Hall of Famer, Eric Nadel, Joins To Talk Rangers Offense & Pitching

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:39):
Bruce Pochi said yesterday, we've got to get off this
two run thing. Good news they did, bad news, they
scored one.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Uh oh.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
We got Eric Nadell here to try and help us
understand all of it. It's the DLLs Rangers podcast. Look
at that fantastic picture of Eric Nadell. Is that I
wonder is that from when you went into the Big
Boy Hall of Fame or the Rangers.

Speaker 4 (01:04):
Hall's Big Boy that is the Hall of Fame. I
don't think I had a tie on.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
No tie for the for the Ranger Hall of Fame.

Speaker 4 (01:11):
That was by mister mets tie. By the way, Omar
Manya gave me that tie. Wow to wearing Cooper Stun
because he knew I grew up as a Metside. That's
a yellow tie that has mister Mett all over it.
Omar knew that. When I was a kid, my favorite
met was mister met and my goal was to meet
mister Mitt, which I eventually did at a Tug McGraw autographs.

(01:31):
I was much more excited about meeting mist Tug McGrath.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Eric Nadell is our guest. It's the first time we've
had a Hall of Famer in these hallowed halls, and
he's a two time Hall of Famer. He's in the
Rangers Hall of Fame. But but when we say the
Big Boy, it's the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Eric
won the Ford Frick Award in twenty fourteen. Right fourteen.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
It's pretty class doing in with her on the on
the other side too. Yeah, yeah, So Ax was in
that one. Yeah, it was a great.

Speaker 4 (02:02):
Glatics Frank Thomas, Tom Glavin and the three managers, right Tory,
Tony LaRussa, Bobby Cox.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, it was a great weekend. I had the opportunity
we went up and actually did a feature, a documentary
type thing on Eric that weekend.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
It was awesome.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
But we're thrilled to have him. We're thrilled to have you.
We appreciate you chatting with us. Send questions if you'd
like for the Hall of Fame Voice of Summer around
here in the Voice of the Texas Rangers, Eric Nadell.
We've got the profit over there doing what he normally
does and doing it so well. Jeff Wilson, John Radigan,
and Eric Nadell. So we were just talking about this

(02:37):
off the ear, and I wanted to bring this up
early anyway. But the Little League home run, I said
in one of the little notes I write on our
to tease the fact that you're on the show, that
Eric Nadell has seen it all. Had you seen it
as a walk off a Little League home run like that?

Speaker 4 (02:56):
Oh? Yeah, I saw it. For King's Highway Savings Banks
against Monaco Cleaners in nineteen sixty. I believe it was
maybe sixty one.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
Yeah, that's the last time. Yeah, yeah, oh man, you
do see it. You do see it a lot. My
daughter god Blisser, had two softball games last night, and
you know, the catcher can't get it back to the
picture at the time, and if it gets past their
run around third, it's a yeah, that's how the winning
runs scored last night last night. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
And I'm sure with girls sometimes there might even be
tears after something like that. You were on the flight,
were there tears?

Speaker 4 (03:33):
I think by then everybody was no longer completely stunned,
so it was pretty much like any other flight coming home.
But we were so stunned in the booth, you know.
I actually asked Matt at one point after recapping the plate,
did that really happen? It did?

Speaker 3 (03:52):
It did?

Speaker 2 (03:52):
And that's one of those things too. It's like, from
the perspective of an announcer, a play by play announcer,
it's like the least likely thing, like it's the thing
you expect, perhaps the least is that type of play.

Speaker 4 (04:06):
And that sometimes makes for the best call. Yeah, And
and then you know, how you react to it is
always pretty interesting. You know, I went back and listened
and after it. In addition to saying that that really happened,
I said, I said, kids don't try this at home. Yes, yes,
of course the next day their daughter kids were trying

(04:27):
it at home.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yeah, it's not it's not easy for kids. It should
have been easier. When we talked a bouch about it yesterday, Eric,
he was saying, you know, everybody sort of was. It
wasn't any lack of effort or any you know, mind
fart or anything like that. Luke Jackson, you know, just
yanked the throw. And then he liked Burger trying to

(04:50):
get the runner at third because of course you'd like
to get that guy out, so you don't have a
runner at third nobody.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
Or no, yeah, the first pitch of the end.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
Yeah, so yeah, So anyway, that's uh yeah, guys trying
to do too much maybe, yeah, yeah, no, it's it's
definitely a thing, and in fact, that's one of the
topics we want to get to first with you and
you know, with everybody in the chat and all. That
is just again the continuing struggles of this offense, which
as I mentioned, got a whole run last night. So

(05:21):
I saw somebody tweeted out the Rangers this year in
twenty twenty five are averaging three runs a game. The
Stars in twenty twenty five average three point three five goals. Again, Oh,
as a former hockey announcer, you can appreciate that baseball
teams are supposed to score a little bit more than
hockey teams. But Jeff had a chance to talk yesterday

(05:43):
with Donnie Ecker. I did, and let's let's have you
kind of filled sure Eric in on what Donnie said,
and let's get reacted.

Speaker 3 (05:51):
He was very open to the meeting. He said, I'm
not shy about this. When we're struggling. I want to
be out front, so there's some accountability there. And he
talked about what's wrong with the team. They're Latins, what
they were second to the second to last and walks
into all of baseball and had the highest chase rate
in a baseball and he said, you can't you can't
win doing that. And he said you'd have to have

(06:13):
seven three hundred hitters to be able to do that,
because and then and then he said, okay, we had
ten hits the other day against the Giants, but none
of them left the yard and so we weren't getting
the timely hits. You just and he said, you know,
when somebody walks, batting averages go up, it just creates
problems for the other team. So they had a long meeting.
As we were coming into the clubhouse, the hitters were

(06:34):
coming out poor timing on on on or maybe perfect
t h. Yeah, anyway, that's what and he said, that's
kind of what the theme was we talked about at
spring training. This is the office we want to be
put you know, be a tough out, don't chase, draw walks,

(06:55):
put pressure on the pitcher, and they've gotten completely away
from that. So I think they were hoping that was
a reset button. They did walk twice last night, including
a lead off walk in the ninth, But you kind
I kind of looked at the numbers and it's like
Jack Berger has two walks in ninety six plate appearances.
His yeah, two point two percent walk rate is fourth
worst and than big leaks. Josh Young has now three

(07:17):
walks in sixty and seventy plate appearances. Let's say it's
just amazing and like Adules is a good year. In
twenty three, his chase rate was twenty nine point three percent. Well,
now he's forty five point two and there's only one
guy that's in baseball that's worse than that. And so
you saw it in the sixth inning, you know, when
Berger heard, I'm sorry, Peterson leaves off the triple boy,

(07:40):
here comes a Dolls. All he's got to do is
sneeze on the ball and are runs going to score?
And he chases three balls that were that were out
of the handballs. They weren't even competitive pitches. But and
that's the deal. Opposing teams know that they're making the
Rangers get themselves out. And so you know, Donnie said,
we know what's in front of us. Everybody's ready to
work and has been working and wants to get better

(08:03):
and it's just a matter of doing it. And after
a month he said, it's it's really time to go.
So he wasn't he was. He was upbeat, which is good.
And and again he said, anytime this happens, don't be
afraid to talk to me. I was like, well, I'm
not afraid to talk to you, don't He yeah, yeah,
but you're never you know, he's hard. He's a hard

(08:24):
guy to track down because he has always at the
cage or anything. He's busy. Yeah, so anyway they're they're
at least talking about they have a plan. It seems
like maybe didn't get executed last night. But the serious
guy stinking owns him. Unbelievable.

