Hall Of Fame Being Canceled Sends Mixed Messages

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:23):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio. Greetings and welcome inside
the Jason Smith Show with my bis friend Mike Harmon.
First of all, I want to just say this. I mean,
I really feel very strongly about this. Out of the gate.
The Mets can win fifty five games, my Carmen, I

(00:43):
can see the fifty five and five The Mets suck.
I mean, I know the Dodgers top the revised season
win totals with thirty seven today. The Dodgers, a team
that had many experts in Vegas thinks will win the
most games. But I can see the mast Dodgers Yankees papers.
And no, I'm not drinking all tonight, not at all. No, no, no,

(01:06):
no, no no, no, not that's that's sounded like a nice
cheap domestic beer. Good man. No, it's actually a coke,
zero sugar, that's what it is. Well, I don't think
anybody believes you. I'm like other people that I have
known throughout my radio career that actually did drink on
the air. I do not do it rather than just
give the illusion that I'm drinking alcohol on the air.

(01:26):
Sounds like you're trying to take a shot at me.
Or No, whoa you drink before you drink during the shows, allegedly, whoa,
whoa wa, wait a minute, this is big news here
right now. WHOA do you can't You can't just drink
during the shows. I'm not, dude. I literally have a
thirty two cup of coffee and a gallon of water
sitting next to me. No, no, no, But you imply
that you're drinking alcohol during the show. You can't do that.

(01:50):
Theater of the mine, man, just like you snapping snapping,
that can open as we get on the air. Buddy,
I feel like you just stopped and like hit a bottle,
like under your death right now, just in case someone's
looking in the window. Let me just hang on. Uh no,
theater of the mind, there, buddy, there no, no, buddy,
if if I if I was worried about someone walking

(02:11):
past the window. I would have put on pants. I'll
tell you, well, well, now I don't know. I think
you would stay. I think you would stick with the pants.
You would say, hey, everybody does party going on? Yeah,
you know, you'd say there's a party happening. I think
you there is a big party, big party with Jake
Lazer stopping by coming up in a few minutes. As
a big day in the National Football League. We saw

(02:32):
Malcolm Jenkins earlier today say football is non essential and
and look, Malcolm Jenkins is a huge personality, Uh, one
of the big leaders of of the NFL players. And
we found out that National Football League is canceling the
Hall of Fame game. Uh, they're postponing induction ceremonies to
next year. But they also sent out a letter team
saying training camp is gonna start as normal on July.

(02:55):
I was gonna say a lot of sense. Yeah, Malcolm
Jenkins is welcome and entitled to his opinion. As I've
talked about, not only for the play. See everybody talks
about the millionaires and billionaires, extrapolate people think bigger, think
about the global part of what these businesses represent and
why we're worried about who's going to be able to

(03:15):
advertise in the lower bowls of stadiums. There's a much
bigger thing at play. Respect you, Malcolm Jenkins, but on
this one, uh, I'm going to have to vehemently disagree. Well,
he is the one that's putting These are the guys
that are putting their bodies on the line. You and
I aren't. You know, the corporations aren't as they advertise.
But if the corporations don't advertise and all this other

(03:37):
stuff grinds to a halt. So do the paychecks. You
need us to play? You know, I get where they
want to feel safe, and look, this is what's going
on right now. Least they just want to feel safe.
And the NFL has been pushing ahead with all kinds
of we're gonna go on as scripted, which is going
to change at some point because it has to, because

(03:57):
you can't sit here and say we're opening up as
as as we normally are. Oh, but the Hall of
Fame game is canceled and the ceremony is gonna be
next summer, but everything else is fine. We're gonna have
The players are like, okay, you gotta we gotta feel
safe here, and Machael James is basically saying, listen, football
is not essential. I got your attention. Now, how are
we gonna feel safe because we're seeing these positive coronavirus
tests and all these other sports. They're getting ready to

(04:19):
come back to play next week, and uh, you know
you want us to be in camp in a month,
so let's figure something out. Uh. So we will have
more with that, and you and I will have more
on that. Will have more on that with Jake Laser
coming up in about twenty minutes. But today was a
day in which I don't want to say this was
the the big day for to solve everything that's been

(04:41):
going on with NASCAR the past couple of days. But
at least we know now that the next phase of
what happened with Bubba Wallace and the news that was
in his garage that was fashioned in the shape of
a poll rope, at least we saw exactly what we
are dealing with going forward now. As now Scar published
today the first photo of the newstat was hanging in

(05:05):
his garage past weekend at Talladega. There will be no
hate crime obviously, as we heard the past few days. Uh,
it's anyone, because this was a rope pulley that was
put in back at sometime in October. However, when you
look at this rope pulley, it is a newse. I mean,
there's there's no doubt in anybody's mind. NASCAR put the
picture out there. It's a noose. Maybe if it was

(05:28):
done in the shape. If it was done in the
shape of news for some dumb reason, Well that's what
we got to find out now, and that's why, Okay,
I don't think anybody can doubt for a second this
was a noose. Why was it done like this? You
really can't find who put it up. You really can't
find that you found when it went up, you knew
it was sometime in October. How have you not found
the person to do it yet? Have I found the

(05:49):
one person who could at least stand up and say, oh, hey,
that was my fault, bad idea by me and I
it was just a rope, but no one knew anything.
How have you not found it out yet? I mean
that that's that's the next thing, because I don't think anybody,
whatever side of this story you're on, with all this
was a ridiculous overreaction or you know, you look at
the the ends that came out of this, which was
pretty positive for NASCAR in general. Uh, it's a noose

(06:12):
and now, okay, why was this like that? Because no
other garage had a news fixed the way it was.
No one else has seen um wrote polls fixed the
way it is? Why was it fixed that way? And
I'm really surprised that we haven't found the person that
did it. I mean that that's the the FBI's come
in and figured all the other who did it? All
that we don't know really, how do you know when
it was done? But you have you really you can't

(06:32):
ask around and find out who did it at this point.
I mean it's been a few days now. I get
right away where part of it is, Hey, what's our response,
because that's more important because everybody's looking at an askar
going hey, how do how are you responding when a
noose is found in the garage of a black driver
and and NASCAR concentrating their response. Okay, we had the
investigation coming now still we we don't know who did it.
They couldn't find out who did it. That that that

(06:53):
surprised me a little bit, Mike, that they can't find
out yet, well, go back and figure out who occupied
that garage last October one videotapes. Okay, maybe they're scrubbed
months later. Fine, you know it goes back to the
the original press release that they put out with inflammatory
language of the heinous act. And and look, as we've

(07:15):
talked about all week, right, you assume the worst, but
it's one of those. All right, we have to investigate.
And then it's carefully choosing your words, right he Steve
Phelps says, hey, I should have used the word alleged
when put it out as the heinous act, just saying, hey,
we we recognize what this could be, but we've got

(07:35):
to go figure out what it is. Right. I think
that's where we were, or at least that's where I've
been coming from all week long. And now the next
steps are obviously Okay, if the f FBI concluded there's
no crime, you still gotta finish it. Right. You're at
the goal line, all right, it's second and goal from
the one. Uh. You gotta plunge the thing in and

(07:56):
figure out who the hell did is why they fashion
it that way? Right? They said there was eleven ropes,
eleven pulled down, ropes tied in a knot, but just
the one in this formation, uh, in the photo that
we got some nine ten hours ago, And so at
it all up. You know, we know the garages are

(08:18):
determined by points, coincidence, all of these things. Because look,
it took on a life of its own, right, and
while waiting for more information, you had Bubba Walla is
doubling down. And then he came out with the statement
yesterday to say, hey, thanks NASCAR for having my back.
But it was after you know, the the FBI had concluded.

(08:40):
So what what that said was, well, I don't a
hundred percent believe what you're selling. So now NASCAR is
still gotta go clean that up, and the picture is
not gonna do it now. And and here's the thing,
Jason Smith Mike Harmon live from the Geico Studios, I
don't get how. And we we got to this a
little bit last night. NASCAR's response to this story I

(09:03):
don't think could have gone any different than it did
because here's reports of a noose, and as you can
clearly see, it's a noose, right, there is no doubt
it's a news. If you walked into that garage, you
would say what is that? Oh my god, it's a noose. Right,
there's no doubt in anybody's mind. You can see that.
So so the person who found it went back to
Bubba Wallace's rest of his team. Look, there's a noose

(09:24):
in the garage. There is no doubt that was a noose. Right,
there's no way and you could say, well, but no,
that was hanging that way. That is a noose. So
this story gets out, and I don't see how NASCAR
could have done anything more that would have made them
look any better or gotten into it into a different
ending than where we're at right now, where NASCAR has

(09:45):
got to figure things out because if they try to
hide the story while they're investigating it, the optic is
NASCAR found a noose in a black driver's garage and
they're trying to hide it. And can you imagine the
bad publicity NASCAR would get. Let's say they came out
with a statement said, hey, we found an object that
appears to be a noose, but we're were we were
not sure if it is. Yet, oh my god, a

(10:06):
news has found You're not even going to admit it's
a noose. And the backlash there because the time we're
in right now where where when anything race wise comes up,
it's front and center, it's spotlight. It's what's your reaction
to this? Here? And here is something that I don't
know how you react any different. You know that that's
how you act. It's a news, it's a it's in
a black driver's garage. Let's condemn racism. And look, the

(10:28):
beginning of the week, we said this ended as good
as it could with NASCAR United together saying we're not
going to allow racism into our sport. There they're still,
you know, figuring out how how to how to maneuver
past when when they have finally gotten rid of the
Confederate flank. So I don't see how NASCAR could have
done anything that would have avoided this spot simply because
the story gets out and and either of those looks

(10:51):
are really really bad for NASCAR. So I that's where
I don't know where they get to a different spot today,
where Boy, had we done this, had he said an
alleged noose, I mean I don't know that would do,
it still would have been a noos. I mean, if
you say an alleged noose was found, it still would
have been out there that it's a noose, and no
one's gonna go back and say, well, we said alleged.
We said, okay, sometimes alleged can save you on things

(11:14):
and and and we say things purposely that way. But
you're using the phrase if you had said, it's a
rope that allegedly is in the shape of a All right,
well you say alleged news people are okay, it's a
news Well, no, that's not where the alleged should have
been placed in my opinion, right, the the allegations, the
allegations here are whether there was an intentional, you know,

(11:38):
hate crime committed. I I think saying here's the rope
in the shape that it's in, there's no I mean
that is it is what it is. You look at it,
you look at the picture, you come to your conclusion.
It was more just the inflammatory. Obviously, this is there
to intimidate and heinous act or whatever, and it got

(11:58):
you know, the unification of NASCAR. I get that, but
it also becomes this story that it's it's tough to
pull it back now in terms of you put that
out that this is a definitive act as the way
they stated it. So now you've got to find the culprit.

(12:19):
But how do you? I don't know how you get
around it, because the facts are, here's a noose in
the garage of the only black driver on the NASCAR
circuit in the last week in which they've been fighting
a battle over many fans who are happy and unhappy
that they have gotten rid of the Confederate flame. I
don't know that you get around the facts. I don't
know that. I don't know how you get around the
You know that the fact it's like when but you

(12:41):
included the this is a heinous act and everything else,
and you made it an inflammatory thing while you were
still hadn't even begun your investigation. Well you have obviously
we will investigate. You have to denounce found to be this, Yeah,
but you can't. You have to denounce it. You can't
say yeah, if it is, boy, it's awful. But like

(13:01):
I said, just imagine the reaction if you don't announced,
if you don't take a strong stand right away. I mean,
look at the times we're in right now, where where
everything that happens, this is there. There's not a lot
of time to sit here and say we can we
can figure out. We have plenty of time. No, it's well,
we got to react right away. This is pretty explosive,
you know. I I I just don't see how the

(13:21):
the facts we're gonna get out as is. And those
were the facts, and and they're you know, like the
A few good men line. Those are the facts the
case they are undisputed. These are the facts. Now, how
you got there is what we're trying to figure out now.
But that was where people That's what people are gonna
pay attention to. What's the headline black NASCAR driver noose
has found in his garage? Oh my goodness. And that's
a heinous that's a heinous thing to see. It's ay,

(13:43):
I mean, we we can't tolerate racism. And these are
all things that we've talked about, which are good things
to talk about, and you know, but the whole investigation,
I don't see how they could have gotten differently just
because of that reaction. I see where you're going with
with your explanation. Valut you know, to to I'd be
able to to put out certain words and that aren't
trigger words, but this was gonna be the reaction to anybody.

(14:05):
I don't know how you could have gotten out and
it would have been anything. But oh my goodness, look
how big this story is is exploded right away? Well,
because when you put out a statement to that end,
that means you you to me that you're already you
have an inkling of what you're going to find, right uh,
and that you decided it was a heinous act on

(14:28):
its face without a further investigator, and it may have
been right. That might have been someone back in October
that had an issue. And that's what I'm saying, go
back in the log books, who's in that garage back
in October and figure out let's let's go through some
chain of events. Because they haven't been there all the time, right,
I mean the there, they've been in other tracks, they've
been out of season for months and everything else. I

(14:51):
mean there there's still next steps to this. There's a
good act right in the end of you know, NASCAR
drivers and everybody together the solidarity, and I hope that
there's peace in there in terms of Bubba Wallace with
the other drivers and it's not just a show, right,
and that there is you know, togetherness and and believing

(15:12):
that they have the best interest of him his team
and pushing forward, right. I hope that's the case, but
NASCAR is still incumbent upon them to dig a little
deeper as it were. Twitter out, how about a fresca?
Oh good, Mike has swollen down The Jason Smith Show
with Mike Carmen live from the Geico Studios. I will
have more on this as it develops throughout the night.

