks and balances
that they can in and remembering every day we get
up and get moving, we're assuming a risk, even if
it's just the lego that you stepped on that Zoe
left in the hallway. We all assume some sort of
risk going out and down, uh and into our lives.
And that's the thing for baseball too. And remember it's
(12:37):
not all about just the millionaires and billionaires. Lots of
other people make their livings based on these games being
played in the neighborhoods, in and around stadium, the televising
of them, and so on and so forth. So Uh,
it's it's industry on a large level, uh, and a
lot of people that are relying on its return. Twitter out,
(12:58):
how about a fresca. Mike gets swollen in The Jason
Smith Show with Mike Carmen live from the Geico Studios,
and that's the you know, you hit on the one
thing we need now from baseball. It's all right, this
is a great day. And yes, there there's gonna be questions, right,
what's the relationship going to be like with players and
and and the teams after all of this going on?
But what we need now we haven't gotten. And and
(13:19):
quite frankly, I'm surprised we haven't gotten anything on this
even to distract us from the labor issue. Is that Okay,
what's Baseball's plan now for COVID nineteen. What's their plan
when players test positive? How are they going to be
taken out put in isolation? What is it going to be.
What's gonna be the plan for players in their home parks,
because everybody's gonna get to play in their home park,
and they're gonna have spring training or you know, summer
training in their home cities. That's the next part that
(13:42):
we need kind of soon. Like I would say, okay,
you want twenty four hours to say, hey, let's take
a victory lap in Baseball is back, But we kind
of need that. And I'm really surprised, Mike that we
haven't gotten in now because you think Baseball would have
this part button down going. Okay, listen, we'll figure out
the labor part of it, but we can at least
do the safety. We can agree on that, and we
haven't really gotten any of that yet. And even if
(14:03):
they wanted to do it just to distract us from
the ridiculous labor stuff that was going back and forth,
you think we'd have some of the Hey, here's what
Baseball is planning to try to be safe for COVID nineteen.
But I kind of need that tomorrow. You know, It's like, Okay,
they've set on it. Next week is coming, no matter what.
But what what? What? What are the big plans? Because
I know a lot of players are already going, hey, great,
(14:24):
we're happy. What's next? What do we know about this plan?
So you know, both of the players still don't know
exactly what Major League Baseball wants and the fans the meeting, no,
none of us know either. Yeah, the representatives agreed to it,
so we know that they've come to that understanding. Whatever
that laundry list is out of that original sixty seven
page document that we heard about so famously, a couple
(14:46):
of weeks ago. I suspect in the next twenty four hours,
we get that nailed down, right, make sure that you
know you've buttoned it up. You've taken out any of
the extraneous details that you've clarified, any points that might
have been great talking points in the meetings, right, the
zoom meetings or the face to face meetings or whatever
(15:09):
you did to get to those agreements. Uh, you now
have to put those out in a little more extensive way, right,
so there's no ambiguity about it. So I would suspect
in the next we get more of that, the players,
uh will get to Twitter and Instagram and anything they
take exception too, will know about it tomorrow. But in
(15:30):
the interim, I think right now everybody's just exhiling, saying, okay,
we avoided another catastrophe for the moment, because remember that
we were still waiting on grievances and all sorts of
legal ease to start flowing down and say yeah, yeah, yeah, fine,
force us here. We'll see in hell. Uh, and now
we're gonna drag this into court for months and years
at a time and fight you which look, they could
(15:53):
still I guess technically go through that those groups if
they wanted to to really make this messy. But you know,
in terms of the details, I suspect give it two
one of our four or five trusted baseball insiders that
have had us all the way through will be the
ones to get their first their hands on it first. Uh,
(16:13):
and then we'll move forward. But uh, you know it's
a great thing. They need to know. Well, we need
to know you got your act together on it, right,
It's not just this and now okay, now we'll work
on the health part. Whoa, whoa, whoa, come on, come on,
come on, what do you mean now, we're gonna just
show us, But you haven't. You haven't showed us that
you had your act together. Now, you know, show us
a little bit more that you've got everything going on,
and we're gonna proceed like we should, like the other
sports are trying to proceed to come back. Well, I
(16:35):
would say this though, the fact that they agreed on it, right,
and that's the report we're getting, is that they agreed
on the health protocols means that they weren't operating in
a vacuum on the cash side, right. That might have
been the only part that was leaking to us, because
let's face it, that that was deciding whether we played
not how right, So the the how is the details there.
(16:58):
I mean, you're excited about because you want to see how,
you know, the sausages getting made here. I think most
people are just like, screw this, just give me baseball.
I don't get him at a bubble, Put him actually
in bubbles. Get some you know, bubble gum around them.