Speaker 4 (08:39):
He does. He does just an average, totally average major
league starting pitcher. Yeah, left hander who for whatever reason
they cannot pick up that that high fastball that that
he throws the you know, Chris Woodward used to talk
about the vertical approach angle. He's got the vertical approach angle.
And you know, for me, there's another major problem that's

(09:00):
not really being discussed enough, which is the two strike
approach and the ability to make contact when you need
to just make contact, cutting down on the swing or whatever.
The contrast was so stark in San Francisco when the
Giants had the opportunity to win a game and Patrick
Bailey came up there and took a half swing and

(09:21):
just punched the ball to right and won the ball game.
All he's trying to do is make sure that he
gets the bat on the ball and did so, and
the Rangers seemed completely incapable of going to that approach
when necessary. I understand you want to slug most of
the time, but you better have the ability to not

(09:42):
slug and just make contact when the situation calls for it.
As something that Buster Posey was preaching all spring with
the Giants, you know, talking to the people who covered
the Giants, and you know, some other teams have gone
to that. My guess is now that Clint Hurdle is
the hitting coach in Colorado, that they'll probably be going
along those lines. And you know, there's a little bit

(10:03):
of a return to that now from the everybody's slugs
approach that we've seen in the last few years. But
in the case of the Rangers, you know, there have
been so many games because they're playing so many close
games right that with a different approach, a different two
strike approach, you know, things could have been drastically different
for sure.

Speaker 3 (10:20):
And you know, I think on that road trip you
were just on you know, there are opportunities for Garcia
in that a series and not to pick on a dolls,
but he's kind of easy to pick on right now,
where it's just like, you know, and that's the thing,
like in spring training, the storyline was, well, he's got

(10:40):
this two strike approach, now we need him to find
the right combination to do it to he needs the slug,
but he just it's just and like I think of
Adrian Beltray. Adrian Beltre can just hit any ball and
put any ball yep, and he would do that a
lot of times with two strikes. How many two strikes
is did he have that? We're just through the hole
there between first and second. You know, a guy could
hit yeah, And I don't know that these guys know

(11:03):
how to hit right.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
And you wonder if if this is a generation of
guys who basically grew up with the true outcome sort
of coaching approach right, not just when they got to
the to the professional leagues, but even before that. It's
like hit a home runner, strike out, you know. I
mean so it's hard to I mean you almost have
to retrain the brain for some of these guys.

Speaker 4 (11:24):
Yeah, And I don't know how you do it, but
clearly it has to be an emphasis that comes from
the top, as in the case of the Giants, you know,
and I think, you know, there's a reason they're averaging
close to five runs a game with a lineup that
when you look at it, you go, what, right, They're
averaging five runs a game and look at our lineup
and they're averaging three.

Speaker 3 (11:42):
How can that be exactly? You know, I thought the Cubs,
and the Cubs have continued to do it, but the
Cub series, the Tyler Mullet Maley start, notwithstanding, they were
just putting the ball in play. It's as simple as
it was, and you know, it forces the defense. The
Rangers made a couple of mistakes, but they were just
hitting little lawn darts out there, and they weren't. They didn't.

(12:04):
I don't think they had a home run in the series,
and they still scored a pile of run.

Speaker 2 (12:09):
It's an old school approach though, right, this shortening this
whole thing, and and you know, analytics in some ways
right have made us look at old school as like
you know, Passe gone wrong. Look, these are still things
that can help you win baseball games. And even trying
to get a bunt down and popping it up to

(12:30):
the catcher, you know, I mean, everybody's got to be
able to get a bunt, and I know bunting is
not easy. I mean I wouldn't want to try to
stand there with a one hundred mile an hour fastball
coming at me.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
But they need to know how to do this.

Speaker 4 (12:42):
Yeah, it's situational hitting and that's you know, that's completely
different from slugging. And you know, some guys can do it,
some guys can't, and you have to work at it, right,
you really have to work at it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (12:56):
And I don't watch batting practice like I used to. Yeah,
i'd seen enough of it, but it used to be
you know, they'd hit the right field and they'd call it situation,
get them over, you know.

Speaker 4 (13:09):
Getting laid down five buns.

Speaker 3 (13:10):
Yeah, I mean, just yeah, things like that. I don't
know that they do that because I don't I don't
want to get well close to the cage or downstairs up.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
Were you watching yesterday, I'm sure you were closely enough
to know.

Speaker 3 (13:22):
They used the.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
Pitching machine at batting practice yesterday, and I felt like
they were trying to get a little more vlo right.
It felt like those pitches were coming in a little
faster than ANYVP you know, coach.

Speaker 4 (13:35):
Would throw well.

Speaker 3 (13:36):
And it was set up on the left side, so
they don't have any left handed BP throwers. But they
have these machines now where you can program them to
simulate where the arm slot where the ball will come out.
Jacob Degron was talking to me about it a few
weeks ago, and he's like, somebody can go into the
batting cage and take one hundred and at bats off

(13:56):
of my arm slot.

Speaker 4 (13:58):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
Yeah, And so I don't know if that was what
they were doing, but.

Speaker 2 (14:03):
They were raking by the way. I don't watch either,
but I did yesterday. And you know, every time Bobby
Wilson holds the ball up here and then he drops
it in the slot. And I mean, and I was
watching Adoles in particular, he is hitting the ball all
over the place.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
But Leodi had a good VP. I did, state answered yesterday, Yeah, Donnie,
but Leodi had a great VP.

Speaker 4 (14:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
Yeah. Anyway, it's it's so confounding. Have you seen an
offense that you remember, Eric that you know again, we
see the names, we know the numbers, we know the history.
That is almost this much of a confounding, this confounding,
this much of a disappointment.

Speaker 4 (14:41):
How about the twenty twenty four Rangers.

Speaker 3 (14:44):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you don't have to look that,
don't have to look that far to look far. Yeah,
great point.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
So anyway, that's that We've got to talk pitching too.
We had a chance to talk to a Ranger who
is back in the Major league club yesterday. We'll share
that conversation and keep talking with Eric Nadell as we
continue with the DLS Rangers Podcast.

Speaker 3 (15:11):
Eric was just telling us about us a little barbecue
place he stumbled on in Sacramento. Well, there's a big
barbecue place coming up this weekend. It's called at and
T Stadium, the Lone Star Smokeout Eric. It starts Friday,
runs through Sunday, featuring barbecue, country music, and then malted beverages.
I mean, it's really as Texas as It gets sixty

(15:33):
eight dollars for a GA ticket. Kids ten and underget
free DLS. We're going to be giving away tickets every day,
so stay tuned us for that. But based on what
you do is you show up and you eat barbecue.
There's fourteen people, fourteen teams from across the country who
are going to be trying to win the title, and
you get to choose for yourself who has the best barbecue.

(15:54):
And then you know it's the Derby. The Kentucky Derby
is Saturday Saturday, so I'm gonna guess you're gonna be
able to find them in Julip seeing you to Miles Monday.
So they're going to celebrate a Sunday at at at
the Lone Star Smokeout and then Cody Jinks among others.
Eric's a big music guy. He's probably heard of all
the eggs that are that are going to be there.
So kids sent an or to get in free. Don't

(16:17):
miss this out. Get your tickets at Lone Starsmokeout dot com.

Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah, we encourage you to do that. It should be
a fun weekend out there around the entertainment district as
they call it in Arlington. And so there's and there's
no doubt it's going to be suny because it's Texas.
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(17:04):
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apply that thirty five percent off with the code DLLs.
So before we get into the pitching her barbecue, have
you done one of the I've never done, and I
may try. I may try one of these this weekend,

(17:24):
the lone Star smokeout where there's the competition and you
kind of sample everyone.

Speaker 4 (17:28):
Yeah, they have a big one in Cleveland every year.
It used to be the biggest in the country. I
don't know if it is anymore, but we were lucky enough. Oh,
I would guess it's probably been twenty years ago by
now to be there back to back years for that
barbecue competition, and I went. I went both years and

(17:49):
totally loved it and actually was exposed to some barbecue
places that I then was able to visit in future
visits because there were places from Amarillo, there were.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
Places, Oh really love it.

Speaker 4 (17:58):
There were some places from East Texas, uh, and I
got to experience them. I remember there was one actually
from New York City and one from San Francisco that
I really liked, all of which I've now gone to
the rest.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
Just let's say, yeah, yeah, that's fantastic. Eric's a big
barbecue guy. So uh and do you when you go.

Speaker 3 (18:18):
Do you must sample several different stops?

Speaker 4 (18:23):
Yeah, as many as you can. You know. Now, I'm
not one to take a bite and throw the rest
of it away. I'll eat the entire rib or the
entire slice of brisket, which are the two they for me,
are the two ways. Yeah, to basically judge, that's your base. Yeah,
it's nice if they have burnt ins. It's nice if
they have, you know, some form of poultry. But basically
the pork rib and brisket are.

Speaker 3 (18:45):
The no doubt about that they'll go to. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
So let's talk a little bit about pitching. And the
guy we saw yesterday was Dane Dunning, who has been
recalled and they optioned Caleb bo Bosley. Caleb Bosley, it
was sad to see him, you know, it's always sad
to see the guy packing up over there too, especially
the last couple of outings.

Speaker 3 (19:09):
Yeah, he had a fresh arm, Yeah, he had options.
I wasn't sure if he had options or not after
being a minor league free agent basically, yeah, so that's good.
And then you know, they Daniel Robert, who's you know,
an old Triple A pitcher. He's thirty years old. He
got designated for as Simon. But he's been so good
the last couple of years. He's been on our he's
been on the forty man for several years. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(19:32):
that's you know.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
That name kind of came out of nowhere for the
df A. Yeah for me, yeah, did it did.

Speaker 4 (19:37):
And that'll be curious to see if he clear his
waivers or not.

Speaker 2 (19:40):
Right for sure, Yeah, fantastic, Yeah, for sure. And so
a Dane, uh you know, he said, and you were
at spring training some Eric Jeff was there too, but
he said he saw it coming that he wasn't surprised
by his demotion. I don't know that I was necessarily surprised.
I was surprised they dfa'd him at the time that
they that they demoted him to the minors.

Speaker 4 (20:03):
Yeah, and I guess the salary was an impediment to
anybody claiming him when he was available for any team
to grab on waivers.

Speaker 3 (20:12):
Right and then he so he was outright release. So
he could have elected free agency, but he would have
had a forfeit of salary, right, and it's two point
sixty six million, So he made a business issues and there.
But the first two starts at Triple A weren't very good.
But he's been a lot better. And then he said
he feels better, he looks he looked very good. Yes,

(20:33):
he did better than he did in spring training. Then,
like just in shape, and I know that was an
issue last year. He was out of shape and fatigued.
And but I think he was humbled. I think the
game humbled him a little bit. You know, he said
he doesn't take anything from granted, even you know, every
year after his great year in twenty three, he went
to spring training in twenty fours like I've got to

(20:54):
make the team. But I think this you might. I
don't know what opportunity he's going to have. He still
has options and canna be optioned. But he did so
so well for this team in twenty three. And I
know Bruce Bocher remembers that stuff. But at the same time,
it's also a performance driven industry and you're not performing,

(21:18):
you're not gonna you're not gonna hang around, but I
hope he gets a couple of chances to pitch and
see what it looks like.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
It is surprising when you've got a guy who was
the pitcher of the year twice. Yeah, and most recently
in twenty twenty three, right the World Series, that World
Series championship team, he's the pitcher of the year and
he was, you know, I mean, but he kind of
lost it right this Yeah, I mean he saw it
coming and kind of especially at the end of last year,

(21:46):
so did all of us.

Speaker 4 (21:47):
No doubt. It was shocking. And then in spring training
he just did not look good at all. Oh and
I know it's deceiving to go by spring training results
in Arizona. It's hard fare pictures, you know, some pictures
just don't get their breaking pitches to break. But still,
you know, in a competition for jobs, yeah, that's what

(22:07):
you have to go by.

Speaker 3 (22:08):
Yeah, right, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (22:09):
If you had had a good year last year, it's
a different story. Then you have a bad year and
you say, okay, well, we know, we know what this
guy came. He did it for us last year. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
So with regard to this staff, you know, everybody I
think was really looking forward to an opportunity to see
Jacob de Gram pitch, you know, for a full season
and you know, off to a start. Now it's not
a full season yet, but has he done things yet
that make you go, I'm really glad, you know, we

(22:38):
get to see him. He's not quite right, it doesn't seem.

Speaker 4 (22:41):
No, he's still not locating his pitches, consistently not making pitches,
you know, getting getting hit by the bottom of the
batting order last time. You know that should never happen
when he's at his best. And you know, he just
has made made far too many mistakes, which is where
the home runs have come from. But I still love

(23:02):
watching him pitch. In fact, I'm not working tonight. I'm
off tonight, but I'm going to the game. Yeah, because
Jacob's pitching. I'm going to the game. I don't want
to miss the Jacob de Gram start.

Speaker 3 (23:10):
Yeah. Where do you sit when you go?

Speaker 4 (23:11):
Uh? You know, I haven't sat in the stands a
whole lot, but I'm going to sit right below the
broadcast booth. Yeah. I want to have I want to
have access to the booth. I want to be able
to talk to my guys when I when I need to,
and I could. I could really just turn around between
and I'm going to sit in the last row right
below the booth. You know, as much as I complain
about where the booth is sometimes, you know, yeah that's odd. Yeah,

(23:35):
that's where I'm going to sit tonight. But my guess
is I will venture down during the game, you know,
with that press pass and wander around the lower deck.
You know, when de Gram's on the mound for a
couple of innings, I'll be up there close watching, watching
those pitches move. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:51):
I think the the starting is the Dodgers. When he
made more mechanical changes, he was throwing the ball harder,
and you know, he and he talked in spring training
about not wanting to, you know, intentionally trying to throw
at ninety seven, ninety six, ninety eight instead of one
oh one, one oh two. But god, i'd like to

(24:12):
see that, you know. And he says he has it
whenever he wants it. Well, it seems like there are
times and you should be crowding out a little more.
But he also if he doesn't feel good as mechanics,
he doesn't want to do it right.