(15:33):
Phonumber right seven seven on Fox as well. But coming
up next, we got Jay Glazer on the way all
the latest news on football. Are we gonna start beginning
of September? Is it gonna be October? That's coming up next.
This is Fox Sports Radio. Be sure to catch live
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(15:54):
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(16:18):
apply Well, the NFL today had a pretty big day
in which they announced they're canceling the Hall of Fame
game and the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies will get
moved to one same time. They send a note out
to all of the NFL team saying training camp is
gonna start on time end of July, just like always.
Wang on the second joining us now on the hotline,

(16:38):
Doubles makes sense of that NFL on Fox Insider extraordinary.
Nobody better that our buddy Jay Glazer. J what's happening
to my friend? You're asking me to make sense of that? Hey,
the small questions here, Jay, Emmy, come on, Yeah, I
know I play a doctor on TV, but I really
have no idea what I'm talking about. Uh. That seems

(17:04):
to be a bit of a mixed message. The NFL
is sending j with, Okay, we can't play this game
and have the ceremonies, but we're still planning on camp.
Is are they thinking anything or anything coming down the
pipe because we're about a month away now. I don't
know this because I haven't spoken anybody about this, but
you know, perhaps with the Hall of Fame, there's a

(17:25):
lot of elderly Enshrinese, UM and Hall of famers even
people that go there. So maybe again it's um, you know,
these these younger players, when you put them in camp,
it's a little bit different there. I don't know. Ye. Again,
when you're dealing with this virus, things change every day. Um,

(17:46):
there's man, there's no there's no answer that's gonna make
everybody happy, right, no matter what you do re quarantine again,
you shut down to make sure everybody's safe. People are
gonna be upset about the economy. If you open back
up to help the economy, people gonn get upset that
you're not being safe enough, not the virus UM. And
you know, unfortunately to a lot of this has become

(18:06):
political as we know. So there's there's no I guess,
perfect answer that will satisfy everyone seeing I'm watching you
do it perfectly. On one of your most recent tweets,
is you working out going forward and you're wearing a
mask you're working out? Yeah, but however, did you see
the comments below it? First of all, I'm squatting. I'm

(18:27):
missing my freaking out four o five disc right because
I've rupted at four times and people like, why aren't
you going down far enough. Well if you look at
the the captain or Depyt you would have seen or
I can't get down that far. And then I'm wearing
a mask and somebody's like, you're soft wearing a mask. Okay, dude,
I'm freaking squatting four oh five, but I'm soft. I'm

(18:47):
wearing a mask and four or five and I'm fifty
and Jewish, so I got everything against me. It's enough
for me j just driving on the four oh five,
not not the kind of that. I'm going a freaking
help four l five. I'm feeling really lazy about now.
Fun Friday is really fun decision. It's worked out all right, though.

(19:16):
Let me look at you're You're helping lots of people,
and you're still putting us to shame with four oh
five on the rack. Man. That's even our lacker, my
freaking dumb partner at at Umbrako trying to be like,
what are you doing? Cap phrases even you, well, well
you know what you have. You brought a pretty interesting thing.

(19:37):
What would you be doing if you if you didn't
do this, if you weren't an NFL insider, you weren't
you know, unbreakable doing the work you do. Now, Well,
what do you think you'd be doing if you had
and I'll do it to you. I'd be a spelling
be champion. You've been working towards those Emmy's earlier. What
are you talking about? Hey, maybe the maybe the movies

(20:00):
would be star Jake Glazer and you would get the
rock in and he would help you know, just I'll
do you a favor. Yeah, that's not gonna happen, right.
So down at Tampa, I mean a lot of big
news of Tom Brady's still throwing despite the NFL PAS urgency. Uh,
how's Burst feeling about all that? Well, you know it's interesting. Well,

(20:22):
I'm sure Bruce is happy to throw a working out
together exactly, But I am wondering about coaches like like
Bruce and um, some of the older coaches leagueing guys
who've had pre existing health conditions, and man, how are
they going to keep him safe? I started thinking about
that this week. How they gonna keep safe? I think
you canna, you know it's you know, he's had issues,
Uh in the past, we know that, Um, and we've

(20:44):
got to keep guys like that. Say, so, how how's
that gonna happen. I mean, you know, it's it's different
between a guy like him and uh Sean McVeigh or hey,
Sean Payton has already had it. I don't have to
worry about anything, right, So even that, um, you know,
there's there's a lot of questions they're gonna have to
be that they're gonna need to come up, and they're

(21:04):
gonna need to do it together. Like if all of
a sudden, twenty guys going down to the team and
one guy gives it to a nineteen dollars and they
still got to play, where are they getting those other
twenty players from. There's got to be some sort of
pool players that are ready to go out there and
in game shape. So you know, even that they're gonna
have to really think about they're gonna have to thank

(21:24):
some worst case scenarios um and be prepared for that.
And I shouldn't say that worst case because worst case
obviously a different level we're talking about worst um, but
we're you know, they need to think about anything everything
that possibly could happen and be prepared for it and
not be so reactive would be more proactive just in case,

(21:46):
because that that's kind of what we're seeing today with
Malcolm Jenkins doing the interview saying, hey, football is not essential.
We gotta feel safe. And I think this was him
standing up saying all right, it's time for the plan.
How are you guys going to keep us safe? You
want us to go to camp in the month you
have we have to feel safe. We're seeing the plans
in the NBA and Major League Baseball. We need to
see this from you now. So I think the players
are are stepping up before it gets too late. Yeah,

(22:08):
you know, even that though they tell everybody that July
date they're gonna come back, but there are other dates
that were discussed beforehand, and they were going back and forth,
and there was again there's no, there's no this is
a different territory. So some people are like, hey, let's
go back July fifteen and and have like almost that's
their basins of their own tea time, O t a time,

(22:29):
and somebody else, now, let's do July tenth, and we
really have like someone of a week basically, which is
like your offseason workout program, get them, acclimate them, get
get our systems down, and then they kind of get
going back and forth and that and then they just said, okay,
let's do July. So it's there's a lot of The
good thing is that there's a lot of mind for
working on it. The bad thing is again, because there's

(22:51):
no answer that's gonna satisfy everybody. It's okay, which which
these these ideas can work best and keep everybody the safest.
That look, our number one priority needs to be safety.
That's gonna be our number one priority. As much as
I want football back, right and we all do without
a doubt, the number one thing here has got to

(23:13):
be safety. Because the the other hang up in all
this Jay seems to be when when you're trying to
put them back in stadiums state to state, you now
got to go back into the governmental bodies for those
clearances to which is, as we know, moving target on
a day to day basis as well. Absolutely, and again
this this is man, we don't have a precedence for this. Well,

(23:35):
there's nothing we can look back four years ago this happened.
It doesn't like the lock out aren't totally different than that.
And you know, there's a lot going on right now
in this in the world, and and there's a lot
of issues that are way bigger than football. So this
is a different time than we have ever experienced my
lifetime NFL and Fox insider Jay Glazer with us here

(23:55):
on the show, and if it's quite possible, I'm gonna
ask you a more difficult question than than and he
just had to break down. Jay explain what's going on
with the Jets and Jamal Adams. Oh, that's been going
on for a little while, I know. But for the
interesting part was saying, well, these are eight teams, but
I when were willing to get traded to that's that's
now it works. If you're saying I want out, I

(24:16):
want to get traded, well, then that's it. That's what happens.
And when the Giants said, okay, we're gonna trade Odell Beckham,
he didn't get decide where he's gonna go, so that
they made that decision. A lot of times players try
to put it this lay, well, I'm only gonna be
you know, that's you know, there's you know, NBA has
has their contracts are different, but the NFL you can't
dictate where are you gonna go. And as much as

(24:39):
you may be upset with something, you don't want your
bonus getting taken back. You don't want your money getting
taken back. Um. And it's you know, I know last year, Um,
when all that stuff happened, when it was uh, you
know there was I think there's an issue between Jamals
agent and the team. Uh. You put it out there,

(24:59):
but you know, in the end, if much as somebody
says out I want traded, uh, you don't hold all
the cars. Look at the skills and Levan Bella, I
want how I'm out, I'm outside? Well, then let him
sit right. So I kind of didn't understand that part
of Hey, the eight teams, I'm willing to get traded to.

(25:20):
So why am I a favor for somebody who who's
saying I'm done with you guys, I want to be
here anymore? And who I think Jamal Adams is worth it? Yeah,
I do, definitely do. I think he's a difference maker. Um.
But you know it's either you know, unfortunately the NFL,
for as a player, your power is either I'm here,

(25:41):
I'm not. And a lot of times even if you
have I'm gone, you still may not even have you know,
the power you get yourself out. I always thought it
was a motivational tool, tool that it's all eight winning
teams at you know what, I want to be a Jaguar,
send me there now. Hey, But we we had reports
yesterday that part of the reason is Jamal Adams doesn't

(26:01):
get along with Adam Gaze, and Gaze has kind of
lost the locker room. Is is Adam Gaze? Is he
still on good footing with the Jets? I mean we
hear these stories are every now and then up at him. Well,
you hear these stories all the time when you're losing, right,
and Jets have been perennial losers. You know, it's just
over and over and over. Um. When you win, everybody

(26:21):
loves you when you're When you win and your quarterbacks
playing well, suddenly you're not so dumb. You can coach
really well. GM really knows how to find players. You're
scouting the departments amazing. And when when you don't, when
you don't have a quarterback and complaint and you're and
you lose, then all of a sudden, you know you're dumb.
You know what, man, you can't coach, you don't connect

(26:42):
with your players, you can't find players, you don't know
how to scout everybody. It's just man, that's what happens
when you lose. And Jason, being a Jets fan, you well,
you just kind of kicked him. Man. It's just it's
just been, you know, the culture over there, it's been
a it's been a losing culture a long, long long
time for all these teams that have had perennial losing cultures.

(27:04):
They need to look from the top. Owners need to
go what am I doing wrong? What am I doing
wrong here? What what's my contribution to this losing culture?
They can't look at like, oh no, no, it's been
everybody else's phone, and they usually do the usually at
all the last coach to this, the last GM to this,
the last stamp to this. No, usually it starts at
the top and it goes down from there. So you

(27:25):
gotta just like, you know, teams self scout. Owners need
to self scout, right, Executives need to self scout. You
need to realize why is our culture like this? I
think Sam Donald is could be the future. Absolutely. I'm
a big story to Sam Donald believer, big Sam Donald believers.
But that culture over there, man's gotta change. He's on

(27:48):
Twitter at Jake Glazer, that is at Jay Glazer also
Vets and players dot org. Check out all the great
stuff he's doing there as well. Jay has always body appreciated,
my friend. I'll try to feel positive about the Jets,
even though it's kind of hard, but I appreciate everything
you say, my friend, you guys, good great stuff there

(28:09):
from Jay Glazer. Look, you know, and and here's the thing,
is you just hear Jay say. The owner's got to say,
what do you know? What do we what do we do? Well?
Where is the Jets owner? Well, he's in England and
he's been there for four years as President Trump's ambassador.
And and Woody Johnson's brother is running the team. And
it's how can you do it that way? You know
you Woody Johnson used to be an owner. I would say, okay,

(28:29):
you know he spends money. That's good. But now I'm like,
how do you make decisions like this? How do you
hire a head coach and then three days later hire
your GM and expect them to work together? How do
you how do you wind up saying, Oh, I'm gonna
go outside. I don't know who to hire for my
general manager. So I'm gonna go ask Charlie Casserly. You
know who we should go hig. I mean, how do
you run a team that way? And now you see

(28:50):
what's going on right now because you have the owner
in England and as bad as things are with Adam Gaze,
is it really gonna happen? Are they really gonna fire him?
It's Christopher Johnson gonna get to to fire a head
coach or you have to wait to Woody Johnson comes
back at some point, if he comes back in the fall,
if he comes back later. It's I always what do
I say about teams? If you have a bad owner,
you get stuck for a while, and boy, the Jets

(29:11):
have been stuck for a long time. Well, but that's
the larger question. Jason and and I think eventually we
have a big roundtable, we all sit in suits, and
we bring Ja as one of the guys in since
he's connected in this world. Is on the on the whole?
How many of these guys care whether they win or lose,
just you know, with getting ribbed at the annual owners

(29:33):
meeting aside and getting roasted in the newspapers and whatever else.
As long as the bank accounts are increasing, don't you
think there's a handful of these owners that really don't
give a damn Twitter, And how about a Frescup. I
don't know how many Finnish drop of the mic. Yeah,
I mean I don't know how many there are. But
I was waiting for you to say, yeah, my team's

(29:54):
one of them, or or something ethy like that, or
you know, calling out Daniel Snyder or go on down
the line. I mean, yes, I care about winning, but
clearly I haven't changed anything I've done for twenty years.
So do I really right? I mean so, I think
that's just a larger NFL question to be asked as well.
Oh we got more coming up in ninety seconds, but first,

(30:16):
be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven
pm Pacific, Fox Sports Radio The Jason Smith Show with
My best friend Mike Harmen Live from the Geico Studios.
And today it became official, Vince Carter retires from the
NBA after twenty two seasons. We thought this was happening

(30:41):
for remember, they rushed to get him back in the
game when it looked like it was going to be
the last game before coronavirus shut down the NBA, and
Carter gets in hits a big three at the end
of the game as teammates mob and it was an
incredibly positive moment because we thought this was gonna be it.
And Vince Carter makes it official today, twenty two years
in the NBA, he is retiring. Every player that plays

(31:04):
like this and as this kind of an impact has
a legacy in what you remember him for. And Vince
Carter is gonna go down for these three reasons. Uh,
the incredible athleticism that he showed throughout his career. He
was Air Canada, the Slam Dunk contest, what he was
able to do. The longevity of his career, I mean,
twenty two years in the NBA is flipping amazing to

(31:25):
be able to play that long when you lose your
burst at some point and you know what, I can't
just hang on and score six points a game. Not
gonna do it anymore. But he was able to play
and contribute for twenty two years. I mean, those those
two big things. Athleticism, longevity and the flip side of it.
Choosing to attend graduation North Carolina on the day of

(31:46):
Game seven of the Eastern Conference SEMIS in two thousand
and one, I remember being on the air. This is
one of the first big stories I talked about on
the air in in when I first time around here
at Fox Sports Radio, and it was like wildfire. You know,
Vince Carter, who left North Carolina early become a superstar
in the NBA. He had a great series here in
the Eastern Conference Semis against the Sixers, him and Allen

(32:09):
Iverson back and forth. It was an amazing series, and
he decided he wanted to go because he had earned
his credits to finally graduate from North Carolina. Well, North
Carolina ceremony was on the morning of Game seven of
the Eastern Conference Semis, and this was a story leading
up to it for a few days and why is
Vince Carter doing this? Why is he going? He goes

(32:30):
to North Carolina, He's there for about twenty minutes and
the big video of him holding up his diploma in
the crowd with all the the other graduates. Then he
flies back to the game, gets there five hours before
tip off, has a bad game shoot six for nineteen
potentially has that has the game winning shot that misses,
and the Raptors lose in Game seven of the East Semis.