Whatever it takes. Let's just get back on the field
so I can bet, so I can play fantasy baseball,
(17:18):
and that I can have a few moments where I
can justify eating a lot of hot dogs. Be sure
to catch live editions of The Jason Smith Show with
Mike harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific
on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app.
So last night, when we finished talking about the NASCAR
race Bubba Wallace finding a noose in his garage this
(17:41):
weekend at Talladega, the sport basically stopped. They had an
investigation that was coming. This is something that obviously cannot
be tolerated. NASCAR Step Together had the hashtag I Stand
with Bubba trended all day yesterday during the race and
the picture of Bubba Wallace with all the dry was
behind him in solidarity showing everybody there's no places in
(18:03):
NASCAR was fantastic. And then we talked last night said Okay,
this can't be the end of it. We gotta find
out who did this now, who can possibly have done this? Right?
As we talked about it, right, we we left it
in the terms of allegations of a news being found,
and well as we would come to find out, using
the allegedly as we we've used on the show at
(18:26):
times for things of this nature of uncertainty, well, it
was the appropriate term. NASCAR in the FBI finished their
investigation today and I don't think anybody was expecting for
what they found out. Basically, it shakes down like this.
It was not a news that was made and put
in Bubba Wallace's garage. It was a pull down for
(18:47):
a for the garage that Bubba Wallace was assigned a
week ago. That was fashion in the way of a
news to grab onto it and think about grabbing onto
a handle and pulling it down. Now, is that the
best way? Yeah? Is that the best way to to
handle up? No, it's not, because you can still see
the news this was put up in October of Bubba Wallace,
was a sign that garage last week. Uh, as you know,
(19:10):
there hasn't been races, so yeah, here we are showing
up and this is what's going on. A person on
the team walked in, saw the noos, told people right
away this is what's going on. NASCAR found it and
then this is what started the investigation. But Bubba Wallace
was not victim of a hate crime. This was not
done by somebody who put this in, not by somebody
who done uh did this because they knew Bubba Wallace
(19:32):
was gonna get that garage because again he was assigned
it a week ago. Could you really get out there
and say, well, maybe somebody knew that the pulled down
was in the shape of the news and they gave
Bubba Wallace that. Okay, now you're you're kind of reaching
and stretching for it. But this is what the final
result is is that this is not a hate crime.
All of this that went on, Uh, there's nobody going
(19:52):
to prison for it. This was not made in a noose.
This was not made to have a statement on the
Confederate flag or any of it. Now, I think you
and I and basically everybody else who has talked about
this story for the past twenty four hours ago. Oh wow,
I I I really can't believe that this is how
it turned out. And a lot of the first reactions
(20:14):
to this coming from online and people saying, oh, see,
we talk. You should have looked into it. The should
have been something looked at more. I had questions about
it anyway. Why were there no pictures of it? Well,
you're not gonna put a really gonna put a picture
of noose up and say this is what was I mean,
come on, uh so, look, do I feel embarrassed? Of
course I do, you know, but it was this was
a story that didn't turn out to be what it
was reported as being. But in the end, what is
(20:37):
your response going to be when NASCAR reports they found
a noose in the garage? I mean, what, what? What?
What are we gonna say, Well, let's wait and see
if it's really a new NASCAR is reporting there's a
news found. Okay, I mean seriously, what what? What do
you think the reaction of anybody is going to be
when this story comes out. It's a very big topic.
It's a very big story when you consider everything that's
been going on in our country race relations wise, We've
(20:59):
had ackman being hung across the country that uh, that
look like suicides. But there's gonna be investigations into these.
So it's a it's a real tenuous time right now
in America. So when you hear a report that NASCAR
says a news was found, how are you gonna react
to it. You're gonna talk about it. We're gonna say,
of course, this can't be something that happens. It's not
something that that that should pass Mustard, whoever did it
(21:21):
should face consequences for of course, that's what should happen now. Honestly,
this is on NASCAR to do a little bit more
digging before they said, hey, this is what we found.
But I completely get where things got out of control,
and this is where the story was because clearly it
was a noose. And if you're someone who was walking
into that garage and it's Bubba Wallace's team and it's
his garage, and the first you look you see something
(21:43):
that looks like a noose hanging from the garage, what
are you gonna say, Hey, dude, there's a news hanging
from the top of this garage. Everybody looks at it
sees as Wow, that's a noose. What are you gonna say, Well,
it's just a handle it no it, it looks like
a noose. That's that's gonna be the story. And that's
what we've been dealing with for the past twenty four
r It's like I said, is it embarrassing? Yeah? Do
I feel oh man, this story wasn't what we thought
(22:04):
it was. Yeah. But in the end, of course, this
is what our response is going to be when this
is something that's reported. This wasn't a story that anybody
reached for. This wasn't something that well, maybe this is
what NASCAR. We had statements from NASCAR, we had talks
of investigations. That's just how it's going to go. So
I I get where this happened. I get where this went.