Speaker 4 (24:23):
It was gratifying to see him in that game, you know,
jump two miles an hour. And I asked him the
next day whether he was, you know, ultra sight because
it was the Dodgers and the crowd was electric, and
he said, oh, it's just a matter of my mechanics
being good. When my mechanics are good, you know, I
get a couple of extra miles an hour on it
without really trying to.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
It's amazing. It's just a man, you know. And to
Jeff's point about having him, he really does have that.
And if the mechanics are working. We all remember seeing
Justin Verlander in the eighth or ninth inning pull out
a hundred, you know, pull out triple digits. And you've
been like the whole game, we've been watching you, and
now you got a hundred.

Speaker 4 (24:58):
Yeah. John, he once told me when I the Hall
of Fame writer from the Detroit Free Press, when I
asked about Verlander, and he said, yeah, Verlander told me
that I cruise at ninety six, but I've got ninety
nine in my hip pocket at all times. And you're right,
he would just he would just wheel it out when

(25:19):
he needed it.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yeah, even if nowadays nobody pitches in the ninth anyway, but.

Speaker 4 (25:25):
Yeah, how about that?

Speaker 3 (25:26):
Uh yeah, so a Vaaldi tonight and it's a bullpen
day for swinging A's who are without j T. Gin
who's on the injured list, who the Rangers saw last week?
So who are they starting?

Speaker 2 (25:39):
Look at that pitching matchup, profit and we'll the look
at Domez Lopez?

Speaker 3 (25:44):
Ok okay, yeah, yeah, there's there's Lopez. So bullpen game.
I guess they didn't have to use a ton of
relievers last night. No, I thought I thought they went
a little early. I thought the Seriers might have gotten
him through the sixth at least.

Speaker 4 (25:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (25:56):
Whatever, So the way he's dominating this team, they'll be
in pretty good shape. And then bullpen games always seem
to give the Rangers at a lot of trouble, except
for in Game four of the World Series. That was
the one bullpen game that seemed to work out pretty
well for the Rangers. Fine, yeah, so yeah, I don't know,
it seems like it seems like advantage Rangers.

Speaker 2 (26:16):
I don't think the A's are going to score more
than a couple runs. You know, that's the amazing thing.
I mean, the way the Rangers have been pitching Eric,
it's just and it's it's so unlike what we're used to.
You know, you've been around since seventy nine. I've been
around since ninety. And the Rangers just don't win games
by pitching. And the fifteen or sixteen that they've won

(26:36):
so far have mostly been because of pitching.

Speaker 4 (26:39):
Yeah, it's we're living in bizarro world. Yeah, where the Rangers,
you know, can pitch like crazy and can't hit. It's
it can't last, right. We keep saying it can't right, right,
And you know, I go in there to interview Bruce
Bocci every day in his office, and he's very superstitious
about where we say up where we sit in the office,

(27:02):
so that if we win, when I'm sitting in the
chair on the right and he's sitting in the chair
on the left, the next day when I go in there,
I know, just sit down in the chair on the right.

Speaker 3 (27:12):
Huh.

Speaker 4 (27:13):
So that happened in San Francisco. We won the first
night I was sitting in the chair on the right
in his office. Then so the next day I come in,
I sit on the chair on the right, and the
Rangers lose in the walk off, the Patrick Bailey walk off,
and I went in the next day, and I didn't
know which chair to sit in. Yeah, And Boach comes
in and I said, Bach, I didn't know what chair
to sit in, and he said, sit in any chair

(27:35):
that'll get us more than two runs. He said, never
mind the superstition. Yeah chair.

Speaker 3 (27:43):
By the way, you didn't find the right chair.

Speaker 4 (27:44):
I han't happened yet. And apparently Matt who did the
show last night, didn't find the right chair.

Speaker 3 (27:49):
You know, he found a worst chair. Yeah, that's even worse.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
Yeah, But you know what, Nathan Valdi was such a
big acquisition, you know, reacquisition in the off season, and
he's another one. He's just fun to watch. He's such
a bulldog. He's a bulldog.

Speaker 4 (28:04):
He's so great at knowing how to pitch, making adjustments.
You know, we thought the last time he pitched, we
thought he was way off. In the first couple of innings,
just wasn't getting it together. You could tell from his
facial expressions, in his body language, he was getting frustrated
at his inability to get the ball we wanted. And
then by the fourth inning it was world Series of

(28:25):
AULTI again. You know, he had made whatever adjustment needed
to be made, and you know he was back to
doing that thing he does.

Speaker 3 (28:32):
He's a yeah, go ahead jam. Was it the eighty
three team that like has like the club record for ra.

Speaker 4 (28:37):
Yeah, it was dreadful led the era, Yeah, led the
league in the ra right, and we're somewhat disappointing offensively,
although for much of the season they hit like crazy.
Doug Rader was the manager, was his first year and
then they had the typical Ranger post All Star Game collapse. Okay,
that was the year that Raider and Tony LaRussa got

(28:58):
into a war of war words because Doug claimed the
White Sox, who were in first place in our division,
were winning ugly, and winning ugly became the theme line
for the White Sox. Yeah, and they actually won the
division winning ugly. You know, thank you Doug Rader for
for giving that to them. But you know, the Rangers

(29:19):
were winning by by pitching great. Their defense was fantastic
that year. That was the year they had Bucky Den
and Wayne Hollis and up the middle, they had Buddy
Bell and Pete O'Brien off the corners and they're infield.
They gave up nothing. They were they were fantastic.

Speaker 3 (29:34):
And who was pitching? Who were the pitchers.

Speaker 4 (29:37):
Oh, they had they had Charlie Huff, they had Mike
Smithson and John Butcher. I remember remember those two guys.

Speaker 3 (29:48):
That's pretty good recall from eighty three.

Speaker 4 (29:50):
Right, yeah, I kind of I'm kind of running out of.

Speaker 3 (29:52):
Two years ago.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
They'd We are also gonna we're gonna tax Eric's memory
a little bit more here as we come back, getting
into some more of the fun history of Eric Dandel's
Hall of Fame career. Will also give you an opportunity
to find out when his big birthday bash is this year.
I hope you've been to Misty aka Leon.

Speaker 4 (30:14):
He was.

Speaker 3 (30:14):
He's already asking me about it.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
We got details coming next. It's the DLS Rangers podcast.

Speaker 3 (30:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
So I got a text from Nicole today. Oh, and
she's suggesting that I, you know, allow myself and get
myself these text alerts from game time, which I think
is a good idea because there are so many things
happening in this area that you can find on game time,
and and some of the bands like Eric is going

(30:45):
to have at his birthday bash, which we'll talk about
here in a minute, are available on game game time.
You can find tickets to almost any venue in the
Metroplex as well as the largest venues in the Metroplex.
The Stars of course are big right now. The Rangers
games you can find there. So game Time is just

(31:05):
a great app. You can actually see the seat that
you are going to purchase. They have price guarantees and
they'll actually refund if there's an issue with the event.
So game Time is a great app. We encourage you
to go to game time dot com. If you do
that and use the code DLLs, you get twenty dollars
off your first purchase.

Speaker 3 (31:26):
I don't know if you guys saw this last week,
but we have some news share we're pretty proud of.
We are now partners with the Big Brothers and Big
Sisters of America. It's all the All City Networks, not
just the dls, but our other venues as well. And
it's more to us and to our headquarter people in Denver.