(32:52):
The Sixers go on to the Eastern Conference Finals, they
would win and go onto the NBA Finals. And Vince Carter,
in many respects and many aspects, has never been forgiven
for that decision. And I know that he has gone
on record in the past. You're saying I would do
it again. I would do it just like that. I'd
go back and if I made that shot, nobody would
think anything more and would anythink about it. But the

(33:15):
thing is, I go back and say, well, you're you're
kind of looking back at and saying, well, I missed
the shot anyway, and you know it's okay. I went
and I went to do this graduation. You potentially put
a lot of stuff at risk. I mean, I know
you want to graduate from North Carolina, but the Toronto
Raptors with a team of paying you a lot of money.
You you owed it to your teammates to to not
have this become a big story. You could have gone

(33:37):
to any graduation it wasn't your graduation class that was graduating.
You could have just gone because you got your diploma.
And this was the first time when I saw Vin
car I said, boy, this guy is supposed to be
a star and he's not not being a leader. Because
the Raptors who were paying him, and you really think
they want him to fly somewhere and then whatever it is,
whatever journey you have to make to come back and

(33:58):
not just taken easy, be ready, get to the court
and have a big day. He even says it was
a very taxing day for him and he had a
horrible Game seven, and the Raptors could have gone on
to win. The Raptors are paying them at that point.
And I really can't believe that nobody stepped in and said, Vince,
this is a bad idea. All right, I get you
want to do this, but man, this is a really
bad idea. I figured one of these veteran players, like

(34:20):
a Dell Curry or Charles Oakley could have come and
put their arm around and especially Oakley, Uh, dude, come on,
if you want the intimidation factor, I mean, great example,
go back finishing degrees. That's what I argue all the time. Yeah.
But oak even said after at Vince Carter had not
gone a graduation, the Raptors would have won. He actually

(34:41):
said that if he doesn't go. But look, he didn't
take it out on him. I mean he didn't go
after like like he would have a James Dolan situation,
but James Dolan and one act versus a lifetime. I mean,
there's all sorts of things that go on there. But yeah,
with Vince Carter, it's he's gonna he made the Raptors cool, right,

(35:02):
not just Jurassic Park. He made that logo and people
still go back and buy a ton of it. Uh.
The fact that he played for eight teams overall, the longevity,
as you mentioned, is there. But you think of the
pogo stick that he was his first couple of years
in the league, and just watching his athleticism. Uh. But

(35:23):
in a day and age, look, what are we talking
about right now? Players deciding whether they want to go
into a bubble and how important sports are to them.
Here's a guy that that chose a graduation, could have
done at any time, could have waited until the next quarter. Uh,
and they end up throwing away an opportunity to advance. Uh.
It really shocks me. It shocks me that a bigger

(35:45):
decision wasn't made. That of course, his teammates were gonna say, yeah,
we're fine with it. Dude, to the start of the team,
what are we gonna say? No? I mean, then I
look like I'm anti education, But I mean he could
have gone, He could have gone and done it anytime,
but he's got to do it the morning of Game seven,
and who knows what kind of what he did, how
bad were his legs? You know, after you're flying and
coming back and trying to do it as a bad

(36:06):
and nineteen years later, only there were zoom calls. Big
story out of the NFL. Next on Fox, be sure
to catch live editions of The Jason Smith Show with
Mike Harman weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific
on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app
Fox Sports Radio. The Jason Smith Show with my bist

(36:28):
friend Mike Harmen Yeah, live from the Geico Studios. Thanks
to Jake Glazer for stopping by last hour. We'll get
it up for you as soon as we can on
Fox Sports Radio on Twitter. Also, don't forget our new
episode of Special Teams is up Mike and I. Every
week we take a look back at a specific year

(36:48):
in sports and one of the Special Teams are two
of the special teams that had big years, and we're
on a run right now. We're looking back at very
famous NFL games of the past. Five years and this
week we look back at the the day the Greatest
Show on Turf officially closed, the huge double overtime playoff
game between the Panthers and the Rams, ending in a

(37:09):
very shocking fashion with a head coaching decision I still
don't understand till this day that actually allowed the Panthers
to win that game. We get into a lot of that,
including Mike Martz, Mark Bolger, Jake Delone. A really fun time,
great game went one of the best of the past
twenty years in the NFL. Uh. The day the Greatest
Show on Turf officially closed, Well, I had a twenty

(37:32):
two minute version of American Pie that I did for that,
you know, Greatest Show on Turf. So you gotta you
gotta tune Injues for that. Yeah, that's a that was.
That was a very long version of American Pie. Well
stand I mean there were a lot of drives and
a lot of big critical moments that you really have
to explain. Yeah, well, I mean it what one of Look,

(37:53):
everyone we do is fun, but certain uh, certain big
games like this are are just I'll have a little
bit more juice to especially when you get down to
the decision that was made at the end of the
fourth quarter that really enabled the Panthers to win the game.
And I can't believe Mike Marts actually was still employed
as the head coach after the game was over. I
mean really, it was that shocking of a decision he

(38:15):
made that allowed the Panthers a chance to win the game.
Really amazing. So anyway, with Mike Marts, you can find
that on basically wherever you listen to podcasts, you go
to iTunes, uh I, heart radio app wherever you listen
get their listen. If you like it, rate us, give
us five stars. If you hate it, give us five stars. Anyway,

(38:35):
we won't tell anybody. But speaking of the NFL, Uh,
today was a very weird day. Well, today is a
weird day in general. As you're gonna hear from a
sound bite in a couple of minutes. Uh, you had
Malcolm Jenkins, who is Look, he is one of the
players in the NFL that when he speaks, everybody pays attention.
He has that kind of cashe that kind of leadership. Uh.

(38:58):
As he's been a member of the NFL Players Association
Executive Committee for a while now. He went on CNN
earlier today now, remember Malcolm Jenkins in addition to playing
in the NFL, He's gonna be on CNN and he
went on to say that he believes football is non
essential and is it something that should be played. That's
what he threw out there on CNN. All right, So

(39:20):
now you have Malcolm Jenkins saying, all right, I don't
know if we should play the games because football is
not essential. Uh. The same day, the NFL decides to
cancel the Hall of Fame game it's coming up. It's
it's gonna be the first game. NFL says it's not
safe enough to play that, and they've also postponed the
Hall of Fame induction ceremonies for the players and coaches
going in to one. Jay Glazer explained to us last

(39:44):
hour on the show. Look, there's a lot of older
coaches who were there Hall of Fame weekend. The NFL
said let's just do the safe thing and let's move it. So,
you know, our buddy Jimmy Johnson basically said, Hey, I
got an extra year to write my speech. Yeah, all
kinds of time. That's been all the speeches. Next year,
every's gonna be hot. You met, just they're sitting there
fanning themselves, going can we finish with these speeches there?
So I had to wait another year. So I had

(40:06):
plenty of time with the quarantine to write a few
more pages. Here's a there's a monologue that I wrote
for a play back when I was eighteen. I thought
I'd delivered to you now, Like when when Charlie she
went on his Torpedo of Truth tour and he just
started playing snippets of old movies and people were so
mad they spent like on a ticket. He was like, Hey,

(40:29):
here's what movie I do with Emilio listems that never
really saw the light of day. Oh great, thanks for
not like to see this for a while. But this
is a really weird day the NFL. That look, they
canceled the Hall of Fame game. They postponed the inductions,
and they also say that, well, training camps are opening
on time. They sent a letter out to all the
NFL teams. Right now July or thereabouts is when we

(40:53):
expect training camps to open. So I hang on a second.
The NFL was saying, hey, we can't play the Hall
of Fame game, we can't have the ceremonies, but we
still want camp to open on July. You know what,
just at some point the NFL is going to have
to realize we can't open on time. Malcolm Jenkins is saying,
we need answers on safety, and look at these other

(41:13):
sports with way less players involved, and they're winding up
having positive coronavirus tests and we don't know if they
could even go play. We're seeing it in baseball, we're
seeing it in the NBA. Not that this is the
NFL's fault, but these are teams with twelve to fifteen
guys I gotta worry about. We have thirty two teams
more than anybody with fifty to a hundred guys. We

(41:35):
gotta worry about. And it's not on the it's not
on the teams, but as you see, players are not
social distancing the right way, as this is why they're
coming down with coronavirus. We're seeing in all kinds of
different leagues, from the Women's NWSL too, Buddy healed yours,
you know, and in Major League Baseball the Phillies they
all went out as well. So you're seeing you can't
trust the players to really do it themselves. Right now

(41:56):
and now, Malcolm Jenkins is saying, hey, wait a minute,
we gotta we gotta like a hundred I've showing up
and then we got media, we got coaches. We need
to know there's a plan. The NFL is not going
to be able to have a plan in place in
a month. They're not going to look. Jay Glazer has said, listen,
the the NFL is not dealt with anything like this ever,
and that's what he's been saying for the last couple
of weeks. The NFL doesn't have a plan. I don't

(42:18):
know that you can have a plan, but I don't
think the NFL is going to have something in the
next month that's gonna tell everybody it's safe to come.
Because we're seeing coronavirus cases spike across the country. We're
seeing half the states. It's going up because no one
wants to wear a mask and no one wants a
social distance in a lot of places, which is ridiculously dumb,
but this is what's happening. And so now the players

(42:40):
are gonna say, can we really be safe? At some point,
the NFL is going to say, all right, October fifteen,
mid October, that's gonna be our date. We're gonna wait
people are gonna report early part of September rather than
the end of July. We're gonna get through this time,
and we're also gonna give other leagues a chance to
show us the way, because if you report later, give
the NBA and Major League Baseball time you can see

(43:02):
some of their games and how they're dealing with those
at those situations. Because if the NFL, if they all
report the end of July, well, we're only gonna have
like a couple of MLB games at that point. We're
barely We're not going to still have any NBA games.
So how are they gonna be able to see what
these other sports are doing. They're not gonna be able to.
So at some point I think they're gonna have to
just say, listen, we're going to mid October, which is

(43:23):
I've said, is where they're gonna wind up going all along. Yeah,
I think some of it. You know, we've talked about
the owners potentially wanting to take that first four week
block and move it to the back of the season,
something you and I have opined about for going on
a couple of months now of wondering how this all
comes to play. I have to believe that you've got
NFL physicians and team doctors working in each state, because

(43:48):
I brought it up with Ja, and I think that's
the one of the things that triple underscore here is
you know, you've got to go back through the governments
of each state. And that's really gonna be a pain
in the ass for one, since they change their tune
to try to figure out which way the winds blowing
in terms of their pocket popularity and re election campaigns. Right.

(44:09):
I mean that that's a very real thing that you
have to navigate, uh, and the decision making right As
for the positive coronavirus tests, well, you had large gatherings
for weeks, right, So that's gonna contribute to a degree.
And then you've got folks just deciding I've got to
go to a bar, uh blow off some steam. So

(44:29):
you've got a lot of things converging at once. So
you know, folks that are wringing their hands just talking
about reopening as a general term, I think there's a
lot of component parts to it that need to be
parsed out. But with the NFL, I have to believe
that there's a lot of planning in place. Knowing that

(44:51):
their their sport far more violent and physical. Look, basketball
is a physical sport. We get that. Baseball physical individually,
and not is much opportunity for contact. You really just
have to worry about the catcher and the homeplate umpire
are your two most at risk guys right as people
come through, so making sure they're cleared. I actually I

(45:13):
got one of those fourhead thermometers showing up tomorrow Smith,
So I'm gonna come to your house and I'm gonna
scan you before every show to make sure you're good.
But the reality is they recognize the billions of dollars
or at stakes. So nobody's entering this lightly. And I'm
sure there are a bunch of different plans in place.
We just haven't been made privy to him. Why because

(45:34):
they haven't had too yet. Malcolm Jenkins going across television
landscape doing the uh interview he did with Taylor Rooks
earlier today. Well, now now he's raising his hand and
you know the it's going to force the issue a
little bit. And now you actually postponed events, postponing the
Hall of Fame game, as a number of the Steelers
predicted last week. But the fact that you did it

(45:58):
all right, you've you've shown that you've got to have
other plans in place. Please give them to your adoring
public so we can well scrutinize but also know and
trust that you're working towards that end. Do you bring
in some of those fringe guys for a workout of
a week to get your last five roster spots set

(46:18):
without having to bring everybody to camp at the same time.
Is that a potential for you? There? Is it larger
roster sizes or the taxi squad that practices in their
own mini bubble somewhere else? See now I added mini
bubbles bubble, Yeah, the bubble with the bubble. So here's
the third quarterback working out with this group over here.