(22:24):
And you know, honestly, Mike, if this was the result
that NASCAR comes together the way they did and Bubba
Wallace is is showing unity with all the other drivers
uh in NASCAR, and NASCAR says we're not gonna stand
for racism. Okay, I mean, that's that's a that's a
great ending for this story. I mean, and now it
turns out there. There wasn't even a hate crime, and
(22:44):
we had NASCAR is able to unite on it and
do the right thing and say we're not gonna stand
for racism when racism is rampant in our society now
and talks about it and protests and everything else is
being you know, thrown up there, and we have to
be able to respond to it, you know, to be
able to say, hey, we're all together on it. Said
oh wait, okay, it wasn't a hate crime. I'm actually
happy it wasn't a hate crime. I'm actually happy there's
(23:04):
not somebody out there that was so upset about what
was going on they're gonna put a NUIs and Bubba
Wallace's garage. And so the result was NASCAR looks united. Okay,
I am okay with the results of this. Even though
the story was what was reported wrong. We talked about it,
and obviously the facts were different than than what we
talked about. But in the end, NASCAR came together. So
(23:25):
that's something that I check off and say, that's a positive.
We all know NASCAR stood up for the right things,
standing up for their drivers and everybody else that's involved
in the sport, and that was good. That part of
it was good. Now, as we talked about last night,
I mean there was a lot of questions that we
were deep into a Monday night race is done, everything
has been done, uh, and then the investigation should have
(23:46):
been pretty fast. It seemed if if this was something
you know, that heinous in a in a short period
of time, right, FBI agents descend NASCAR's got cameras everywhere
in all of these garages, that in theory, this should
have been done and done. You know, you go back
to NASCAR's initial statement, you know, fiery is the the
(24:10):
nice way to put it, you know, where they go
Sunday night that we were made aware the noose was
found in the garage. To Doll of the forty three team,
we're angry and outraged and cannot stay strongly enough. How
seriously we take this heinous act unquote talk about the investigation,
et cetera, and eliminating. Well, now, now we have to
go through protocols as nobody ever used one of those
(24:30):
to close garages and NASCAR, right, but before this becomes
a big thing, right, going back to Sunday night, that
that's and obviously the drivers together and the statement made
Bubba wall is going out and still perpetuating to a
degree on the view and other places that there there
(24:51):
was an act that took place when I mean, we
still don't know what the final results are as exactly
how this came to be and where of this is commonplace,
So that's something NASCAR will have to address in the process.
But there was no internal Yeah. No, we've been using
those kind of things to shut doors. You know, they're heavy.
We gotta get some leverage so we pull it down.
(25:13):
Or it's just a question that that we asked a
bit yesterday and we asked now, right of of the
these kind of processes in terms of how how much
you did kind of talk it out before issuing this
statement and jumping to that end. Well, and I know
it's I know it's a volatile time and you want
(25:33):
to you want to act swiftly. But remember a lot
of folks don't ever get the oh, by the way,
this is what finished. They only get the start of
the story. And and for right, for a lot of people,
no matter what the results of this are, they're gonna
think that there was a news put in Bubba Wallace's garage.
No matter what the truth is that comes out and
(25:55):
that's the dangerous thing in this entire process. Well, yeah,
I mean you can always you could always try to
rationalize something to yourself, even though it's the probability of
something being that way is so small, but you can
you can do it in your mind. You can rationalize
that and say that's what's going on. I think, you
know this is pretty clear. Look, the FBI put out
a statement, NASCAR put out a statement. You know, this
(26:17):
is one of those cut through the clutter things where
we could say, okay, so it wasn't a news Okay,
I you know, I get it now. Uh. The thing
is is is that there's gonna be a lot of
pushes to why was this? Why did this run out
of control? As this was a noose put in Bubba
Wallace's garage The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon And
you know what I think I think about it like
(26:38):
this is that do you remember a few years ago
there was that controversy. I think it was I want
to say it was Vanity Fair. It was one of
the one of the Glamor magazines and it had Lebron
James and I think Giselle Bunch in on the cover,
and the picture on the cover was Lebron with his
arm around Gazelle Bunch and who was in a really
you know, slinky dress, and he's dribbling a basketball and
(27:00):
Lebron's got a uh, you know, a fierce look on
his face. And I remember when that came out, that
story hit and I'm looking at it on Twitter and
I see, you know, look at this cover looks so racist.