(31:49):
It's more about sports and we want to be able
to give back and this is going to give us
an opportunity to do that. The partnership kicked off last week,
but it doesn't stop there. We'll be working year round
to support Big Brothers a Big Sisters through fundraising, content events,
and even opportunities for our team and maybe some of
you to get directly involved. I believe Jesse has already

(32:10):
volunteered to become a big Buss. He has. Yeah, so
we're excited to support youth mentorship that really makes a difference.
You can learn more and see how to get evolved
at BBBS dot org slash Allcity.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
Yep, that's a great idea. We'd love you to do that.
Tom Grieve, when we've done some stuff with Big Brothers
and Big Sisters before, talks about his days at Big
Brothers Big Sisters when he was growing up in Massachusetts.

Speaker 3 (32:36):
I can't remember that little town, do you remember that?

Speaker 2 (32:38):
Eric, Pittsfield, Pittsfield, that's it, Pittsfield, Massachusetts. So anyway, very good,
good stuff, and we appreciate you being a part of that.
So Eric has been around this organization since nineteen seventy nine,
So this as a Texas team.

Speaker 3 (32:56):
They were only seven years old when you got here, right, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (33:01):
I actually and I got here in seventy six to
broadcast hockey for the Dallas Blackhawks. So I actually witnessed
a couple of seasons as a fan, you know, two
and a half seasons really half a seventy six and
seventy seven and seventy eight. I was going to games
regularly at old Arlington Stadium. Wow, sitting on those metal bleachers,

(33:22):
sometimes in the heat in the well. Not on day games, Okay.
I was struggling to find shade, like everybody else was,
even at night those Sunday afternoon games, and there weren't
many because they mostly were playing Sunday night games.

Speaker 3 (33:35):
Sure back then, Yeah, of course that's right.

Speaker 2 (33:38):
And so as you're you're a hockey announcer down here,
are you dreaming of maybe someday I could be a
part of this Rangers broadcast or how does that come about?

Speaker 4 (33:47):
Yeah? The New York Rangers was all I wanted to
do was be a hockey announcer, you know, that was it.
Really from the time I was in high school and
heard Marve Albert doing the New York Ranger games. I
was telling people, you know, when I grew up, I'm
going to be the voice of the Rangers. And I
met the New York Rangers. But you know, I love baseball.
I listened to a million games. I went to games

(34:09):
constantly when I was a kid. I played it until
you know, freshman year in college, but I never really
wanted to broadcast it because I thought it was too slow.
I had a chance when I was in high school
to sit in with the Chicago White Sox announcers a
game at the old Kamiski Park. It was a doubleheader,
it was in August. They were pretty far out of
first place, and they looked bored. They sounded bored, and

(34:35):
it was It didn't seem like a really easy job.
It seemed really hard. And I thought, well, these hockey
games I've been listening to, they moved fast and they're exciting,
and that would be a lot more fun. So, you know,
that's kind of what I concentrated on when I went
to college. We didn't broadcast baseball. We broadcast football, hockey,
and soccer. So I broadcast football and hockey and felt

(34:57):
that hockey was, you know, that was the future. The
NHL was exp the WHA had just come into existence,
so there seemed to be a lot of jobs opening up.

Speaker 3 (35:06):
Yeah, you had one job in Muskegan, Michigan.

Speaker 4 (35:09):
My first job was in Muskegan, Michigan, a little factory
town of forty thousand, and I spent three years there.
Oh wow, and in fact, I thought if I couldn't
get out of there after three years, I probably was
not very good. And so I started taking the law
school admission test, buying to law schools. Wow.

Speaker 2 (35:28):
Being from Michigan, I spent three years in Muskegan one day,
so yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:33):
It's not it's not the great. Did you see Gretzky
in the wha did?

Speaker 4 (35:38):
I never actually saw Wha Ga in person?

Speaker 3 (35:41):
All right?

Speaker 4 (35:42):
No. I was in the International Hockey League. And then
what saved me from going to law school was I
got a job in Oklahoma City which was Triple A hockey.
It was the Toronto Maple Leafs Triple A team, and
you know that kept me from actually going to law school,
where I would have been probably a very unham attorney.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
Yeah, for the rest of my life. And then how
long were you in okse.

Speaker 4 (36:03):
Was there for one year? And then that team and
the Dallas Blackhawks merged the Toronto Bay Beliefs in Chicago.
Blackhawks decided to share a minor league franchise put it
in Dallas, and I was lucky enough that the PR
guy and broadcaster Frank Flessi with the Dallas Blackhawks decided
to retire from hockey and open his own PR firm,

(36:24):
and that allowed me to come down here and basically
take that job.

Speaker 2 (36:28):
Okay, Yeah, that's excellent, very fun. That's sort of the
history of how Eric Naidell got here, and then so
many memories and moments that you have here. Obviously, winning
the World Series is at the top, but you know
what else is sort of on the mount rushmore of
things you recall here.

Speaker 4 (36:49):
Well, the Nolan Ryan two no hitters, Yeah, and the
five thousand strikeout, which was the first time I got
to make a big call. I was working with Mark
Holtz all those years. I did the fourth, fifth, and
sixth inning, and if there was an eleventh inning, I
did the eleventh inning, and whatever odd number innings were
in extra innings. But that day the five thousand just

(37:10):
happened to fall into my innings, so I got a
chance to do it. Nolan's three hundredth win was big,
and then we had the Kenny Rodgers perfect game, and
again Mark got to call the twenty seventh out of that.
But that was a big thrill for me. Calling Josh
Hamilton's four home run game, yeah, was a very big deal,
and maybe even bigger than that. The thing that's never

(37:33):
happened before or since, the Rangers' thirty run game in
Bolt right, where they had seven RBIs from the number
nine hit a Ramon Vascut, including a three run homer
in the ninth that got them to thirty. You know
that stands out. That's pretty high up there for me. Yes,
that's a record that might never get broken.

Speaker 3 (37:53):
It's threatened every once in a while, and ride a
couple of years ago. It wasn't the Mets who were
or maybe they're on the wrong side of it, the
Braves against the Men. Maybe we're threatening the Braves. I
think had twenty seven.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
Yeah, didn't I get it twenty six recently here twenty
four of the Reds.

Speaker 4 (38:08):
Okay, the twenty four to two game last week.

Speaker 3 (38:11):
Yeah, it gets everyone's in a while, it'll pop up. Yeah,
but that was the year before I took the beat.
But I remember those names because they carried over into
the next season, like Romon Vesquez, right, and Travis Metcalft.

Speaker 4 (38:24):
And the really weird thing about that it was the
first game of a double header. Yeah, and Washa decided
that he was going to play the bench guys in
the first game of the double header so that he
wouldn't be tempted to make the regulars play both games
if they happened to lose the first game. So he
had all of the normal bench guys in the lineup,
and when he handed his lineup card to Rudy Haramio,

(38:45):
the hitting coach, Rudy looked at it and he went, wash,
this is the kind of lineup that gets a manager fired.
And next thing you knew, they scored thirty runs. Travis
Metcalf hit a grand Slam, and Vascaz drove in seven.
Salta Lamachia. They drove in six. They had thirteen RBIs
from the last two guys in the batting order, And

(39:06):
so it's the beauty of baseball. That amazing you know,
you never.

Speaker 3 (39:10):
Know, okay, And was that the series that it was
a doubleheader because there had been like a train derailment.