(46:39):
Ready if they get called up kind of like a
net and you know, a national reserve for the National
Football League, a whole other way of thinking about this,
but being smart and careful along the way. I just
don't see the math working. I don't see how the
math of upwards of a hundred players is gonna work

(46:59):
when and the NBA is gonna have trouble bringing healthy
people because you just need one per team and too,
and and and if that happens, Oh, I didn't know
I had it or I'm asymptomatic. You infect a couple
of other players, that's all you need. And that's like
I said, that's twelve or fifteen. This is anywhere from
fifty to a hundred. I mean, I'm sure they'll bring
less players to camp, and maybe they bring but still

(47:20):
you're bringing seventy five. And even if you're bringing just
the people you like, you're you're bringing fifty. I I
don't see where the math is going to be, where
it's gonna be safe enough, because it's we've seen this
big spike now because like I said, because there's mass controversy,
people don't want a social distance safely and that's just crazy.
And that you'll you'll hear, you'll hear the the SoundBite

(47:41):
that will you'll remember for the rest of the show
tonight coming up in a few minutes. But I I
don't see how that is going to work, just in
in knowing where we are headed with this coronavirus. We're
seeing things spike, and luckily we are seeing the death
rates go down, we're seeing hospitalizations go up, we're seeing
cases go up, and then that means you're gonna wind

(48:02):
up seeing a spike in deaths as well at some point.
So that's where we're going. I mean, it's not like suddenly, okay, tomorrow,
we can change it. We can reverse it the next month.
That's going to be the next month, the summer of
coronavirus and how it is, you know, is returned in
other states, when when some states have gotten rid of it,
when the other countries in the world have all done
what they've needed to do to try to tamp it down,

(48:25):
and we're still dealing with it. I I don't see
the math that saying all these players and we're going
to send everybody to camp while this is going on,
when right now guys can't even work out together. You know,
Alabama had COVID nineteen cases, Cleansing hat COVID nineteen cases,
Oklahoma State, everywhere everywhere the players are getting together just
lift weights COVID nineteen So I don't see where that

(48:47):
math is gonna work. And maybe it works later on
in the fall, because the last thing football wants to
do is start and stop. All right, that's the one
thing you if you want to start, you can't start
and stop. You want to start and say we're going
and if we're stopping, we're stopping because we can't play
this season and it's done. We don't want to say, Okay,
we're here and now we're halting and we're seeing when

(49:07):
we can start again. I mean, nobody wants that because
that's the that's the the the strategy of the league
that really doesn't know what kind of what they want
to do, and that doesn't build confidence in everybody who
was associated with it that we're gonna be able to play.
So I look, at some point the NFL is gonna
have to just bite the bullet and say, all right,
we can't do it now. We just we just can't.
Hopefully we can do it later. And we spend the

(49:29):
next month and a half telling players you have to
stay safe, you have to be able to do make
smart decisions and not go out and not go play
basketball in the men's league in Oklahoma like Buddy Heal did.
You gotta be able to do do smart things. If
you're gonna play, this is your livelihood. Don't you want
to get paid? And I can't believe that's where the
players are at. I would say, listen, you see this,

(49:50):
this is your salary, this is your paycheck right if
we play the whole NFL season, This is yours. Now
let's go to the next slide. Here's the next slide.
This is what your paychecks to look like if we
only play half the season. See that right there, we
got stuff like pro rated. Don't worry about it. Talk
to Morris Smith. That's okay. Checking here. Here's what your
paychecks will look like if we can't play. See that,
see that? Look all we gotta see those tiny numbers

(50:11):
right there. That's your paycheck. If I was NFL teams,
I would be telling players that that, say, this is
what's gonna happen if you're not careful, because look at
where the other leagues are. Everybody thought they were gonna
be careful and do it. And clearly it's hard to
trust the players to make that decision. And now seventy
five people in a month to get getting together in
thirty two different cities. I'd love for the math to work,

(50:32):
but I don't think it will. And I think it's
gonna wind up being the smart decision to say we're
gonna play mid October. It's it's okay, we come to
camping in September, when hopefully we we've seen we've been
able to get past this now and give you another
couple of months to get through it, and then we
can figure out a better way and we have more
time to plan and it becomes a smarter thing for
us to do. Yeah, going back for a couple of

(50:54):
months ago, folks were suggesting in their blocks, hey have
the COVID nine team party. So you wonder how many
teams have gotten together, going all right, you guys are good, right, Well,
we're all just gonna stay here in this bubble and
let's go to work. And we've mentioned it in passing
and you know, it's kind of a joke, kind of
not uh you know, in terms of recurrences and antibodies

(51:14):
and all those things, false positives on tests just go
on down the line. There's a million things there. But
the players to this point in all sports, right, they
recovered nicely, tired, maybe a bit uncomfortable for a little bit.
And it's not to dismiss it at all, but it
goes to the question of once you get them under

(51:35):
your care, much like we were talking about with Bill Parcels, right,
I worry about him those last couple of weeks before
I get him in camp and once I've got them,
then we're good. I'm wondering if that isn't part of
the philosophy here of Hey, let's just go with the
normal dates. That way, we get everybody in and just
get to work. And if we lose a couple of
preseason games off it, so be it. But let's get

(51:58):
him in and get him tested and get things rolling.
Twitter at how about a FRESC Cup Mike at Swollen
Dome The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon. Auto Zone
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(52:19):
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That sound we promised you you're gonna hear it, I mean, listen,
what maybe maybe the NFL will postpone to October in

(52:40):
the next few minutes because they listen to the show. Uh,
we have that plus more of our surprise World Series teams.
We've got a few more for you after the couple
we gave you last night. This is Fox Sports Radio.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven
pm Pacific Fox Sports Radio The Jason Smith with My

(53:00):
Carmen Live from the Geico Studios. And we have our
surprise World Series teams coming up in a couple of minutes.
But because we promised this for you, you probably saw
this today that there are a group of Florida residents
who are really furious over West Palm Beach or Palm
Beach County making it mandatory for people to wear face

(53:21):
mats in the wake of the big surge in coronavirus cases.
And we've seen this over the course of the past
couple of weeks. States that opened up early obviously didn't
open up the right way. You had people who are
doing it carelessly, and so we have an uptick in
COVID nineteen when we should be batting it away, we
should be almost nearing the end of it. Instead half

(53:43):
the states we've seen it go up because, as I've said,
and it's sports and it's outside of sports. The future
of sports and the country, as far as dealing with coronavirus,
is on the shoulders of people in their twenties and
thirties making smart decisions and not exposing themselves of RONA
virus and thinking that, Okay, maybe tonight's not the night

(54:05):
to go out to a bar or to a party somewhere,
or to make sure if I do, I wear a mask.
Enough people aren't doing it, and every other country in
the world is seeing that the cases go down. We're
not do We should be able to open up. We
should be opened up, but people don't want to wear
masks when masks are gonna go so far towards making
sure you are safe, not having droplets breathed on you

(54:26):
by anyone. But yet there's so many people who just
think that you're telling me to wear a mask, you're
taking away my freedom. And there is nobody better to
talk about then this woman whose name is Whitney, who
identified herself earlier today at a Palm Beach County public
Comments session of the hearing in which they talked about

(54:47):
why we want people to wear masks, why it's mandatory
in public. Well, Whitney doesn't want to. And here's why
I don't wear a mask, for the same reason I
don't underwear. Underwear. Things got to breathe. No, gosh, she's
wearing jeans, man, nothing breathing. Come on now, No, No,
denim doesn't breathe as well as you think of that. No,

(55:09):
dNaM may Worth unless she was wearing some really elaborate
leggings there that and jaggings. But I didn't look too
closely as I did. I did, I had to get
that in. Yeah, I mean cases are up. We know,
hospitalizations in some areas are up, and you know the
death count is low, right, I mean we we at

(55:29):
least have that uh still in the back pocket. But
is as we're watching the numbers rise and we're seeing
different states, Texas in particular. Right, you got the astros
want to make sure we can get the stadium open
to bring folks in. Meanwhile, Governor saying, hey, hey, we
will shut this down, kind of like when you'd be

(55:51):
going somewhere as a kid. Hey, we're not gonna go
where I'm gonna turn this car around, all right. Not
it didn't happen as much when I was a kid,
but I have used that if actively a number of
times in my life. Um, but that's where we're at
in a couple of states of Hey, we may need
to turn this thing and and stop the opening and
put the restaurants back back in mothballs. So stop it. Listen,

(56:16):
it's it's not political. Masks protect you, and not only that,
they protect other people from getting sick. You don't know
what other people's immune systems are like. You don't look
people who fall victim to coronavirus. We find if they
have underlying medical conditions that were never diagnosed. You don't know.
I I don't know how wearing masks became politicized that

(56:39):
freedom is being lost, but wearing that this is about
keeping people safe. All right. There's there's women from this
meeting today. One woman said that all of you are
practicing the devil's law. One of you that are obeying
the devil's law are going to be arrested. It's the
devil's law. It's it's people like Dr Anthony Fauci saying
where masks. It's the CDC saying just be smart and live.

(57:02):
I understand the frustration. I get it, but I I don't.
But the whole mask thing, it should be. It's not
gonna wear masks forever. It's you got to wear masks
for a little bit whilst everybody can stay safe. But
here's what I'm gonna say, Mike, let me, let me,
let me just finish with this part before we get
to the World Series teams. I'm going to throw this
out there as to why everybody should wear masks, even

(57:23):
if you disagree with it, and think, all right, let's
just say for a second, people who believe that wearing
masks are not needed a right, right, Let's just say
they're right. Right, Let's just say they're right, and the
death rates stay low with coronavirus and you get you
get coronavirus and you recover. Because that's what that that's
what most people who don't want to do and say,
if I get sick, I'll recover, I'll get out. We

(57:44):
have to keep the economy going alright, so shocking, I'm
gonna say, let's imagine you're right about that, right. You
want the United States to open, you want to be
able to have your freedoms and go where you want
and do what you want. Don't you understand that when
the whole reason that you can't do it is because
coronavirus cases are going up because you're not wearing a mask.

(58:06):
I mean, that's why people who are infecting other people
if you're not wearing a mask and you're not helping.
So if you want the state to open, if you
want the country to open, wear masks a little while
and then you won't have to, but let's wear it
for a little while longer so everybody can be safe.
Because the more people that don't wear masks, the more
coronavirus cases are gonna go up. And you know what,
governments are gonna shut down cities and shut down states

(58:28):
again and say, okay, we're back to self isolation, we're
back to quarantine life because clearly we opened up too
early and we can't get people to follow the rules.
So the people who are complaining about why we shouldn't
have to wear a masks, they should understand that because
they don't, and coronavirus cases go up, the decisions are
going to be made above them to close the states

(58:49):
back down. So they're they're the ones that are responsible
for actually having the reopenings shut down or slowed because
of it. So just just really, even if you're right,
even if you're writing and in the deaths are going down,
and and and and young people, we're gonna build a
herd immunity to it. When the cases go up, states
get shut down. It's it's that. It's that simple, no

(59:11):
matter what you see everywhere else. When cases go up,
states get shut down and businesses get shut down. So
if you wear a mask, eventually, very soon we'll be
able to do that and you don't have to worry
about it. But for the meantime, if you don't believe
in it, and you're someone that's transmitting this or you're
out there and because you're not wearing a mask, and
many of people who this is how you give it
to other people. You're not wearing mask, you're breathing on somebody,

(59:33):
you're in close quarters with someone. This is how it spreads.
So I hope that people who have that philosophy of
it just think, oh, yeah, this is kind of why
it's spreading and why we're not getting the state's reopening.
So that that that that was that was my big
message I wanted to put out there right there, Well,
this is one where we need a p s A
from a number of prominent athletes because influencers and all

(59:57):
that fun stuff. Because if it becomes you a against
the government, guess what, you're not going to convince people, right.
But if it's says, hey, you don't get your sports
back as you like it. Uh and your giant novelty
bobble head of player X as part of a series
this year, because we can't open up, maybe you can
appeal to that part of people's sensibilities. You know. Look,

(01:00:19):
I have been banging the drums since we started this
that if you can have a lot of these big
lobbying businesses open to get done, get stuff done, so
should these other folks. But again, smartly intelligently. Science. Science
is not the devil. Science is not the problem. This
isn't you know, Mrs Boucher and foods ball is the

(01:00:42):
devil type of thing. Man, it's the just use your brains,
take care of yourselves, take care of others, you know,
the old We've been talking about empathy the last couple
of weeks as related to our relational race relations in
this in this country and in this world. Then think
about it the other the other way, right, think, think

(01:01:03):
about this empathy in a whole other way of I
don't want to get anybody else sick, and I want
don't want them getting my grandma sick, and and so on.
And look now it's preaching and and and I don't
want it. It's a divisive uh and and for a
lot of negative for many, just bringing the topic up
is negativity. But it's part of the process here of

(01:01:25):
you want industry back, you want jobs back, you want
all this together. You need to be able to to
flip the switch. And yes, I understand you want you
want to fight with government about stuff and freedoms and
and different parts of our processes, procedures and applications. It
just let's let's think about this a little bit, let's
be smart about it, and damn it, you know, just

(01:01:49):
just take care of yourselves. I mean, that's really the
bottom line. Did the rest of your life you don't
go through Well, I'm not going to die, but I'm
gonna do this anyway. That's not how anybody op notes
what you know. I can really mess myself up. I've
never been on a skateboard before. But you know that
thing that those guys built that half pike. Let me go.

(01:02:09):
You want some you want a helmet, you want some
pat not a helt with it. I mean, I'm not
gonna die, so let's go. No. But but that's the
thing is that I don't want to wear a mess.
That means when you go bike riding, you don't wear
a helmet. That means when you're get in a car,
you don't put on a seatbelt. No. I mean that
that's the same philosophy. And and I don't know how
this turned into oh, you're taking away my freedom, I

(01:02:31):
take it away my I I failed to see where
that leap was made. And and uh, and when you
want to be able to all want to get back
to normal? Alright, we we all do we all. I
I understand everybody. I understand being cooped up. I understand
being at home. I understand wanted to get out and
and and keeping the economy going and getting back to where.