It's like they're telling you that Lebron is King Kong
and Jaell bunching his Faye Ray and here's you know,
you're making that. You're making this incredibly racist comparison. And
(27:21):
I looked at that, and so I said, wow, I
gotta look at this now. I knew the story before
I looked at the photo, and I looked at the
picture and I could say to myself, well, I don't
know if I don't think that was the intent, But
now that I'm looking at it, that's all I can see, right,
Because I was told before this, look at this, and
that's clearly I could see it and go, oh, yeah,
maybe this should have been thought a little bit differently, right.
(27:42):
And there was that controversy if you walk into that
garage and the first person who goes in and sees
and it's it's fashioned like a noose. It's not like
it's just a pulley that was people misplaced. Now, this
was done like a noose to keep the door being
able to pull down. If you walk in there and
see it and say that's a noose, okay, let me
go in and look, there's a newise and Bubba Wallace's garage.
(28:04):
If you walked in and looked up, you would say, oh, yeah, wow,
someone put a noose in the garage on the handle
on the door. That's what you would see. And and
so I understand completely how this got to that point.
In further, because if you're if you hear there's a
news in the garage, one person's got to see it,
then tells a couple of people. They go, and then
that's all you can see. I'm sure if we all
saw it now we go, oh yeah, there's a news
hanging from the garage. That that's what it looks like,
(28:25):
but it really isn't. Because we went through the FBI's deliberations,
their investigation, they figured everything out in conjunction. But they're
able to go back and find out that I'm sitting
there from October fourth. But they don't know. But they
who put this up there, I don't know. I mean, look,
nobody knew when it went up. And when did that
go up there? I don't know. I don't know. And
a story like that, you know, is going to get
(28:46):
out of control fast, all right. This is NASCAR has
already been hot button with with the Confederate flag being
dropped and fans outside still wanting to waive the Confederate flags.
So they've been dealing with a lot of you know,
gasoline on the fire, you know, the pat well, but
then but then they added they added another tanker with
their statement. But the problem but I think that is
(29:06):
as much as you might have had something flaming, you
didn't need to go. And I mean you just dumped
an entire truck on top by yeah, okay, outrage and
this heinous act and everything and not hey it we're
investigating this report. Yeah, but you know, just to think
about this though, Mike, I mean, I hear what you're
saying that there was there was time to say, hey,
we're we're investing, But think about the times we're in
(29:28):
right now. What would have happened if NASCAR, who was
under fire for race anyway, and now they've finally done
the right thing and we're banning the Confederate flag because
as much as it stood for gallantry and what some
people in the South say, like what it stood for
for other three for racism and slavery. You know, we
had to get rid of that. What would it have
looked like if NASCAR statement was, ah, we heard it
(29:50):
was a noose. We don't know what it is. We're
kind of looking into it right now. Can you imagine
what that forty eight hours is gonna be for NASCAR?
And as you said, there's gonna be people who say that, oh,
you know that they're always gonna think there's a news
and Bubba Wallace's garage. If NASCAR had that strategy of
we're just gonna wait and see, it doesn't matter if
they get proven right on Tuesday. What matters is their
(30:11):
first reaction was, we don't know that this is a news.
How can you say it's not a news, it's a news,
it's in a black driver's garage. I mean, I I
completely get why NASCAR went with because can you imagine,
like I said, can you imagine the blowback if that
was what they said. They couldn't say that even if
they But on the other side, you just stoked the
fears and incited that that visceral reaction on the other side.
(30:34):
I mean, I don't know that there's a wind situation
for NASCAR in this, but as you go through the
events of the last forty eight hours, I just asked,
really just the procedural question. Have we never seen these
in garages before? And that's something that everybody on a
NASCAR pit crew should be jumping to Twitter one way
(30:56):
or the other, or social media or however it's gonna
come out to say, all right, those are commonplace where
they're not. Well, Bubba Wallace went on CNN and said
that in all his time in NASCAR, he's never seen
anything that looked like what was hanging in his garage
because that's a noose. Now, whether that was done as
you know, for whatever reason, or hey, I know how
to make a pulley on this. I'm gonna make it
(31:17):
like a noose, and that's what's gonna be the big
pulley that that keeps this thing. I'm just worried about,
you know, putting a handle on this garage. I mean, obviously,
like I said in the beginning, that's something that could
be thought of a little bit better. But you know,
I I don't think this was pretty commonplace because I
think if it was, we would have heard something like
that before now. So it could be just a bad
idea from someone who tried to make a not in
(31:38):
a rope and and and didn't do it the right
way and obviously didn't a way that caused this controversy.