Speaker 4 (39:15):
It was that that wasn't the double header, but that
was the beauty too. And then the amazing thing was
so the Rangers win the game thirty to three. Wes
Littleton gets us save right by pitching the last three
innings and the Rangers after three innings were losing three
to nothing. Ashley scored thirty runs on the last six innings,

(39:36):
and then in the second game of the doubleheader, the
Rangers won I think eight to six, and the game
took longer than the first.

Speaker 3 (39:43):
Game, did it really?

Speaker 4 (39:44):
Yeah, the game time was longer, so we and we
were flying back to Texas to play the next night,
and the doubleheader was just, you know, one of the
longest ones the Rangers had ever played without any extra
innings involved. And then we flew home, got home at
you know, five in the morning or something like that,
and had to play the next night. Did you.

Speaker 3 (40:06):
Dad? Going carry on?

Speaker 4 (40:08):
So? Did you?

Speaker 2 (40:10):
Let's get to your big birthday bash, because you've been
doing this now for it's got to be twelve, fifteen, thirteen, okay, Yeah,
And it started at the Kestler. In fact, it's been
at the Kessler every year up until last year, right right, yeah,
And it's great. It's really fun. You'll see memorabilia and
all that type of thing there for sale via the

(40:31):
aux like you don't get anywhere else. And Eric is
a big music officionado, and so anyway, this year it's at.

Speaker 4 (40:41):
It's at the Longhorn Ballroom, which is in its seventy
fifth year.

Speaker 3 (40:45):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (40:45):
And is owned by the same people who own the Kestler,
so that the sound is exquisite. Everything about it as
first class. It's almost like a music museum in addition
to being a venue, because they have they have shadow
boxes with you know, James brown suit from when he
played there, and you know, stuff that Bob Wills had,
who was actually one of the owners of the Longhorn

(41:06):
years ago, Tammy Wynette, the Sex Pistols, all these famous
people who played, their memorabilia from those shows.

Speaker 3 (41:13):
I hear them in the same science.

Speaker 4 (41:15):
And then, you know, I get to pick the bands,
which is kind of how the whole thing started. You know,
on my birthday, I get to pick the bands I
want to see, and of course it goes to a
great cause, the Grant Haliburton Foundation, which provides mental health
education programs in schools. But this year I've selected, you know,
one of the most fun party bands I've ever seen,
the Shiny Ribs. They are from Austin, and anybody who's

(41:38):
seen them knows how great their show is, big band
with brass and backup singers, just wonderful. And then to
open the show, We've gotten the Secret Sisters, which is
an acoustic duo from Alabama that not only makes gorgeous harmonies,
but they're totally hilarious in all really songs banter. So
that's the show. It's May twenty ninth, Longhorn Ballroom. There

(42:01):
are tickets on sale already at Longhorn Ballroom dot com
and don't wait because the seating is limited. It's a
very big room. There's tons of standing room and it's
actually a great room to have a standing room and
just kind of wander around there. Two or three different
bars will be open that night, huge silent auction and
a live auction as well. You get a chance to

(42:22):
browse all those items. And one of the things we've
been doing regularly there is auctioning off lunches with local
media celebrities at fine restaurants. You know, you can buy
lunch or dinner with me, for example, at Neighborhood Services,
or you can go to dinner with Bruce Bochi at

(42:44):
Nick and Sam's. Oh nice, Wow, you know things like that.
Dale Hansen actually has given us an item where six
people can go have dinner at Dale's house and he
will send a limo to pick them up.

Speaker 3 (42:57):
And wow.

Speaker 4 (42:59):
So a lot of really cool stuff in addition to
autographed memorabilia, Will Johnson, the lead singer in Centro Matic
who now plays with Jason Isbel in the four hundred unit,
is also an artist and he paints baseball players. He
has painted a portrait of Elvis Andrews for us that
Elvis is going to sign this weekend. We're going to

(43:19):
auction off, so a lot of really cool stuff and
the auction will go online the week before, so about
May twenty second, and people, if they follow my Twitter
which is naydale Er Naydale Air, or my Instagram which
is Ranger's Voice, you know that I'll be posting all
that stuff, you know, when it goes goes live a
week beforehand.

Speaker 3 (43:38):
So, Leon, I hope he answered all of your questions.
I bet he did. And late Leon it says he
won something. It's earlier in the chat, but he said.

Speaker 4 (43:48):
He he wont an auction at him.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
Finally going to be able to claim my charity lunch
experience I won in one at a past auction. Oh,
he's doing it tomorrow, so apparently, oh wow, have a
lunch tomorrow. No, it could be somebody else.

Speaker 4 (44:02):
I don't think I do.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
It's probably some of the other celebs though. It does
so very cool and it's really fun. And you'll see.

Speaker 3 (44:09):
Emily Jones for Leon tomorrow, all right.

Speaker 4 (44:12):
Yeah, very nicee Emily is going to Righteous Foods in
Fort Worth.

Speaker 3 (44:15):
Okay, yeah, you go.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
Yeah, you'll see people you know right that you know
because you've seen him on TV or you've seen him
at a baseball game and in a baseball stadium at.

Speaker 3 (44:25):
Eric's event every year. I mean, there's generally quite a
few people that, yeah, well known.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
So anyway, we encourage you to do that in this
great cause too. And that's that's the reason Eric started
doing this was for the cause. So we've got more
coming up. It's our cleanup segment. We'll let Eric weigh
in on all these things as we continue talking with
the Hall of Fame voice of the Texas Rangers, Eric
Nadell on the DLLs Rangers Podcast.

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(45:12):
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Speaker 3 (45:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
So Eric asked a very good question when he walked in.
He said, now that the Dallas Wings are coming in,
are you guys going to do a show for the Wings?
And we're it's in the infancy, but we're definitely talking
about that. And this shirt is our Dallas Wing shirt.
We only have one Dallas Wings shirt, but if you
go to the stored out Allcitynetwork dot com you will

(45:54):
see that this shirt is listed under the Dallas Wings.
We have them for all of our teams. We have
TCUs still Jeff, we have TCUCCU shirts, SMU shirts, and
so anyway, we encourage you to go to Allcitynetwork dot
com to get your t shirts.

Speaker 4 (46:11):
Today.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
You have other things available to you too there as
far as merchandise goes, they're super well made, they're comfortable,
they're very washable, and we just think they're really cool
and they if you wear them, we'll know it's you
and we'll kind of give you that knowing nod. So
stort out allcitynetwork dot com to get your merchandise from
All City today.

Speaker 3 (46:31):
I do have on the diehard shirt that was just
on the screen. Just I'm covered up, okay, cool as
we know, I get chilly anyway. You get a free
shirt when you become a diehard at DLS and dang it,
if you missed our sale that we were running the
last couple of weeks, I'm sorry, but seventy nine ninety
nine is still a hell of a deal. You get
twenty percent off of all of our events, you get

(46:53):
the free shirt, like I was saying, and you get
to be in the cool crowd and read all of
our stuff. Now just range your stuff, but cowboys, stars
and MAVs from writers who you know, people know. Clarence
Hill I was at That's pretty funny. I was at
dinner the other night in Mansfield and I was at
the bar with my wife and we were talking. All
of a sudden, I hear the bartender saying, yeah, I

(47:13):
was talking online with Clarence Hill on Twitter, and you know,
gotten a spat with Clarence about Shador Sanders and all
this stuff. And he came over and I said, Hey,
I worked with Clarence and he was kind of like, oh.
I was like, no, that's okay, I get it. I
get it. A lot of people getting all Clarence way
getting us, getting us a splat with Clarence on our
spat or a splat on become a dieard at alcitynetwork

(47:37):
dot com slash join.