(01:02:51):
I understand all of this. But it's not like the
coronavirus is gonna go away just because it's there's things
we want to do, you know. It's it's not a
relationship where I would really like to get married. And
I got to convince my boyfriend or girlfriend to get married.
And maybe they don't want to, but if I can
convince them of it, they'll do what I want to do.
You can't convince the coronavirus to go away or to

(01:03:12):
stay away from you just because you want to be
able to go out and go out to a bar
and not have to wear a mask, and and and
not social distance. That's not how it works, and and
and and and I just I want people to realize
that that that that masks are the way to safety,
are the way to things opening up. If you want
businesses to open, wear a mask, all right? Is it

(01:03:32):
really that big a deal? Is what? What freedom is
being taken away from you having to wear a mask?
I don't understand. It's about being smart and being safe.
And I want everybody to be smart and safe. I
want the world to go back to the way it is.
I want I want everything or as close to normal
as to what what the never the new normal is
gonna be. I want all of these things. I know
you want these things, and I and I want the
same things that everybody else does. But to sit here

(01:03:54):
and say you're you're taking away from my freedom and no,
it's just being safe and making us smart decision. Other
countries are laughing at us. They're like, can you countries
aren't lighten us in man, I want to do a
European vacation and stand out tower. I can't do it. No. No.
Other countries are saying we can't let people in the
United States now because they they there's some reason. They

(01:04:15):
can't social distance, they can't wear masks, they can't figure
this out. I mean, really, we should be on the
other side of this by now. We should be at
the point where the summers here and you see the
cases should be in. In many states they're going down
and it's awesome. But in many states they're going up
because of the opening too early and looking out. I'll
trace it back to most likely, uh, Memorial Day weekend
when that was kind of the weekend where people said, okay,

(01:04:37):
you no, I'm gonna go out and do things, and
people just didn't do it the smart way. Because if
people want out and did it the smart way, we
would we wouldn't have these cases. We would we wouldn't
be doing it. Wash your hands, wear a mask, and
social distance. That's not a lot to ask for now.
This is something where we're talking about and trying to
survive and go forward as as a as a species,
as as as humans and and everybody else can do it,

(01:04:58):
but we can't. You It's it's it's really just baffles me.
And for every day we have a good day when
I see great things going on in in different aspects
of life, there's sometimes I see stories like this and
I go, wow, we're really we're we're gonna be living
with COVID nineteen forever. We're gon We're good. We're gonna
because people can't can't just do the smart thing for
a couple more months and they can't do it. I mean,

(01:05:20):
it's really, it really baffles me that this is where
we're at. Just be smart, Just go out, open up.
I want everything. Just please be smart about things and
respect other people's uh freedoms. If you don't want to
wear a mask, and because no one can really make you,
then just stay away from other people who are wearing masks,
all right, stay away from them because obviously you want
to be able to to allow them to have freedoms too,

(01:05:43):
Because that's really why the whole thing is about wearing masks.
If you're not wearing it, you can give it to somebody.
You can also get it, but you can give it
to somebody else. It's not about you where I can
go out and say I can avoid X and X
and Y disease and I can make my own thing. No,
you're in it. We're gonna big melting pot together, and
and you being out there not practicing the right social

(01:06:05):
distancing UH practices and tenants is going to affect other people.
And there's no isolation of it where I can avoid
it because I'm gonna do my own thing. Now, it
doesn't work that way. Now, here's the biggest thing you're
forgetting though. We have the smartest audience in all of
sports talk radio. So preaching at them, I mean, they're
already doing this. They're they're already doing the right thing

(01:06:28):
because they want to get back to sports twitter at
How about a fresca Mike gets Swollen done The Jason
Smith Show with Mike Carmen live from the Geico Studios.
We got more coming up in nineties seconds, but first
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

(01:06:49):
Radio app Fox Sports Radio, The Jason Smith Show with
my best friend Mike Harmon Live from the Geico Studios,
and last night we gave you a couple of surprise
teams that could win the World Series because they can
take advantage of the shorter format of sixty games. These
are teams that, over the course of a hundred and

(01:07:09):
sixty two games might not be able to stand up
with everybody else, but sixty games can be a big equalizer.
These are some teams that you are going to see
in the back half of the odds on favorites to
win the World Series, Teams outside of the top twelve,
top fift team. Last night, we gave you some teams.

(01:07:31):
We gave you. I gave you the Padres, might gave
you the Rangers. It was it was a really I
gave you these. I gave you the Angels. These are
teams that can take advantage of the short season for
different reasons. A couple more teams I wouldn't be surprised
to see them win the World Series because of the
short season. The Cincinnati Reds alright, the red spent money

(01:07:53):
They're on the way up, right, Castellanos, Mustakis, Wade, Miley,
Pedro stroke. But the big thing about the Reds is
their big three starting pitchers can carry them through this season.
Night Sunny Gray, Luis Castillo, Trevor Bauer. I can see
them dominate in a short season. All right, They're gonna
be better anyway, And and the Reds are finally after

(01:08:14):
years of not being very good, are on the way up.
The NL Central is also not as good as it
was in the years past. But I can see the
Reds winning the division because you you talk about having
a big three like this in great Castillo and Bauer,
and suddenly they're a team that gets in, You get
into the playoffs, and you can trot these three guys out.
There's no weak spots I can set over the course

(01:08:35):
of his hundred sixty two games with the Reds have
enough enough firepower enough to do probably not but sixty
games relying on this pitching. I can see the Reds
doing it. Yeah, that's right. I'm gonna stay in division,
going basically the same odds. And you know it pains me,
but normally the popular pick for popular people, the Cubs
are sitting at twenty or twenty two to one, depending
on where you're shopping right now. And you had guys

(01:08:57):
with down years across the board, all the sluggers, uh
that you'll look for bounce back uh, seasons out of
and again you can hear me choking on my words.
Just this has to hurt your heart that you're saying.
The guy who has to hurt your heart saying the Cubs. Yeah,
it really does a little bit. Obviously, the starting pitching

(01:09:18):
you've got, you know, power through four or five guys
that can eat some innings for you as well. But
again it goes back to mashers in a division, where
as you said, with Cincinnati, nobody's running and hiding right.
Trevor Bauer will be fine. He'll he'll have recovered from
all his tweeting, uh and texting over the last couple
of weeks. And the six man tag matches that we've

(01:09:40):
seen online. Uh, they're fun to watch. The division as
a whole. I think it's gonna be interesting to watch
how it shakes out. But the Cubs, I think a
little underbat Normally, this is the time of year where
everybody's made their pilgrimage to Vegas and maybe it just
isn't reflected uh in the online wagering just yet, because
normally the Cubs are one of the favorites off to
jump and even when they were at their worst, you

(01:10:02):
still had the it's only a hundred bucks, and then
thousands of dopes do that to where their their odds
were bent down. One other team, I'm gonna give you
a surprise, is a team that everybody is discounting. They
think they'll be back eventually, but because of a big
trade they made in this past off season. But don't

(01:10:22):
be surprised if the Red Sox win the World Series.
Why are the Red Sox not going to contend? Why
are they picked not to contend? Well, they have a
lot of depth problems, right, that's the thing there there,
they are restarting their team. They trade away Mookie Betts
and David Price, uh, hoping that Alex Verdugo comes in
and can be a really good player. But their problem

(01:10:43):
is depth. It's not they don't have a good team.
Look there, they still have the matches, you know, Bogerts
and and j D. Martinez, ben Intendee, They're still gonna
hit the ball, right, and they're still gonna they're still
solid enough pitching, and over the course of a hundred
sixty two games, their depth would get exposed, and there
would be games where the bullpen would blow, they wouldn't hit,
would blow games where the bullpen would blow games and

(01:11:04):
they wouldn't hit, and that would be exposed. But sixty
games not so much. And I've seen the Red Sox
now three times when the World Series say you know what,
we're tearing our team down, and two years later, here
they're are ready to win the World Series again. They
do that all the time. Plus they have the assets
to make trades because I got out of all of
that money, and the trading deadline is a month into

(01:11:25):
the season when it starts. So don't be surprised the
Red Sox. They weren't gonna be terrible this year, but
you certainly they weren't picked to be at the top
of the East, which is gonna be a really tough
division anyway. But Red Sox can get into the playoffs.
Don't be surprised if their lack of depth is not
that much of an issue, and you see the Red
Sox suddenly look like geniuses again. It's Funny's sitting there

(01:11:47):
at thirty five to one. That was one of the
teams I was looking at. There's a couple that are
that that have some interesting players that you can get
excited about. And if you know they catch fire, maybe
you know, you get a little bit of a jump,
but they've got too much to to to leap over.
Right when we talk about say that that a l
East and you've got the Red Sox sitting at thirty
five to one. As a tweener, Well, the Blue Jays

(01:12:10):
are interesting, but they're you're throwing away money at two one.
Too much has to happen, but they need to get
a bump. Likewise, you know the Rockies, Uh, well we'll
see how quickly Charlie Blackman recovers. But you know you've
got those things. I did my usual hit in Baltimore
today and they're like, uh, we're getting ready for it.
I'm like, you don't. I enjoy the hell out of

(01:12:30):
all those young guys five hundred to one, Smith five
hundred to But they'll play sixty games and while you
may not be able to go to Camden Yards to
watch them, damn it, there will be baseball Twitter at
how about a fresco Mike gets Swollen done The Jason
Smith Show with Mike Carmen live from the gey Go Studios.

(01:12:53):
So there are three more surprise teams that could take
advantage of the shortened season and win the World Series. Red's,
Red Sox, Cubs uh phone numbers eight, seven, seven, nine nine.
On Fox. Coming up next, we get back into the
story that has dominated this week, and we're not at
the end of it. We're at the beginning of the
next phase of it. It's next on Fox. Be sure

(01:13:16):
Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific
Fox Sports Radio. Greetings, Welcome inside our three of The
Jason Smith Show with my bass friend Mike Harman, live
from the Geico Studios. So let me ask you this, Mike,
what do you think? What are the odds? All Right,

(01:13:36):
we'll just put out on Twitter our surprise World Series teams,
and one of the teams I think that could take
advantage of the sixty games schedule and win it all
would be the reds I put in you know the names,
and I put in Trevor Bauer's Twitter address. Do you
think I get a like or a retweet from Trevor
Bauer at some point before the show ends. Yes, yeah,

(01:13:59):
I think I think you do. I think you're gonna
get a dude. That's a lot of pressure. But now
it's time. No, I think that works. I think that's good.
I mean, you tag him, right, if you're gonna put
his name on it, you know, put his name on it,
and now it's it's on him to respond. I mean,
this is what's gonna make this season. As long as
we get to play it, it's gonna be insane because

(01:14:22):
you can't handicap it. I mean, today, obviously it's easy
to say who the best teams are. The Dodgers are
the favorites to have the most wins in sixty games
at thirty seven, right, you think that doesn't sound like
a lot, but it sounds. You know, you win. If
you get over thirty wins, you have a chance to
make the playoffs. That you're talking about going ten and nine,

(01:14:44):
you know, every nineteen games, you know, or let's let's
say you go let's say every you know, every twenty games,
you go eleven and nine, that's you're gonna make the playoffs.
You're gonna be thirty year be thirty three and twenty seven,
and that's gonna be a play It's gonna be a
couple of games over five hundred. You don't need be great,
you don't need to decide about how are we going
to compete with these teams. You just have to be
a little bit better than five hundred. That's that's how

(01:15:07):
it goes. And you can compete with these teams that
are really good that are supposed to win, whether it's
the Dodgers or the Yankees, the Mets, you know whoever,
all these great teams, but with all of these other
surprise teams having strengths that can take advantage or not
fall victim to a longer schedule, and in a shorter schedule,

(01:15:27):
they can get it done. I mean, it's gonna be
really hard to handicap because look at the teams we
just talked about for different reasons, right, the Red's Big Three.
Are they the three best pitchers in baseball? Sonny Gray,
Trevor Bauer or Lease Castillo. No, are they all really good? Yes?
Can they carry them over ten or eleven starts? And
and they're all really good and through the playoffs in
the postseason, absolutely, you can do it that way, alright.

(01:15:49):
The Red Sox depth not a problem when you're only
playing sixty games. The Angels, they don't pitch very well,
but doesn't matter when you can match like they are
adding Anthony run Down, Joe Madden, Mickey Callaway. Are gonna
make sure that pitching staff is throwing as best as
they can. They just have to be okay, you can
mash your way through sixty games. San Diego Padres, right

(01:16:09):
could would this be a young team that could go
do it over sixty two games? No, they can't. But
the Padres with their young pitchers coming up, can they
pitch well for ten or eleven starts and into the playoffs?
Of course they can. Can their young hitters come up
and and play really well over eighty ish games that
you're gonna play for the World Series? Sure you're not
gonna hit the wall. Then you're gonna play eighty games

(01:16:30):
and be fine. So this schedule is really open for
all of the teams that say why not us this year?
Now you still have to be good. I'm not saying
the Orioles are suddenly gonna win a bunch of games,
but you have to You have to approach it like
This could be our chance, This is our this is
our window open year to win it all. Yes, we're
on the way up, we think we're doing things well,
but this is gonna be Hey, why not us? Everybody's

(01:16:51):
starting out from a disadvantage, but the schedule is actually
advantageous to us. Why not us? Why can't we do it?
Those teams we talked about, you talked about the Rangers
and the Cubs too, being teams can take advantage of
this short schedule. That's why this baseball season it's gonna
be absolutely insane. I mean really, I can't wait for
it to start. I crossed my fingers every day hoping

(01:17:12):
we get it because it's it's gonna be that wild,
as great as the NBA playoffs are gonna be as
much fun as the NHL players are gonna be because
they have the crazy format going on. Looking forward to
the National Football League coming back, the way baseball is
gonna unfold is is gonna be fascinating and exciting and
buckling because you've never seen a baseball season like this
where there's so much on every game and there's so

(01:17:35):
much pressure and there's so much riding on it because
there's only sixty of them. That's gonna be something that
we've never seen a baseball before. It's gonna be great. Well,
that's it. You go into a dead sprint. You start
looking at schedule advantages, Uh, the opportunity where you're gonna
have some of these five games series and maybe you know,
just that week, teams not feeling it, they're in a
little bit of a funk, whatever it is. I mean,

(01:17:58):
the opportunity to just pick up ground or create separation
just that fast is gonna be incredible to watch. And
and if you're riding hot streets right, I know they've
had a very popular uh one of the pop prop
bets that's gone off as hey, who's gonna hit four hundred?
Can somebody hit four hundred? All these wonderful things, which

(01:18:19):
is great, And now it's it's just that question of
which team rides you know, a hot bat or where
we're talking about veteran arms, right, like you mentioned with Cincinnati,
you got guys that that have been through this, Right,
maybe that's enough to pace and and maybe he can't
catch Houston, the Yankees and the Dodgers, and they just
run away and hide and they're just laughing all their

(01:18:41):
way through the sixty games. But I would bet that's
probably not the case. I think we're in for a
lot of chaos and a lot of twists and turns.
The d h coming to the National League UH, teams
like the Cubs. I mean, think about all those years
that Babe Schwarberg could have been just the d h
uh instead of having him as a butcher out in
the outbae. So I mean, you have got that comes

(01:19:02):
into play too, and the Mets will lose efficiently in
the tenth inning with that runner starting at second base
so you can get onto the next game. I mean,
it's all good things. Smith Twitter out. How about a
Fresca Mike gets swollen dome the Jason Smith Show, because
we are all I'm gonna blow past that and I'm
just gonna be exciting. That's it, I know. But listen,

(01:19:25):
that's low hanging fruit. I mean, Mets bullpen. You could
say it's been but it's been a while since I've
gotten to do with them. Yeah, I know, but I mean,
come up, Mets bullpens. I mean, come on, man, it's
easy Mets bullpen. It's easy Mets. Sometimes you take the
low hanging fruits man, because you know what, America laughed
with me. I didn't what The bullpen will be better.