I mean, that's what I'm waiting to see, you know
who actress conference, full transparency, who actually who actually put
it up and why did they do it that way?
But the rest of it, I get how the story
got to where we are with it. I mean, I
don't know that there was anything NASCAR could have done differently,
(31:58):
you know, And I always look back at say, right,
what happened? How can we do it? What could they
have done? How can we do? Can you do this
with the jets? If we had done this in the
first quarter, we could have wanted to have done this
and this if we had fired at him, tis sure,
if we had made Greg Williams the head coach, could
we have won this day? You know? I do stuff,
But here you know, after this story broke, I'm going
back and forth going I don't know what NASCAR could
(32:18):
have done. I really don't know how they could have
done to to tamp this down. Uh more, Because even
if you don't report it and you figure it out, well,
why are you keeping this a secret? You found a news,
it's a secret if people have to know about this.
I don't know that there was anything they could have
done and it would have ended the way it did anyway.
For for today with this, I mean, I'm glad, glad
we found out the truth, that's number one thing. But
I just don't know what they could have done. Wow.
(32:39):
But even if there's no FBI charges, they still have
to explain that the rest of the procedurals as we go.
So it'll be curious to see the transparency of NASCAR
going forward. Be sure to catch live editions of The
Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern,
seven pm Pacific. Joining us Now on the Hotline. For
more on this longtime baseball insider, check them out in
(33:03):
his Sports with Friends podcast, The Hall of Justice Podcast.
It is Seth Effort, Seth, what's happening? My friend? How
are you guys? Are you guys as giddy as some
of the people I'm seeing on social media? My goodness,
Oh what what's w Are you gonna be a hater tonight?
But are you telling me they reached an agreement? What
they reached an agreement on that they're all going to
(33:24):
try to stay healthy. That's the agreement. Hey, listen there
you well, let's figure that out to one of the
darkest days for the sport. And people were like, because
we got at least we're gonna try now, but no,
but a new day yesterday. But it's an old day now.
Ian Anderson said it so well, listen, I see where
I see where you're going, Debbie Downer, because you know,
(33:44):
seeing you on Twitter, I get that it's one of
those days for you where it's heard the enthusiasm. Really,
That's all I'm saying is calm down. This was a
dark time. This is something that the owners tried to
pull on the players. The owners are a bunch of liars.
And the fact that they're doing this season in home
ballparks and not in a quarantine situation with no restrictions
(34:07):
by the way, these players can come and go as
they please. Um, good luck, let's let's rock and roll. Wow.
I was gonna say, just so, I was gonna say,
how excited you're gonna because I'm gonna tell you how
into Batman versus Superman. My daughter has been the past
couple of weeks. Oh, that's great. It's a great film. Dark,
it's a dark film, but I think it's great. Did
(34:31):
your daughter know that they're both their first name their
mom's first names are Martha. Yeah, well she found that
out in the middle. Yeah, that's a big plot point. Actually,
you know, I mean spoiler. I made you know. The
one thing I made sure to tell her is thatte listen,
you're gonna hear Daddy talk about a lot of actors
and actresses in the next few years, and who he
likes and who he doesn't. I said, here's one thing
I'm coming around a little bit on Henry Cavill. He's
(34:53):
still very boring, I said, But you watch watch every
Amy Adams movie you possibly can see. She acts exactly
the same in every scene, whether she is getting thrown
from the building or for the Hall of Justice. I
love this. Every week you've been distining. It's great. She
acts exactly the same. She gets dropped, she's falling to
her death, gets caught, put on the ground. I'm good,
(35:15):
I'm good. What's what's next? What's next? Okay? That that's great? Okay,
I mean, but yes, I gave you a little bit
of happy. It's now you gotta be happy for baseball
a bit. You gotta give me a little bit of
baseball happiness. Well, here's here's the thing. Charlie Blackman tested
positives today. No one's talking about that. And I'm not
talking just about positive tests, because yes, if you're positive
and asymptomatic, you get the antibodies. That's a good thing.
(35:38):
There's a lot of positives about this, and yes, sports
is a great thing for people who are still stuck
at home quarantined, especially older people who are dealing with
anxiety other forms of mental illness. There's a lot of
positives here. Don't get me wrong. What I'm saying is
the plan is very hotchpotch, and it's very awkward in
(36:00):
that the owners tried to negotiate with the players and
said that they were hemorrhaging money, but for six years
they had record revenues, and I just I don't understand
how anybody could do that, plus one thousand minor leaguers
were released, So yeah, we have a season. The Blue
Jays still don't know where they're playing yet. That's that's
(36:20):
one of the things, because you can't go into Canada
without isolating for fourteen days. So the Blue Jays may
play in Dunedin, but I don't know. This is my
favorite story of the week since I've last spoken to
you guys. The Phillies closed their facility when eight play
eight people, five players and three executives or three staff
members UH tested positive. And so the Phillies closed their thing,
(36:44):
and the Blue Jays, less than a half an hour
after they saw it on Twitter, closed their facility. Not
because the positive tests. It's because they knew they were
at the same bar. No, Like, this is what I'm saying, Like,
there is gonna be socialization, fraternization, this is what's gonna happen.