Speaker 2 (47:39):
Yep, that's a great idea. We appreciate you doing that
very much. In this last segment of the show, Eric,
we run through some of the things happening in baseball
and we'll probably try to get some questions that our
people in the chat have asked as well. But we
were talking about all those RBIs and stuff that you
know they had in the thirty run game and in
the Josh Hamilton for home run game. See what brand

(48:00):
Nimo did, No I did nine RBIs. Yeah, in a game.

Speaker 4 (48:05):
It reminds me of the Pedro Rodriguez nine rb I
right in Seattle. Yeah, and he had nine rb eyes
in his first three times.

Speaker 2 (48:11):
Up and he got I think he got his nine
and a three inning stint as well.

Speaker 3 (48:16):
Yeah, yeah, because they said the last guy to do
it was Sammy Sosa. Yeah, in like two thousand and two,
I think it was. So it had been a while
and I think Nimo came into the game with like
seven RBIs but more than doubled it. Yeah, that's baseball now.

Speaker 4 (48:34):
I thought you were going to bring up the Anirez.

Speaker 3 (48:37):
Well, it definitely had me thinking about Josh, I mean
no doubt, Yeah, and that was I mean, didn't he
have another didn't he have a double too? That was
Hamilton's one non homer was a double, But I thought
Suarez did a single single. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
Yeah, but I mean it's amazing when you see the
ball like that and you're just and it's also amazing.
And I think you brought it up during the game
in Baltimore that night.

Speaker 3 (49:02):
Why do you keep pitching to him?

Speaker 4 (49:04):
You know? Yeah, you totally expected him to hit another
home run when he came up looking for the fourth. Yeah,
you would have been surprised if he didn't. As locked
in as he was. I mean, he looked like that
that home run derby thing in New York that he had.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
Done well, and he hit it off of Darren O'Day,
you know, who had been a teammate of Hamilton's, and
Darren after the game was like, I just throw it
right down. You know, he's so mad at himself. But yeah,
I'll never that. You know, like, I haven't seen a
perfect game. That's we almost did twenty thirteen, almost almost did.
That's that's the one thing I haven't seen in baseball.

(49:40):
That's like, you know, I said, World Series might be
what sends me to the showers, but I'm hanging on
to perfect game now.

Speaker 4 (49:46):
And you know the thing that I haven't done is
called the twenty seventh out of a Ranger perfect game
or no hitter. Yeah, because the no hitters that I
did I did with Mark Yeah, and Mark called the
twenty seven out I have called the twenty seven out
of three no hitters against the Rangers.

Speaker 3 (50:01):
Oh boy, yeah, Mark Early, yeah, Buz and Joe Musgrove yeah,
oh yeah, yeah. Those were the first two I've ever
had ever covered so where which were must Grove and
must Grove and Kluber yeah in twenty one, Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah,
the story was, oh Corey Klueber.

Speaker 2 (50:19):
I know, yeah, we got one inning out of him
and then he comes back and just shoves right and
throws the no hitter. Although they didn't do much after that,
No Young around a couple more years, But yeah, he
got a couple that was a that was a dreadful offense.
They were supposed to be dreadful, right, yeah, right, yeah,
I think that, you know, the I saw something on

(50:41):
I don't know if it's in Richie's game notes or
if it was on MLB Network or something last you know,
like the Rangers in the midst of six games of
two or fewer runs, or but that twenty that twenty
one team had nine.

Speaker 3 (50:54):
Straight of three or fewer. So that was that was
one hundred, one hundred and two lost team and allowed
us to get Kamar Rocker the next year. Right to
the surprise area. The thing is two teams at year
loss one hundred and eight games. Yeah, amazing. The Raiders
weren't even close to the worst team.

Speaker 4 (51:12):
And the Colorado Rockies right now are on pace I
believe to win twenty five games if they continue with
the current Wow. They seem to have a game one
last night and the Dodgers came back and beat him.
It might even be down to twenty four now. I
haven't recalculated after that loss, but going into last night,
they were on a pace to go twenty five and

(51:32):
one hundred and thirty seven. Wow. And we thought the
White Sox forty one and one hundred twenty one was.

Speaker 3 (51:37):
Bad, right, Clint Hurdle will turn.

Speaker 2 (51:40):
That around with all his witticisms.

Speaker 4 (51:44):
And he's got a book now which is actually really
fun to read. Oh really, yeah, and I can't remember
the name of it. I've got it, and it's it
basically is you know, Clint hurdleisms.

Speaker 3 (51:56):
Yeah, yeah, Tony and Tony Barnett has a book also
about his time in Japan.

Speaker 4 (52:03):
Mostly yeah, very entertaining, but it was a very good book.

Speaker 3 (52:05):
He's going to come on our show next month's oh good, yeah,
or early June one. Yeah, Tony's a good guy.

Speaker 4 (52:11):
Yeah. You know. The book I'm reading now is Howard
Bryant's autobiography biography and not autobography of Ricky. Oh really,
it's just called Ricky and I love it. It's you know,
I was always fascinated by Ricky Henderson.

Speaker 3 (52:22):
Of course.

Speaker 4 (52:23):
You know, we saw him when he first came up
with the A's Rangers were one of the first teams
to play against him. And you know, I've always been
captivated by his personality and the biography is just fascinating that. Yeah,
it's really cool.

Speaker 3 (52:39):
Yeah, he's he's an amazing character. Remember a story about him.
John Olerud played with him in Toronto.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
Yeah, and he and John Olerud always wore a helmet
in the field, and then they were teammates again later,
I think for the Mets, and Ricky said, man, I
used to play with the guy who wore a helmet
in Toronto too, just like, yeah, that was.

Speaker 4 (53:03):
Ricky was one of these guys like Mickey Rivers. He
didn't really know anybody's name. He wasn't really good, didn't
really care. Mickey used to call everybody gozzlehead. Go Yeah
you didn't know your name, which was almost everybody. He
just called everybody.

Speaker 3 (53:17):
Gozzle Gozzlehead was a term of affection.

Speaker 4 (53:19):
Yeah, instead of call buddy you know, or pal or
you know, called him gozlehead.

Speaker 3 (53:25):
All right, there you go.

Speaker 2 (53:27):
So Chicago White Sox have introduced their new city Connects.
Did we get a pick of that profit or no, no,
no pick They're red.

Speaker 3 (53:36):
Oh they're like the Bulls jerseys. Yeah, they're they're they're
they're picking up on the Chicago Yeah. Yeah, I know.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
When I first saw it, I just you know, I'm
scanning by it on X and I'm like, hell, why
would the White Sox do that? And then I went
to MLB and saw that there it's an homage to
the Bulls of the nineties and all that, and they
do they have the stripes on them and stuff like.