(01:19:47):
Edwin Diaz can't be any worse. The bullpen will be better.
It's like Beatles, I got to admit it's getting better,
and in the background he goes get much worse. It's
what it's the batls. It's it's not coldplay. It's not
fixed you. It's not. Although we're apart these days, we're
sharing more in Geico sharing more too, with the Geico
giveback credit on car and motorcycle policies for both current

(01:20:10):
and new customers that last year full policy term visit
geico dot com slash giveback for info and eligibility. Well,
we're not We're not seeing the end of the NASCAR
noose investigation story today. We are now seeing what is
next because it was a big day today as NASCAR

(01:20:32):
released a photo of the noose that was in the
garage of driver Bubba Wallace, the only black driver on
the on the NASCAR circuit. Incredible story over the past
few days uh a symbol of of hate and hate crimes.
It was investigated by the FBI. The FBI says Bubba
Wallace was not a victim of a hate crime. This

(01:20:54):
noose is actually fastened to be a garage poll rope,
and it had been there in that stall since October
of two thousand and nineteen. Earlier today we saw the
picture of the news come out, and there's no way
you can think that it's anything but a noose. There's
no way you look at it and say that's a noose.
So for everybody who says, oh, you know, NASCAR, they

(01:21:16):
blew it, they did that, they should have looked at
if he's put yourself in everybody's shoes. Here's the only
black driver on the circuit and his crew shows up
at the garage, he is assigned, and here is a
pull rope that is fashioned like a noose. You can't
look at it and see that it's anything else because
it is a noose, And of course you're going to

(01:21:40):
respond with it, and it's going to be a big deal,
all right. There's no way. There was no way around it. Look.
NASCAR President Steve Felt spoke today and he said, as
you can see from the photo, the noose was real, alright. Quote,
we're living in a highly charged emotional time. We saw
a symbol of hate. It was only present in one
area of the garage, that of the car of Bubba Wallace.

(01:22:01):
NASCAR also said it had its officials sweep all of
its garages across the country as part of the investigation.
Eleven of the six d stalls had pulled down ropes tied,
and not only this one had the rope fashioned like
a noose. Right, So for at NASCAR to respond this way,
there was no other way for them to respond. There
was no other way. Here's a noose, it's in the

(01:22:23):
black driver's garage. The story is getting out. This is
how we respond, and I'm incredibly proud of NASCAR. They
responded the way they did and said we're going to
fight racism. We're gonna stand together in a very difficult
time for them when they're dealing with the fallout of
the controversial decision to step away from the Confederate flag,
which is the right decision, but they're still fighting men,

(01:22:43):
you know, against many fans who look at it as
a symbol of pride of the South, when it's also
a symbol of racism and slavery. So that's kind of
what that's kind of where a NASCAR is and when
this came out this way, all right, there's nothing wrong
with this message going forward. And I think that's why
Bubba Wallace and and and Phelps and I said, listen,
wait a minute here, let's let's realize even though this

(01:23:05):
was this was not a victim of the hate crime,
this is still a news. We responded the way we
were supposed to and that's kind of what we're supposed
to do. So to get any flak on it, I
I really don't get. I think anybody who is upset
about it just feels the embarrassment so much because they
went overboard with a take on it or overboard with
a story and they've they're embarrassed by it. Some like,

(01:23:27):
oh yeah, it's all NASCAR's faults, all Bubba Wallace's fault.
How are you supposed to respond when you see a
noose in the garage? Now, whether it was a news
made to look like a noose, or somebody did it
because that's the only way they know how to make
a pull a pull rope, whatever it is, it's a
horrible decision to do that. You have to understand you're
an idiot if you do it that way. But why

(01:23:47):
that is there is now the next part of this investigation.
But it was there. This was there, This is how
people are going to react to it, and you know,
the past few units, thinking about all different ways, I
just don't see how NASCAR could have avoided the facts
of the story getting out. Here's the only black driver
on the circuit and a noose is found in his garage.
These are the facts getting reported to the public. So

(01:24:09):
of course NASCAR has gotta have what's our response going
to be? And that's something that Steve Felt spoke about today.
We knew we had to respond strongly and show that
something like this is not going to be tolerated. So yeah,
NASCAR kind of did the right thing. And did it
turn out to be a hate crime. No, But this
I don't see how there was any other avenue that

(01:24:30):
would have ended with Oh, if NASCAR done X, Y
and Z, this wouldn't have been that biggest story. I
just don't see it. No. I just think from that
initial press release right when you talk about the we
need to find and fire in this heinous act, you've
called it a heinous act without doing any investigation, and

(01:24:50):
in these heightened times, I understand that it cuts both ways, right,
You don't want to soft shoe it and downplay it
in the event that it is something very serious, but
in making it into immediately wow, this is next level.
You got a lot of good right, the goodwill and
Bubba Wallace and the other drivers and the team's coming together,

(01:25:11):
Richard Petty showing up the track side and everything. It's
just the there's always just that crowd waiting to say,
ah see, there's nothing there, and unfortunately you get them
a little louder coming out of this. Not saying it's right,
just saying that when we have these situations, there's there's
a percentage that gets uh it, gets their opportunity to

(01:25:34):
to shout it down. And that's what's gonna happen here.
But what what has to happen now, though, is you
still have to go back and do the due diligence.
I know there were pictures from last October. It looks
like the Menard's car that would have been in that garage,
So what was it? You still got to go ask
those those tough questions. All right, what what made you
tie it this way? And maybe it's as simple as

(01:25:55):
I only know how to do a slip, not that way.
So that's how I tied it. I mean, maybe that's it,
but you still have to have full transparency if you
really want to move forward from this issue, because Bubba
Wallace is still pissed, right, He was still on Dan Patrick.
And even though he eventually said, hey, thanks NASCAR for
having my back, that wasn't his match message on Don Lemon.

(01:26:17):
That wasn't his message when he was on uh with
Dan Patrick on our network. So that's still you know,
part of that. There's still a mistrust and a curiosity
of how quickly this was dismissed by the FBI that
needs to be addressed. And NASCAR still they can't just
write up a press release go and go thank God. No,

(01:26:37):
that that's not the end of the story, right, there's
still the post script that needs to be written here.
And you know, and that's the next part of it
is that obviously, look, I think anybody could look like
I said, look at this. It's a news all right.
So now we understand NASCAR's reaction to it. Now the
next part is who put it there? How did they
get there? All Right? You've seen NASCAR. They've gone to

(01:26:58):
great lengths to try to figure this thing. Had they
they went and looked through all of their garages to
see if other ropes were fashioned like this, and this
was the only one. You had other teams and and
other events that were at this that that we're at
the speedway in the last few months. In fact, you
had one a team. I believe that that. Phelps said, Hey,

(01:27:20):
one of their members remembers noticing it a little bit
in October and thinking it was weird, but they couldn't
really figure out just you know what what it was
there for. It was one of those things. Oh yeah,
I remember seeing that in that garage a few months ago.
And with all of this, I don't I can't. I
can't understand how they don't have that person yet that
did it. I mean, I mean, this is the FBI

(01:27:41):
came in. I mean it's a big deal. The FBI
came in him and went through this whole you know situation,
and said, Okay, this is what we're doing. How do
you not know who did it? How do you not
know somebody? Somebody must have put that rope up there.
I mean, I get the person is gonna be scared
to come forward because they didn't know how They're gonna
want to be uh looked at. Maybe it was some
thing where boy, I didn't know how to tie an

(01:28:01):
so I did it that way. Maybe it's yeah, I
made a news because I wanted to make some kind
of statement just by putting a new cent a garage.
You know, I don't know, but at some point you think,
now it's been a week NASCAR to be able to
figure out, okay, who did or at least narrow it down.
It's all right, this is how it happened, this is
what it is, and now we find out why, because
that's that's the last part of this story. Now, is

(01:28:21):
that why did it happen? Who did it? And in
the beginning, I get you couldn't find the person. You
knew the FBI was gonna come in. You had to
get your message out and make sure that people knew
this is where we stand. We're not going to tolerate racism.
But now we're we're a week away and or a
week into it, and you've had a chance to look back,
know the events, know the people that are there. I

(01:28:42):
gotta think we would have a better answer on that
by now. That's the one thing that that still kind
of escapes music goes on. Yeah, I think that's the
part for NASCAR is that you're still gonna have that
level of mistrust right as the FBI goes on and
there's no solution, right, at least not outwardly, and so

(01:29:03):
you're gonna have a public, including a lot of people,
that are skeptical of what really went on here? Right?
So why allow that to be fed? Right? You know,
the you know, trying to get your your dough together.
Don't don't feed the east kind of thing, right, don't
make it grow? Uh? And this without any specificity as

(01:29:23):
to what you truly found other than this picture, right,
the ominous picture that we saw. That that's part of it.
But now it becomes the all right, what was the
solution here? What was the the end game of who? What? Where? How? Why?
All those basic journalism questions to close the book? Otherwise
you're still gonna have skepticism from a large group. And

(01:29:47):
are you truly healed within those garages? Right? Is Bubba
Wallace's relationship with the other driver's rock solid? Or you know,
did you have the parade and everybody uniting and people
can dismiss it as a show. And that's where you're
in a dangerous spot if your your NASCAR and it
takes nothing away from the acts that we've seen thus far. Right,

(01:30:09):
It's it's a positivity, a lot of good conversation flowing through.
Just finished the job and tie a bow on it.
Twitter At, how about a fresca? Mike gets swollen? Done
The Jason Smith Show with Mike Carmen Live from the
Geico Studios. We'll have more on this story later on
in the show, but coming up next, we have a
tag team of NFL stories for you. A bit of

(01:30:31):
a head scratcher, and yes, the Jamal Adams saga took
another incredibly crazy turn earlier today. Kind of reminds me
of Hamlet. I'll explain. We got that coming up next.
This is Fox. Yeah, I'm nerdin out. I kind of
minored in Shakespeare, so I can do it. Be sure
Mike harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern seven pm Pacific

(01:30:54):
on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app
Fox Sports Radio TI Shirt What the hell is this?
So on, come on, man, let's listen to the base. Jason.
I don't ask about your take, so don't ask about
my songs. Come on, man, it was going to know,
some people have rhythms, some don't. It's okay, I I
got it. But you know, do we need the extended

(01:31:15):
remix version of it? Yeah, because I don't know how
long it takes you to make up your pot. I
mean it's like it's like it's like forty five minutes long.
I mean when I do the thing for Worther without you,
it's only a few seconds. Do do do do do
do do do do do do? Oh. Yeah, that's do
do do do do do do do do do do
And then it's done. That's it. There you go. That's

(01:31:38):
what you want, just lyrics off the top. I got you. Now,
it's still coldplay, it's still fix You. It's not it's
not a brilliant. Now. There was a there was a
good documentary years ago of this uh octogenarian group that
we're singing fix You. They were called Young at Heart.
Okay and check it out, but they were singing this

(01:31:59):
song all on like oxygen tanks and stuff. Weird visual
but a sweet story. Nonetheless, Well, because that's the line,
that's my favorite. Yesterday we talked about it last night.
The movie where the Beatles never existed and and this
singer who is has no career, just starts doing covers
of Beatles songs and it's like, oh my god, this

(01:32:20):
guy gets phase the most famous guy in the world
because he's doing all these great songs. And when he
first plays Yesterday for his friends, like they one of
his friends gives him a guitar and hey, you know,
play a song for us. So he starts playing Yesterday
and they go, Wow, that was awesome. Where did did
you write that? He goes, Now, Paul McCartney wrote that,
what what do you mean that's Yesterday? Oh that's a

(01:32:40):
great song. Was Oh my god, that's awesome. He thinks
are all messing around with him? And then what did
his friends? Goes? It was good? But it's not Coldplay.
It's not Fixed You, So you know, I love it.
The Jason Smith Show with Mike Carbon Live from the
Geico Studios. That's become one of my uh default sayings
over the past a month or so. When something happens

(01:33:01):
that's really good, I go, it's not Coldplay, it's still
fix You. So um. But another turn in the Jamal
Adams Jets storyline. Today last night, miniche maida New York
Daily News Insider joined us on the show, and he
took a blowtorch to Adam Gaze had a big report
that the Jets players don't want to play for him.
They don't think he's genuine. Uh, he throws them under

(01:33:24):
the bus. They don't trust him. And one of the
main reasons Jamal Adams wants a trade is because he's
got no relationship with Gates that he likes. He wants
to move on this out from that though, Jason, Yeah,
is how much all the writers in New York really
hate each other? Because if you followed the mentions of
all this from the New York writers about this particular story,

(01:33:46):
there's a lot of anger and vitriol flowing back and forth,
just like you'd expect. Yeah, it's like that. It's like
the beat writers of the teams are like the players.
You know. I don't like this team. I don't like
this team. I like this like Anchorman fight it is, Yes,
it is, except and no touching of the fingers. I
need to be able to type my stories of course,
of course. Uh. And the niche killed a guy with

(01:34:09):
a trident, Well, you meant you've been at le low
for a while. I was throwing it at Adam Gates
and I missed um. But today with stories now swirling, hey,
Adam Gates may have lost the Jets. Coming to Jamal
adams defense is Jets defensive coordinator Greg Williams didn't want
to talk about Adam's dispute with the team, but supported

(01:34:31):
Jamal Adams quote, you never mess with a guy's contract.
But I've got his back on those types of things.
He's got to get all that stuff settled. So now boom,
get back into our setting and now we're ready to roll.
He knows that I think the world of him. I've
had a chance to coach a lot of good players,
Hall of Fame players. He's gonna have a legitimate chance
staying healthy to be one of those guys we're all

(01:34:52):
talking about. Now. This story, there's actually two layers to it.
There's one that you say, of course, of course, yeah,
of course he's gonna have Jamal Adams back. You know, Greg,
It's not like the Jets are gonna say, what are
you doing? I can't believe you said this about Jamal Adams.
You know, he's his player, and players have to know
coaches have their back. It's not like suddenly Joe Douglass
is gonna say what are you doing? What? Yeah, he's

(01:35:14):
gonna talk about his player. He's been a defense recorder
long enough, he had a successful enough season. He wants
Jamal Adams to stay. He's his best player. So I
completely get that. But it's really interesting that the day
after Adam Gaze gets a blowtorched about being someone that
the locker room has quit on, here is Greg Williams saying,

(01:35:37):
I am pro Jamal Adams, I am pro players. I
am pro this because I see this and I go.
He's now sensing an opportunity because the Jets aren't gonna
hire anybody else. If they fire Adam Gaze, they would
promote Greg Williams. He wants to be a head coach
again in the NFL. He's trying to still trying to
rebuild his image after bounty Gate and everything else. He

(01:35:58):
knows this is going to be his chance. Adam Gaze
has been the head coach of the offense and Greg
Williams the head coach of the defense, and players love
Greg Williams. This is his chance. This is his opportunistic
chance to say, hey, Jamal, I got your back. Because
you know, Adam Gates looking at this, going seriously after this,
now you're my defensive coordinator, and this is what is

(01:36:20):
But this is how it goes in the NFL. Greg
Williams wants to be a head coach. It's no coincidence.
The day after, here is Greg Williamson have Jamal Adams back.
He could have said this any day up until now, Mike.
He could have said this the day after Jamal Adams
comments came out. He could have said it before he
asked for a trade. He could have said it the
day after he asked for a trade. He could have
said it any of these days. But the day after,

(01:36:42):
Gaze is out as a guy that the players don't like.
Here's Greg Williams saying I got your back. It's like,
I mean, it's like Shakespeare. It's like it's like it's
like a Shakespeare. It's like Hamlet, all right, I mean
it's like it's like, look, you have Greg Williams is Horatio,
who was Hamlet's best friend, right, and Jamal Adams is Hamlet,
and you have Adam Gates is obviously Claudius in this situation.