The Phillies and the Blue Jays didn't need it. In
(37:06):
clear Water are right next to each other, They're like
twenty minutes away. And a bunch of guys who were
working out from the Blue Jays and they came out
to meet up with the Phillies and what happened. Both
facilities closed in a second. And all I'm saying is
what happened. People in the Northeast are spoiled because you know,
the Mets, your beloved Mets, will play, the Phillies a bunch,
(37:27):
the Yankees a bunch, the Nationals a bust, and they're
gonna be on buses for the most part. What are
the Colorado Rockies doing? What are the Seattle Mariners doing?
And if if people tell me that it's chartered planes,
I know who charters them. Those are Airlines, Delta Services,
half of Major League Baseball, and so are they keeping
those planes clean? What's the plan? And again, in the
(37:50):
NBA they don't have that problem. In the NHL they
don't have that problem. And I'm not rooting for one
sport over another, but don't you agree that the NBA
and the NHL plans just sounds smarter. Well, yeah, because
we haven't heard anything from the Major League Baseball yet. Said,
and this was my point that I was going to
tee you up on until you just took it from me.
(38:10):
What's that? Yeah, Well, tonight should be a big night.
Let's sell let's celebrate base But why did you say
that name, and then Amy Adams comes in. Oh, it's
because it's just like I said, anyway, in an instant,
it doesn't a gnat flying by my face can do that. Uh.
(38:32):
But but my point is that tonight should be a
big night. But tomorrow we really do kind of need
a plan because there's been nothing up until this point.
And that's the easy stuff was, let's figure out what
we're gonna do as far as keeping everybody safe, even
if it was just set some stuff that would distract
you from the labor crap that was going on. All right,
you know, we didn't have a great day labor wise,
he at least protection wise. This is what we're looking at.
(38:55):
This is where but the labor should never been public.
The fact that the owners were crying poverty was a
joke to me, and that was wrong. And some of
the players could have kept their mouth shut too. Uh.
This whole argument was not because the March agreement wasn't
a good one. The March six agreement says for every
(39:17):
game you play, you get your salary, and the owners
said that's so good, So they made the agreement. And
the union didn't write the agreement. The league did, and
the league came out and tried to change it. So
all of this is on the owners. None of this,
to me is on the players. The players, what I
hope they're doing is they're taking this opportunity to entertain us,
(39:37):
to put on a show. Make this about the play
on the field. Please make the play interesting, and please
make contact when you have two strikes. But the thing
that I'm also looking at. But the thing is that
I'm also looking at is I just hope that they
look at this opportunity and say, we have a chance
to do something that is very difficult in a pandemic,
(40:00):
which is we can entertain a lot of people. So
don't blow it by going out carousing with each other
when you're when you're you know, in these road cities,
and especially the western the western part of the country,
because that's all airplanes. You know, Chicago is gonna be
able to drive to play the White Sox, the Brewers.
That's bus trips. But there's very few of those. And
(40:22):
I just think that for those teams that are gonna
be traveling all over the place, all I want is
all the managers, the pitching coaches, the third base coaches,
all the front office executives, everybody who's essential to be
there that's over fifties, sixty and seventy. I just hope
they're safe. Seth Everett our guest here Fox Sports Radio
(40:42):
The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon company from the
Geico Mobile, Geico Studios. Seth longtime baseball insider, the proud
host owner of the Sports with Friends and a Hall
of Justice podcasts. You can find them on Twitter at
Seth Underscore Everett. For that, Seth, I've always been surprised
during this process that we didn't have leaks of actual
documents other than the fight over what was agreed to
(41:06):
at the end of March. Where where was the actual
You know, hey, I've got the Stone tablets to show you,
just so you can stop blaming us. Oh. I was
on Twitch and I was holding up a piece of
paper showing the Cubs. Guy said, called it a ledger.