Speaker 3 (53:58):
That, cling to the best in NBA history as the
worst team in MLB history, that's right, although again Colorado's
gonna was standing. Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm I'm from Denver.
The first Rocky season was my last year of high school,
and if I'm not mistaken, either opening day that season

(54:18):
or their home opener was the same day as the
fiasco in Waco, and so we were we were at
home at my friend's house from lunch watching both of
those things. But so I was never a Rockies fan.
Now my parents got season tickets, and you know, those
teams were fun to watch if you loved offense, you know,

(54:39):
because Dante Boschett and Beni Castilla and Andre's Gala Raga
had a great season, a couple of great seasons there,
and uh, I could keep going and going and going
with those guys, but they have no direction now, you know,
it's like, what is this team trying to do? How
do you try to win at that field? You know,
go get go, get the next Dante Boschett, you know,

(55:02):
and just load your lineup with those guys and see
what happens. But yeah, my friend, my friends are just
they don't even watch anymore. It's like what a waist.
There's no direction. And then somebody was telling me that
the Montforts, the owners are like very involved, very hands
on in the day to day operation, which never seems
to work.

Speaker 4 (55:18):
They somehow, though, have come up with the best City
Connect uniforms, the green and white ones that looked like
the Colorado. I love those and now they've changed to
a new one this year and I love the new ones,
new one set. Yeah, they've somehow managed to come up with,
in my opinion, the two best City Connect beautiful.

Speaker 3 (55:38):
Well, and the attendance is still good because they took
they transformed the right field into like a party deck
and so people still like to go to the games,
but I don't think they're watching the game, right, Yeah,
they're there, I hope they're not. They're there for for
other reasons, which is fine. You know, you go to
down till you go to Lodo and you hang out
and all that stuff. Now with regard to the City Connects,

(56:00):
what do you think the Rangers, of course, are done
with theirs this year? Those are three year stints. Do
you like these Peagle ones?

Speaker 4 (56:09):
I'm not a fan of the black or dark exactly
me too. I'll just I just hope that the next version,
you know, they don't they don't try and do that. Yeah,
and then then we'll see. I'm open minded to whatever
whatever they come up with next time.

Speaker 3 (56:25):
It's like the Mariner City Connects, the black Pants, the tops.
The top is very doable, right because it's kind of
a throwback, but then the black pants just like, come on.

Speaker 2 (56:33):
Yeah, every time that they put one of those out.
And again, it's not just the team, I mean, it's
the Nike or whoever the manufacturer is. That's you know,
you know, significant in that decision making process. But anyway,
they seem to really like the off color pants and
I think most of us fans like I like everything
about that city, connect from here up and the pants

(56:57):
I'm just like, oh, I've never gotten used to them.
Right three years in and they are blue. It's yeah,
they call it some sort of midnight blue or something.
So for the first time ever on the history, it's
not a long history, but it's a nine to eight
nine month history of the program, we will mention the
name Lynn Manuel Miranda Ah who is writing a movie.

(57:20):
He says, not a play, a movie about the Molina brothers,
Benji and Yad a year and what's the other uh
it's He's said, this is a great movie. It's a
made for Hollywood story. And he's working on a movie
and he says it'll help employ a lot of Latin actors,

(57:41):
and I think it would be a great I wonder
if in the movie, the cycle gotta have will be there,
It's got.

Speaker 4 (57:51):
To be has to be the highlight of the movie.

Speaker 3 (57:53):
I think it would be. They've got Well, somebody just asked,
what's the craziest thing you've seen in the booth, And
that's got to be I got to be up the dad.

Speaker 4 (58:02):
Probably the most unlikely thing that I've seen in the booth.
The other thing was one day in Kansas City. The
Rangers in Kansas City were having a bit of a
brushback bean ball war, and Brian McCrae had had enough
and when he got hit by a pitch in like
the eighth or ninth inning of the last game of
the series, he dropped his bat and instead of charging

(58:25):
the mound, he charged the ranger dugout to go after
Kevin Kennedy, who was the Ranger manager at the time.
And that was that. That ranked with the uh the
ball off Conseco's head, which was which was a great
one too, as things you weren't quite ready for.

Speaker 3 (58:43):
Were you calling that inning? Do you remember?

Speaker 4 (58:45):
I was calling the Conseco ball off the head thing,
and it was embarrassing for me because I didn't really
see it as going off his head in that old
stadium in Cleveland. You know, I'm blaming the fact that
the lights weren't good and Seka was kind of in
shadows back there. But my radio call was, you know,
he's a flyball to deep write and Caseko's back, he's
at the wall, and that ball is off the wall

(59:08):
and over the wall. How did that happen? And then
we saw the replay and saw that it actually didn't
go off the wall and over the wall, but off
his head, head and over the wall. Yeah, amazing. Yeah,
I had the distinction of miscalling that one.

Speaker 3 (59:25):
Yeah. Yeah, well you know, at least it's memorable.

Speaker 4 (59:28):
Nobody's perfect.

Speaker 2 (59:29):
Nobody is perfect. Yeah, those they can see exactly. Any
other questions you see there, Jeff, we want to get
to for Eric.

Speaker 3 (59:36):
Galliga Champ is asking about a book, not the Limerick
book that you've done, but like a book about your career.

Speaker 4 (59:44):
Uh. No, we haven't done one yet. I've thought about it.
I'm basically too lazy, Yeah to do it. Even if
I do it as told to book, you still have
to sit down and tell all the stories and then
read it and all that. So maybe as I get
to retirement, I'll do it. I actually have a lot
of notes in my phone to help in doing it

(01:00:06):
when I finally do. But it, No, it hasn't been
done yet.

Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
And when you say retirement, do you I mean, I
know you've thought about it, but do you do you
have a plan? Do you have a thought? Is it
year by year?

Speaker 4 (01:00:19):
It's year by year? And I really thought a couple
of years ago that that was going to be it,
and then they put the pitchclock in, oh, which I've
been calling for.

Speaker 3 (01:00:26):
That's what I meant to ask in years in light
of the Mammoth double header that was I was like,
what are your thoughts on the pitch call?

Speaker 4 (01:00:34):
I love it. It has saved my career. It has
taken out thirty minutes of time that Matt and I
used to have to fill total dead time, so that now,
you know, sure the games end earlier, they're faster, there's
so much more watchable, there's so much more I love
watching the games now. Yeah, I'm going to the game tonight,
even though I'm not broadcasting it. I'd never went to

(01:00:55):
a game that I wasn't broadcasting in the last few years.
Before the pitch clock, it was so wearing us down.
And now it's actually, you know, I don't prepare as
much for games because I don't have as much opportunity
to weave the stories in sure, you know, that's the
That's the one negative of it is. You know, sometimes
I want more time, but overwhelmingly I'm I'm for the

(01:01:18):
pitch clock, and with the pitch clock and doing a
reduced schedule, this year, I'm doing a hundred games. I
could foresee doing it for a while, as long as
I'm still mentally sharp enough, and you know, my voice
and my eyes are good enough. I still love the traveling.
You know, most older guys, when they start cutting back,
they don't do the traveling. I love the traveling. I

(01:01:40):
love broadcasting the games from all the other parks, and
you know, I've got restaurants and bars and music venues
and all these other cities and friends, friends, it's a
real joy. We stay in super nice hotels. Now, they
take care of your luggage for you. It's the easiest
possible type of travel. So as of now, I have

(01:02:00):
no plan to retire. I'm going to hear to ear.

Speaker 3 (01:02:02):
It's awesome, awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
That's good news for Rangers fans. A man an hour
goes by quick. Eric, We appreciate you very much for
coming out. Yeah, we had a great time. We will
see all of you again tomorrow on the DLS Rangers podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
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