(01:37:03):
I mean, there's no good. Rosa Cranton Guildenstern of the media.
You know, we're getting this all out here, and Woody
Johnson is Ford and Brock coming back to attack. He's
gonna take care of everything. This is like Hamlet the
way it's shaking out. This is this is what I'm seeing.
And here's Greg Williams opportunist. Hey, this is Greg Williams
seeing a chance here and it's unfolding like a like

(01:37:24):
a Shakespearean tragedy. Oh, it's beautiful because he works it
on multiple multiple levels here, right, Because if Jamal Adams
doesn't get what he wants gets what he wants, you've
got an ally in in the locker room. Your best
player sides with you, and that's good. Uh And I
would think that plays well in the locker room overall.

(01:37:46):
Uh Yeah, mccabellian, play right, very calculated, there's no question
because everybody's got the odds. I mean, how many surveys
were done today off of that article of Hey, will
Adam Gates be the first coach fired in call me
now coming up your case? I mean that's really what
it became. Uh, the indictment thereof So for Greg Williams coordinator,

(01:38:11):
we know the aptitude there. Uh, he's not getting a
head coaching job any other way. So here's your opportunity
to lie and wait and if things go south, because
let's face it, defensively, assuming Mosley is healthy and they
can get any bit of a pass rush which hasn't existed, Uh,

(01:38:32):
you've got playmakers in the back seven as it rolls through,
so your defense will keep you in games. Now it's
the do you get the growth out of Sam Donald
even though you didn't go get him a number one.
You've got some good component parts, but not necessarily you know,
world beaters, and you need to figure out how to
get Levy on Bell back to some semblance of the

(01:38:53):
Levyan Bell he wants was, which means everybody's just watching
the offense and waiting for the next taco eye roll. Uh.
During a press conference, Donald to say something about seeing
ghosts or anything to that level, because well, then it's
you're not coaching them up, and the door cracks open
for an opportunity, and Williams will pounce on it, and

(01:39:14):
every one of these guys will be talking and talking
him up of how he controls the meeting rooms and
how he controls that side of the ball and as
a good leader and everything else. And you know, it's
a bloodless coup that gets staged with just planting a
couple of keywords right here. I love it. It's great theater.
Get some popcorn. I'll go get one of those commemorative buckets.

(01:39:36):
I'll send you one and we'll sit back and watch together.
I'll tell you. I mean, any day, Mike, he could
have said this any day. He could have tried to
put this to bed. Any day. We don't want it
to get bad. But oh now, maybe Adam Gaze is vulnerable. Hey, yeah, Jamal,
I got your back. Man, dude, it's me, me and
you bet I got it. I got it. What's good.
We're all good. We're all good. Yes, yeah, that's any

(01:39:58):
day it could have done. But he today, after the atom,
the day after the Adam Gate story breaks. I love
your team, buddy. By the way, thank you Jets, you know, Jets,
Jets giving us the gift of well whatever the Jets
give us as a gift all the time. We got
more NFL coming up in ninety seconds. But first, be
sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith Show

(01:40:19):
with Mike harmon weekdays at ten pm. Eastern seven pm Pacific,
Fox Sports Radio Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon, Live
from the Geico Studios. I still Coldplay, still fix You.
Apparently it's started in the cold Play night. It's okay,

(01:40:41):
it could be worse, trust me. The first half of
Yesterday is awesome and the last half the movie just
kind of falls apart. But man, there's some funny stuff
in there, especially, but the fix you line is really
my favorite. Uh, two big stories she had fix you,
it's fix well, that's a lot of the movie. It's
not Coldplay, it's don't fix You. The Beatles songs are good,

(01:41:02):
but it's not Coldplay. I mean that's that's amazing. Uh.
And also there's no in in this world and Yesterday
there's no Oasis. Oasis doesn't exist. Nobody knows who they
are either happened to uh British music. There's there's kind
of it's kind of throwaway lines where he mentioned something

(01:41:24):
that people go what and he goes, oh my god,
did you see him type on the computer and it
doesn't exist either, like you know, but there's it's like
it was big like when Oasis who and then you
see him, Oh my goodness, types oasis and the only
match comes up with is is a uh, you know,
a mirage in the desert. He said, oh, my goodness,
is no oasis. Um. But anyway, uh, two things. One thing,
I'm surprised that we're seeing and I'm looking you know,

(01:41:47):
obviously it tonight and every night on the show, we
we look through Twitter make sure when big stories break
we can get to it so we can bring you
things like the crazy ass stuff the Twitter war between
Trevor Bauer and Kurt Schilling and Aubrey Huff from the
other night, which Kurt Schilling went up de activating his
Twitter as a result, Trevor Bower kicked him out of
the plane like Air Force one to get off my plane.

(01:42:07):
And now Kurt Chilling just gave up his Twitter account.
But as Jonathan Groth sang in Hamilton's you will be
back like before, I'm seeing Bo Jackson trend and David
Wright of the Mets is trending. And this is what
I mean when some of the best games you can play,
carry Wood is trending, Greedy size More is trending. Go

(01:42:30):
to Twitter, see what's trending and try to figure out
why it's a great game. And like you would see
the Dames go Okay, Well, I don't understand what these
what why Why is Bo Jackson and carry Wood and
Grady size More trending? Well, I think it was someone
from MLB that put out this question on Twitter a
few hours ago. Names a baseball player who would have

(01:42:51):
easily been a Hall of Famer had he not been
derailed by injuries. And there you have Bo Jackson, Carrie
would David Wright, uh, gre De size More, some of
these names coming up, Captain oh Man, David Right uh
and you see Bo Jackson toime, I got Bo Jackson
and Bo Jackson if he had been able to stay healthy,

(01:43:13):
and he had an arthritic hip condition and it really
uh exacerbated itself on a tackle when he ran for
a touchdown with the Raiders. Remember this is a guy
who was the best running back in football. He was
a physical freak, the Heisman Trophy UH finalist, And and
he gets to the NFL and he's everything you expected
more and then he goes to baseball. He's an All
Star in baseball, strongest arm in the game, leads off

(01:43:36):
an All Star Game with a home run off of
Rick Russell. I mean he was you could say Bo
Jackson was probably the most talented athlete we have ever seen. Alright,
I mean that socks legend, Yeah, I mean sure, yes,
white Sox legend. Yes. I actually interviewed Bo Jackson once.
It was fun. We bonded over our love of the
soap opera Guiding Light. It was pretty cool. I was

(01:44:00):
like military. I was like, hey, you watch you watch
Guiding Light? He goes, yeah, I watch guy like dudes.
Oh Man Reeva and Annie and Josh that that that said,
Oh my god, I love Andy. How could you love
Anie Reeva's part of the show. I'm going on. We
had this great conversation about Guiding Light ones. But when
you know, you go back to say who's the greatest
athlete of all time? We default to Jim Thorpe. You know,
someone who you know who played obviously a long time ago.

(01:44:21):
The guy was a trailblazer and and from what everybody
says about him, what I've read about him, you know, hey,
it was Jim Thorpe. You think about players now who
were great athletes. Dion Sanders played baseball, never nearly as
good as Bo Jackson was in baseball. And for someone
to be an all star player like that, and not
just an All star, but at at an all pro
level in the National Football League and one of the

(01:44:43):
best players in baseball. And it was cut short. But
to me my lifetime, there was never anybody more talented
of an athlete than Bo Jackson. He could have played
any sport. If he would have showed up and played
basketball and south, I would have said, yeah, of course
he could have. Because to succeed like that at that
level is absolutely amazing. Yeah, I know. He You go

(01:45:04):
through and just look at some of those big highlights,
launching bombs. The fact that you got Rick Russell into
the show is really, uh, next level right there. As
we look for legends of the past, he had his
brother Paul, go back and look up Paul Russell for
those that well, I mean Paul, Paul didn't look I

(01:45:24):
mean not that Rick really looked like an athlete, but
Paul sure as hell didn't look like major league pictures.
Here we go. But Bo Jackson, I mean, on one leg,
one hip, uh, and still hitting four hundred fifty ft
bombs as you roll through. He's a guy that no
matter how many documentaries you see and some of that

(01:45:45):
old footage go back to when they gave him the
Heisman over Chuck Long and robbed the Iowa legend of
that award. But still you can't deny the greatness of
Bou Jackson. Oh you brought up Chuck Long to you
write with that was the closest vote ever, right, it
was like just like a couple of points for Bo Jackson.
Uh so that again, that's why. But really, Bo Jackson

(01:46:07):
most talented athlete I've ever seen, maybe the most talented
athlete that we've ever seen in the world of sports.
But this story as well, I want to get to
for a couple of minutes as the San Francisco Giants
may allow you to attend a game this year by wait,
how can you attend the game? Well? You can kind
of and you can. You're looking at that man, Well here,

(01:46:28):
and the thing is you can have great seats and
you won't have to pay anything. Okay, asked me why,
and asked me how. I feel like one of those
TVA asked me how. Yeah, let let me know and
I'll tell you what I mean. I really love to
attend a game, but I haven't seen anything. Can you
help me? Yes, good friend said the name is Landley,
Lyle Lanley, and I stand here before you. Uh. In

(01:46:52):
a letter sent to season ticket holders on Thursday, the
San Francisco Giants announced games at Oracle Park will be
played without fans due to coronavirus, but the team is
going to allow season ticket holders to send in an
image of themselves to be placed on a cutout that
will be displayed in the stands during home games. Yeah,

(01:47:13):
can send a picture of yourself. Probably got a good
seat too, and you can attend to home game at
least a picture of you can. Oh. I've celebrated these
ideas in the German League and now it comes stateside
As long as nobody you know sends up any pictures
of adult film actors or actresses or blow up dolls,

(01:47:34):
I think this will work out fine in San Francisco. Well,
but they did the thing in Germany. It was twenty
bucks for your photo and it all went charity was brilliant.
They had thousands of people do it. Uh. For whatever reason,
they made the cutouts of the administrators of the league
a lot larger, which is really kind of hod um,
but that's okay. They look like giants. They look like
Hagrid running around next to the next, to the cutouts

(01:47:58):
of the actual fans, But it's still pretty cool. They're
all walking around, everyone going, you're a wizard, Harry. My
name's John. You're a wizard John, and should be able
to yell that too, Twitter at how about a fresca
Mike had swollen Dome. The Jason Smith Show with Mike
Carmen Live from the Geico Studios coming up next to
a huge NBA anniversary and a big NBA retirement twenty

(01:48:22):
two years that's next. Fox. 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 AP Fox Sports Radio. Yes,
slide Over Baby Hour. It will be a lot of
cold play this hour and talking slide Over Baby be

(01:48:44):
a lot of cold play, a lot of fix you. Uh.
We got Jay Glazer coming up in about twenty minutes,
all the latest news in the National Football League and hey,
plenty of stuff to get to us today. The NFL said, listen,
we're canceling the Hall of Fame game. Can't do it
coronavirus us. But hey, we still expect everybody to report
to camp on time at the end of July. Uh

(01:49:07):
wait a minute, we wait what so Jay Glazier is
gonna help us out with that? The latest time Jamal Adams.
But a couple of big NBA stories as well to
get to here, And number one is that it was
twenty four years ago tonight you were probably if you're
old enough, watching the NBA Draft, you watched the Charlotte

(01:49:30):
Hornets draft Kobe Bryant and five minutes later trade into
the Lakers for Vladi Divat's really changed the franchise forever,
right forever. Wow, it was more just for five minutes, man,
just so huge and then I'm not Kobe was a

(01:49:51):
Hornet for five minutes. And it was right after the
trade was over, Hornets owner George Shin said, I think
this is the that's a trade we've made in the
history of the franchise. Um, it's the best trade we've
made history of the franchise. Look, it's it's Look, it's
not that they obviously look, you know, Kobe Bryant turned

(01:50:13):
into one of the one of the top NBA players
of all time. But it's not like Vlody Divats was terrible.
I mean, you know, Vlady had a pretty decent NBA career,
and at that time, Vlady was only twenty seven years old,
and you know, he was you know, he was a
guy averaging about fifteen points and and and eight or
nine rebounds a game. So Vladi was pretty good and

(01:50:34):
he was young, and it was okay, well, Vladi's playing
pretty well here. I mean, he wasn't shock, he wasn't anybody,
but he was still pretty good. And then he went
on to be that kind of player for another six
or seven years. He goes to Sacramento, they have the
big run, they nearly beat the Lakers in the playoffs,
and Vlody starts floppy against the Floppy Divots. Uh. The
song is recorded Flop Floppy Divots. But you know, at

(01:50:56):
that at that time, Vlady had had a pretty good
run with the Lakers. But the Lakers obviously, hey, Shack,
you know, we don't have a lot of uh, there's
not a lot of room. So hey, why don't we
figure out a move here, and let's go get Kobe Bryant.
And here was the move, and you know, Vladi went
on to have a couple of really good years with
Charlotte and then it's like I said, then Sacraman. Then

(01:51:16):
he came back to the Lakers at the end of
his career. But clearly this trade, you know, it's Vloody
for Kobe I. I really can't believe the backflips the
Hornets were doing that. Yeah, here's a guy who's so good,
could be the next great player of the NBA. But
we'll we'll take Vlody for him. I mean that's you
go back and look at that trade now and you go,
my goodness, well you said it. At the time he

(01:51:38):
was a kid. The hype machine was already growing, and
Floodie Flodie was just a guy. He's a Hall of Famer, right,
we know what the Basketball Hall of Fame is. He's
given us the the great ways quotes that you hear there,
especially when you add the music to it. It's really
about as good as he gets. Oh yeah, is pretty good.