It's a ledger. I said, no, No, it's probably on
Microsoft Excel. I just think their numbers are on an
Excel file. They could send that to the whole league
(41:28):
in two seconds. Um. But they were screaming that their
numbers are abhorrent and that they're hemorrhaging money. And yes,
if you look at it in an isolated line, this
has not been a good year for anybody. But I
don't think any bar owner that's been struggling to keep
their bar open it cares aboutne For a Major League
(41:48):
Baseball team that had record revenues, they could take and
this is a fact they could take for for pro
rated sixty games. Take the money from NLB Advanced Media
of the last six seasons alone, and that could pay
all the players. So paying the players was never a problem.
What they should have been focusing on is how can
(42:10):
we do this safely? And is this the right time
to be doing this or would it have been better
to go to Florida and Arizona in the fall September, October,
November and play in somewhat of an isolated bubble. We
don't know what's happening with football. We all expect it,
but we're hopeful, and you know, everything's fluid in both
(42:31):
college and and pro football. But the end beating of
the NHL their system they're separating in half by every
ten days because it goes from twenty two to sixteen
to eight to four to two, and so the risk
gets minimized. That's not what baseball is. Baseball just keeps
going and they're going to try to do as much
as they can. And all I'm saying is, if the
(42:53):
players can show me that they are going to take
this very, very seriously, I'd have a lot more enthusiasm.
Seth Evertar guest here Fox Sports Radio, Jason Smith, Mike Harmon. Now,
the thing is with this, Seth is, baseball is made
two of all the team sports, it's the most social
distance friendly, the most COVID nineteen friendly. So I don't
(43:15):
think you're gonna have as much they catch it. Well,
the catchers do what you're saying, No, listen, I think
I think all the batters should have to wear masks
when they bat catcher should wear masks, and the home
plate umpire has to wear a mask. Everything else. If
you want to say, should get those chess protectors back
for this year. Yeah, he's gonna umpire from fifty like
(43:36):
it's a like it's a youth game. He's gonna umpire
from behind the mound down and says we're gonna try
a robot because they can't get COVID, And here it
is the robot umpires. Bring them on. Look at this
way question up trending on Twitter. Hang on, I'm seeing
quest that, Uh so I get So. I think once
they can start, we're going to have baseball because the
(43:59):
the the likelihood of transmitting COVID during a baseball game,
as long as you're social distancing during the the in
between innings, is gonna be much less than a physical
game like the NBA or the NHL and National Football legue.
So I think once they get there, I think everything
is gonna wind up going okay. I hope that's going
to make the players get more into it because it's
(44:20):
gonna be a little bit of time for NBA players
are always gonna wonder. I gotta get tested right after
the game because I was just you know, down low,
you know, banging against these guys for forty eight minutes.
You know, MLB players may not be as skittish. So
I think as long as this does start, then Major
League Baseball has the potential for it for this to
take off. As long as it's taken care of going
(44:40):
up to it basketball, I think it's gonna be battle
all the way through it. Go ahead, as you said,
I emailed my friend at the players Associates, and I
have more friends at the Union right now than I
do at the league. That has changed in the last
six months. I said, because when Trevor Ariza came out,
and again he has all the right in the world
to not want to play, but his situation if there
(45:02):
wasn't COVID nine team would be a very different story.
And so what I would say is just say you
have concerns. Don't tell anybody your personal life story. And
so I said to the union next day, for all
the players that don't want to play, could they just
come up with a standard Derek Jeter style line of
it's just too risky, Just say that. Don't tell me
(45:25):
your reasons why don't. I don't want to know. I
don't want to have any inkling about your personal life
on why you don't want to play. Just tell me
it's too risky, because saying that you're an impending free
agent might not fly for these baseball players. The basketball
may get away with it baseball or not. You can
folem on Twitter at seth underscore Everett. That's at seth
(45:47):
underscore Everett. Make sure you hashtag all your questions to
him with Martha Hall of Justice podcast, Sports with Friends Podcast.
Why don't you I'm gonna stop trying to kill you
because you said that name? Um as always, buddy, we
appreciate it, my friend. We'll talk to you next week.
You got it. Let's talk in the Dodgers press box.
Let's go there. Well, let's talk on. When do we
(46:08):
get on Houl of Justice podcast. Welcome Now, I'll tell
you what you're welcome to come on this month? All right,
very good? Right now, you gott tell me what we're
gonna talk about, and then so I can have I
can have good hot tap. There'll be a certain scene
in a very overrated movie that will be coming up.
All right, very good? Oh men in black when Bernard
Gilki misses the flyball because it's a Mets game. No,
(46:28):
but Kevin Smith did say when I told him about
my relationship with the Mets, Kevin Smith did say, I
was the only guy in Avengers endgame rooting for Thanos.