(01:51:59):
Good career, but that's it. Though he did, there was
no next level for Vlada to get to, righte He
he was an established guy and if that's all you
were looking for, hey, he's good enough. Versus I don't know,
they got this kid. There's a lot of people that
love him. He's he's traveled the world. He's you know,

(01:52:22):
kinda got a little bit of uh swagger to him
and wisdom beyond his years. Out of hell with it
bringing divans come on, man. And you know, at that time,
the Hornets weren't a bad team. You know, they were
a team that that would make the playoffs every year.
They gave the Knicks trouble a couple of times earlier.

(01:52:43):
They never never went really far, but there was always
a pretty talented team. Muxy Bogs was pretty good. They
were they were one of those They were kind of
like the Atlanta Hawks. When the Hawks had Doc and
and Dominique and Kevin Willis. It was, boy, this could
be the next team that breaks through because their nucleus
is young. The Hornets weren't able to do it. But
we were still a pretty decent team back then. It's
not like, well, here's a bottom feeder team and they

(01:53:04):
make this crazy ass trade and instead of having a
guy to build around like Kobe, they went and got Vlady.
You know, they thought Vody would come in and be, hey,
he's gonna wind up being you know, a big missing
piece for us here right in the middle. Yeah, you
had Glenn Rice, so you had a score, but I
mean you had Anthony Mason, Dell Curry, Muggsy, Ricky Pierce,

(01:53:27):
Scott Burrell. Tom Chambers played in twelve games for this
team to and he liked to shoot. I bet you
in those twelve games, Tom Chambers had like eleven thousand shots.
Uh field let's see three field goal attempts per per
game during those Uh. George Zick was the youngster alongside
Tony Delk. But Matt Geiger. Don't forget Matt Geiger. No, no,

(01:53:52):
don't want to forget. That was l right there. But yeah,
you could have had Kobe. Uh twitter at how about
a fresca? Mike gets swollen down The Jason Smith Show
with Mike Carmen live from the Geico Studios. So, twenty
four anniversary of that trade today, Uh get to talk
about some good things, uh, and good memories for the

(01:54:12):
Lakers and Laker fans here and and not not and
not great ones for Hornets fans. I'm sorry about that,
but I had a shot. We saw today in the
NBA the official retirement of Vince Carter Air Canada calling
it quits after twenty two years in the NBA, and
we thought this was coming. Remember the last game of

(01:54:34):
the year, right before like coronavirus is hitting. We know
games are gonna get postponed, and Vince Carter rushed back
into the game. At the end he hit a big
three and had that and everybody in the on the
on the Hawks just went crazy form, you know, jumping
on top of because they knew was going to be
the end. He makes it official today, calling it quits.
Twenty two years in the NBA Toronto, the Nets, Orlando Phoenix, Alice, Memphis, Sacramento, Atlanta.

(01:55:02):
The guy came in at twenty two and he walks
away at forty three still being someone who contributed, which
is kind of a shock because you get to that point.
I mean, look, how many guys are playing in the
NBA playing that kind of position at thirty nine forty nobody. Nobody.
So when you look at his legacy to the NBA,
because anybody who plays this long, what are they gonna
remember for what's their legacy? The first thing is going

(01:55:25):
to be his athleticism and and how exciting a player
he was, the dunk contest, what he could. He had
fifty point games early in his career. He was a
scoring machine. He was a lot of fun his legacy,
and I'm sorry his longevity because, like I said, he's
thirty eight years old and he's averaging twelve points a game.
I mean, that's just insane that that nobody should be

(01:55:47):
able to do that. In the NBA is where guys
lose that big burst when you get to be thirty two,
thirty three and if you have your reguard, you're playing
limited minutes and are you really contributing? But still, he's
thirty five, thirty six years always playing twenty five minutes
a night. Still, you know, Vince Carter, I mean, defied
age and and and defied the odds by staying so long.
And they bring those young guys along a little bit

(01:56:09):
along the way. I mean, he would be the basketball
equivalent of the hard thrower that learns to be a
junke baller to get a couple extra years on the
back end of his career, you know, the crafty south ball.
Oh sure, he's the the Frank Tanana of of the
National Basketball Association. Like that, huh, I dug deep for
Frank Tanana. We got a Frank Tanana reference. I threw,

(01:56:31):
I threw a hundred and then he couldn't throw anymore
then something he was a better picture when you can
only throw eight um. But the other thing that he
is going to be known for, and this is it.
When you think Vince Carter's career, and I can't believe
it's nineteen years now, it seems like it was yesterday,
because I remember being on the air here at Fox
the first time around. It was a white hot topic.

(01:56:52):
Vince Carter had left for the NBA after his junior year,
and he goes to the NBA Toronto, asked me scoring
twenty points a game, He's exciting as hell. And in
two thousand and one, in the spring, the Raptors are
embroiled in a big series with the seventies sixers and
it's Alan Iverson and Vince Carter and these guys having

(01:57:14):
fifty point games back and forth, and it was some
kind of exciting series. Vince Carter also had earned enough
credits to graduate from the University of North Carolina. He
wanted to go to graduation. The graduation ceremony at u
n C was the same day as Game seven of

(01:57:35):
the Eastern Conference Semis against the seventies Sixers. This is
a story leading up to it. That Vince Carter says,
I'm going to my graduation. I'm gonna go play in
the game, and I I feel the same way now
that I felt then. What are you doing? What? Why
are you throwing all of what you're trying to accomplish
because it's the Raptors who are paying you now. And
I get that you want to go back and graduate,

(01:57:57):
but it's not like you're graduating with your class. This
is three years after you've been out of out of
school and you're in the NBA. You could go to
any ceremony you want to, but you gotta go to
this one on the morning of game seven. Why are
you putting that at risk? Why are you risking flying somewhere,
having to get back, getting back in time, making your
coaches nervous, your teammates nervous. Why are you putting that

(01:58:19):
at risk? And I'm surprised the Raptors didn't come in
and say, no, Vince, We'll do anything we can for
you the next time you want to go, But come on,
this is game seventh, Eastern Conference Finals. Why are you
gonna do Why are you gonna wear yourself out during
the day? Why are you gonna do it? But it
didn't matter. He went to the ceremony. He was only
there for about a half hour. There's a big picture
of him with his degree, very excited, and he flies
to the game, gets there in plenty of time, has

(01:58:42):
a horrible game, seven shoot six out of a team,
including missing the game winning shot. Sixers go on to win,
Sixers go on to the NBA Finals. It's it's that
kind of year, and the Raptors go home. Vince Carter
in years past has said, I would do it like
that again. Of course I would. My teammates had my
back and and I would do it again. I I

(01:59:03):
really I can't believe that that was the decision he
had made. First of all, what are your teammates gonna
save you? You're the best player on the team, You're
average of twenty five a game, You're a superstar. What
are they gonna say, No, Evince, don't go, don't go,
Come on, stay man, What are you gonna say? Then?
You seem like your anti education. It's a battle. But
that's just a bad look for you. So of course
they're gonna say, we have your back, you're the star
of the team. Well, but it's kind of the same

(01:59:25):
way guys if they were to opt out of the
bubble this year. I mean, look, it's family health. I
get that, perhaps in some cases was their own, but
still the same, you're gonna get some sideways. Look from
the locker room going, Look, we're gonna put it up.
We got a chance to win a title and you're
choosing this. Likewise, here, look, we're for you taking care

(01:59:45):
of yourself. Likewise, here, you know, we're for education. Obviously
you worked hard and stayed with it to finish, but uh,
we got some business to finish here, come on, stay
with us. I mean, he showed teammates, fans, everybody that
this was his number one priority. Yeah, I'm gonna play,
but I'm gonna go get my diploma. You can go
any time and do it right. He's supposed to be

(02:00:06):
a leader, and that's the decision he made. He even
admitted after the game, boy, it was a taxing day,
but it was a good one, and he went and
exhausted himself. Before Game seven, Charles Oakley said, oh, Raptors
would have won. It would have won if Vincent stayed
and not gone and and and and and flown down
and gone to the ceremony and flown back and exhausted himself.

(02:00:27):
We would have won Game seven, and maybe his legs
would have been better, he would have shot a little
bit better. Not saying he would have made that game
winning shot in game seven, but could he have made
a couple of other baskets and maybe he had a
better game. It open things up and the Raptors could
have one. Sure, it's he made a decision that was
about him when he owed so much to his teammates

(02:00:48):
and everybody else in the organization. And of course you're
gonna feel bad if you criticize it, because the guy
just wants to go get his diploma. It's not like
he's got a date and he goes, oh what are
you doing? You know, it's not it's like he's going for,
you know, the the opening of a casino and he's
getting paid money to appear. Oh, he's going for a drap.
So you look bad if you say it. But that's
where the Raptors should have stepped in and said, you
know what, Vince, I'm sorry, but we're paying you, we

(02:01:10):
need you. You gotta stay here and do this. You
gotta know what the Raptors could have done. Hey, events
next week, we'll stage a graduation. We'll we'll float the
money for it, bring everybody back for a big party. Yeah. Well,
everybody who's graduating now in in Chapel Hill. We'll fly
them up here and we'll be we'll build the exact
replica of of of the graduation for you. You can
use the stadium, you know, we'll hire a band, we'll

(02:01:33):
bring in cold Play. Whatever you need to do, will
make it work. He could have done he could have
gone to one anytime, and he decided to do that.
It was because graduation there's like three a year, right.
You can go in the summer, you can go in
the in the fall, you just winter graduation. You got
any time. Yeah, after every winter, spring, summer, or fall.

(02:01:54):
I mean, all you gotta do is call uh and
they'll be there. I mean, there will be a graduation
for you. I really I I didn't see it nineteen
years ago. I don't see it now. And this was
a huge story. I mean, this was like everything we
talked about that entire week going up to it, because
it was a story that Hey, the day of Game seven,

(02:02:14):
Vince Carter wants to go to the North Carolina graduation
ceremony and once it wants to graduate and it wasn't
leading up to it, and he goes in the game
after and I mean this was like the only story
for like a good week and a half. And you
think about that. Now, think about how stories are big
that we get on sports and and the biggest one
sometimes have a couple or three day lifespan, right, and

(02:02:36):
then I would move on to something else. These are
the biggest of the biggest, Right. This NASCAR story Bubba
Wallace has been incredibly huge. It's been a three day
story and now it's you know, now we're going to
get into the next phase. And when there's news on
who actually you know left the noose in the garage
back in October of n or the rope, uh, then
we're going to you know, that'll be the next part

(02:02:56):
of the story. But this was like every day for
like two weeks. It was the build up to it
was after, it was still the NBA playoffs, it was
it was people reacting to it. I mean, this was
one of my first uh dipping up my tone into
a story where wow, we need to be creative and
come up with different angles on this. Every day for
the period of two weeks and that's a lot. I mean, yeah, no,

(02:03:18):
this is so hard though, right as we're talking about it,
and if I hadn't hammered the point well enough, it's
it's such a big point because I had my brothers
and I were the first to graduate from college and
that was a big deal. We didn't have you know,
tons of people turn out for it. Uh, we'll we'll

(02:03:39):
do a podcast at other time about you know, extending
families and and and whatever else. But it was a
big deal, right, And then I went and got a
graduate degree that was a whole other level of crazy.
So in families and you know, as a role model
and whatever. I mean, there's got to be so much
pressure there too, right that you're you've got to be

(02:04:02):
torn in some regards, right, Yeah. No, I don't say
it was an easy decision, but what it came down
to it was that really what you should be doing
at that point. You've been in the league. Now, you've
been out of college for three years, all right, you've
been you've been out of it for a while. Now
you're you're an NBA player. You know, it's I get
it's a big deal for you and your family. But
who's paying you. We're paying you. Now, this is this
is where you need your priorities need to be here,

(02:04:25):
and at best they were split. And that that that
to me, that would never happen. Now you can see
the morning of game seven, can you believe? Game seven
coming up of of the of the Western Conference Finals,
and Lebron says, you know what I'm doing. I'm I'm
actually gonna fly back to Akron because I've I've graduated college,
I've got enough credits to graduate college. I'm gonna fly
back to Acron in the morning, go to the ceremony,

(02:04:47):
fly back out for Game seven against the Clippers later
on that night. It's it's fine, right, that's fine, It'll
be okay if I did that, right, I mean, say,
that's how ridiculous you see that story be? Now, yeah,
it's it's just one that has so many side discussions
and arguments and trying to put yourself in in that
mind frame and and obviously that's a playoff run you

(02:05:11):
can't get back. And you always say, all right, one
more jump shot, slightly fresher legs, what could have been?
And I mean the positive out of it is, I mean,
all you got it was a SoundBite out of Oakley,
because I mean, that could have been Charles Oakley turning
on you, and that would have been bad yelling team
like he was in the Untouchables.

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