I was there with you. Let's see if buddy have fun.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven
(46:51):
pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart
radio app. Who's going to have an advantage going into
this sixty game season. Who's gonna be the teams that
have the advantage. I'll tell you exactly who they are,
because it's gonna be just like the NBA. There are
gonna be teams that show up and just say, we
don't really want to play. I I want to stay healthy,
(47:12):
I don't want to get COVID nineteen. I'm gonna show up.
I'm gonna play for a couple of months and then
we're done, and then we're going home. And I'm not
going to buy in emotionally and physically. And that's how
it's gonna go. And there's gonna be many teams to
do that. But the teams that are gonna win are
gonna be the teams that show up and buy in
right away and play without fear and and play like
(47:33):
this is sixty games of the season and everybody's got
a chance to win the World Series. That's who's going
to win it. It It may not be the best team,
because that's that's the thing in baseball. The best teams
don't always win. The best teams get in. The hottest
teams wind up winning that's how it goes in in
in baseball, and you can have a team show up
that may not be that talented, but you know what,
damn it, we are gonna put our pedal to the
(47:55):
floor here and see what we can do for sixty games.
And maybe a team like the Padres gets a couple
of starting pitchers that who knew they were gonna be
able to pitch this well this early, and suddenly you
know they they Instead of a good start for the
Padres where they start out thirty eight and twenty two
and then they fade into being you know, seventy nine
and eighty two, uh, they wind up going thirty eight
twenty two and they're in the playoffs and something other
(48:17):
Podres are making noise because they bought in and they're
there to win. That's who's going to win. Those teams
that are there for that purpose, that can put everything
else out and say we're here to win, no matter
what it's gonna be, We're ready. And then the playoffs
come and obviously you know you were down to the
best teams from there, but you want to know if
the teams are gonna make the playoffs, are gonna move
on and it may not be the best, because even
(48:38):
the best teams may decide, yeah, we're not into it,
even though it's a window open for them to win
a championship. I don't know, because everybody feels differently. Everybody
feels differently about going to UH play this season, about
how they're gonna try to avoid COVID nineteen during it,
and you never know who what's gonna be. But this
is where if I'm a bottom feeder team, I can say,
you know what, this is our chance. This is this
(48:59):
is our chance right here, right now. We're never gonna
win a hundred sixty two games and and get to
the planet. We're not the padres Canna say we're not
gonna beat the Dodgers in a hundred sixty two games,
but could we maybe do it in sixty games? Let's go.
This is our chance. This is where all these bad
teams and I'm not putting the medicine because that's actually
at the seventh best odds to get to the World Series.
But all these bottom feeder teams can say, you know what,
(49:20):
why not? Why not? Why not these sixty games? And
if you have that mental edge, you're gonna win over
a more talented team. That is just they're going through
the motions, young guys hungry on on a dead sprint, right.
I mean that that's why you know what we're talking
before you you bring up a team like the White Sox,
not to go all Homer, but a lot of young
(49:40):
talent that over the course of a full season, right
because we know the minor leagues into the majors and
and how guys wear down going down the stretch, Well,
you don't have that here. Conversely, a team like the
Angels right where perhaps Albert poolh Hols is far more
effective for you in a six ste game season, then
(50:02):
you know the hundred sixty two because you don't have
that wear and tear over his body. And the final
numbers are always solid for pool Holes even as he's
getting older. But there are long stretches of where the
inactivity uh and the numbers dip well, and maybe Mike
Trout actually has some meaningful at bats. How great would
that be for baseball? Uh? As you roll through there
(50:25):
as well. So they're a team. I think that's interesting.
And then you got the Tampa Bay Rays? Why not
them this year? Right there? They're always an eighty eight
ninety two win team very quietly. They've got enough pitching
to make it make it interesting in prospects, just a
matter of whether they're ready. Yeah, and and why not.
I mean, like I said, sixty games is nothing. Sixty
(50:47):
games is absolutely nothing you are talking about. All we
gotta do is play somewhat well. And if we if
we start out good, hey, all right, we can ride
that momentum for a while. You get to the twenty
game mark and you're thinking playoffs already. You already thinking, boy,
how many more seed? How many more games? Like if
we start out fifteen and five, it's okay, you're thinking, oh,
we're we're eight games up on the final, on the
(51:09):
playoff spot right now? Where were this many games up?
How many more games do we? What's our magic number?
Gonna be twenty games and teams are gonna say, okay,
we're here. We're not. And that's also going to be
the point where some teams are gonna go, you know what,
I came. We gave it our our our best shot.
It's not working out for us. We started out eight
and twelve. I'm done. I'm ready to pack it in
and go home. So you have the players who are
(51:30):
gonna show up and and and and and really go
through the motions from the beginning. Then you're gonna have
many teams once you get twenty games in. Are gonna
be that way to perhaps you get a run there too.
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